Sharks & Boys (9 page)

My
body shivers and I can’t make it stop. It’s kicked into survival mode. I know from a weekend survival class for an overnight snow trip that I took my freshman year that when a body drops below its core temperature, it will shiver in an attempt to warm itself again. The average body, if it’s healthy, runs a temperature of 98.6 degrees. Our class instructor was a retired firefighter named Mr. Husky. I can hear his exact words.

If your temperature drops to ninety to ninety-five degrees, it’s considered mildly hypothermic. Dropping to eighty-six to ninety degrees is moderately hypothermic. Less than eighty-six degrees is severely hypothermic. It’s potentially fatal. Wet conditions are the most dangerous. Get to a dry place immediately and remove wet clothes.
Now I almost laugh at that suggestion. I don’t imagine that stripping down to a totally nude state will improve our cause. Instead of a wilderness survival class, I wish I had signed up for ocean safety.

Sov and Munny have just finished yelling for Burr. It’s my turn. “Burr! Burr!” I don’t recognize my voice. It’s the most desperate sound I’ve ever heard. “Burr!” I won’t stop screaming because I know he’s out there. I yell his name over and over. Nothing happens. I hear Sov and Munny yelling again. My voice grows so thin, I stop. After a few more tries, they stop.

I am so close to Sov and Munny I can hear their teeth chattering. They are the thinnest of all of us. They lack muscle and precious body fat. I’m the next thinnest. I think of all the cake and pies and cookies and marzipan I never ate. I wish I had devoured them. Being a size six here is of no use to me. I wish I weighed twenty pounds more. I wish my thighs were more squatty. In addition to being warmer, I’d also be more buoyant.

“I can’t scream anymore,” I tell Landon.

“It’s okay,” he says. He screams a few times, but stops.

“We’ll drift together?” I ask. “Right? Once the storm dies down we can find him then?”

Landon looks surprised by my question. “I don’t know where he’ll end up.”

When is Landon going to learn that sometimes in life it’s better to lie?

“I’m so cold,” I tell him. He nods. It’s not just the water, it’s the wind. I think about telling him that, but I’m so cold that it’s actually difficult for my mouth to form words. We’ve been in the water less than an hour. I need to stop complaining, because there is nothing anyone can do.

I turn around and look at Sov and Munny.

“Have you decided to stop yelling for Burr?” I ask. I sound like I’m accusing them of something. I’m not.

“We’ll try again later,” Munny says.

I don’t like hearing this, but I don’t start screaming again either.

We’ve arranged ourselves around the raft so that we make a balanced circle. I can’t see Wick, Dale, or Skate. They’re all on the other side. I get ready to turn back around and face Landon again, when I feel a warm patch of water float past me. It feels good. I wish there was more of it.

“I’m sorry,” Sov yells.

I don’t understand what he’s apologizing for.

“I peed,” he says. He looks right at me, mildly ashamed. “Fact of life.”

That warm water was urine? Great. I can’t believe that I think this, but I actually wish it would happen again. The ocean is robbing my body of heat. As I kick and struggle to stay afloat, my body tries to warm itself, but the sea won’t let it.

At one point, a large wave comes and knocks me under the raft. I panic. I think that I’m going to drown. Then I realize that beneath the raft is a pocket of calm air. There’s no light. It has an eerie and cavelike feel, but it’s completely out of the storm. Landon pops his head in to make sure that I’m all right.

“We should come under the raft,” I say. I don’t have to yell to be heard. Within these plastic walls, there’s no wind. “We should get out of the wind.”

“Good idea,” he says.

I exit the shelter and pull myself back into the storm. I need to convince Sov and Munny to go under the raft. They understand exactly what I’m saying, and they lower themselves enough to slip under the raft’s side. Landon has gone to the other side of the raft to explain this idea to the rest of the guys. Even though I want the calm, it’s hard for me to go. Because then I’m not going to be able to look for Burr. I’ll have to admit that he’s really gone.

I shout one last time for him.

“Burr,” I scream. “Are you out there?”

Again I look into the rolling and crashing waves. I don’t see Burr, but I think I hear him. He’s howling. