Stranded Read online

Buzz felt a quickening inside him. They knew where they were! This seemed like it could be big—except . . . He glanced at his sister and saw the furrow between her eyebrows. Why wasn’t Vanessa more excited?

  The nearest land to where she’d pointed was the Marshall Islands to the northwest, then something called U.S. Kiribati to the southeast.

  “What’s U.S. Kee-ree . . . batty?” Buzz asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she answered impatiently. “What I’m saying is, this whole area is about fifteen hundred miles across. And we’re somewhere in the middle of it.”

  He looked back at the map again. Fifteen hundred miles was Chicago to California. Half of the United States.

  “So, even if the Coast Guard is looking for us . . .”

  Vanessa nodded. “It’s like the biggest, worst game of hide-and-seek, ever.”

  “And we aren’t even trying to hide,” Buzz said.

  The reality of it settled over him like a dark cloud. All day long, he’d been thinking about rescue. Hoping for it. Relying on it. Now it was starting to look like they might be stuck here for a lot longer than he’d imagined.

  Buzz stood up and re-scanned the empty beach. Even though Vanessa had said not to worry about Carter and Jane, that didn’t really seem possible anymore.

  “Vanessa?” he said.

  “Yeah . . . okay,” she said. She already knew what he was thinking. “We can start looking for them right now.”

  * * *

  Carter’s heart leaped when he finally spotted Jane in the water. The current had her in its grip, carrying her right toward him.

  “Jane!” he yelled, but she didn’t seem to hear. She was struggling to swim, her head just barely above the surface of the water.

  Carter stroked against the tide with everything he had. The most he could try for was to keep from drifting farther away, as Jane washed in his direction. It was like swimming upstream, and his arms weren’t going to cut it much longer.

  The next glimpse he got of her, she was less than twenty yards away and closing in fast—but just off to the side.

  On instinct, Carter stopped trying to swim. He stretched his arms and legs into a wide X-shape instead, as much like a net as he could make himself. Jane was there now, and she caught his eye.

  “Carter!” she yelled again. “Help me!”

  They collided in the water and Carter grabbed hold. He flipped onto his back now, keeping his grip on Jane. His arms were too weak to swim against the tide anymore, but he could still kick. So could she.

  “Turn over!” he yelled. With a fast scramble, they were hooked arm to arm, like one unit. “Now kick!” he said. “As hard as you can!”

  The water at their feet roiled as they started to flutter and kick and inch their way back toward the shore. It was slow going, but they generated enough power to keep moving in the right direction. Carter aimed them for the middle of the sandbar, where the current was weakest.

  Finally, the water grew shallow enough that he could see the lagoon’s sandy bottom. “We’ve got it!” he said. He reached down with one foot, then the other, and found he could stand.

  Jane was even more exhausted than he was. He wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his middle. Then he trudged them both back up onto the tiny island’s shore.

  As soon as he had dry sand under his feet, Carter collapsed onto his knees. A bellyful of salt water came up and burned his throat all over again. His vision blurred and fuzzed.

  Jane rolled off him and lay on her back, panting.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  She just nodded. There were no words right now, for either of them. Carter knew that this could have turned out even worse than it did. In a way, they’d been lucky.

  After several minutes, he stood up again and looked around. The water was still rushing in from the ocean. As long as that was the case, they weren’t going anywhere.

  “How long does it take for the tide to turn around?” Carter asked. It seemed like something Jane would know.

  “Maybe six hours?” she said. “But . . . I think that might be too late.”

  She was looking at the sky now, as if there were some answer up there. All Carter could see overhead was a solid gray sheet of clouds.

  “Too late for what?” he said. He almost didn’t want to hear her answer.

  “For us,” she said. “The tide has to go down sometime, but so does the sun. And I’ve got a bad feeling about which is going to happen first.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Vanessa nearly cried when the rain first started. It came after hours of walking the shore of Nowhere Island, looking for some sign of Carter and Jane. She and Buzz stopped long enough to stand on the beach with their mouths open, letting the drops moisten their dry tongues and throats. It wasn’t much, but the relief was intense.

  Soon, they were up in the woods, where rain had started to gather on the thick foliage. It was Buzz’s idea, something he’d seen on one of his shows. If someone had told her a month earlier that she was going to be licking plants for water, Vanessa would have thought they were crazy. Now the only thing that was crazy was how good it felt to lap up a tiny bit of moisture from a waxy green leaf in the middle of the jungle.

  Still, the good feelings didn’t last long. As darkness set in, there was no choice but to head back to the boat. They’d missed their chance for Lookout Point, too. Even if they could get through the jungle at night, they wouldn’t be able to see anything until morning.

  “We’ll go first thing,” Vanessa said. “We’ll find them, Buzz. I promise.”

  Buzz only nodded. This seemed to be weighing even more heavily on him than it was on her. And the hard truth was, they were still going to have to worry about water no matter what happened. That meant collecting as much of this rain as they could, right away.

