Overboard! Read online

  Marina sounded like a robot. Wasn’t she as scared as I was? I watched her face as she talked, and slid even closer to her on the board. Her calmness made me feel better.

  She looked around. “Maybe we have more than an hour since we’re out of the water, and wearing lots of layers.” She glanced back at me. “And you’ll last longer than me with that suit. Also, body fat insulates.”

  “I used to be good at gymnastics.” I wanted to explain I wasn’t always like this. When I was on the team, I didn’t have time to play Minecraft. But that was over a year ago. Now that’s all I do.

  “Dad must’ve released the life raft,” Marina said, as if she didn’t hear me. “Someone will spot that. He wouldn’t have had time to radio a distress call, it happened so fast.”

  “What happened? What did you see?” I asked her. “Did the mom whale get angry and attack?”

  I couldn’t imagine a whale larger than the one that had jumped out of the water, but it would have to have been big to sink our big boat.

  Marina looked at me then. “What? No, that’s ridiculous. It was a rogue wave. The biggest monster I’ve ever seen. A wall of water hit us. And everyone was on the starboard side looking at the orcas. All the weight on the top deck and on one side . . .” She trailed off, looked like she was about to cry, then shook her head. “He’s okay. He must have gotten in the life raft.”

  “My family too. They’re all in the raft too, right?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.” Marina looked above us. “Any minute we’ll see the helicopter searching for us.”

  Every fourth or fifth wave was bigger than the others and broke behind our backs, then crashed on top of us. The board shot forward, then drifted, then shot forward again. We wobbled and splashed, trying to stay on top out of the water. Neither of us spoke, but I thought I could hear Marina sniffling.

  My legs draped into the water and I kicked to keep us straight. I was glad now of the suit Mom had made me wear, though I could feel the cold water around my ankles. I rubbed my hand over my eyes. The salt water stung and caked my skin. It was all I could taste.

  Marina held her right hand to her chest and clutched the board with her left.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked.

  Her expression slipped for a moment and she bit her lip. But she tossed her hair from her eyes and stared ahead. “When we make it to shore, we’re going to need to build a fire right away. And a shelter.”

  She described how we were definitely going to make it to shore. And then how we’d make a shelter. How we would use it to get warm and how we’d need to build a signal fire for the rescuers to find us.

  I nodded, but my thoughts raced along with my heart. Where were Mom and Dad? Did Stacey find them? Did they get in the raft? Were they looking for me right now? How would they find us out here? There was so much water. Nothing to see but curling, frothing waves in every direction. Splashing, crashing, endless.

  The waves were like hills taller than me now. I threw my arm over Marina so she wouldn’t be washed over. My fingers were cold and stiff. How long could we last out here?

  “Twenty-five-knot wind,” Marina mumbled. “Drifting about five knots with the current. Ebb tide.” She was starting to sound weaker.

  Was she going unconscious? I nudged her with my shoulder. “Keep talking to me. How come you know all this stuff?”

  “Just Dad and me. Mom left when I was six. Dad was a commercial fisherman, but we could make a better living in the tourist industry. I take care of him. I learn about the whales. Going to be interpreter onboard tour boat. Teach people about marine life.”

  As I listened to her, my problems at home didn’t seem so bad. At least my mom was around.

  I lifted my head, got a hard wave in the face, wiped my eyes. I couldn’t see the ships anymore. It looked like a cloud was tumbling over the mountains.

  The wind howled behind us, screaming like a wild animal. It tried to tear us from the board. Waves smacked my back. But I started to become aware of another noise. It sounded like wet breathing.

  It was right behind us.

  I twisted but didn’t see anything. What was that? I kicked to get away. The breathing returned, closer. I turned to look over one shoulder and then the other. And that’s when I saw it.

  A dark head with big eyes staring right at me.

  Chapter Five

  “Achh!” I splashed water at the thing. The head dove under.

  “What?” Marina asked.

