Desperate Measures Page 7

  “It’s not like we’re going to . . . stab anyone,” Vanessa said.

  “And even if we cut ourselves free, how do we get out? And past the guards?” Buzz asked.

  It was still strange, speaking out loud for anyone to hear. But the guard didn’t even turn around.

  “I don’t know,” Carter said. “But I knew something had to be up.”

  “She didn’t have any choice!” Jane said. He could tell how relieved she was. All of them loved Mima, but for Jane, it had seemed especially hard to see her turn on them. “She had to take Carter, or someone else would have.”

  “And she had to be convincing,” Carter said. “Otherwise, she couldn’t . . .”

  He trailed off, not sure what to say.

  “She couldn’t what?” Jane asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But this isn’t over.”

  “Maybe we’re supposed to use the knife for digging,” Buzz said.

  “Dig where?” Vanessa asked.

  There was no answer for that one. Carter didn’t know the encampment as well as the others, but he’d seen enough to know there was nowhere to go from this level.

  “She probably wasn’t planning on all four of us being down here,” Buzz said.

  “That’s my fault,” Vanessa answered. She sounded upset all over again.

  “No,” Carter said. “If it’s anyone’s fault, you guys—”

  “It’s nobody’s fault!” Jane interrupted. “Okay? And even if it were, so what? None of that changes anything now. Not anymore.”

  “Well, I hope Mima has a really good idea,” Vanessa said.

  “She does,” Carter said.

  “How can you be so sure?” Buzz asked.

  Carter didn’t have to think about his answer. Somehow, everything they’d been through—even the day they’d just had—was so impossible, it made anything seem just a little more possible.

  “Because she’s amazing,” he said. “She’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met. And it’s not because I like her, okay?”

  “Yeah, right,” Vanessa said, giving her I’m-older-and-I-know-better look. “Not just because you like her, anyway.”

  “Whatever,” Carter said. “I also trust her. And so should you. Because if you ask me, this night’s just getting started.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Buzz woke up to the smell of smoke.

  After everything that had happened, he never thought for a second he’d fall asleep in that pit. But the hours had worn on, and the long day had caught up to him. Somewhere along the way, each of them had dropped off.

  Now he was sitting up again, wide awake.

  “Do you hear that?” Jane asked.

  People were shouting. Buzz could hear the crackle of burning wood, too, far louder than any single campfire. When he looked up, a glowing light showed from the direction of the main clearing.

  “Something’s wrong—” Vanessa started to say, but she was cut off by the crashing sound of a burning limb hitting the ground.

  “That was a branch,” Buzz said. “A big one.”

  “It’s the trees,” Jane said. “It sounds like they’re on fire.”

  Carter was the first onto his feet. “This is it!” he said. Already, he had Mima’s knife clasped between his bound hands.

  The guards were nowhere Buzz could see. From the sound of all the voices, it made sense they would have gone to help. There was no knowing for sure.

  “Buzz, here!” Carter said. “Let me cut you free.”

  Buzz held out his hands, and Carter sawed at the vines around his wrists.

  “Careful!” Buzz said.

  “Just stay still,” he said. It wasn’t long before the cordage split and popped open. Buzz shook his fingers and rubbed at his wrists to get the circulation back.

  “Now me,” Carter said.

  It didn’t take long to cut everyone loose. Even if they were caught, Buzz thought, there wasn’t much the guards could do but retie them. Still, his heart was going like he’d just sprinted a mile. Because if they didn’t get caught . . .

  The possibilities stretched all the way to Chicago.

  “I’ll go up first,” Vanessa said.

  There was no discussion. Carter and Buzz each took a leg and boosted Vanessa as high as they could. Vanessa kept her body stiff. Even now, after weeks of struggling to survive, her years of gymnastics showed. In a moment, she had her hands on the edge of the pit. But as she grabbed on, the sandy edge crumbled away, faster than she could climb out.

  Sand fell into Buzz’s eyes and mouth. He spit and shook his head, trying to see without letting go. They still had to get Vanessa out.

  “Can you get me any higher?” she asked.

  “One, two, three—push!” Carter said.

  Buzz heaved as hard as he could. He had her by the bottom of the foot now. Carter, too. She rose another several inches, wavered, and nearly tipped over. But in the next second, Vanessa was pushing off from their hands and kicking her way up the last few feet to keep from sliding back in.

  “Is anyone around?” Buzz asked.

  “Hang on,” Vanessa said. And then, “This fire’s huge, you guys! Everyone’s over there—”

  “Find something to get us out!” Carter said. “Hurry!”

  “It’s right here,” Vanessa answered. One end of the vine rope tumbled into the pit. “Jane, you come first! You’re the lightest. Then we can get the guys out.”

  Jane was up and out a few seconds later. Then Carter, then Buzz.

  As Buzz came onto flat ground again, the scene in front of him was like something from a movie. The trees at the opposite end of the encampment were all one huge curtain of fire now. People were running in and out of the light, bringing water from the beach. Others were throwing sand, or chopping away what they could. There were shouts everywhere. It was chaos.

  Which was maybe the whole idea.