  As soon as they reached the Lucky Star, Vanessa went straight downstairs to grab whatever con-tainers she could find. She pulled a cooking pot and a frying pan out of the galley, set them up on the deck, and then ran down for more.

  “Buzz? Where are you? What are you doing?” she yelled. There was no knowing how long this rain would last.

  When she came back up with a flashlight and an armful of cracked coffee mugs, Buzz was standing on the cabin roof. He was trying to free what was left of the torn mainsail from what was left of the broken boom.

  “Help me get this off,” he said. “We can tie it across the deck and catch water with it.”

  Vanessa looked at her baby brother. It was a brilliant idea. One she never would have thought of. She set down the mugs and jumped up next to him. They worked as quickly as they could, untying lengths of cord and cutting through knots with a steak knife from down below. By the time they’d freed up the sail, they had an enormous parachute-sized piece of material to work with.

  “Over here,” Buzz said. “Quick.”

  Following his lead, Vanessa helped stretch the sail across the back of the boat. They tied it to the rail on two sides and to the captain’s wheel in the cockpit. When they were done, the whole thing hung loosely over the deck like a giant cloth bowl. A small pool had already started to collect in the center.

  “Buzz, you’re some kind of genius,” Vanessa said, standing with him in the pouring rain. “Did you see that on TV, too?”

  “No,” Buzz said.

  “Some video game?”

  Buzz shook his head. “It was just something I thought of,” he said.

  It seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it. Vanessa felt pretty sure that he was already back to thinking about Carter and Jane. Back to worrying, too.

  Still, she couldn’t help noticing that Buzz was adapting to all of this faster than anyone. Maybe he was going to surprise them all before it was over.

  In fact, he already
had.

  * * *

  Jane shivered in the dark as the rain poured down on their little sandbar.

  It didn’t matter if the tide had gone out now or not. Without any moonlight or even starlight to navigate by, there was no way to leave. The darkness was complete here, like the definition of pitch black.

  At first, the rain was a good thing. They’d lain flat on their backs, catching what they could in their mouths and in some of the jars they’d brought. She still had her pack, but Carter’s was gone. They only had half as many containers as when they started.

  Now, hours later, the rain was just one more torment to deal with. If Jane had wondered how things could get worse since the crash, this was her answer.

  “What time do you think it is?” she asked Carter.

  “I dunno,” Carter answered dully. It was the same voice he used whenever one of his teams lost a game.

  “I think the sun comes up around six,” she said.

  “Whatever,” he answered, and hunched his shoulders a little tighter.

  Besides everything else—the hunger, the rain, the darkness—Jane was also chilled to the bone. She and Carter huddled together on the sand for warmth, and she tried to use her empty pack as a blanket, but none of it did any good. Their one lucky break was that the water had stopped rising before it swallowed their tiny island completely.

  “Carter?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think Vanessa and Buzz are out looking for us?”

  “They’d be stupid if they were,” he said. “They should just wait until we come back tomorrow.”

  Jane hugged herself and tried to stop shivering. “Do you think it’s at least midnight by now?” she said.

  “I don’t want to talk about what time it is.”

  “Okay.”

  Instead, she shut her eyes and thought about that word, tomorrow. Hopefully, the sun would come up extra-extra early in the morning. She imagined it, rising over the cliffs and shining warmly down on her face.

  Then slowly, the image faded and another one took its place. She saw her mother and Eric now. They were standing on the front porch of the house, waving at her to run up the sidewalk and come inside.

  That part was the hardest of all—thinking about home. Their kitchen full of food. Her warm bed. Her friends. All of it was five thousand impossible miles away. Even getting a hug from her mother right now would have been like winning some kind of big prize.

  But still, Jane was determined not to cry. Not in front of Carter. At least, not until she saw the sun again. Then she could do whatever she wanted, she told herself.

  In the meantime, she just had to hang on.

  * * *

  Buzz took the first watch that night. He let Vanessa get some sleep and stood on the deck in his raincoat, watching the dark beach.

  He kept the flashlight, too. He pointed it up the shore and clicked the button—on, off, on, off, on, off. Every minute or so, he repeated the pattern. The beam didn’t reach far, but it was something Carter and Jane could follow if they were trying to get back this way.

  It was also something Buzz could do. He had a terrible, helpless feeling in his gut, wondering where they’d gone. It kept reminding him of what Jane had said that morning.

  I think we should stick together.

  Now he wished more than anything that he’d listened. They all should have. Maybe Jane was the littlest, but she was probably the smartest one in the group. Because right now, letting those two go off by themselves felt like the stupidest mistake they could have possibly made.

  CHAPTER 15

  Carter woke up scratching.

  Somewhere in the night, the rain had stopped and the bugs had moved in to take its place. Even as he sat up, he was waving away a cloud of them. When he looked at his arms and legs, they were lit up with dozens of small red welts. Maybe hundreds. And every single one of them was itchy.

  It was the first night any of them had slept outside, Carter realized. Just one more reason why he couldn’t wait to get back to the Lucky Star.