  “There’s something following us!” I yelled.

  The head popped up again on my side of the board. It was so close I could see long nose slits. They opened wide, then closed. Its wet breathing sounded like a big, hissing snake.

  “Harbor seal,” Marina said. She smiled weakly and adjusted her grip so she could turn over and look at it.

  “It’s coming to watch over us. That makes sense,” she said. “Our boat’s called the Selkie. That’s a half seal, half person. It’s a myth, like a unicorn. People in Scotland used to call them selkies.”

  The seal dove under.

  Marina rolled back to her stomach. “Now we have our own protective selkie.”

  It didn’t seem like it was protecting us.

  It popped up again in front of us. The head was a sleek black with light gray specks and white whiskers. They were long and coarse, sticking straight out like the whiskers of a cat. Some poked up like eyebrows too.

  I followed the whiskers down to meet the seal’s gaze. Her big dark eyes were soft and sort of sad-looking. I felt like the seal was sorry this had happened to us. She was looking right into my eyes.

  “She’s not so bad.” I hoped she would stay with us now. She made me feel better somehow. Like we weren’t alone out here. I wished she could tow us to shore.

  I looked around for the line of cliffs that marked the shore, but couldn’t see it anymore. I couldn’t see much of anything except a cloud. It had crept along the water and wrapped us up. It seemed like we were in our own world, and it had gotten a lot smaller.

  “Fog. That’s bad,” Marina said. “Hard for Coast Guard to find us.” Her lips had a blue tinge to them.

  I flexed my fingers. They felt fat and awkward with cold. How long had we been out here bobbing on the waves? It felt like days.

  “Got to get warm,” Marina was saying.

  She only had on the life vest over her coat, but I was wearing a thick, insulated suit with wide cuffs and a zipper up to the chin. “Do you want to wear this?” I said.

  She shook her head. “Both of us drown. Keep it. Too hard to take off in water.”

  Her face was pale and she shivered violently. She wasn’t looking good.

  My heart started to pound again. How could I help her out here? When were the rescuers going to get here? Could they come in the fog? What was I supposed to do? Why was this happening to me?

  The seal popped up next to me. She spun like a top and peeked at me, as if to check whether I was watching.

  “Hi, seal. I’m watching. Stay with me.”

  She swam a little ahead, then came back to stare, then swam again out in front of me.

  “You want me to chase you?” I kicked. My feet were so numb I could hardly feel them. “Wait up! I’m not as fast as you.”

  The seal swam ahead and I kicked to follow. She twisted, spun, and dove. She popped up next to me as if this were all a giant game. She made me smile. Gave me something to look at besides the dense fog and the endless waves. Made me forget to be scared.

  The fog made the waves seem bigger. They pounded me into the board, shoved us violently. Then I heard something ahead of us. Crashing like waves on a shore.

  I kicked harder. Suddenly, tall trees appeared out of the fog like King Kong looming over us.

  “Marina! There’s the shore!”

  “Rip current,” she said quietly.

  I kicked desperately toward it, but a strong current pushed us back. I used the last of my energy, pulling with one arm while gripping
the board with the other. It looked like a river of foam between us and the shore. My arms and legs flailed madly. Still we were no closer. The current was too strong.

  “Marina, help me kick!” My voice sounded faint behind the pounding in my ears.

  There was no way I could get us in. My whole body vibrated with exhaustion. I gripped the board and leaned against Marina, taking in big gulps of air. We were going to drown twenty feet from shore.

  Suddenly, Selkie popped up next to us again. I stopped fighting the current and drifted toward her. Her gaze drilled into me. She seemed to be telling me to find the strength to follow her again.

  I let the current push me out, and then along the shoreline, following Selkie. I managed to kick a little as the waves battered us from the side. We crept farther along the shore, past the thick foam into a floating patch of kelp. Finally, the current stopped pushing us out. Selkie barked at me and then disappeared.

