Shipwreck

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Saturday, July 15, 2010 hours

For a heart-stopping moment, the bow of thePhoenix pointed straight up at the boiling black clouds of the storm. Then the wave broke in a cascade of spray, and the schooner was headed down, plummeting into the trough. Shakily, she righted herself and began the long climb up the next thirty-footer.

A streak of forked lightning silhouetted her against white water. She was two-masted, small for a schooner — her deck wasn’t much longer than the tallest of the waves. Her sails were down and secured, and she moved under engine power, steered gamely into the oncoming seas.

Suddenly — a flash of white. The mainsail began to rise. It was unthinkable!

No vessel could survive such a storm-carrying sail.

Pandemonium. Angry shouts from the deck. A desperate run for the halyard.

And then the brutal power of the storm filled the half-open sail with violent wind. The ship spun around and heeled over, its twin masts dipping dangerously close to the punishing swells. The next wave took thePhoenix broadside. A torrent washed over the deck.

There might have been a scream when the body hit the water. But the howling of the gale was all that could be heard

Sunday, July 9, 2140 hours

Luke Haggerty squeezed into the tiny bathroom and pulled the door shut behind him.

Not the bathroom, he reminded himself. Thehead . Luke knew he’d been sentenced to this boat for the next month. What he didn’t know was that it was going to be a never-ending vocabulary lesson. Not walls —bulkheads . Not beds —berths . The kitchen was agalley; a room was acabin . And who cared?

Sudden pounding on the door — was it still called a door?

“What are you doing in there?” growled the voice of Mr. Radford, thePhoenix’s first mate. “Writing an opera? Let’s go, Archie!”

Luke reached for his belt and bashed his elbow against the small sink. This bathroom —head — was a shoe box! “Ow!”

More pounding. “You okay, Archie?”

“My name is Luke.”

Even as he said it, he knew it was a waste of breath. All the way from the Guam airport to the marina, Radford had leaned on the horn and cursed out Archie the truck driver, Archie the cop,

Archie the pedestrian, Archie the cyclist, and even Archie the priest.

By pressing himself into the corner and resting his left hip against the sink, Luke managed to finish up in the head. He hesitated. The flusher was some kind of pump. Instructions were scribbled on a plastic-coated card tacked to the wall —bulkhead : OPEN VALVE, PUMP THREE TIMES, CLOSE VALVE, PUMP THREE TIMES, DUCK.

Duck? Why duck?

WhamlHe smacked his head on the low doorway on the way out.

“Watch your head,” grunted the mate, not at all better late than never. “Did you remember to close the valve?”

Luke nodded. “What’s the big deal?”

“The head flushes with seawater. Last thing you want to do on a boat is let the sea on board. That’s a one-way ticket to the bottom.”

Luke felt queasy. Ever since he’d learned he was coming here, his uneasy dreams had been a catalog of all the ways to die at sea — hurricanes, tidal waves, giant sharks, and collisions with supertankers, just to name a few. Now he had to add toilets to his list of things to worry about.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Where’s my cabin?”

Radford brayed a laugh. “You’re standing in it, Archie.”

“But this is just the — uh — ” His voice trailed off. He had been about to say, “The hallway outside the bathroom.” But in the dim light, he could make out four narrow bunk beds — bunk berths? — two on either end, and two mini-dressers — all built right into the bulkhead.

“These are your quarters.”

“Quarters?” repeated Luke. “As in a quarter of a room?”

“This ain’t a luxury liner.” Mr. Radford shrugged. “Archie, meet Archie. Lights out at 2200.” He heaved himself up the companionway out onto the deck.

Luke cast his eyes around. A tousled head of sandy hair poked out from one of the upper bunks. “What time is it?” Sleepy eyes peered down over rounded, heavily freckled cheeks.

“2145,” Luke replied. “I think that’s a quarter to twenty-two.”

The boy groaned and yawned at the same time. “My system is totally messed up. I was on planes for twenty-one hours to get here.”

