Forbidden Passage Read online

  These kids were doing much the same thing, but twenty feet up. Vanessa watched, stunned, as a girl leaped from the branch of one tree to the trunk of another, sprang off that, and flew past one of the boys in midleap, as both of them landed on adjacent limbs. Neither of them seemed even to look for the next landing spot as they moved on, deeper and deeper into the jungle. It was as though they’d been flying through these trees all their lives—which they probably had.

  “Please!” she tried again, to the others still on the ground. Speaking in English wasn’t going to help, but she couldn’t stop the words tumbling out of her. “Where are the others? The ones I came with?”

  Their only answer was to keep pointing, and keep moving into the woods. With any luck, they were headed the same way that Buzz and Jane had gone—and hopefully Carter, too.

  If not, Vanessa thought, she was going to have to make a break for it.

  Somehow.

  Carter’s hand ached with every stroke through the water. He’d cut it badly on Nowhere Island, diving for supplies from their wrecked and sunken sailboat. The infection that followed had only just begun to heal, after medical treatment from the rescue crew. But he still couldn’t swim as fast as he wanted.

  Salt water stung his eyes as he looked around. There was no sign of the girl. How far could she have gotten already?

  Continuing around the point, he was careful not to swim too close to the shoreline. It was a tough balance. If he wasn’t careful, the waves here could wash him right into the rocks. If he went out too far, he’d lose precious time.

  Finally, he spotted her. She was swimming through the clear Pacific, headed back to the beach on the far side of the point.

  “Wait!” he shouted, but it came out as a garble in the water. The only thing to do was keep swimming until he caught up to her. Still, his own breath was drawing short, while the girl hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down.

  Back at home, he never would have worn out this quickly. His mom even called him Tank sometimes, because he never stopped moving. But the days on Nowhere Island had taken their toll.

  Before he could get any farther, someone dove into the water next to him. In the white stream of bubbles that followed, he caught only a glimpse of whoever it was. Vanessa, he thought. Or maybe Buzz, or Jane.

  But it wasn’t. With a second splash, another body fell right on top of him. Then another. He sank under their weight as they grabbed on. Someone had him now, with two strong arms squeezing him around the chest. Hard. The air from his lungs rushed out in a stream of bubbles.

  Carter struggled and twisted in the water, trying to get an arm free—or a fist. But it was no good. Whoever this was had caught him completely by surprise. There were at least three of them, and as far he could tell, they were all stronger than he’d ever be.

  As he sank deeper, unable to do anything to stop himself, it hit Carter with a horrible certainty. This was a contest he couldn’t win.

  Buzz’s mind raced as he tracked the small group of kids through the woods. Where were they taking Jane? What was he supposed to do? How could everything have changed again, so fast?

  He still couldn’t see his sister, but he could hear the muted sound of her calling for him, somewhere inside the tight cluster that kept her moving along. Her voice alone struck a chord in his heart—a terrified feeling.

  As for Vanessa and Carter, who knew where they were by now? If he ran back to the pit and found Vanessa gone, then he’d be completely on his own. At least he could keep track of Jane.

  He kept his distance for the time being. The other kids weren’t being rough with her, but they were definitely on the move.

  They seemed to be a tribe of some kind. Their language was strange to Buzz’s ears, and the way they were dressed—leather skins, woven grass or straw tunics, and jewelry made from what looked like shells and colored beads—all seemed “native,” if that was the right word. It looked as though everything these kids had could have been found on the island. There were no T-shirts, no sneakers, nothing that looked as if it had come from a store.

  Soon, they fell onto a path. It was clearly man-made, with a track of packed earth cutting through the dense foliage. Now they traveled more quickly, but it was also easier for Buzz to keep his footfalls quiet. He kept the group in sight, still not sure what to do, or what to expect.

