Shipwreck Island (7 page)

Yvonna yelled, “You can't go up there!”

John stopped, took a deep breath, and then faced her. “What if he needs help?”

Sarah stood up, wobbling with the sway of the boat, and then dug her hands gently into Ahab's fur. He led her to the galley. “Dad! Don't go.”

“I have to see if there's something I can do to help save…” Then he pushed on the door to the deck. He twisted back around. “Marco, can you help? It's jammed.”

Marco climbed the few steps to the hatch and stood beside him. Together, they pushed and managed to open it a bit before it slammed shut. John said, “The wind is too strong! We have to try again.”

Suddenly, there was a loud
CRACK
and something slammed hard above them, causing the boat to shudder momentarily.

“Dad!”

Ahab was on his feet, barking at the hatch, trying to get past John, who glanced back at Sarah, before shoving his body into the door. “We've got to get this open!”

Marco stood beside him and they managed to get the door open. John slid through and was gone, Ahab at his heels, a burst of seawater pouring in where they stood as the door slammed shut.

I have to see if there's something I can do to save …

Sarah hadn't heard the end of his sentence. But she could imagine what he said, and she filled in the last few words.…
the boat. Us.

They were in just as much trouble as she suspected they were.

She squeezed her eyes shut and hoped that somehow, someway, her dad and the skipper would save them all.

 

12

Dripping wet and out of breath, Marco leaned against the closed hatch. How could John go back out there? The wind, the rain, the weather conditions in general … Marco had been so glad to get back inside, even though, with the careening motion of the boat, he wasn't sure how safe being inside actually was.

And what was that crash they heard?

He swung his flashlight back down into the cabin. His mom's face was pale, and her eyes were shut as her lips moved silently, praying, he supposed. She had an arm tightly around Nacho's shoulder, his face hidden, buried in her chest, while Sarah sank down to the floor at the bottom of the stairs and cried.

Marco felt a little like crying himself. He was scared, more afraid than he'd ever been. The unknown: that was the thing that made his heart pound; the unpredictable nature of … well … nature.

And the helplessness. That frightened him too. No matter how skilled or experienced or talented Captain Norm was at sailing, it was possible the storm would win; take the boat down. And with it, all of them.

He needed to help.

Marco shoved his shoulder into the hatch, braced his legs, and pushed.

“Marco!” his mom yelled. “What are you doing?”

He didn't answer. Instead he focused on the door and managed to crack it open enough to jam his foot in the door. He shoved his way through, and the wind slammed the hatch behind him.

Rain and seawater pelted him in the face, forcing him to squint against the deluge. Suddenly, hands gripped him. John's face was in his. “What are you doing?” he shouted. “You need to go back down!”

With the back of his free hand, Marco swiped the water out of his eyes and peered behind John. The cracked mast had fallen sideways and lay across the deck. Ahab was there by the mast, perched over something.

Something? Or …

Marco couldn't breathe and his eyes widened.

Ahab was licking his master's face. Captain Norm lay on the deck, motionless.

Marco's mouth fell open.

John grabbed him by the shoulders. The storm was so loud he had to shout into Marco's face to even be heard. “Norm is gone! I have to try and call for help.”

“Didn't he already do that?” yelled Marco, choking on the water that blasted into his mouth whenever he opened it.

John didn't answer. He grabbed on to the fallen mast for balance and made his way over to Ahab. He took hold of the dog's collar and dragged him back to Marco. “Get him below!”

Marco gripped him, but Ahab was determined to go back to Norm. The deck was glutted with water, and Marco's feet slipped out from under him, but he held on to the dog's collar. Ahab tried to drag him back over to the skipper, but John got behind the dog and pushed. Marco got to his knees, and they managed to pull open the door and get the dog inside before the hatch blew shut again. Marco stood outside, a fierce roaring in his ears as the storm beat at him.

“Marco!” yelled John.

Marco faced his stepdad.

John said, “Don't tell them! About the skipper. Not yet! Okay?”

