Forbidden Passage Page 8

  As Chizo’s teammate moved toward the center of the action, he was met by a storm of opposition. Mima grabbed him from behind and took him under, followed quickly by several others piling on. The water churned. It looked like a piranha feeding frenzy.

  Buzz stopped long enough to take stock, and Mima popped up just in front of him, clutching the totem to her chest.

  “HERE!” Carter screamed. “Here!” He’d pulled a football move—even Buzz recognized it. Carter had gone wide, away from the group. Mima pivoted and seemed to spot him. She shouldered the totem and tossed it high over the others’ heads—only to have it intercepted at the last second by another girl, the tallest Nukula in the group. As soon as the girl had the totem, she turned and started running for shore.

  One of the other boys was the first to get to her. He threw a tackle from behind, and they went down in the shallow water. Jane and Vanessa were in it now, too, with Carter coming in fast.

  Within seconds, the entire group was scrambling in the same spot. It gave Buzz enough time to catch up, but by then, it was like trying to break through a wall even to see the totem anymore.

  “Buzz! Here!” Vanessa screamed. He saw her then, holding the piece by her fingertips. Somehow she’d reached the edge of the group with it, but not for long. Chizo was there to snatch it. He pulled it out of her hands—just before Mima blindsided him from behind. She leaped onto his back, grabbed the totem, slid off, and kept moving.

  “Run!” Carter called to her. She’d bought just a few feet of advantage, and it was enough to get her sprinting the last few yards onto the beach.

  But it wasn’t over. Everyone was headed out of the water now. Buzz felt himself jostled and pushed along, nearly against his will. Carter was on his right, and Chizo was just ahead. Without any plan, both of them grabbed onto Chizo from behind, each taking an arm.

  All three boys hit the sand hard. Buzz felt both of the others roll over him—and then they were on their feet again, faster than he ever could have managed.

  Meanwhile, Mima had made some good headway. With the totem tucked under one arm, she’d climbed onto Vanessa’s shoulders and leaped from there to a point more than halfway up the fifteen-foot post. Others were scrambling behind her, but she still had a good lead. She shimmied several feet higher. Jane and Vanessa were pulling on the legs of those who were either climbing or reaching to yank Mima down. Carter and Chizo were both sprinting to join the fray.

  As Buzz watched, Mima covered that last few feet to the top. She took hold of the post with both legs to free up her hands—and dropped the zigzag edge of the totem into place.

  At the same moment, one of the boys managed to get a hold of her ankle. With a hard grab, he pulled her right off, and they both fell in a heap to the sand.

  Buzz’s eyes were locked on the top of the post. It seemed everyone else’s were, too. As Mima had fallen, the whole post had jerked to the side. Now, the totem rocked one way . . . and back again, ready to tip all the way off, or not.

  Buzz held his breath. He could feel the pulse pounding in his throat. The whole beach seemed to go silent—just before the totem rocked once more and and fell cleanly into place, where it stayed.

  “YES!” Carter screamed. He threw his arms around Jane and spun her around. Vanessa grabbed Mima by the hand and helped her onto her feet as Buzz ran over. Even Mima was smiling now.

  Looking at the faces of everyone else around them, Buzz could see they all seemed to be thinking the same thing. Nobody—including himself—could believe they’d just pulled this off.

  But guess what? Buzz thought. We did it.

  And right now, that was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jane lay back and watched the starry night sky from their precious new raft. With the mat of leaves Mima had shown them how to make, it was a comfortable place to get some rest. Not only had they won a way to paddle across the bay in the morning, but they’d earned a bed in the process.

  Not that any of them felt perfectly safe. They’d already agreed to take turns keeping watch through the night. Jane would stay up first, then Vanessa, then Carter, then Buzz. Jane wasn’t sure what Mima would do, but so far, she’d been sticking close.