  I struggled toward shore. We were going to make it!

  Powerful waves picked us up and sucked us backward. I clutched the board and yelled. Then we were shoved forward, hurtling down the face of a wave. As we approached the shore, I stretched my feet toward bottom, but they didn’t quite touch. Another wave sucked us back, then spit us closer. My feet dragged on gravel but I couldn’t hold. We shot backward again and then forward, slamming hard onto the rocks. Marina cried out.

  I clutched, scraped, clawed to get out of the water. It pulled, tried to yank us, but I fought it.

  Marina struggled to get up. I grabbed her and pulled her with me. She still held the board as if she was frozen to it, or didn’t want to give it up.

  My legs shook so bad, I could hardly stand. In my desperation to get out of the water, I stumbled and fell. Waves and kelp pulled at my legs, my arms. The air felt warmer but the wind chilled my icy skin.

  Had to stay onshore! No more cold ocean!

  I dragged Marina and the board, tripping and flopping until we collapsed in a heap on top of a bunch of slimy, thick seaweed.

  “We made it, Marina! We’re saved.”

  I lifted my head and looked around for houses or cars or people. There were no houses or roads or docks. All I could see were rocks and trees.

  “Help!” I screamed.

  The only sound back was the roar of the surf.

  Chapter Six

  “What should we do now? Where are we?” I asked.

  No response. I turned. “Marina?”

  She was curled in a ball where I’d left her. “Need warm” is all she said.

  I helped her lean against a clump of bushes so she looked more comfortable. What had she said out on the water? We needed to start a fire and make a shelter. But how? “Marina, tell me again what to do.”

  She looked at me and shivered.

  I scanned up and down the shoreline. Rock walls on either side. We were lucky to have drifted to this spot; otherwise, we’d have been smashed against the cliff face. Waves crashed brutally onto the beach, flinging water high into the air. The rest of the water went on beyond the fog. How was there fog and wind?

  There was a narrow strip of dirt and seaweed in a line about midway between the waves and a flat section of tall, swaying grasses. The forest loomed behind the grass.

  I thought of all the times I wished my mom would leave me alone, stop babying me. All the times I wished my older sister hadn’t been around. Now I wished so badly there were a grownup here. Anyone who would know what to do.

  I looked at Marina again. I did know what to do. She had to get warm.

  I yanked open the snaps on the front pockets of my suit. Nothing but an empty candy bar wrapper and a Ziploc bag with crumbs in it.

  “Marina, do you have a lighter?”

  “No.” She trembled.

  “Do you have anything we can use besides your knife?”

  She gazed ahead, eyes unfocused. She had something in her pocket, but I couldn’t clamp my thumb and fingers together hard enough to pull the zipper open. I realized I was shivering. My feet felt like blocks of ice. Both of us needed to get warm.

  Coach used to make us do burpees to warm up. I dropped to the ground, my hands in the wet gravel as I did a pushup, then leaped up with my hands in the air. Again, down to the ground, push up, jump.

  My heart started to pump; my breathing came faster. I hadn’t done burpees since I quit the team. They were harder than I remembered. But it worked. I could feel and move my fingers. I yanked my zipper down and peeled off my suit. Kneeling next to Marina again, I pulled off the little vest she was wearing and helped her into my suit. It was wet, but still warm from my body heat.

  She yelled when I tried to stuff her right arm into the sleeve. “M-my wrist!”

  It looked swollen and sort of purple under the skin as she cradled it to her chest. When my friend Chad sprained his wrist breaking a fall on the mats, Coach wrapped it so it wouldn’t move during the trip to the hospital.

  Searching the ground next to us, I found two straight sticks and held them up next to her arm.

  “Hold these,” I said. “You don’t have any tape, do you?”