Marco nodded. They pulled the hatch open and Marco slipped inside. Sarah knelt beside Ahab, wiping him with a kitchen towel. His mom grabbed Marco's arm, her eyes darting all over his face. “Are you okay?”

He had barely nodded when she added, “Don't do that again!”

Nacho told him, “I thought you weren't coming back!”

Marco set a hand on Nacho's head. “Sorry. Can't get rid of me that easy.”

A few minutes later, the hatch slammed and Marco jumped as Nacho cried out and both his mom and Sarah shrieked.

John nearly fell back down the stairs, soaked to the bone, his eyes wide. “He's gone.”

“Who?” asked Sarah.

John was panting, and had to stop and breathe before speaking again. “The skipper. Norm.” He shook his head, and droplets of water flew from his hair. “He's gone.”

Marco was confused.

John had told him to wait, and now he was telling them? Before he could open his mouth, his stepfather looked at him. “I mean he is
gone
, as in not on the boat anymore.”

Marco felt his stomach drop and Sarah gasped.

Nacho looked up, his eyes red from crying. “Where? Where did he go?!”

Sarah cried, “He can't just leave us!”

“He wouldn't just leave us, sweetheart,” said John.

“Are you sure?” Yvonna asked. “How can he be gone?”

“I'm not sure.” John slumped down on the floor. “I went to use the distress call, but I couldn't get it to work, and then … he was gone.” He put a hand to his forehead.

Yvonna said, “We need to look for him! He could be hurt—”

Marco said, “It's terrible out there.”

As if to emphasize his point, the boat tilted horrendously to one side and paused there, causing Marco's heart to stop, before the craft finally righted itself, only to tilt to the other side.

“Dad, what do we do?” Sarah's voice was small and shaky, and John held out his arms to her. She crawled over to him, Ahab at her heels, and he embraced her as he looked at the others.

John cleared his throat. “We're not going to go looking for the captain.”

Yvonna started to say something, but John's expression made her stop. He said, “He was … he was already gone when we went up there. I mean—”

“Dead?” asked Nacho. His voice was shaky.

Marco put a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah. We think it was the mast.”

His mom's forehead wrinkled. “The mast? What's wrong with the mast?”

Marco exchanged a glance with his stepfather, who nodded and said, “The sound we heard was the mast falling. It's broken.”

As Nacho ran to their mom, Sarah shoved her face into Ahab's fur.

Marco remembered the headset. “We can call for help!” He shined the flashlight at the electronics panel he'd found earlier.

John made his way over and sat down in the chair. He put on the headset and starting pushing buttons. “SOS! SOS!” He paused. “Hello! SOS! SOS!” He kept flipping switches, shouting, “SOS!” now and then. After a few minutes, he took off the headset and put it on the table. He shook his head. “I don't think it worked.”

Sarah asked, “What do we do?”

“We have to ride it out,” John said. “That's all we can do.” He swallowed. “We have no choice.”

Marco made his way over to his mom, who put her other arm around his shoulder and squeezed. Marco had questions.

He wanted to ask,
What if the boat starts leaking?

What if the boat capsizes?

What if—

But then he realized he already knew the answer.

Worst case?

They would go down with the boat.

Best case?

They would all be adrift in the ocean during a storm.

Either way, the chances of surviving …

Marco leaned his head on his mother, scrunched his eyes shut, and pretended she had never met John; they were still back in Texas, and had never even left home.

 

13

All night long they huddled in the cabin as the furious sea tossed
Moonflight
about, sometimes so violently that Sarah held her breath, thinking they were done for. She couldn't sleep, not with her heart pounding and the rest of her body a trembling knot as she braced herself for each dip and sway of the boat. At least she was over her seasickness.

Yvonna, however, had crawled into the small bathroom earlier and was vomiting for a while. Sarah knew how she felt and couldn't help but muster a little sympathy for her.

