Jungle Crossing (3 page)

A couple of the girls in the back started giggling and imitating Alfredo's accent.

"Let's go.
¡Vámonos!
" Alfredo said.

The bus wound through the streets of Playa del Carmen, hitting pothole after pothole. I saw some cool-looking souvenir shops, and tourists wearing hideous floral shirts, and even though some of the old brick buildings might be fun to sketch, everything looked like it could use a good coat of paint. As the driveways to the resorts disappeared, all we saw was jungle, with an occasional dirt path leading off into who knows where. I rested my head against the window, watching the road ahead of us. Nothing but gray pavement winding through a tunnel of green, except for a kid standing alone on the side of the road. Not a taco stand in sight. What could someone be doing in the middle of nowhere?

As we approached, the bus slowed. Great, Alfredo's thinking about picking up a hitchhiker! Doesn't he know it could be a trick? Bandits could be hiding in the bushes, waiting to attack. I sat up, peering through the dusty bus windshield, looking for movement in the jungle. The bus actually swerved to the side, pulling up next to the kid/hitchhiker/possible bandit. The door swung open, and the kid—who seemed about my age, but was really short, like me—climbed aboard, frowning and looking kind of scary. I attempted to imitate Fiona's don't-mess-with-me glare, like I did while walking past suspicious guys on the plane. I kept my eyes on his hands until he caught me looking and sneered at me. And then I glanced away, cheeks burning. It only got worse when Alfredo announced, "My cousin Nando, everybody." Alfredo clapped his hand on Nando's shoulder. "Give a big
bienvenido!
"

Mangled Spanish greetings echoed throughout the bus.

Nando scowled and avoided Alfredo's eyes as he slumped into the seat across from Barb and me. This guy was Alfredo's cousin? Pretending to fix my hair, I snuck a glance. No way. His body was only a 3. Plus, he had an angry look on his face, like one of those carvings in Barb's
Lost Treasures of the Maya
book. Personality: 0.2. Points just for breathing. Inside joke. Alfredo said something to him in Spanish, except it didn't sound like anything Mrs. Ruiz had taught us in fifth period. And I'd gotten an A in the class. I listened hard for familiar words. Nothing. Were they talking in some code? Were we really about to be kidnapped? Nando looked out the window while Alfredo eased the bus back onto the road.

Barb leaned over to me. "Do you think he's a real Mayan?"

"Why would I care?" I could hear the girls behind me talking and getting to know one another. I wished I'd had the guts to sit with them, but that girl with the blue hair looked "oh-so fashion daring," as Fiona would say, and the others were probably in high school. Still ... Nando kept looking at me, making me nervous.

"Let's go sit back there," I said.

"No, we have to sit here. Alfredo said."

I shoved Barb. "Well, I'm old enough not to have to sit by the teacher, like some total freak. I'm moving."

Just then Alfredo called over his shoulder, "So you know Señor Paul?" I watched him flash a bright smile in the wide rearview mirror, but I still didn't trust him, not one little bit.

Barb leaned forward in her seat and launched into a fifteen-minute explanation about the books Paul gave her about Mexico, about how his family always comes to our house for Thanksgiving and then for Fourth of July, and he has a girl about her age, but she doesn't even like treasure hunting. Blah. Blah. Blah. Alfredo talked about how Paul always visited
his
house after the New Year, and how his little sister loved to explore old ruins and wanted to be an archaeologist someday.

"Me too!" Barb practically shouted.

I considered jumping over the back of my seat, but the bus bounced so much that I'd end up falling into the aisle and looking like roadkill.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" Nando asked.

"I'm not." I scrunched low in my seat, pulling my knees to my chest, hoping that Nando with his combined score of 3.2 wouldn't try to talk to me again. I'm
so
not trying to look at him, but I can't look out the window the
entire
time. A few minutes later I risked glancing to the back of the bus and noticed that three of the girls had scrunched together. I could hear them talking in fake Spanish accents and bursting into giggles. It reminded me of the time Fiona's Five went to the mall and we spoke in English accents all afternoon. To the loo! Inside joke. If I concentrated really hard, maybe I could transport myself back home, where mini-camp was barely starting. Fiona's mom had probably bought Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

The bus clunked along a sandy road to an empty beach where palm trees grew at angles out of the sand and hammocks swung between them in the breeze. Barb's coconut sunscreen smelled good here.

