The Sabotage Read online

  Buzz bucked and twisted, but Chizo was too powerful, and the vine was as strong as rope.

  “You done?” Buzz said once Chizo had tied off the end of the vine. It pressed into his chest, making it harder to breathe, but he gave Chizo what he hoped was a defiant look. “You can go now. Okay?”

  Chizo only smiled. His face was covered with gray-green river mud—the same stuff Mima had given Carter for the cut on his hand. It coated his skin and his hair, which hung in clumps down to his shoulders. He looked like a menacing human statue.

  He didn’t leave, either. More of the same vines hung all around the clearing, like odd party streamers, and Chizo pulled two down while Buzz watched. Next, he chopped the vines with a sharp rock from the stream, creating shorter sections of ten or twelve feet. He used one of those to tie off Buzz’s ankles while Buzz sat helpless, his back to the tree and his feet stuck out in front of him. It was infuriating and humiliating, both.

  “You’re going to be sorry,” Buzz said with as much venom as he could manage. His voice cracked when he said it, and Chizo only laughed. Then he pulled out the tattered blue T-shirt again.

  “What are you doing?” Buzz asked as Chizo bent near. “Give that back!”

  But there was no stopping him. A moment later, Chizo had tied the shirt around Buzz’s eyes. All Buzz could see now was a blur of blue cloth. His panic started to rise.

  “Leave me alone! Just go already!” he shouted. The only thing he had left to fight with was his voice, and even that effort left him panting for breath. Not being able to see made it that much worse.

  He could hear Chizo moving around now. There were more cutting sounds, and a soft chafing, and things being dragged all over the clearing. He was up to something, but it was impossible to see what it was, much less do anything about it.

  The only thing that helped now was knowing that the others were on their way.

  Hurry, Buzz thought. Please, please hurry.

  Carter bent his head against the wind, paddling as hard as he could toward the place they’d last seen Buzz. His brother wasn’t the same video-playing couch potato he’d been two weeks ago, but that didn’t mean he was equipped to take on Chizo alone. He’d need their help.

  Three months ago, Buzz hadn’t even been his brother. But then Carter and Jane’s mom had married Vanessa and Buzz’s dad, and everything had changed. Carter hadn’t exactly loved having new siblings at first, but that seemed like forever ago. The time on Nowhere Island had changed him. It had changed all of them. They were united now. Chizo needed to know he was messing with the wrong family.

  “I don’t know how, and I don’t know when,” Carter said, “but I’m going to make that kid sorry he ever met us.”

  “That kid is older than you, stronger than you, and taller than you. And so are his friends,” Vanessa said. “I hate him, too, Carter, but we have to figure out a way to get Buzz and get back into this thing, or we’re never leaving this island. Nothing else matters. Focus, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, but he didn’t mean it. He could no sooner block out his feelings about Chizo than he could turn around right now and give up on Buzz. It was all part of the same picture.

  But Vanessa didn’t need to know that. If Chizo wanted to mess with their lives, Carter would mess with Chizo’s. First chance he got.

  He dug in with the paddle again, but his arms burned, worse than the hardest football practices he’d ever had. The river mud Mima had given him for the cut on his hand was working, but his palm still stung. And even the seawater seemed to work against him, dragging like dead weight against his paddle.

  “Car-tare!” Mima said. She glared over, motioning for him to watch as she took another slow, steady stroke, keeping her body bent low out of the wind. She was getting far more done with less effort, Carter saw.

  A week ago, he might have been too stubborn to notice. Not anymore. Now he imitated her posture, and watched what she did until they were paddling together.

  Soon, they began to pick up speed. Mima smiled. It wasn’t something she did often, and it filled Carter with an extra rush of energy. He smiled back and felt his face flush. Even though his muscles wanted to quit with every stroke, he couldn’t stop. And he definitely couldn’t let the others down.

  Not his sisters, not his brother—and not Mima, either.