  She looked over, where Mima was adding some wood to the fire. Mima had been the one to build it, too, using some bamboo, a sharp stick, and dry grass. On Nowhere Island, they’d never once managed to get a flame like that, no matter how hard they’d tried. Mima had done it in about ten minutes.

  In a way, Mima seemed amazing. But in another way, Jane thought, she was just Nukula. This was normal for them. This was her life.

  Still, Jane was full of questions.

  “Mima?” she said. She picked up one of the smaller sticks from the firewood pile. It wasn’t a pen, but it was as close as she was going to get.

  With the stick, she drew six simple figures—four small and two big. Then she pointed at them one by one. “Jane, Buzz, Carter, Vanessa,” she said. And then, pointing at the two big ones, “Mom and Dad.”

  Jane held out the stick for her, but Mima only squinted.

  “Now you,” Jane said.

  “Fah,” Mima said and turned back to the fire.

  “Ah-ka-ah!” Jane said. “Please?” It was a thrill, to actually be having a conversation, even if Mima didn’t seem so interested. Still, Jane held out the stick again, and this time Mima took it.

  In the sand next to Jane’s family, Mima drew an even simpler figure. It was just a circle and a line for a body. When she was done, she dropped the stick in the fire.

  “You?” Jane asked, pointing at the drawing. “Mima?”

  “Mima,” she answered.

  “You don’t have any family?” Jane asked.

  “She can’t understand you,” Carter said from where he lay on the raft.

  “Yes she can,” Jane said. She looked down at the single stick figure in the dirt. Mima was alone, wasn’t she? No family, nobody to go back to at the end of Raku Nau.

  When she looked back up, Mima was lost in the flames all over again, not paying Jane any attention at all.

  “And I think I understand her, too,” Jane said.

  Then she reached out and used her finger to draw a circle around all of them, together. Just like they were one team. Or a tribe.

  Or a family.

  Buzz felt an arm shaking him awake.

  “Your turn,” Carter whispered, and nudged him toward the fire. “I left you some more coconut if you want it.”

  Buzz sat up and shook the sleep out of his head. It was going to be another long day coming up. The sky was still dark, but he was the last one to take a watch, which meant he’d be up until sunrise. Mima, Jane, and Vanessa were sleeping spooned up together on the raft. Carter quickly lay down and was snoring within a few minutes.

  Around the shore, Buzz could see the light of other fires. The only person he could actually see from where he sat was one of the boys in Chizo’s group. His face was washed clean now—no more red and black—but just the way he kept staring across the distance was enough to creep Buzz out. There were no rules here, which meant that anything could happen at any time. It made sense for one of them to be awake to keep watch.

  He glanced over at his siblings again, jealous that they were all asleep. Even Mima had finally dropped off.

  Just like on Nowhere Island, the long dark nights were the loneliest and the hardest part of surviving with nothing. The trek they had waiting for them in the morning wasn’t going to be easy, but sitting alone through the night was the worst.

  He picked up a rock Carter had chipped down to a sharp edge, and used it to whittle away at the new fishing spear Vanessa had started. Its point was already good and sharp, but Buzz kept working on it. At least it was a way to pass the time—and to distract his mind.

  Hopefully, the sun would be coming up soon.r />
  “Ba-nessa! Car-tare! Jane!”

  Vanessa jerked awake. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the bay was cloaked in the gray gloom of predawn.

  “What’s going on?” Carter asked, sitting up.

  Mima was standing over them. In fact, it was Mima who had shaken them awake, Vanessa realized. She’d slept so deeply it was hard to get her own thoughts straight. Now, Mima was speaking rapidly in Nukula and shooing them off the raft.

  And as Vanessa looked around, she started to see why.

  There were no fires burning up and down the shore anymore. Dozens of palm frond mats sat empty on the ground along the edge of the woods.

  “Where is everyone?” Jane said.

  “I think we overslept!” Vanessa said. “They’re all gone!”

