Shipwreck (2 page)

He also said it about storing ropes and lines in a coiled position to keep them straight and ready to use, tying the sails down in a storm, and even cleaning up the sleeping quarters.

Captain Cascadden pointed ashore. “Oh, look, here’s Mr. Radford, bringing us two more crew members. It’s important to make the newcomers feel welcome.”

“And if you forget everything else,” Luke whispered to Will, “remember this one thing.”

Will covered up a snicker with some coughing.

The two new arrivals looked terrible, but a lot of that could have been the daylong flights. Charla Swann seemed to be about Luke’s age. She was tall and rail-thin and moved like a cat. There was a no-nonsense look to her. Her hair was plain, her clothes were simple. Her appearance was engineered for efficiency rather than show. Ian Sikorsky was at least a couple of years younger. The slight boy with sad eyes was already embroiled in a battle with Radford over his luggage. The mate had removed a sleek laptop computer with wireless modem, and Ian seemed ready to try to swim home rather than part with it.

Soon the captain got himself in the middle of it. “Crewman, Charting a New Course is about casting off your old life for a new and better one.”

“But what about the Internet?” the boy asked plaintively.

“We have our own Internet out here,” Cascadden assured him. “It’s called teamwork. A ship and her crew, coming together to form a web of comradeship and cooperation. What electronic gadget could give you that?”

Radford put it less poetically. “No computers, Archie. CNC rules. It goes home UPS — PDQ.”

Ian looked so miserable that he barely raised his head as he walked up the gangway onto the deck.

“Hey, Ian,” Luke said kindly, “when you see our room, you’ll be happy it had to go. We need all the space we can get.”

“Well, Mr. Radford,” Captain Cascadden said cheerfully, “that’s our whole load, then?”

“One more, skipper,” the mate replied.

The captain frowned. “Now, how could that be? There aren’t any more flights due in.”

“This isn’t your regular Archie,” said Radford. “This kid’s coming by private jet.”

Monday, July 10, 1805 hours

As soon as the door of theLearjet opened, J.J. Lane’s one-of-a-kind designer sunglasses fogged up with the oppressive blast of Guam humidity.

“Whoa! Aloha!” the fourteen-year-old chortled, handing the glasses over to his traveling companion, Dan Rapaport, for cleaning.

Rapaport was personal assistant to the world-famous movie star Jonathan Lane, JJ.‘s father. Lately, though, it seemed like his new job was as the keeper of J.J., who had turned into a real Hollywood brat.

“Aloha is what they say in Hawaii,” Rapaport told his charge. “I don’t know what they say here.”

J.J. shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” He hopped down to the tarmac. “Where’s my luggage?”

Rapaport permitted himself a secret smile as he handed over a small duffel bag.

“No, really,” J.J. insisted. “There’s half a dozen suitcases in the cargo hold.”

Rapaport shook his head. “We left those when we stopped in Honolulu.”

“On purpose?”

“CNC gave us a list, J.J., and it didn’t say anything about hang gliders.”

The movie star’s son folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not going.”

“Suit yourself,” said Rapaport. “But you’re not coming back with me. Have a nice month on Guam. And — oh, yeah — I canceled your credit cards.”

JJ.‘s reaction was equal parts shock and fury. “I’m calling Dad!” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed furiously. He listened for a moment, then threw the phone down to the pavement. “My service has been terminated.”

“You’re lucky. It’s midnight in L.A. right now. I doubt your father would be thrilled to hear from you.” Rapaport took a deep breath. “Listen, J.J., when you brought a case of champagne to the eighth-grade dance, I worked hard to keep it out of the papers. When you sold the video of your father’s pool party toEntertainment Tonight , I covered for you. When you did all that upscale shoplifting on Rodeo Drive, it was me who arranged for your father to make that donation to the Policeman’s Brotherhood Fund. But when you took your father’s Harley and drove it through the plate-glass window of that art gallery — that’s when it became time to get out of town for a while.”

“Out of town means Santa Barbara — maybe even Tahoe. Not Mars!”

“You’re a flake, J.J.,” said Rapaport, “but you’re not an idiot. Even you can see that these little happenings of yours are getting worse and worse. You’re going to kill somebody one of these days — maybe even yourself.”