  “This is our chance!” Jane said. “We need to get to Ani’s canoe, and someone needs to open that screen.”

  “Where?” Carter asked, looking around.

  It took a second for Buzz to remember Carter had not been this way before.

  “There!” Buzz said, pointing toward the trail, and they all sprinted straight for it.

  The screen they were headed toward was huge, Vanessa knew. It was going to take a miracle to open it. But she kept her thoughts to herself. They’d do what they could when they got there.

  Meanwhile, she watched her footing as they moved along the dark path. The fire behind them was enough to penetrate the woods with a small amount of light, but not much.

  “I’ll get the boat ready when we get there,” Jane said. “Carter, give me the knife. I can cut it loose while you three work on the screen. Then I’ll meet you downstream.”

  “We can’t split up!” Vanessa said. “Are you crazy?”

  “Is there anything about this that isn’t crazy?” Jane asked.

  “She’s right, Nessa,” Buzz said. “We don’t have time to mess around.”

  They’d just arrived at the canoes. A dozen or more of them bobbed and shifted together, where they were tethered in the fast-moving water. The screen was another fifty yards or more off to their right, where the channel flowed into the ocean.

  “That boat?” Jane asked. She pointed to Ani’s outrigger, on the downstream side of all the others.

  “That’s it,” Buzz said.

  It had been the last one in, which meant it would be easy to get it away. Maybe Ani had even planned it like that.

  Still, there had been no time to talk about what it would mean to get back onto the open ocean. Ani had promised coconuts and water. Hopefully, those were already on board. Whatever else Jane could pull together right now would have to be enough.

  “Do what you can,”
Vanessa told her. “Cut some fronds. We can use them for shade. And grab anything else you can find. But don’t cut the boat loose until we’re back.”

  “It’ll be faster if I cut it when I’m ready and meet you down there,” Jane said.

  “The current’s too tricky,” Vanessa said. “You’ll get washed right past us if we’re not careful.”

  Jane didn’t argue. The one thing they didn’t have right now was time. Without another word, Vanessa turned downstream with Buzz and Carter to head for the enormous gate at the far end of the channel.

  “We’ll see you in a minute,” she called back, and kept on moving.

  Jane worked with what little light she had from the fires. She ran up and down the bank, cutting every big leaf and frond she could reach, then piling them into Ani’s canoe. There was no time to pick and choose. They could be caught by the elders or the guards at any second.

  She could see some waterskins were already in the boat, and two big bunches of coconuts, still on the stem. It didn’t look like much. They’d have to ration.

  But first, and most of all, they had to get away.

  After three trips up and down the bank, she turned again—and stopped short. Someone was coming up the trail. She could see a torch but nothing else.

  Jane stepped back and dropped into Ani’s canoe. Had she been seen? Was it all over, just like that? Lying flat, she stayed out of sight, listening for whoever it was.

  There were footsteps. And then a voice.

  “Car-tare? Jane?”

  Mima’s voice.

  “Buzz? Ba-nessa?” she said.

  Jane’s breath was fast and shaky. There was no knowing anything for sure right now, but she took the risk and sat up.

  “Mima?” she said.

  “Jane!” she said. “Betta a tikka, Car-tare? Buzz betto, Ba-nessa?”

  Jane shot out of the canoe and up the bank. Mima went stiff when Jane tried to hug her, but it wasn’t like before when she’d captured Carter. That was just the way Mima was. She busied herself instead, scraping her torch against the ground to put it out. She was probably trying to avoid being seen, now that they’d found each other.

  It was all making sense. And Mima was as strong as any of them. Stronger, in fact. She’d be able to help get the screen open.

  “Over there!” Jane said, pointing downstream. “Ekka-ka! Go and help them, please! Ekka-ka?”

  “Ekka-ka,” Mima said.

  Even now, it was a relief to hear the ka—for friends. Mima had been so full of anger before. Or at least, she’d been acting like it for the tribe.

  She pressed a bundle of some kind into Jane’s hands. Then she said something else in Nukula and disappeared downstream to go help the others.

  The bundle was probably more supplies, Jane thought. It was tied up with a vine, and she dropped it into the canoe. Her time was better spent gathering fronds right now. They’d sort everything else out later.

  It was only after Mima had moved on that Jane realized who had probably started this whole fire. And why.

  Thank you, Mima. Thank you, thank you.

  Forever.

  “How does this work?” Carter asked.

  They’d told him about the bamboo-and-foliage gate, but seeing it was different. He’d imagined something smaller. This thing was as tall as a house.

  “It slides open,” Vanessa said. “At least, it did when they had a whole bunch of people on both sides of it.”

  “All right. We’ve got this,” Carter said, though it was hard to know for sure. “Let’s go. I want to get back to Jane.”

  “Wait!” Buzz said. He looked upstream. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Let’s go then! Hurry!” Carter said. He already had his hands on the bamboo frame.

  “Car-tare!”

  Mima’s voice stopped him. She was there now, not much more than a shadow. But even the shadow moved just like her.

  “Over here!” Vanessa said. She motioned for Mima, trying to show what they wanted to do.

