Knockdown (31 page)

“We could try that, I guess. Or we could just put up the sails and hope we don’t run into another storm and
need to take them down,” I suggested.

“Well, we can’t just float around out
here. We need a doctor.” Nick stared at Dylan.

Jervis
stepped out of the head. “I’ve been thinking. Angelina needs antibiotics, right? Last year we did an experiment in Mr. Wright’s class with molds. Did anyone else take his class?”

No one answered.

“Molds sometimes cured infections, but nobody knew why. Not until some modern guy discovered that certain mold spores secrete antibiotics. It isn’t actually the mold itself.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “That’s great
, Jervis. But we don’t have a lab and equipment.”

Takumi dumped pancake flour into a large bowl. “Or bread. Isn’t that what you need? We ate all the bread we brought on board.”

“Commercial bread wouldn’t work anyway. Mr. Wright said companies put mold inhibitors in the dough. Actually, citrus rinds do the job pretty well. Didn’t we bring some fresh lemons on board? What happened to them?” Jervis glanced around the cabin.

Takumi pulled back a cushion. In a bag, at the bottom of a storage well, sat a moldy bag of lemons. “I forgot all about these. We should have eaten them. I brought them so we wouldn’t get scurvy.”

Makala wrinkled her nose. I did the same.

Jervis
nodded. “Okay. Well, I’m not sure of the exact formula, but the teacher said if we scrape the mold off citrus rinds, put the goo in warm water, seal it up, and keep it around ninety-eight degrees for three days, we will have penicillin tea. We’d have to strain off the chunks of gunk, but the tea water should be full of penicillin. A few tablespoons a couple of times a day might make a big difference. I’d guess it tastes horrible. And you can’t make it sweet or anything, because then it ferments and changes.”

“Won’t the mold make her sick?” I
made a face.

Jervis
shrugged. “He said eating or drinking moldy water won’t hurt you. Breathing mold in isn’t good, but I guess we eat mold all the time. Blue cheese is penicillin mold. We eat that.”

Takumi added water to the
pancake mix and began stirring. “That’s great and all, but we don’t have enough gas to keep the stove on for three days.”

Jervis
smiled. “I thought about that too. Angelina is running a fever. That means her body is like a little oven. She could keep the tea warm.”

“
Jervis, if this works…” I grinned. “We should try it.”

“Hey, no promises.”

Nick shook his head. “What if she doesn’t have three days?”

Dylan struggled into
his still damp foul weather coat and pants. “We need to figure out where we are. Might as well get that medicine tea stuff going while we do. Hopefully, Angelina’s fever will break and she’ll get better on her own. But it’s good to have a back-up plan.”

The tea kettle whistled.
Takumi searched under the sink and found a mayonnaise jar full of sponges. He threw the sponges into a drawer, washed the jar with soap, rinsed it in boiling water, and then filled it up again.

“Okay. Now what?” He asked
Jervis.

Jervis
handed him a cutting board. Takumi sterilized it too.

“Are you
still making pancakes?” Makala’s lower lip quivered and she squinted at the moldy lemons. “I don’t want yucky pancakes.”

I smiled.
Takumi had been putting seaweed in everything.

“No
yucky pancakes. Got it.” Takumi pulled out the griddle.

Jervis
held the jar until the water began to cool, then scraped the mold and rind off six lemons into the jar. The mixture was truly gross. He tightened down the lid and took the jar in to Angelina.

Takumi squeezed the juice from the lemons and saved it
in a plastic bag. Then he cleaned up and made breakfast.

T
he pancakes were wonderful. The maple syrup was gone, so we ate the last of the raspberry jam.

Nick tried to coax Angelina into eating
, but came back with her plate untouched. Jervis scowled, but didn’t go in to check on her.

Takumi handed Nick a mug of hot water with a little chocolate in it. “Angelina needs to drink liquids more than she needs to eat.
See if she can get this down.”

Nick carried his breakfast and the hot
, chocolaty water back to the girls’ cabin. Zoë came out, fixed a plate, glared at me, and went back to her room.

Dylan looked daggers at me and said between bites, “We have to talk
.” He grabbed his coat and sighed. “I’m sure it’s a mess up there.” He put on his hat, gloves, took out the boards, and left.

I helped Makala with her coat and lifejacket and then put on mine. The jib was out and Dylan was untying
the main sail.

“Da
mn,” he said as he inspected the damage.

Makala
, Boots, and I moved out of the way. Dylan and I would have to have our talk later.

The
barbecue was completely on its side. Bricks and sand covered the cockpit area. Somehow the kayaks had stayed aboard and the dinghy was still tied to the boat.

T
he wood we’d left drying under the dodger was gone. I checked the storage. We had a small amount of dry wood left in the locker, but not much.

Gentle tidal swells rocked the boat. The air was cold, but there was no wind. It wasn’t nearly as miserable as it had been. Takumi and Nick began helping Dylan put up the jib. Boots wagged his tail, excited to explore the almost level boat.
Jervis let him run free, but I held Makala’s hand as they followed after him.

Finally the
main sail was raised. The light wind caught it and we were once again on our way south. Takumi, Jervis, Makala and Nick spent the rest of the morning re-building the fire-pit and searching for floating firewood.

I swept the sand into a large pile. Makala
made a sandcastle and cried when the guys needed the sand back. She was exhausted.

Takumi and Nick built a small fire.

“I want Sissy,” Makala wept into Jervis’ chest.

Dylan stood at the helm
. He adjusted the wheel and swiveled to face me. “I can’t believe you told Zoë you thought she was keeping medicine from Angelina.”