The boy wrinkled his nose. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

A wide grin split Rapaport’s face. “Oh, yeah.” He noticed the CNC logo on the hat of the man striding across the tarmac toward them. “This must be Mr. Radford now.” He turned to the sailor and held out his hand. “I’m Dan Rapaport from Jonathan Lane’s office.”

Radford brushed right past him and took the duffel bag from J.J. “Okay, Richie Rich. We sail in an hour.”

Totally ignored, Rapaport withdrew his hand. For a brief instant, he looked like he wanted to rescue JJ. from his fate. Then he remembered the art gallery window and the Picasso with the tire treads on it. He got back in the Learjet and pulled the door shut behind him.

Tuesday, July 11, 0730 hours

“Heave/” bellowed Mr. Radford, untying the lines and pitching them onto thePhoenix .

Luke, Charla, and Lyssa stood on the edge of the deck, poles in hand, pushing against the dock to move the schooner away from its mooring.

“Put some back into it!” howled the mate.

Luke strained until he felt his spine was about to snap. Water opened up between dock and boat. Radford jumped on board. He cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Clear!”

In the cockpit, Captain Cascadden engaged the engine. ThePhoenix began to pick her way delicately out of the harbor.

Luke watched the multicolored sails of the other boats go by as the deck thrummed under his feet. Sure, he would have given his right arm to be almost anywhere else. But there was a certain majesty to gliding across the water — definitely a feeling you couldn’t get in Williston Juvenile Detention Facility. He could see that his fellow crew members felt it too — all except one.

“Captain, my father is a powerful man in Hoi-lywood,” said J.J. smoothly. “I know he’d make it worth your while if you put me on a plane back to the States.”

The captain’s eyes never wavered from the course he was steering. “This is the States, crewman.”

“You know — the real States. LA.”

“Coast Guard cutter off the starboard bow, three hundred yards!” warned Radford from his perch on the ratlines.

“Your father,” said the captain, “paid good money for you to be on this trip. I saw the check, crewman.”

“It’s a misunderstanding,” J.J. insisted. “He signed me up for the boat thing, just notthis boat thing. I mean, no offense, but you’ve got four people sleeping in a closet! And the bathroom is a phone booth! I can’t even — “

HONK!!

Will clamped himself onto a bulwark and held on until the earsplitting blast of the air horn died away. His racing heart slowed. What was he doing here? How had his life come to this — on the wrong side of the globe, setting sail on a wooden cracker box?

If ‘t get outofthis , he made a deal with the sky, I swearI’ll never cheat on anofhermath test .

The Phoenix didn’t put on the brakes and turn around. Instead, the schooner eased through the mouth of the harbor.

So he sweetened the pot. /swear I’ll floss from now on. Every nightl

Rough hands grabbed him by the collar. “Off your butt, Archie! This is a working ship!” Radford cupped his hands to his mouth. “Ready on the mainsail, Skipper!”

“Haul!” bellowed the captain.

Will and Charla began yanking away at the halyard, hand over hand. With a creak of the rigging, the mainsail began to rise.

Ahead of them, Luke and Ian were hauling up the foresail, their faces taut with concentration.

Closer to the bow, J.J. and Lyssa worked on the smaller staysail.

Didn’t it figure? They gave Lyssa the easy sail. It had been like that from the beginning. She was always the sweet little baby, while Will was the older one who should know better. People loved Lyssa. The good looks in the family were all hers; he got stuck with freckles. She was a straight-A student; he struggled.

“I should have been an only child,” he grunted through the strain of his effort.

Charla looked down at him like he was crazy — Lyssa’s fault as usual.

When the wind caught the half-open mainsail, its force pulled the halyard right out of Will’s hand, delivering a painful rope burn. Charla held on, but with the sail taut, the line was difficult to budge. Will clamped himself on again, and both leaned into it with all their might. Up went the sail, flapping full.

“You’ll earn your dinner tonight!” roared Radford. The mate had joined Luke and Ian. Soon the foresail was up.

Last came the jibs, two small sails extended from the head of the foremast to the bowsprit — the long thin spar that stretched forward from the bow.

The crew fell back, exhausted.

Will looked down at his hands, which were blistered and bleeding. You’d think they’d figure out a way to put up sails without taking off all your skin!

He caught sight of his sister. She was smiling!Smiling !