  “Hang on—where’s Buzz?” Carter asked.

  They all fell into a silence, except for Mima. She’d begun dragging the raft toward the water. It seemed as though she wasn’t going to wait for anyone—she was ready to start catching up to the others.

  “Mima, we have to wait for Buzz!” Jane said to her. “Please!”

  But Mima kept pointing toward the bay and pulling the raft on her own.

  “Buzz!” Vanessa shouted.

  “Buzz, come on!” Carter yelled. “We have to go!”

  When Buzz didn’t answer, it put a sinking feeling in Vanessa’s stomach. Maybe he had slipped off to go to the bathroom, but he wouldn’t have been out of earshot. Would he?

  Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  “Carter?” she said. The words didn’t even want to come out of her mouth. “I don’t . . . think he’s here anymore.”

  “I know,” Carter answered grimly.

  “Buzz!” Mima was calling from the water’s edge. “Buzz!”

  Vanessa whipped her head around, thinking Mima had just spotted him. Instead, she was pointing across the empty bay, toward Cloud Ridge in the distance.

  It was like something clicked in that moment. Memories of their arrival on the island came flooding back—the way Carter had been ambushed, and how Jane had been taken in the woods. The deep pit in the sand. It had seemed like a big game for the Nukula at the time.

  But it hadn’t been a game, had it? It had been practice for Raku Nau, Vanessa realized.

  Vanessa looked at Carter, then Jane, and they all seemed to know it at once.

  “They took Buzz, didn’t they?” Jane asked. Her voice cracked, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Yeah,” Vanessa said. She scanned the area for any sign of which way they’d gone. It was hard to concentrate. Too many thoughts flew through her mind even to know what to do first.

  “What does this mean?” Carter asked. “What are they going to do to him?”

  “I don’t know!” Vanessa said.

  She thought again about what Ani had said the day before—By any means necessary . That wasn’t just about winning a raft for crossing the bay, was it? It applied to all of Raku Nau. And if there were no rules, it meant Buzz could be anywhere by now. They had to do whatever they could to find him.

  Maybe that also meant losing their chance of getting off the island, but it couldn’t be helped. Not anymore. All that mattered was finding their brother.

  By any means necessary.

  EPILOGUE

  Buzz trudged through the mud as the sun came up. His wrists were tied, and the vine they’d used to bind him extended ahead into Chizo’s hand.

  Chizo looked back. His face was re-painted, this time with green clay. When he smiled his white teeth stood out like a manic grimace.

  “Where are you taking me?” Buzz asked for the tenth time. He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one.

  “Chizo!” he said. “I’m talking to you!”

  The boys seemed surprised Buzz knew his name. They stopped then and looked back at him. Chizo walked up close.

  “Ah-ka-ah,” he said. “Chizo tetaka ekka-ko.”

  “Whatever,” Buzz said.

  The strange part was, he knew he should be terrified. But something else had occurred to him after the capture.

  “You’re afraid of us, aren’t you?” he said. “You didn’t think we could beat you at anything, but we did. We won the raft. Not you!”

  Maybe now he and his team were more of a threat than anyone had imagined they could be. And maybe that was why they’d taken him.

  So, fine. If capture was part of Raku Nau, then so was escape. One way or another, Buzz thought, he wasn’t going to let them just get away with this. He didn’t know how, or where, or when—but this wasn’t the end of the road for them.

  They still had a long way to go.

  The story continues in

  Coming soon!

  How much would you sacrifice? How far would you go? When Carter, Vanessa, Buzz, and Jane found themselves stranded on Shadow Island, they had no idea what they were getting into. Now one of their group is missing, and the stakes keep getting higher.

  READ HOW THE ADVENTURE BEGAN IN

  It was supposed to be a vacation—and a chance to get to know one another better. But when a massive storm sets in without warning, four kids are shipwrecked alone on a rocky jungle island in the middle of the South Pacific. No adults. No instructions. Nobody to rely on but themselves. Can they make it home alive?