Ahab stayed by Sarah. He whined now and then, but he made no move to try to escape the boat, which seemed to help calm Sarah. The dog seemed to know things, and if he was content to stay on board the boat, then maybe … well, she hoped anyway, that it meant they would be okay.

Finally, she gave up and laid her head down in her dad's lap. She knew she'd never fall asleep, so she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to pretend she was in her room back in California. She lay there for hours, hoping they'd make it out alive.

And then she woke up on her side by herself, and there was … nothing.

Well, not nothing in the sense of absolute silence, but nothing in the sense of no rushing, howling wind, or beating rain and waves. There was no movement. She heard a trickle of water that seemed to come and go.

Was it over?

She sat up in the dim cabin, lit only by the lantern, whose battery-powered glow was fading by the minute. Her dad leaned back against the wall, his mouth hanging open as he quietly snored, Yvonna's head on his lap. The boys were on their sides on the floor, both of them still asleep.

Sarah stood, but couldn't stay upright. The boat was tilted to one side.

And the boat was still. Not moving.

She quickly undid the straps of her smelly life jacket and tossed it as far away as she could. “Ugh.”

And then she realized what was missing.
Who
was missing.

“Ahab?” Her voice was a whisper, but should have been loud enough for the dog to hear if he was on board the boat. She walked through the galley and over to the stairs. She looked up at daylight through the open hatch, then began to climb.

She'd been wrong. The hatch wasn't simply open, it was gone entirely, ripped off the hinges by the fury of the storm. Sarah stepped on deck and was immediately warmed by the sun. The sky was blue, not a cloud to be seen. She froze.

The main mast was gone. All that remained was the bottom third, shards of wood where the rest of it had been broken off.

The deck was clear; everything that had been there the last time she'd been on top was gone, swept overboard. “Ahab?”

She stepped to the side of the boat that was tipped up, grabbed on to the side rail, and looked over. She gasped.

Only a few hundred yards away lay an
island.

Moonflight
had come to rest in a picturesque turquoise cove with a pristine white sand beach and thick, luscious palm trees. Her gaze went upward. Far beyond the initial line of trees, a green-topped mountain rose high above the rest. The place looked like a painting, far too beautiful to be real.

Sarah gulped. Had they made it? Was this where they had been heading all along?

She heard a bark. “Ahab?”

The dog appeared between two palm trees and ran down onto the beach. As gentle waves lapped at his paws, he sat there, barking at Sarah. Then whining. Then barking again.

“What is he doing?”

The sailboat shuddered, and Sarah looked down.

They had sideswiped a rock, which had impaled the hull, rendering the boat immobile. But Sarah saw water seeping in and out of the edges of the hole. Was Ahab trying to tell her that they needed to get off? He had been right about the storm, that was for sure.

Sarah stuck her head through the doorway and yelled, “Get up!”
Moonflight
shuddered again. “Now!” she screamed.

Her dad's face appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “We've stopped?”

Sarah nodded. “There's an island. But we ran into a rock and I think the boat is going to sink.”

John came up beside her and froze when he saw the island. “It's so beautiful.”

“Dad!” Sarah grabbed his arm. “The boat!”

John appraised the situation. “The keel must be touching the bottom, or some other rocks. That's why we're leaning. We seem to be pretty solid, but that could change with the tide. We probably shouldn't waste time in getting off.” He disappeared and Sarah heard him calling to the others. Then he called up to her. “We need to grab all the supplies we can. Is the dinghy still there?”

“No! Yes! I don't know!” She threw her hands in the air. “What's a dinghy?”

Her dad took a deep breath, like he needed extra patience or something. “It's a small boat. Like a lifeboat. It was on the stern—the back—of the boat.”

Sarah made her way to the stern and looked over. A small white boat, which looked barely big enough for a couple of people, was attached by a rope. “Yeah!” she yelled. “I see it.” She didn't add any details, like the fact that the dinghy was upside down in the water; her dad could find out that bad news on his own.

John joined her on deck, and set down a basket full of cans and boxes. He looked over the side and sighed. “I'm going down there. I hope it still floats.”