If this is over really fast, Will promised, / swear
‘
/get in shape! I’ll jog every day! I’ll lift weights! I’ll —

“Don’t get comfortable!” bawled Radford. “This is the mainsheet! It’s not a sheet off your bed; it’s a line. And these pulleys are called blocks. Watch what happens when I ease up on the mainsheet.”

Expertly, the mate undid the knot and gave the rope some slack. He turned to Luke. “Hey, Archie — “

Luke turned. “Yeah?”

A gust of wind took the sail and swung it out over their heads at right angles to the boat.

Bang! The block swept around and smacked Luke full in the face, knocking him off his feet.

Radford laughed out loud. “I was going to warn you, but never mind.”

When the foresail was aligned, Captain Cascadden cut power and let the schooner run with the wind. The crisp ocean breeze blew away the stifling Guam humidity in an instant.

“Now you’re sailing!” rumbled the captain behind the wheel. “There’s no feeling quite like it!”

Lyssa hopped up on the engine housing, threw her arms wide, and let her long hair whip in the wind. “Feel that breeze!”

“Where I come from,” Charla told her, “a wind like this would knock you right off the fire escape!”

Will burned. Lyssa was making friends here like she did everywhere. By the time this trip was over, she was going to be voted Miss Congeniality on this tub. This would be like a vacation for her while he suffered.

It was so unfair. If it wasn’t for Lyssa, they wouldn’t even be on this dumb trip! Sure, he got in her face a lot. She deserved it. Besides, when they were fighting, it was always Lyssa who went ballistic.

Involuntarily, his mind jumped to the incident that his parents had come to call The Last Straw. The argument started out small — two Halloween parties, who would get dropped off first, something like that. No big deal.

He remembered Mom in the background, screaming for them to calm down. And then the marble rolling pin from Lyssa’s chef’s costume was hurtling toward his face. He heard, rather than felt, his nose break. The blood poured like somebody had busted a hydrant. He couldn’t even recall fighting back. He must have, though. Because when he woke up in the hospital, Lyssa was in the next bed with a concussion. Both of them were so beaten up that the cops had to file a special report to rule out child abuse.

“Take my word for it,” the officer assured the Greenfield parents. “If you don’t do something about these two, they’re going to kill each other.”

And — just their luck! — the admitting nurse happened to have a third cousin whose juvenile delinquent son had been sent on a boat trip called Charting a New Course.

Tears stung Will’s eyes as Guam became smaller and smaller. Oh, great! Now he was going to be ship’s crybaby too!

He ran for the companionway to the main cabin, determined that no one should see him.

There he came face-to-face with Luke, who was holding a cold towel to his rapidly swelling eye.

“You’re my witness!” Luke seethed. “You saw that lousy Ratface! He did it on purpose!”

Will smiled, his first of the day. “Ratface Radford. Why didn’t I think of that? That’s funny.”

“No, it isn’t,” Luke raged. “It’s the least funny thing on a very unfunny trip!”

With a sigh, Will followed him back on deck. It was some small comfort that he wasn’t the only one who was miserable.

Lyssa was hanging around the captain, schmoozing him while he explained how the boat’s motor worked.

Will snorted in disgust. One science fair project on the internal combustion engine and Lyssa thought she was Jeff Gordon’s whole pit crew.

He looked back to the sky.If I get out of this —

But he wasn’t getting out of anything. Guam was barely a speck on the horizon. The best he could hope for was a sign. Something — anything — that hinted all this might turn out okay.

An odd look came over Lyssa’s face as she stood with the captain halfway down the engine hatch. With a strangled sound, she scrambled to the side, draped herself over the lifeline, and was thoroughly, violently sick.

Wednesday, July 12, 1100 hours

Lyssa hit the water first, a cannonball that sent a splash all the way back to Captain Cascadden in the cockpit.

“It’swarml” she shrieked, amazed.

Will was next, climbing carefully down the boat’s swim ladder. He submerged and bobbed like a cork. “Itis warm! It’s great!”

Luke jumped in and paddled around happily. It felt good to be cool and clean.

“Hey, Ian,” called Will. “Come get your feet wet.”

The younger boy averted his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Come on! You’ll love it!” Lyssa promised.

But Ian had disappeared down the companionway to the sleeping quarters.