  As they continued deeper into the woods, it seemed to become less wild instead of more. Buzz tiptoed past a fenced pen, with chickens and two boars sleeping in the shade. It all looked well maintained. These boars were nothing like the ferocious, squealing creatures he and his siblings had encountered on Nowhere Island. Even now, the memory of those high-pitched animal screams put a shiver down Buzz’s back, right along with the sweat.

  Farther on, they approached what looked like a village in the middle of the woods. It was arranged in a wide-open circle around a cleared dirt yard, maybe a hundred feet across. The trees on the perimeter were enormous, with exposed roots that grew out of the ground like ten- and twenty-foot-high tangles of rope. Most of the huts Buzz could see were nestled right into the root systems themselves. It was unlike anything he’d ever encountered, on TV or otherwise.

  With his back pressed to the trunk of a gnarled palm, he stayed low, watching from a distance. Jane seemed okay for the moment. The kids who had brought her here were smiling and laughing.

  And then Jane’s face lit up in a smile, too, just before Vanessa’s voice came from somewhere nearby.

  “JANE!” Vanessa yelled.

  “NESSA!”

  The two of them ran to each other and hugged, while the other kids continued to gather around.

  “Please,” Vanessa said, “can you help us?”

  “Does anybody speak English?” Jane asked.

  Buzz took a deep breath and stuck to his hiding place. Did it make more sense to run to his sisters now? Or to wait and see what happened?

  He didn’t know . . . he didn’t know. And in a way, that was the worst part.

  CHAPTER 3

  Carter stumbled into the village, pushed along by the three older boys from the water.

  “Carter! There you are!” Jane shouted. She and Vanessa ran to meet him in the middle and threw their arms around him.

  “Have you seen Buzz?” Vanessa asked.

  “No,” Carter said.

  “Neither have we,” Jane told him. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “How’s your hand?” Vanessa asked.

  Carter hadn’t even noticed he’d lost the bandage somewhere. The cut along his palm was still closed—no bleeding, but it ached when he flexed it. Even so, the hand was the least of his worries right now.

  “Did anyone hurt you guys?” Carter asked.

  “We’re okay,” Jane answered. “So far, they’re being nice.”

  “Not all of them,” Carter said. He glared at the three who had brought him here, though he was trembling on the inside. They’d ambushed him in the water, dragged him to the bottom, and then pulled him across the sandy ocean floor to emerge on the beach, gasping for air. It had been a relief to realize they weren’t trying to drown him. But the relief hadn’t lasted long.

  From there, the boys had marched him back through the woods, prodding him forward with long sticks. Now that they’d arrived, they backed off and stood around a small fire at the edge of the village, grinning at him as if he was some kind of prize.

  Carter looked away from them and scanned the woods. Was Buzz still out there? Had he been taken somewhere else?

  “What are we supposed to do?” Jane asked, just as a tiny movement caught Carter’s eye. At the edge of the village, Buzz was there. He watched with wide eyes from behind a low screen of bushes while Carter stared back, trying to figure out what to do.

  “Don’t look now,” he muttered to his sisters, “but I just spotted Buzz.”


  “What?” Jane said, almost turning her head. Carter pulled her in tight to keep her from glancing around. Vanessa was steadier, and looked right into Carter’s eyes instead.

  “Where is he?” she asked low.

  “Behind you, about thirty feet away,” Carter said.

  The whole time, Buzz had been perfectly still in his hiding spot. Now, he held up a thick piece of bamboo, grasped in both hands like a bat, or a weapon.

  Before they’d left home in Chicago, Buzz had been the family couch potato. He had some serious gaming skills, but that was about it. Carter was the jock of the family. Jane was the brain. And Vanessa was just a bossy teenager. Or at least, that’s how Carter had always thought of it, back when stuff like that had mattered.

  Up until two months ago, they hadn’t even been brothers and sisters. Not until Vanessa and Buzz’s dad had married Carter and Jane’s mom. It was as if Carter and his new siblings had had zero in common until all of this craziness had begun. It wasn’t exactly the bonding experience their parents had imagined when they all set out for a vacation in Hawaii—but that felt like a lifetime ago by now.

