The Sabotage Read online

  “We have to have something!” Jane said.

  “Well, it’s not going to be this,” Carter answered.

  “You don’t mean that,” Vanessa said.

  “I don’t see you eating it,” Carter answered.

  Their nerves were shot, Buzz knew. The more tired they got, the more they fell into the kind of constant bickering they’d done for months at home, before any of this began. But there had to be something they could eat.

  As Buzz scanned the area, he saw Mima coming back through the woods. She was carrying something cupped in her hands. When she reached them, she looked at the discarded fruit on the ground, and then at their puckered faces, still working through the super-sour taste.

  Mima burst out laughing. It was the first time Buzz had ever seen her laugh, and she seemed to be doing it at them, not with them.

  “We can’t eat these,” Jane told her. She shook her head and made a face that showed how sour they were.

  Mima only grinned. She obviously knew something they didn’t, Buzz thought. When she opened her hands, he saw eight bright red berries, each one the size of a jelly bean.

  It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. Everyone was too hungry to discuss it, and they took two berries each.

  “Fah!” Mima said, stopping Buzz just before he tossed them into his mouth. She held up just one of her berries to show them. Then she put it on the end of her tongue and let it sit. Slowly, she began to chew. She was deliberate about it, and seemed to be spreading the berry around the inside of her mouth.

  “What’s she doing?” Buzz asked, but nobody answered. They just watched.

  As she ate the berry, Mima’s expression didn’t exactly say delicious. She seemed to be working at it, and she didn’t stop. Finally, she opened her mouth to show them. It was bright red inside—teeth, tongue, everything.

  She pointed for everyone to do as she’d done. Buzz placed a berry on his tongue while Carter, Jane, and Vanessa did the same.

  “This is worse!” Jane said, and spit hers back into her hand.

  Buzz held his breath, determined to get through this. The berry had an intensely bitter flavor. He gagged once, but kept chewing, just like Mima had done. His body needed nutrition, and if this was what it took, then this was what it took.

  Jane was the last to put her own berry back on her tongue, though she didn’t look happy about it. Soon they were all coating the insides of their mouths and comparing their own crimson grimaces.

  When that was done, Mima made a running jump at the tree where they stood. Her foot bounced her off the trunk, and she reached up to hang from the limb where some of the fruit still grew. With a fast swipe, she snatched another bunch of fat purple orbs and dropped to the ground.

  It was all very confusing. The purple fruit was awful. The berry was worse. Their mouths were red as roses.

  And Mima was smiling.

  “It’s no good!” Buzz tried, but Mima wasn’t paying attention. She rolled one of the fruits on the ground, maybe to soften it some more, and then easily peeled back its skin before taking a bite. Now, she chewed slowly, with her eyes closed. A bigger smile spread across her face, and she even sighed contentedly.

  “I don’t get it,” Jane said. She shrugged her shoulders at Mima. “How are you doing that?”

  Mima only nodded and took another bite.

  Buzz still had half an open fruit in his hand, and sniffed it again. It still didn’t smell like much, but when he touched it with the tip of his tongue, it was as though he were tasting a totally different thing.

  The stomach-turning sourness from before had been replaced with a sweet explosion of sugar he couldn’t explain. The sweetness ran right up his tongue, like a thirsty plant taking in water.

  “You guys . . .” he said, then realized he didn’t want to talk right now. He wanted to eat. He mashed the fruit open, scraping every bit of it into his mouth with his teeth, while the others watched, wide-eyed.

  Quickly, they all joined in. Carter’s eyebrows shot up, and a disbelieving smile spread across his face.

  “That’s crazy!” he said, looking at Mima. She laughed in return, as if to say, Told you so.

  “It’s like a magic trick,” Jane said, her mouth full. “It tastes like . . .”

  “Lemonade,” Vanessa said.

  “Yes!” Buzz and Carter answered at once. It felt as though they’d just broken into a candy store after two weeks of green coconut, snails, and bitter roots.

  Everyone had two berries, and two of the fat purple fruits, which they quickly gobbled down. It wasn’t exactly a meal, but the mood in the group had already shot up.

  Buzz remembered this feeling from Nowhere Island—how even the tiniest bit of food could change everything when they were desperate. And this wasn’t just any food. It was dessert! Which tasted like home to him. He felt tears at the corners of his eyes, but happy ones. For a few seconds, he could imagine sitting in front of a good movie, with a big bowl of candy in front of him, and nowhere to be, ever again, except right there . . . right at home, with Mom and Dad. . . .

  The fantasy was like a bubble. Once he started, it was hard to stop. But they had to focus. They had to keep moving. Again.

  Before they turned to go, Carter grabbed two more of the fruit from the tree and ate them down quickly—just before Mima shouted out.

  “Fah!” she said, but it was too late.

  “What? They’re good!” Carter said.

  Mima held up two fingers emphatically.

  “I think she’s saying you should have eaten only two of them,” Vanessa said.

  “Yeah, well, too late!” Carter answered.

  Buzz knew what he meant. It was hard to be sorry about eating when they’d had so little. Still, Mima had been pretty insistent. Now she shook her head and made a vomiting kind of motion, leaning over with her hands on her stomach—but then she laughed, too. It was hard to know how much she was joking and how much she was warning them.