  And that’s where there was some good news. In the early-morning light, he could see that the water had finally gone down. Their sandbar had grown overnight, and had even reattached itself to the larger curve of the island. They were free to go.

  “Jane, wake up,” he said. He was already on his feet, still scratching as he put all the bottles and jars back into her pack.

  “What happened? You look like you have the measles,” she said. Her own arms and legs were nothing compared to his.

  “I guess I taste better to mosquitoes,” he said, shouldering the pack. “At least someone got to eat last night.”

  It had been over thirty-six hours since they’d had anything besides rainwater, he realized. The inside of his belly felt like it was grinding against itself. His steps weren’t as sure-footed anymore, and his head swam a little as they set out. The hike back to the boat was going to be rough, but he tried not to think about it. If Jane could do this without complaining, then so could he.

  Slowly and steadily, they came around the curve of the lagoon toward the falls. Neither of them had the energy to run, but they did pick up their pace as they came within striking distance.

  The falls themselves spilled out of a cave opening, about ten feet off the ground. The water flowed over a jumble of rocks and into a small pool, which fed into the lagoon. With one last burst of adrenaline, Carter and Jane splashed right through the little pool to stand at the base of the falls. The water was ice cold, but Carter let it spill right over him. It felt amazing on his burning skin, and then even more amazing to finally drink his fill.

  It wasn’t exactly the chocolate-chip-pancake breakfast with bacon and sausage, scrambled eggs, and everything else he’d been dreaming about all night. But for right now, it would have to do.

  * * *

  As soon as Jane had enough to drink, her thoughts turned to the cave where this water was coming from. In fact, she’d been thinking about it all night. And she’d begun to wonder if maybe . . . just maybe . . .

  “Carter? What do you think is up there?”

  “What do you mean?” he said, wiping his mouth.

  “Well, if we could drill a hole straight through this cliff, how close to our beach do you think we’d come out?”

  Carter shrugged. He never had any patience for the little mind puzzles she liked so much.

  “What are you talking about?” he said.

  She pointed up at the cave again. “Where do you think that goes?”

  Now Carter seemed to get her drift. “I don’t know. Maybe nowhere,” he said. “Where do you think it goes?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jane said. “But . . . maybe some-where.”

  It was worth checking, anyway. They’d spent the whole previous day getting this far around the island. If they could find a way through, it would be the world’s best shortcut.

  She let Carter climb first, as they headed up the rocks along the side of the falls. It was harder to concentrate on an empty stomach, so she took her time and followed Carter’s steps from one foothold to the next.

  As she scrambled up over the lip of the cave, cool air rushed out to greet her. It felt air-conditioned inside, and her wet skin prickled with goose bumps.

  Jane took a few steps farther in. It was hard to see very far before the darkness took over. The ground sloped up from here, and a fast-moving stream ran down the middle of the rock floor, on its way to the falls.

  “Jane, I don’t know about this.” Carter sounded wary.

  “No, this is perfect. We can follow the water,” Jane said. “Then, if we think we’re lost, we can just follow it right back here again.”

  “I wish we had the flashlight,” Carter said. The ground underfoot was uneven and hard to se
e even near the mouth of the cave.

  But that’s when Jane remembered her water-proof camera.

  “Maybe we do,” she said. She turned Carter around and unzipped the front pocket on the pack. Then she took out the camera and switched it on.

  The battery charge was down to about half by now. Hopefully, that would be enough. She flipped it over to play mode and pressed the Start button.

  “Hi, everyone, this is Jane B. again. Today is July first, and we’re out here looking for water . . .”

  As her most recent journal entry played, the view screen lit up with a small glow. In the dark of the cave, it was just enough to show Jane the ground in front of her, if she held it low enough.

  “Nice!” Carter said. She felt a high five whiff past her ear. “You want me to go first?”

  “I’ll do it,” Jane told him. The idea of leading the way into this pitch-dark hole was scary, but she kind of liked it, too. She’d never led Carter anywhere.

  “Come on,” she said. “Stay close.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Please, please, please . . . oh, please.

  Vanessa stood on Lookout Point, silently begging for some sign of Carter and Jane to show itself. It had been almost twenty-four hours now. Wasn’t that when you were supposed to call the police?

  But, of course, that wasn’t going to happen. They were on their own here.

  “You see anything?” Buzz asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. The shore was empty, and the jungle was too thick to see into from up here. She kicked at the ground in frustration. “They could be anywhere in those woods. I told Carter to stick to the beach, but he’s so stubborn, he probably went tromping around in there just because I said not to.”

  “We should keep moving,” Buzz said. They’d been on the point for at least half an hour now. “If they’re not back at the boat when we get there, I think we should start walking again. All the way around the island if we have to.”

  Vanessa nodded, but she was also torn. She hated to leave this spot. At the same time, she hated to think that Carter and Jane could be hurt and waiting for them to come help. Maybe she and Buzz should split up to cover more ground. Or maybe that was the worst idea in the world.