"Okay, everyone," Alfredo said. "First relax, then kayak, then lunch. Okay?"

As we got off the bus, the other girls ignored me. Next to tall-for-her-age Barb, I'm sure I looked like another fourth-grader. I don't know why Mom won't take me to get tested for hormone deficiency or delayed puberty. I'm like the only one without breasts—here, at home, everywhere. Maybe being devoured by a shark (reason number 18) would be better than returning home a total loser. I scanned the horizon for fins and saw Barb splashing in the water with the blue-haired girl. I should have warned her about jellyfish.

Two of the girls stood next to each other making little motions with their hands.

"Jessie! You cheer?" the taller one asked.

"Yeah. I'm missing a ton of practice this week," Jessie said.

"Me too."

"We could totally practice together, C.C." Jessie made a big C motion with her arms, then switched to the other side. "C, C," she said.

"You're so funny." C.C. giggled.

Okay. Whatever.

The Bronze Sun Goddess shared a hammock with the two guys. She looked like she was my age, but just barely, and she
could
be a swimsuit model. The guys both had the right amount of muscles when they took off their shirts. The quiet girls walked along the beach picking up shells, and the two brothers threw pebbles into the water close to Barb and the blue-haired girl.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the smell of the warm salt air and listened to the waves roll onto the beach. Despite reasons number 1, 9, 18 through 21, 23, and 28, this really looked like a postcard of paradise.

Too soon, Alfredo gathered us together on the beach. "Okay," he said. "Who does sea kayak before?"

The brothers raised their hands.

"Try speaking a little English, why don't you," the blue-blonde said in a low voice, and the cheerleaders giggled.

Nando squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and muttered something.

Alfredo showed us how to paddle and pointed to a small red buoy out in the sea that marked the coral reef. While the guides dragged long, flat plastic sea kayaks onto the sand, we picked out snorkeling equipment. I stared into the water-filled barrels, the perfect breeding ground for thousands of germs. Everyone else grabbed a mask and snorkel and headed over to the kayaks as I peered at a chunk of something floating in the water—probably a huge germ colony complete with condos and multiplexes. The water even smelled bad. Not cleaning-solution bad, but horrible-vomiting-disease-like-Dad-had bad. I looked over at everyone climbing into the kayaks. Most of them held two people, but a few were singles. Nando shook his head at me, walked over, plucked a snorkel and mask out of the water, and handed it to me. The rubber felt slimy with bacteria.

"You ride with me." Alfredo motioned to Barb. "See the most fish."

Barb hopped up and down in her flippers like a little frog. "I'm so excited!"

Lucky I didn't have to ride with him! His accent did make him sound kind of dumb, but then again, with the hair and the smile, he was still at least an 8.5. The Sun Goddess and the Hunky Blond paddled off in a double kayak. I stood by a bright yellow one, struggling to slip the flippers onto my feet. The blue-blonde glanced around. I smiled at her, kind of like an invitation to join me, but she ignored me and climbed into the last double kayak, waiting for the other perfect 10.

"Everybody in," Alfredo said. "Let's go."

Alfredo swiftly turned his kayak and headed toward the buoy. As I sat down in my single kayak, the seat burned the backs of my legs and I could practically feel the skin cancer growing on my shoulders. I shoved off with the paddle, but the kayak stuck on the sand. As I climbed back out, my flipper got tangled in the paddle's safety rope, so I hopped on one foot, trying to get free as my kayak slipped into the water—with my leg in it. The blue-blonde laughed and pointed, so of course everyone had to turn and look. And that's when I fell. Face-down, gagging on salt water, possibly drowning, with my foot hanging in the boat and my butt flying in the air. What an embarrassing way to die.

I lifted my head out of the water right as a small wave hit me. I choked and coughed as the salt water burned my throat. Nando paddled back and helped me into the boat—actually touching my arm.

"You use fins for snorkeling, not paddling," he said, not in a nice tour guide way.

I grabbed the paddle from his hand. "I know that."

He raised one eyebrow as if he wasn't quite sure. "
¿Estás lista?
That means are you ready?"

"I know that too," I mumbled.