  Then I got an idea. I ripped the lace out of my right shoe and tied the sticks with that. Marina still had her bandanna around her neck. I reached under her hair. The knot was wet and hard to undo, but I got the bandanna free and laid it out in a triangle like Coach had done with a piece of cloth from the first-aid kit. I cradled Marina’s arm in that and tied the bandanna around her neck so that her fingers pointed up next to her collarbone. “Does that feel better?”

  “Fire,” she mumbled.

  I searched through the pocket of her vest. My hand pulled out a plastic bag with a lighter and a small box of matches in it.

  “Yes!” I cheered, until I took a closer look at what I had thought was a lighter. It was just a black rectangular block the size and weight of a lighter.

  What was this thing? Why couldn’t this be a lighter? I hated matches. I could never work them.

  The little box of matches was dry from being in the bag, but it stuck when I tried to slide it open. The box slipped from my fingers and most of the matches fell into the mud.

  “No!” I lunged for the box and collected the few matches that weren’t wet. More carefully, I pulled out one of the matches that were still in the box. “The box says they’re waterproof, so it should work, right?”

  I tried to rub the match head along the side of the box. The thin matchstick broke in my fingers. I threw it to the ground and tried another one. Again.

  There weren’t that many dry matches left. I crouched on the ground and carefully laid the match along my finger so it wouldn’t break, but when I dragged it along the strike strip nothing happened. I had never understood the coordination it takes to make matches work.

  “Argh!” I yelled in frustration.

  I looked up in surprise when I felt a splash. I’d been so focused on the matches, I hadn’t noticed what was going on around me. My attention now traveled along the line of seaweed and sticks. The ground above that line was a lighter color than the side closer to the ocean. Now I understood that this was how high the tide came up. And we weren’t on the right side of the line.

  Calm down. I had to concentrate. And I had to get ready to light the fire. I didn’t have anything prepared to burn. I needed to stop panicking and think. What had Marina said about how much time we had before we’d get hypothermia? If I didn’t get this fire started, we were both going to die.

  I helped her crawl above the seaweed line to an area that was level with some boulders. Then I crouched behind the biggest boulder and scraped a bare patch in the dirt. I piled some twigs and driftwood that I found lying between the rocks and then I crouched over the pile and pulled out another match. I flicked it quick across the box and it made a snapping sound like when Dad lit matches. It worked!

  The wind blew behind me and puffed it out.

  I could feel myself starting to panic again. We needed to get warm right now. I tried aga
in and again until I had one match left.

  I focused on the match. Pressed my lips together, lined up the matchstick against my finger.

  This was it.

  This one would work. I had the hang of it now.

  I flicked it across the matchbox. The match head flared up bright. And then died. I was left with nothing but a smoking match and darkness falling fast.

  Chapter Seven

  Marina pointed at the bag on the ground with shaking hands. “Mag. Magnes. Inside.”

  I pulled out the block I had thought was a lighter.

  Marina made sawing motions. “S-shave. On tinder.” She gestured weakly.

  I peered closer and saw there were little cotton balls inside the baggie. What was she talking about? “This black stuff will light the balls on fire?”

  Marina closed her eyes and sank into the coat.

  “Marina. Don’t leave me here alone. I need help!”

  No response.

  “Marina!” I leaned toward her. My heart pounded as I tried to hear hers. Please let her stay alive. I pressed my ear to her nose. I sighed when I felt and heard her breath.

  Then I studied the block, turning it over in my hands. It looked like one side had been gouged away by a knife or something, and the other side had a black stripe down it like the matchbox. The cotton balls dropped onto my small pile of sticks when I shook out the bag. They were coated in some kind of goo.

  I pulled Marina’s knife from its sheath. When I saw it on the boat, I never would have guessed I’d be using it.

  I scraped the knife down the side of the block and little pieces came off that looked like metal shavings. I pushed harder on the knife with the blade facing up, and dragged it along the block toward my foot. More pieces came off. Then I flipped over the block and studied the stripe again.

  How did this light a fire? I tapped it with the knife and was surprised when a little spark flared off it.