“Tell me about it,” said Luke, beginning to fill a narrow drawer with the contents of his duffel bag. “Why Guam?”

“It’s supposed to be just us and the ocean,” replied the other boy. “No ports, no nothing. The brochure said we probably won’t even see another boat for the whole month.” He sounded mournful, like it was a death sentence.

Luke applied a hip-check to the overstuffed drawer. “Nobody showed me any brochure.”

“Really?” The boy was surprised. “How’d you end up here?”

The horrible movie replayed itself in Luke’s head as it had so many times before. The crack of the judge’s gavel; that single word:guilty; his mother’s tears. And later, in the judge’s chambers: “I’m reluctant to sentence a thirteen-year-old to Williston, especially on a first offense. There’s one other possibility. It’s a program called CNC — Charting a New Course

“

Luke cast his roommate a strange smile. “I’m a convicted felon.” He held out his hand. “Luke Haggerty.”

“Wow!” The boy’s eyes widened. “I’m only here because I fight with my sister. I’m Will,” he added, shaking hands. “Will Greenfield.”

“Fight with your sister?” Luke raised an eyebrow. “So your parents had to put an ocean between you?”

“Nah, she’s in the girls’ cabin next door. I guarantee you’ll hate her. I should have been an only child.”

Luke laughed shortly. “Iam an only child.

It doesn’t help. If you don’t have any brothers and sisters, your parents are on your case extra.”

The lights flashed once and winked out. Except for the dim glow from the porthole, the cabin was in total darkness.

“Well, I guess I’ve decided to go to sleep,” Luke said sarcastically. He established himself on the lower bed — bunk —berth ! — on the opposite side of the room. Uncomfortably, he curled up in the coolest spot he could find.

For a few minutes, the only sound that could be heard was the creaking of the mooring lines and the soft lapping of water against the hull. Then —

“What felony?” Will asked.

Luke laughed without humor. “Not murder, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

But even as he said it, the voice of the prosecutor was ringing in his ears: “Felony possession of a firearm.”

“Come on,” coaxed Will. “I told you whyI’m here. What was it? Breaking and entering? Vandalism? I know — assault!”

“That’ll be mynext felony,” yawned Luke, “if I ever get my hands on the kid who put that gun in my locker.”

Monday, July 10, 0820 hours

Captain James Cascadden had a rugged leathery face that looked like it had been rubbed against every coral reef in the seven seas. He was six-foot-five, so he had to duck through the tight hatches and companionways of the Phoe-n/x. But the movement was so natural, almost graceful, that Luke had the impression that the man had been born and lived his entire sixty-plus years on boats like this one.

Captain Cascadden hated long speeches, except when he was the person giving them. “None of you came to me because you want to learn the ways of the sea.” His voice was a deep bass with the rich tone of a bassoon. “Many of you are from troubled backgrounds, some including difficulties with the law.” A flash of penetrating eyes. “Aboard this ship, all that means nothing. The slate is clean. I don’t care about who you are now. All that matters is who youwill be — a crew. My crew. And together we will serve this vessel. Join me, and we’ll sail off to adventure.”

“Like I’ve got a choice,” Luke mumbled under his breath.

Mr. Radford was there to keep the audience in line. “Shut up, Archie! When the captain talks, only the captain is talking!”

The first “adventure” turned out to be swabbing the deck. Luke found himself mopping and fuming. Only three of the six crew members had arrived for the trip. How fair was it for half the people to do all the work?

He slaved alongside Will, listening to his bunk mate bicker with his sister, Lyssa.

“Why are you moppingthere ? I already did that part!”

“Yeah? That’s why it needs doing again!”

Luke smiled in spite of himself. Will and Lyssa were such opposites of each other that it almost made sense that they didn’t get along. He was husky; she was skinny. His face was round; hers was angular. His eyes seldom left the deck and the job at hand; she seemed bright and fascinated by everything that was going on around her. She watched the captain and Radford, and even Luke, with a friendly interest.

“I hear you’re a felon,” she said cheerfully.