Nando shook his head as I shoved my paddle against the sand as hard as I could. But the kayak wouldn't budge. So he reached over and pushed me hard with his hand. As soon as I'd drifted a bit from the shore, I dipped my paddle into the water. My arms burned as I paddled as fast as I could, but my kayak kept turning in the wrong direction. I almost did a 360.

Nando laughed at me. And then he shouted directions in Spanish, but we didn't learn those words in Mrs. Ruiz's class. Tears pricked my eyes, which already stung with salt water.
Why am I doing this?
I wondered. Everyone else was out at the buoy, jumping into the water and snorkeling by the time I'd even started paddling. I didn't even want to swim around all those sharks and who knows what else. Tears welled in my eyes. I just wanted to be reading magazines and thinking about Zach B. At Fiona's house! I thought about how Fiona had spread rumors about Grace Williams's crush on Quinn Courtland—tust because she'd missed mini-camp. She wouldn't do that to me, would she? I slapped my paddle back into the water.

"You have to paddle on both sides." Nando floated back to me. "Right. Now left. Now strong on right."

"I know." I felt like a complete idiot.

"Doesn't look like it."

"I mean I know that
now.
" I paddled twice on my right side—just so he couldn't see my face, hot and itchy as if sunburned—and bumped into Nando's kayak.

"Whoa!" Nando nudged my kayak away with his paddle. "You paddle on one side, then the other side. Left. Right." He talked really slow, as if English were
my
second language!

"I think I've got it now," I said as we got closer to the buoy.

Nando shrugged and totally showed off by zipping ahead, tying up his kayak, and diving into the water—all before I reached the buoy.

After I finally tied my kayak to the others, I just sat there with the sun beating down on my shoulders and my already-hot-from-embarrassment face. My head kind of ached. Isn't that the first sign of heat stroke? Reason number 24. I watched the others bob around in the open ocean in groups of two or three, their snorkels sticking up in the air, reminding me way too much of sharks. The water seemed kind of choppy. One of the girls kept lifting her head out of the water to cough. I didn't want to choke on seawater again. My throat still kind of hurt from falling in before. But then the blue-blonde pointed me out to Barb.

"Jump in! It's amazing!" Barb called. "So many cute little fishies!"

I took a deep breath. I couldn't be the
only
one who didn't snorkel. Even old ladies go snorkeling. I'd bragged to Fiona about snorkeling. I had to do it.

I set the snorkel down by my feet; no way was I sticking that thing in my mouth.

And I jumped in.

The water felt nice and cool, but my mask was all foggy from hanging around my sweaty neck, so I could barely see anything. Plus, I had to keep popping my head out of the water to take a breath. Yikes! What just brushed my legs? I rinsed off my goggles, put them back on my face, and swam around near the kayaks. Dead coral lay scattered on the bottom like bones, kind of creeping me out and reminding me way too much of my social life. I swam toward a purple fan coral and watched a school of black angelfish float past, wondering if fish had social status. Like was the last fish in the group the loser fish? I spotted a huge coral that looked like a giant brain. If I
had
a brain, I'd be back on the beach, in the shade. A toothy-looking eel slipped into a rocky hole beneath me, so I quickly swam back to the surface. Near miss. Barb motioned to me about a school of blue and yellow fish, but I ignored her.

Alfredo shouted, "Back to the beach, everyone."

Finally!

Almost everyone was swimming near the kayaks, and the two brothers had started to paddle back. Alfredo boosted Barb up before lifting his lean, muscular body into the boat and heading to shore. I swam to my kayak, took off my mask and fins, set them on the seat, and reached over and pulled the paddle rope.
Smack.
The kayak flipped. My snorkel and fins drifted down to the bottom, right near the eel rock. Nando stared at me.

"I'd get them, but there's a big—"

Nando huffed, "
Turistas,
" flung his wet hair back from his face, and dove down to the bottom, flipping my kayak back over on his way up. He tossed my mask onto the seat, then swam to his kayak. I struggled to pull myself up. Nando just watched! After about eight tries I scrambled into the kayak, scraping my knee. Great. Blood attracts sharks. Balancing myself carefully to avoid falling back into the water as bloody shark bait, I started to paddle to shore, left then right, and bumped into the Sun Goddess.