  With his eyes locked on Buzz’s, Carter gave a tiny shake of his head. Stay put, he thought.

  But Buzz shook his head, too, as if to say, No way. I can’t. I have to help.

  Carter glared back to try to stop him, but it was too late. Buzz was already on his feet. With a heavy rustling from the brush, he came tearing into the middle of the village, brandishing the bamboo and yelling at the top of his lungs.

  “AUUUUGHHHHHHH!”

  Buzz ran blindly toward his siblings, shouting as he came.

  The bamboo he’d found was his only defense. Maybe he could at least create a distraction, and they could run.

  “Let them go!” Buzz screamed.

  “Buzz, we’re okay!” Jane said. “Don’t hurt anyone!”

  “What?” Buzz looked toward Jane and, at the same moment, felt his own feet cross, or stumble over a root in the ground. Whatever happened, he flew forward and landed hard in the dirt.

  Without stopping, he rolled over. Where was the bamboo? Had he lost it?

  At that moment, he came face-to-face with a boy about his own age holding the stick he’d just dropped. Heart pounding, Buzz roared again and put his fists up.

  But the boy didn’t seem to understand the gesture. He only extended his own hand to help Buzz up.

  Several others around the village were laughing and shouting again. The boy took a skin pouch on a cord from his shoulder and handed it to Buzz. It was filled with some kind of liquid.

  As scared as Buzz felt, the one thing he needed most of all was a drink. Tentatively, he lifted the skin to his cracked, sunburned lips and took a sip. It was exactly what he’d hoped for—cool, fresh water. The boy who had given it to him smiled, then motioned with his hand for Buzz to take all of it if he wanted.

  “Fania,” he said. Or at least, something that sounded like it to Buzz’s ears.

  “Water?” Buzz asked him, knowing the boy couldn’t understand him any more than he could understand the boy. Still, they both nodded.

  “Fania,” Buzz said, finally cracking a smile as he drank some more, then handed the skin pouch to Vanessa to drink some and pass around. In the last two weeks, there had been nothing more important to them than water and fire—and nothing that could raise their spirits so quickly.

  “Are you okay?” Vanessa asked, pulling him in close. “I thought you were lost.”

  “What’s going on?” Buzz asked.

  “We don’t know,” Carter answered.

  “It seemed like they just wanted me off the beach more than anything,” Vanessa said.

  “Me, too!” Jane said. “Almost like it was a . . . game or something.”

  “Not for me,” Carter said. “Believe me, those guys weren’t playing games.”

  As Buzz looked around, some of the kids stared back with friendly expressions. But others looked more wary, or even hostile—especially the older ones, who were maybe fifteen at the most.

  And that wasn’t all. “Where are the grown-ups?” Buzz asked.

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” Vanessa said. The only people in the village were kids. If there were any adults here, or babies for that matter, none of them were anywhere in sight.

  This new world was getting stranger by the minute.

  “Ekka-ka!” someone called out, and then another string of words that Vanessa couldn’t understand. When she looked around again, she saw several of the younger children coming forward with food.

  She almost cried at the sight of it. On Nowhere Island, they’d gone hungry longer than this, but it was a feeling she’d never gotten used to.

  There was coconut, yellow fruit of some kind, and even meat, wrapped up in a thick green leaf. It was warm in Vanessa’s hand when she took it, and her stomach vetoed any indecision she might have had. The other three seemed to agree. All four siblings dropped to the ground and ate quickly while the village kids watched, laughed, and spoke among themselves.

  “Listen,” Buzz said, “if they can’t help us get rescued, I say we go back and get in the boat. Our best chance of being spotted is on the water, not on land.”