  Buzz listened from behind his blindfold, straining for any sign that Vanessa, Carter, Jane, and Mima were getting closer. All he could hear was the wind, the insect hum of the jungle around him, and the sounds Chizo made as he worked away.

  What was he up to? What did he have planned? Right now, there were no answers, just wondering.

  Buzz’s mind was running in overdrive with all of it when a faint but distinct tickling sensation registered on his arm. It was a bug of some kind, and he shuddered, trying to shake it off.

  Instead, the tickling sensation spread. He felt it on his leg now, too. And on his neck. It was like a soft vibration, getting stronger by the second.

  Then all at once, the tickle was replaced by a sharp, stinging sensation at his elbow. Something had just bitten him. It registered like a flash of red in his brain.

  Buzz squirmed against the pain. It was no good. The vines cut into his ankles, wrists, and chest every time he tried to move, keeping him firmly backed up against the banyan tree. He couldn’t even touch the spot on his elbow. And all he could see was vague, blue-tinged light around the edges of his blindfold.

  When another hot sting came up from his neck, it hit him. These were ants. Lots and lots of ants. No wonder they called it an army, because that’s what it felt like.

  He’d seen them in the jungle on Nowhere Island—great long lines of them, marching along a dead log, or over the ground. He’d even been bitten a handful of times. But that was when he could get up and walk away. Not this time. The realization came with a fresh wave of panic.

  “Chizo, help me!” he yelled out. “Please!”

  They were everywhere. He could feel them crawling along his arms, down his legs, up his shorts, even into his hair, where another rapid sting, sting, sting came up. It felt like someone had pressed the head of a hot match into his skull.

  Even with the sweltering heat of the oncoming morning, Buzz felt a chill run down his back. This army of ants was in full attack mode, looking to conquer. And from where he sat, bucking and yelling for help, it seemed to Buzz that they were winning.

  In fact, it felt like they were devouring him.

  Vanessa was first off the raft when they finally reached the shore. She splashed through knee-high water and sprinted up onto the dry sand and rock at the island’s edge.

  “Buzz!” she shouted. “Are you here? Buzz?”

  Please answer, she thought. Even with the million things they needed to accomplish, there was only one thing she wanted right now, and that was to hear her younger brother’s voice.

  It wasn’t just that she felt responsible for Buzz, either. They were all responsible for one another. As brothers and sisters. As a team. As a family. If one of them was down, they were all down. Their time in the South Pacific had driven that point home beyond anything Vanessa could have ever imagined.

  Jane and Carter were there now, too, while Mima beached the raft behind them.

  “BUZZ!” Jane yelled.

  “HELLO?” Carter shouted. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

  “Hang on!” Vanessa said, putting out a hand to silence them. “Do you hear anything?”

  And then, there it was. Buzz’s voice came back now, from what sounded like a good distance.

  “Hey! I’m here! Help!” he said. Or more like screamed.

  “Buzz!” she yelled back, and took off in the direction of his voice. It led her along a wide brook that cut into the forest. “We’re coming! Hang on!”

  Mima called after them as they ran. “What’s Mima saying?”
Jane asked.

  Vanessa didn’t stop to worry about it. She took one glance back and made sure Mima was following. That was enough.

  “She can run faster than all of us,” Vanessa said. “Don’t worry. She’s right there.”

  “It sounds like she’s warning us about something,” Jane said, but there was no turning back now.

  Vanessa ran straight upstream, picking her way as fast as she could over river rocks and through several deep pools until, finally, she spotted Buzz up ahead. He was blindfolded with his own shirt and tied at the base of a banyan tree.

  “Buzz!” she yelled.

  “Vanessa! Help me!” he shouted back. He was jerking and spasming, almost as if there were an electric current running through him.

  As Vanessa ran closer, she saw why. His skin was covered with tiny red-brown ants, crawling all over him. They’d swarmed in on Buzz from all around, and his screams said everything about what they were doing.

  A sob escaped Vanessa’s throat as she closed the final distance between them. She, Carter, and Jane scrambled up the low bank together, and across the clearing at a sprint.