  Either way, there was no time for second-guessing. A minute later, they were headed uphill, away from the shore and once again toward Cloud Ridge.

  The next stretch of walking was a steep climb up from the bay through the woods. Carter kept to the front. He led alongside Mima as they crested a hill and hurried back down the other side—only to hike up another slope. Then another after that. It was as if the earth folded in on itself here, with a succession of ridges that grew higher as they moved farther away from the ocean. At the top of each hill, they found themselves looking across another tiny valley to the next ridge ahead.

  It was rough going after the morning they’d had. It meant covering lots of ground without actually moving very far east at any kind of speed. The earth grew muddier, and it made for slick, frustrating climbs and descents.

  The roots sticking out of the steep slopes made good handholds, but they could come loose without warning. More than once, Carter lost his footing and slid back the several yards he’d just worked so hard to climb.

  The fruit was something in their bellies, but Carter was thirstier than ever now. And he didn’t feel as full, or as good, as he would have liked. His stomach was tight, and cranky. That’s what Mom used to call it: cranky stomach.

  Near the top of the fourth rise, his insides began to clamp down. A sharp pain in his gut doubled Carter over, making it hard even to walk. He put his hands on his knees to keep from dropping to the ground.

  “Carter?” Vanessa asked, coming up behind.

  “My stomach,” he said. “It feels like something’s trying to eat its way out.”

  “I’ve got a little bellyache, too,” Vanessa said.

  “Yeah,” Buzz said. “Me, too.”

  “It’s that fruit,” Jane said. “It tasted sweet, but it wasn’t. It’s like we just ate a bunch of lemons on an empty stomach.”

  “Or
a bunch of acid,” Buzz said.

  “Exactly,” Jane said. “And Carter, you had the most. That’s what Mima was saying about just having two—”

  “Don’t talk about it,” Carter said. He took a breath and forced himself to stand. Up ahead, Mima had paused on the next crest to wait for them. When she glanced down at Carter, she seemed to fight back a smile.

  “Car-tare?” she said, pointing to her stomach.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Ah-ka-ah. Not feeling so good.”

  She spoke some more, motioning with her finger down her throat and then back to her stomach.

  “I think she says you should throw up,” Jane told him.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Carter said. “Great—just great.”

  He’d been sicker than anyone up to now, after drinking contaminated water on Nowhere Island. The prospect of anything like that happening again made him want to cry. He tried to swallow back the knife-like feeling in his gut.

  “Just get it over with,” Vanessa said. “You’ll feel better if you do.”

  “That . . . is so gross,” Buzz said. “You want him to stick his finger down his throat? I wouldn’t do it, Carter. You’re better off feeling sick and keeping that food in your belly. It’s the only fuel we’ve had all day. Who knows when we’re going to get anything else?”

  “Would everyone please just stop talking?” Carter said. “I want to keep moving.” The worst part was having everyone looking at him, and knowing he’d messed up. No way was he going to let that slow the whole team down.

  Jane and Mima took the lead now, and they pressed on to the top of the slope in front of them.

  “Look!” Jane said from up ahead. “Can you guys see that?” Buzz and Vanessa hurried toward her while Carter came slowly on, one foot in front of the other.

  “Mayamaka,” Mima said.

  And as Carter reached the top, he saw Cloud Ridge, much closer now than he would have guessed. There were still miles to go, and then a climb up to the mist-shrouded ridge itself, but they were making progress. Even if it didn’t feel like it.

  Carter dropped to one knee, trying to breathe slowly. Even that effort put a painful pressure on his stomach. The third and fourth pieces of fruit had been a huge mistake. It was miserable and embarrassing, both.

  “What do you want to do, Carter?” Vanessa asked.

  His gut churned like it wanted to turn inside out. “I don’t think I have a choice,” he said, doubling over again. “Just go. I’ll catch up.”

  “No way,” Vanessa said. “Nobody’s going anywhere alone. Not after what happened to Buzz.”

  “Well, at least don’t look!” he said, just as it started to come up. His eyes watered, and his throat burned as his belly emptied itself out. The feeling was awful, and the taste was worse. But all Carter could think about was losing the one meal he might get that day.

  When he could finally look up again, everyone had turned away, including Mima. He spit on the ground several times and took a deep breath. His stomach felt better. Not great, or even anything like good. But at least he could keep moving now.

  At home, when you threw up, you got to lie on the couch and have flat soda. In this place, after you got sick, you got to climb another steep muddy ridge in the humid, mosquito-infested jungle, with nothing to drink.

  “Do you need a minute?” Jane asked.

  “Don’t slow down for me,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

  Carter gritted his teeth, crested the next slope, and started down again, toward the valley floor below.

  “What’s that?” Buzz asked. He pointed across the narrow valley from the hillside they’d just begun to descend. It was tighter here than any of the previous side-by-side ridges.

  There, on the opposite slope, was one of the other Raku Nau teams. Not Chizo’s. Some other group—two boys and two girls. Jane recognized them from before.