  A week ago, the biggest challenge Vanessa, Buzz, Carter, and Jane had was learning to live as a new blended family. Now the four siblings must find a way to work together if they’re going to make it off the island. But first they’ve got to learn to survive one another.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was day four at sea, and as far as eleven-year-old Carter Benson was concerned, life didn’t get any better than this.

  From where he hung, suspended fifty feet over the deck of the Lucky Star, all he could see was a planet’s worth of blue water. The boat’s huge white mainsail ballooned in front of him, filled with a stiff southerly wind that sent them scudding through the South Pacific faster than they’d sailed all week.

  This was the best part of the best thing Carter had ever done, no question. It was like sailing and flying at the same time. The harness around his middle held him in place while his arms and legs hung free. The air itself seemed to carry him along, at speed with the boat.

  “How you doin’ up there, Carter?” Uncle Dexter shouted from the cockpit.

  Carter flashed a thumbs-up and pumped his fist. “Faster!” he shouted back. Even with the wind whipping in his ears, Dex’s huge belly laugh came back, loud and clear.

  Meanwhile, Carter had a job to do. He wound the safety line from his harness in a figure eight around the cleat on the mast to secure himself. Then he reached over and unscrewed the navigation lamp he’d come up here to replace.

  As soon as he’d pocketed the old lamp in his rain slicker, he pulled out the new one and fitted it into the fixture, making sure not to let go before he’d tightened it down. Carter had changed plenty of lightbulbs before, but never like this. If anything, it was all too easy and over too fast.

  When he was done, he unwound his safety line and gave a hand signal to Dex’s first mate, Joe Kahali, down below. Joe put both hands on the winch at the base of the mast and started cranking Carter back down to the deck.

  “Good job, Carter,” Joe said, slapping him on the back as he got there. Carter swelled with pride and adrenaline. Normally, replacing the bulb would have been Joe’s job, but Dex trusted him to take care of it.

  Now Joe jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Your uncle wants to talk to you,” he said.

  Carter stepped out of the harness and stowed it in its locker, just like Dex and Joe had trained him to do. Once that was done, he clipped the D-ring on his life jacket to the safety cable that ran the length of the deck and headed toward the back.

 
It wasn’t easy to keep his footing as the Lucky Star pitched and rolled over the waves, but even that was part of the fun. If he did fall, the safety cable—also called a jackline—would keep him from going overboard. Everyone was required to stay clipped in when they were on deck, whether they were up there to work . . . or to puke, like Buzz was doing right now.

  “Gross! Watch out, Buzz!” Carter said, pushing past him.

  “Uhhhhhnnnnh,” was all Buzz said in return. He was leaning against the rail and looked both green and gray at the same time.

  Carter kind of felt sorry for him. They were both eleven years old, but they didn’t really have anything else in common. It was like they were having two different vacations out here.

  “Gotta keep moving,” he said, and continued on toward the back, where Dex was waiting.

  “Hey, buddy, it’s getting a little choppier than I’d like,” Dex said as Carter stepped down into the cockpit. “I need you guys to get below.”

  “I don’t want to go below,” Carter said. “Dex, I can help. Let me steer!”

  “No way,” Dex said. “Not in this wind. You’ve been great, Carter, but I promised your mom before we set sail—no kids on deck if these swells got over six feet. You see that?” He pointed to the front of the boat, where a cloud of sea spray had just broken over the bow. “That’s what a six-foot swell looks like. We’ve got a storm on the way—maybe a big one. It’s time for you to take a break.”

  “Come on, please?” Carter said. “I thought we came out here to sail!”

  Dex took him by the shoulders and looked him square in the eye.

  “Remember what we talked about before we set out? My boat. My rules. Got it?”

  Carter got it, all right. Arguing with Dex was like wrestling a bear. You could try, but you were never going to win.