  “FAH!” Mima shouted once more from below. The word meant “no” in her language, but Vanessa was too intent on Buzz to respond.

  Just steps away from reaching him, Vanessa’s foot kicked something beneath the dead brush—something low and thick like a root in the dirt. In the same moment, a crude net of vines rose up, scattering the ground cover that had camouflaged it up to now. The net closed around Vanessa and caught Carter and Jane, too. As it did, Chizo descended from the tree over their heads, holding a vine in both hands, as though it were all on some kind of pulley system. Vanessa, Carter, and Jane fell into one another as the vine mesh pressed in from every side until they were completely enclosed in it, like a three-person mummy.

  Vanessa struggled instinctively. Her feet and hands poked out through the gaps in the net, but the vines were as thick as her thumbs, and unbreakable. Carter and Jane were struggling, too. All three of them jumbled together, elbowing and stumbling, knees buckling. But the net was so tight around them, there was nowhere to go—or even fall down.

  They were caught in Chizo’s trap.

  Carter eyed Chizo as he secured his end of the vine, running it in several circles around the tree and knotting it off. Vanessa and Jane were pressed in tight around him, all of them yanking at the net as they lurched and stumbled into one another. But there was nothing they could do.

  Carter’s mind burned with frustration. When they’d first arrived on Shadow Island, they’d all experienced the trapping skill of the Nukula. Vanessa had fallen into a deep pit. Carter had been nabbed in the water. Jane had been snatched right out from under Buzz’s nose in the woods. It was no surprise that Chizo could rig something like this, but that didn’t make it any easier to take.

  “Are you guys okay?” Buzz shouted. “What’s . . . happening?” He was tied to the same tree, just a few feet away but too far to reach. Carter could hear him gutting through the pain of the ant bites. Several red welts had already sprung up on his arms and legs.

  “We’re trapped!” Vanessa yelled back. “Right in front of you! Chizo did it. He got us, Buzz!”

  Chizo slowly came closer, carrying a familiar, crudely made spear. Carter recognized the long stick from the three black knots in its side. He’d sharpened it himself just the day before, and had forgotten all about it in the confusion of leaving camp that morning. Now, it was in Chizo’s hand.

  “That’s mine!” he yelled. Carter reached through the mesh, but Chizo kept himself just out of range. The same cocky smile as always spread slowly across his face. He was enjoying this, for sure.

  “Mima!” Jane said. “Please! Do something!”

  Carter’s attention turned to Mima next. This was clearly what she’d been trying to warn them about. She approached Chizo slowly now, keeping her own distance.

  The two of them exchanged what sounded like harsh words. Mima took a step toward Buzz, and Chizo moved to block her.

  When he spoke again, his voice softened.

  “What’s he saying?” Vanessa asked.

  The whole time, Buzz was yelling out, and gasping in pain. It was impossible to stand there with any kind of patience. They had to get out of this—now.

  “Come on!” Carter yelled, shaking the net with both hands.

  “Omigosh,” Vanessa said. “Wait. Is he . . . ?”

  “What?” Jane said.

  “I think he’s trying to get Mima to leave with him,” Vanessa said.

  Carter stopped and watched Mima’s face carefully. It made sense, if that’s what was going on. It wasn’t enough for someone like Chizo to put the four of them behind in the competition. He wanted to take away their only ally, didn’t he?

  And if it was true what Ani had told them—that everyone expected Chizo to be chief one day—then Mima might have every reason to take this chance while she had it.

  “YOU GUYS, WHAT’S GOING ON?” Buzz screamed.

  “Hang on, Buzz,” Jane said. “Mima’s going to help us—I know she will.”

  Carter kept his eyes on the exchange between Mima and Chizo. He hoped Jane was right, but the stakes were just as high for Mima as they were for anyone else. Staying behind now could doom her own chances in Raku Nau. It was hard to say that she owed them that much.