Luke’s face flamed red. The Greenfields may have hated each other, but they obviously didn’t mind sharing a little gossip. “It’s a long story,” he muttered.

“We almost got a criminal record once.” she went on, “but our lawyer got the charges dropped when we promised not to do it again.”

“Hey!” Mr. Radford called from partway up the mast, where he was adjusting some rigging. “Less talk and more work, Archie! Same to you, Veronica!”

Well, that explained where the names came from. Mr. Radford was a reader of fine literature — comic books.

Luke turned back to where brother and sister were snapping at each other. This family was some piece of work. Real funny to joke about criminal records to a guy who had one that would never go away. Like you could get arrested for sibling squabbles, anyway. What kind of nut-job parents would send their kids halfway around the world just because they argue like every other brother and sister on the planet?

And then it happened. One second they were bickering. The next, Lyssa cocked back her mop and took a home-run swing at her brother’s head, missing by half an inch. It was that fast. Luke blinked and almost missed it.

In a split second, Radford was out of the rigging and poised between them. “If you two want to kill each other, don’t do it on my watch!”

And then they were back to their work as if nothing had happened.

Maniacs, thought Luke.I’m surrounded by maniacs .

The job of swabbing was short, if not sweet. For a sixty-foot boat, there was practically nowhere to stand on thePhoenix . The whole center of the vessel housed the system of sails and the masts, booms, lines, and rigging that supported it. The cockpit and main cabin top took up most of the aft space. The sleeping quarters dominated the forward part of the boat, with the galley and cargo hatch toward the middle —amidships . So all that was left to walk on was a thin path of deck ringing the schooner and a couple of very tight cut-throughs between the masts. Equipment was piled on every surface — poles, fenders, anchors, thePhoenix’s twelve-foot dinghy, and what seemed like enough rope to stretch across any ocean. In a way, it was brilliant, Luke thought. There was room for everything — everything except people. Surely even Williston provided more space for its inmates. An only child who had never even shared a bedroom, he could almost feel the squeeze in his gut. The idea of living on this floating sardine can made him shudder.

In addition to being the first mate and the warden, Mr. Radford was also ship’s cook. At lunch in the tiny galley, he proved that he could open a tin of baked beans as well as any of the great chefs of Europe.

While cooking was the mate’s job, cleaning up and washing dishes turned out to be just another part of the adventure. The galley was ventilated only by a small smoke-head on the cabin top. It seemed twice as hot as the rest of the boat — as the rest of Guam, for that matter. Luke and Will did the work in sweaty silence. Talking just didn’t seem to be worth the effort.

After lunch, Mr. Radford headed to the airport to meet a plane, and the three crew members were given a tour of the cockpit.

“Now, what’s the most important instrument here?” asked Captain Cascadden.

“The wheel?” suggested Will.

“Of course not,” snapped Lyssa testily. “How about the radio?”

“That’s downstairs in the navigation room, stop/a1!” Will snapped.

“Not ‘downstairs,’ ” the captain amended. “On shipboard we say ‘below.’ “

“How about the compass?” suggested Lyssa brightly. If her brother’s constant attacks bothered her, she didn’t show it.Probably , thought Luke, becauseshe didn’t have a mop inher hand .

“All those are important,” the captain agreed. “But,” his hand touched a small, ordinary-looking switch on the instrument panel, “this is more important than all of them. This is the blower switch. It turns on the fan that airs out the engine room. Never, ever start the engine of a boat without starting the blower first. Otherwise, fuel vapors that have built up there could explode when the engine ignites.” He stared at them with burning black eyes. “If you forget everything else you learn here, remember this one thing.”

That turned out to be a favorite line of Captain Cascadden’s. Like when he told the group that a boat does not respond immediately to a turn of the wheel. “It’s not like your bicycle that goes where you tell it when you tell it. An inexperienced helmsman will oversteer because he keeps on turning until he feels his ship change direction. If you forget everything else you learn here, remember this one thing.”