  Carter could tell she understood right away—not just what had to happen, but the need to keep moving. She had her hands on the frame next to him before Vanessa and Buzz were even in position.

  “So, do we just—” Vanessa started to say.

  “PULL!” Carter said. He bore down with his feet in the dirt as hard as he could. Then he locked his fingers around the fat piece of bamboo and heaved with the others.

  Amazingly, the gate moved on the first pull. There was a groove in the ground, and the whole thing slid several feet before they lost momentum.

  Carter’s heart surged.

  “Again!” he said.

  “Etto farka!” Mima said. Farka was the word for storm. And they were fighting like one right now.

  They heaved a second time. The frame seemed to stick in the ground, but then gave way all at once. Carter fell back, jumped up, and grabbed on again.

  “Keep going!” he said, and they did.

  The screen dragged toward them like the wall of a house moving through the dirt. Carter managed a step back. Then another.

  “It’s working!” he said.

  All at once, the whole thing gave a hard jerk as the opposite side of the screen left the far bank of the channel. The frame suddenly rose in his hands, pulling him right off the ground while the other side dropped toward the water.

  “No, no, no!” Vanessa yelled.

  It was too heavy. There was no time to switch tactics. The far corner of the frame crashed down, wedging itself into the channel at a crazy angle.

  Carter still hadn’t let go. He hung five or six feet above the water now, and quickly pulled himself up to sit on the frame itself. The current rushed by underneath him.

  “What now?” Buzz asked.

  “Actually . . .” Carter said.

  It was hard to gauge in the dark, but it looked very much like there was enough room on this side of the channel for a canoe to slip under the tilted gate.

  “We can still do this!” he said—just before several voices came up from the woods.

  Carter looked in that direction and saw the flame of a torch. Then another. Someone was coming their way.

  They’d been spotted.

  CHAPTER 14

  Buzz saw the torches, and his heart dropped.

  “We’ve got to go. Like, right now,” he told Vanessa. She was farther down the bank and hadn’t seen anyone coming yet.

  “All right, let’s go!” she said, and pointed upstream. “Carter! This way!”

  “No, I mean, there’s no time for that,” Buzz said.

  “He’s right,” Carter said, and yelled up the channel. “Jane! Change of plans. We have to go! Cut the boat loose!”

  There was a tense pause. Not a silence, though. The fire and the chaos in camp filled the air with sound and light. So did the torch carriers, coming closer through the woods.

  “Now?” Jane’s voice came back.

  “Yes!” Carter yelled. “Bring the canoe! There’s no time to explain!”

  “What about the current?” Vanessa asked. “She’s going to wash right past us!”

  “Not if we catch her,” Carter said. “Everyone spread out. Buzz, grab one of those pieces of bamboo and hold it over the water. We just need to slow her down enough to get in, and then we’re gone.”

  Buzz looked up. Carter was already on the frame of the gate itself, sliding farther out over the channel. The whole thing sat cockeyed, with the far corner stuck in the water. The other corner, nearest them, was at least four feet above the channel. That’s where the canoe could pass. But first they’d have to slow the boat enough to get in.

  “Nessa!” Buzz said. “Up there! Next to Carter.” Vanessa was the tallest. She was the gymnast, too. “If you hang upside down, you’ll be able to reach anything that
passes by. I’ll work from here with Mima.”

  He bent down and picked up an end of the heaviest bamboo he could spot. Several pieces had been used as braces to keep the screen in place when it was closed. He held it with both arms and turned clumsily to pivot it over the water, like another kind of gate. If nothing else, it would help slow the boat while Vanessa and Carter worked from above.

  “Mima, help me with this!” he said. He was pointing to the bamboo and then upstream, desperate to get his meaning across. Everyone else was better at communicating with her. But she’d gotten pretty good at understanding them, too. “Jane’s coming!” he said.

  Mima came and stood with him on the bank, securing the pole together from one end. Even she didn’t try wading into the current. There would be no keeping their footing that way. They’d have a better chance of giving Jane a barrier to crash into by holding it steady from where they were.

  “JANE!” Carter yelled again. “Have you got it? Can you do this?”

  More Nukula shouts filled the air. Some of them were closer than ever. In the noise, Buzz couldn’t even tell if Jane had answered.

  But it was too late to do anything else. Now they had to wait and hope she showed up with the boat soon.

  Really soon.

  Jane looked downstream. All she could see was the fast current running off into the dark. The screen was too far to make out, but she could hear the others shouting for her. And the voices in the woods, too. They all blended together.

  Her hands shook as she stood up in the boat. She leaned out as far as she could and pressed the edge of the stone knife into the vine tether that held the canoe in place.

  This was it. As soon as she sawed through the vine, they were going to be thrown into a whole new kind of unknown. They were just as unprepared for this as they’d been for Nowhere Island, for Shadow Island, for all of it. The realization hit like a heavy weight in the bottom of her stomach.

  What were they thinking? How were they possibly going to survive out there, maybe for days—or even weeks? They were going to need so much more than the few supplies they had. Even something like the vine rope in her hand could be a lifesaver out on the open ocean. In fact—