  Chizo barked something out, as though he were losing patience. It sounded like some kind of order he’d given her. Mima looked straight back at him in a silent stare down.

  Carter couldn’t look away, either. He clenched a fist, just trying to hold on—and hoping for the best.

  “Mima, do what you have to do,” he said to her in English.

  She turned then, and looked him in the eye. And even though she couldn’t have understood Carter’s words, her glance said everything. He knew what was about to happen. His gut told him so.

  Mima wasn’t going anywhere without them.

  Jane watched as Mima bent down to pick up a large rock from the ground. For a moment, it seemed as though she were about to attack Chizo, and Jane nearly screamed. This wasn’t what she wanted.

  But then Mima turned and ran to where Buzz was tied up. As she started pounding at the vine that tied him to the tree, a sense of relief passed over Jane like a cool breeze.

  Chizo yelled something in Nukula. “Issa mekata, Mima!” he said. “Issa mekata!”

  The words echoed in Jane’s mind. Issa mekata. What did it mean?

  But Mima ignored Chizo. The last Jane saw of him, he’d turned and started back through the woods toward the shore.

  “Is he going to take our raft?” she asked, suddenly realizing the possibility.

  “Chizo!” Carter screamed. “Don’t even try it!”

  But he was already gone. He’d lured them all this way, and now he was going to steal their one advantage, leaving them in the dust.

  “This is exactly what he was planning,” Vanessa said. “I’ll bet you anything.”

  “Except the part about Mima,” Jane said. “He didn’t get away with that.”

  Mima was still kneeling next to Buzz, and she had just broken through the first vines. Buzz lurched away from the tree. He rolled in the dirt with his hands still tied in front of him, almost as if he were trying to put out flames. That’s probably how it felt, Jane thought, with the ants still biting him all over.

  His blindfold had finally come off, and Buzz’s eyes met Jane’s for a brief moment. He squinted through his own tears and seemed confused about what he was seeing. It must have been a strange sight, with them bound up in Chizo’s net.

  Already, Mima had moved to the other tree. She held the same rock over her head and started hacking at the vine that held the net in place. Jane felt it give way, but not more than an inch.

  Mima shouted something that sounded like a wa
rning as she gave one more chop. Just then, the net collapsed with all three of them inside. Jane hit the ground, still tangled up in the vines. Carter fell on top of her. His elbow caught her under the jaw as they landed, and her mouth filled with the taste of blood.

  None of it slowed them down. The pain of a bitten tongue was nothing next to what the welts on Buzz’s arms and legs must have felt like. His face was pinched, and his breathing was fast and shallow.

  A second later, Mima had dragged Buzz off the ground. Without pause, she started running him back toward the shore, speaking the whole time in her usual rapid-fire Nukula.

  “What’s she saying?” Carter asked Jane as they followed. Jane was the one who had picked up the most Nukula by now.

  “Something about water,” she answered. The word “fania” had jumped out at her. “Maybe the salt water will help with the ant bites.”

  “Or maybe she means we need to get that raft,” Carter said.

  “Jane, are you okay?” Vanessa asked, looking wide-eyed at her.

  Jane swiped the back of her hand across her chin and saw the bright red smear of blood that had caught Vanessa’s attention. Her mouth tasted salty with it.

  “I’m okay,” she said, wiping the rest of it away. Back home, she might have cried, or at least stopped long enough to go into the bathroom, turn on the faucet, and rinse out her mouth.

  Those days were far behind them now. If she said she was okay, then that would have to be good enough for Carter and Vanessa. And it was.

  “All right, let’s go!” Vanessa said, and they were running again, this time after Mima and Buzz.

  When Vanessa, Jane, and Carter reached the shore, Mima already had Buzz all the way into the ocean. She was rubbing the salt water over his arms and legs while he floated on his back, breathing normally again. His face showed some pain, but the water seemed to be helping.

  Vanessa ran right to him. “I’m so sorry, Buzz!” she said, fighting her own tears.