  This was good news. The team hadn’t lost as much ground as Jane thought. At least there was that. Every setback was hard to take—but every boost meant they were a tiny step closer to reaching the far shore, the ocean beyond, and, with any luck, Mom and Dad.

  “Mima, is there any kind of shortcut?” Jane asked, motioning across. “Any way to go faster?”

  “Shor . . . cut?” Mima said.

  Jane picked up a stick and drew thick lines in the mud—one peaked ridge, then the next. She drew a line directly from the top of one to the other.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Carter said. “You want us to fly across?”

  But Mima took one look at the drawing and grew excited right away.

  “Ah-ka-ah!” she said. She either knew just what Jane meant, or it had given her an idea. Either way, she was off and running again. This time she didn’t move up- or downhill, but sideways, across the ridge where they stood.

  “What’s she doing?” Buzz asked as they started to follow.

  “I don’t know,” Jane said. “Something good, I’ll bet.”

  By the time Buzz and the others caught up to Mima, she was already climbing one of the many trees that grew out of the steep slope. She stood on a low limb, waiting for them. As they looked up at her, she spoke slowly, but still in Nukula. With her words, she added gestures. They were all becoming better at communicating using their own kind of sign language.

  Mima pointed farther up the tree, which grew thin and willowy near the top. Her hand made an arcing shape until she was pointing at the opposite slope. Directly across, a scruffy palm grew almost sideways out of the hill. It made for the shortest possible gap between the two sides. But still, Buzz thought, if he understood her correctly, she was suggesting something crazy.

  “Does she mean what I think she means?” Carter asked.

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “I think she does.”

  If there was one place they’d seen where a bending tree could take a passenger straight across, this was it. Too bad it seemed just about impossible.

  “We can’t do that,” Buzz said.

  “Sure we can,” Jane said. “If Mima thinks so, then I do, too.”

  It wasn’t any comfort. The Nukula had all spent a lifetime learning to travel from tree to tree and to use the forest in ways Buzz had never even dreamed of. And Jane was a natural climber. Not like him.

  “Mima!” Jane called up. “Ah-ka-ah! Do it! Show us.” She motioned in the same pattern that Mima had made with her own hands, pointing to the waiting palm on the far side. It looked to Buzz like one-half landing pad, and one-half very bad idea.

  “We’ve done harder things than this,” Jane said. “The tree bridge on Nowhere Island was much farther across. This is only like twenty feet.”

  “Yeah, tree bridge,” Buzz said. “It connected on both sides. All we had to do was walk over it—until it fell and nearly killed me.”

  “Don’t be so picky,” Jane said. It was supposed to be a joke, Buzz could tell, but nobody was laughing.

  Meanwhile, the other team ahead of them had reached the opposite crest and stopped there. They seemed to be watching, to see what Buzz and his team would do.

  “For all we know, those guys are the last ones except for us,” Carter said. “I say we go for it.”

  “You don’t have to impress Mima,” Buzz blurted out. “She’s not your girlfriend, and if we get out of here, she never will be. You know that, right?”

  “Whatever,” Carter said, reaching up to start climbing. “If you’re scared, don’t take it out on me.”

  “Car-tare! Fah!” Mima said. “Mima . . . Car-tare . . . Ba-nessa . . . Jane . . . Buzz!”

  “I think she’s saying we should go one at a time,” Jane told the group. “Let’s see what she does, and then we can do it after her.”

  Nobody questioned the idea anymore, and Buzz kept his mouth shut. He’d cost the group too much time already.

  Th
ere was nothing to do now but watch, learn—and pray.

  Carter watched Mima closely, studying every move.

  She took a deep breath and climbed several feet higher in the tree. It seemed as though even she was nervous, which scared him and made him want to protect her at the same time.

  This was a risk, yes. But it was also an opportunity. If all twenty-eight competitors were still on track, they were going to have to reach Cloud Ridge ahead of twelve others. This move could save them a good hour, if it worked, and that could put them right back in the running. Every little bit helped now.

  The other team on the far ridge hadn’t continued on yet. They were still speaking among themselves, with their heads close together. But Carter couldn’t worry about that, or where Chizo was, or anything else right now. This next task needed his focus.

  The tree Mima had chosen was more than tall enough for the twenty-foot crossing. The problem would be if any of them fell on the way over. That would mean a drop of fifty feet or more, to the bottom of the valley below them. Nobody could walk away from a fall like that.

  “This is crazy,” Buzz said behind Carter, but even he didn’t suggest they stop what they were doing.

  Mima had reached the upper part of the tree in her usual quick time. Now she seemed to be testing the trunk where it thinned out. She’d need a spot that was flexible enough to bend a good distance, but not so thin that it would break off as she went.

  Once she’d settled on a position, she started shifting her weight back and forth to get the tree rocking. As it bent away from the gap, she leaned in that direction, holding on with both hands and her feet pressed against the trunk. On the reverse swing, she pivoted around to pull it out over the space between the two slopes.

  Carter shouted out. “Fah!” he said. No! The tree hadn’t swung far enough to make a jump to the other side. Mima seemed to sense it as well and pulled back again, then forward a second time as they watched.