  Vanessa didn’t question him. Ever since they’d gotten stranded on Nowhere Island, Buzz had proven that he knew more about survival than any of them, all from the endless TV he watched at home.

  “Okay, but let’s wait a little bit,” she said. “We still don’t know if they can help us or not.”

  “They’re already helping us,” Jane said through a mouthful of meat and coconut. “Besides, wouldn’t it be better to leave first thing in the morning instead of now?”

  Before they could decide anything, one of the older boys shouted from the far side of the village. His voice sounded angry, and when Vanessa looked over, he was pointing at the four of them accusingly.

  “That’s one of the ones who grabbed me in the water,” Carter said through clenched teeth. Carter hadn’t told them exactly what had happened out there, but he obviously didn’t like this boy.

  And from the way the kid was yelling, it seemed as if the feeling was mutual. Or maybe worse.

  Another boy walked into the middle of the yard and stood next to Vanessa and her siblings. He shouted something back, pointing from one of them to the next.

  The first boy, the angry one, walked out to meet him. Carter started to jump up as he did, but Vanessa yanked him back down.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said.

  “I owe that guy,” Carter said. “He practically drowned me.”

  “Yeah, well, now we’re eating their food—so leave it alone!” Vanessa whispered fiercely. They couldn’t afford Carter’s temper right now. She was ready to wrestle him to the ground herself if she had to.

  Meanwhile, the argument between the boys had spread to the others in the village. There were shouts back and forth from one hut to another, and the two boys at the center were face-to-face, with fists clenched at their sides.

  “What’s happening?” Jane asked. “What do you think they’re saying?”

  “It’s obviously about us,” Vanessa said. Everyone, whether friendly or not, kept looking back their way, pointing and then arguing. “I don’t think they all want us here.”

  “Hang on a second!” Buzz interrupted. He had a faraway look on his face, with his head cocked to the side. “Do you hear that?”

  Everyone seemed to pick up on it at the same time. The whole village went still, as if the argument had suddenly been put on pause. And that’s when the sound broke through. A low hum was coming from the direction of the water. It was far-off, but distinct.

  Vanessa’s heart leaped. “Yes!” she said, and grabbed Jane in a hug.

  This was what they’d been waiting for since they’d been washed away fr
om Nowhere Island.

  It was the sound of a plane.

  Jane could feel the immediate change in the village. It was as if the approaching plane had erased any disagreements, and everyone started working together with a singular purpose. People ran to their fires and kicked sand on them to put them out. Others took to the trees, climbing toward the highest branches overhead.

  One boy shimmied up the trunk of a palm at an amazing speed. Halfway up, he let go with both hands, pushed off with his feet, and leaped to the branch of another tree. Then he pulled himself higher and kept on climbing.

  Several others had reached the treetops ahead of the boy. Now there were at least a dozen kids up there, moving around. There was some kind of structure, too, Jane realized. Long pieces of bamboo were lashed to the tree trunks, and there was something bound up in a kind of mesh that was made from thin vines.

  “What’s going on?!” Vanessa shouted. “What are they doing?”

  “I don’t know!” Jane said. “But we need to keep one of those fires going! Something we can use to make a signal!”

  It was impossible to know if Mom and Dad were on that plane. Jane imagined they were, but it didn’t even matter. What mattered was getting the plane’s attention before it passed by.

  Still, the villagers seemed intent on doing just the opposite. The fires had all been extinguished by now. And when Jane looked up again, she couldn’t believe what she saw.

  As the kids in the trees pulled and adjusted the framework high over their heads, a giant screen of fronds, leaves, and vines had begun to slide into place. Within moments, the whole village was thrown into shadow. Where there had been a circle of sky, now there was a thick camouflage of overlapping green and brown.

  “How are we going to be seen?!” Vanessa called.

  “They don’t WANT to be seen!” Jane said. As for why, there was no time even to think about it.

  “We have to get back to the beach!” Buzz said. “We have to signal that plane ourselves. Now!”