Takumi, Nick, and
Jervis stopped what they were doing and stared wide-eyed at me.

“Toni?” Takumi tipped his head.

“You owe Zoë a big apology,” Dylan told me.

“
Really! It’s not like I read her diary or anything.” I shrugged. “I looked through a bag of meds she found. Big deal. What about her? She took over Mom’s room. Do you know what Mom stowed in her dresser or closet? Jewelry? Photos? I don’t.”

I started to storm away, but stopped. “
It’s not fair. Nobody else has private spaces. Angelina needs antibiotics. Zoe has bags of drugs. I was just checking.”

Dylan
’s eyes were angry slits. “You hurt her. She spent forever searching to find something in her first aid book that would help Cole and now Angelina. She didn’t sleep for two days, keeping an eye on Cole, making sure he didn’t go into a coma.”

“What do you want me to do?” I gritted my teeth.

“I don’t know.
But she says she’s going to take off as soon as we get to land and I can’t let her go by herself.” Dylan gripped the wheel.

I shook my head. “She’s threatened to do that since she got on board. Remember the sailors?” I started toward the steps to the cabin,
but then paused. “Like Cole said, you have to do what you have to do. I can’t bear the thought of losing you, too. But I won’t have Zoë threatening to leave every time she gets mad or doesn’t get her way.”

Cold, One Day Late

I was so angry. I needed to be alone, but there was no place to go. The bed I now shared with Takumi was in the middle of the main cabin. I thought about locking myself in the bathroom again but since we started using a bucket in the toilet instead of flushing, the bathroom was really stinky.

I
grabbed a book, climbed into bed with Angelina, and hoped she’d be asleep.

“Toni, is something wrong?” Her teeth chattered.

“Yes. You’re burning up.” I left and came back with the Tylenol. She managed the pills and a few sips of water, then listened to my story. As I told it, I went from feeling bad, to angry, and finally to feeling sorry for myself.

Angelina was quiet for a long while. I thought she’d gone to sleep.

“You have to do something to earn Zoë’s respect,” she whispered in a weak voice. “Zoë’s not a bad person. She just has always gotten her way.”

“
I don’t care if she respects me or not.”

“
I know. You and she may never be friends, but if she respects you, she will back off.”

“Do you think she’ll take off
with Dylan?”

“I think she
needs to test Dylan once in a while and make him choose her over you.”

“
But Dylan’s my brother. That doesn’t make sense.”

Angelina’s shivering seemed to lessen and she closed her eyes.
“Every woman Dylan cares about, Zoë sees as a threat. But her biggest problem is she still thinks she can go back to her old life.”

I la
y there and thought. Angelina was the first to actually say what all of us feared. That we couldn’t go back.

If Dylan loved her, I would try to get along
with her, for his sake. But it wasn’t going to be easy. I opened a novel I’d found and for an hour escaped life on the boat.

L
ater that day, I poured a bucket of snow into a large pot and placed it on the barbecue.

Takumi joined me by the fire. “Toni, what happened with you and
Zoë?”

“
Angelina was burning up. I was scared. Zoë has a pillow case of medicine stashed. I went through the bag looking for antibiotics.”

Takumi seemed
puzzled.

“
I didn’t touch anything personal of hers.”

He
kissed my cheek and walked away.

Nick came up the stairs with the chart book. “Where do you figure we are?”
He stared at Dylan and me. “We have to get Angelina to a hospital.”

Dylan handed me the wheel and opened the chart book.

“I’ve been playing with the numbers. We had seven good sailing days. If we averaged six knots an hour for twenty-four hours a day, we should have traveled over a thousand miles. Of course, we don’t know how far, or in what direction the wind and tide took us during the storm.”

I didn’t know about the others, but I was impressed. A thousand miles of water was a long way.
I headed a little into the wind to level off the boat. Dylan went below and came back with a book. Takumi followed him.

Dylan held the book up for me to see. It was
entitled,
The Channel Islands
.

“I found this on that
yacht in Grays Harbor.” Dylan flipped open the book. “This is the island Dad mentioned we should sail to. It’s called Santa Cruz. It’s one of the Channel Islands.” He pointed to a picture in the book. I strained to see it, but the book was too far away. “It’s near Santa Barbara. The whole island is a national park and protected habitat.”

“How come I’ve never heard of it
?” Nick squinted at a photo in the book.

“Like I said, most of the island is protected. Visitors need a permit and then a guide. The beaches are beautiful, or at least they were. They’re probably mud now.” Dylan frowned.

“But cities have doctors,” Nick said.

“
And diseases and crime. Dad said we need to stay away from areas where there are lots of people. This island is twenty miles from the mainland. Twenty miles is a lot of water for people to cross. Since there are almost no buildings, there won’t be as much wreckage, at least not inland.”

Nick shook his head.

“The best part is that it has fresh water.” Dylan passed the book around. “It sounds like a perfect place to stay until cell service is up and going. Maybe even until the weather warms up.”

Takumi opened the chart book
. “I’ll see if I can find it on any of the charts.”

Nick scowled
and grabbed the book. “There’s not going to be any help for Angelina on a remote island. That’s great that you get to meet up with your family and all. But what about us? Why would we go there? The rest of us need the mainland. We need a doctor for Angelina. We need to find our families.”

Dylan’s jaw tightened. He ignored Nick for a moment,
and then pointed. “The coastline along here is all cliffs. We have to keep heading south until we see something that gives us a clue to where we are. But, right now, all I can do is guess.”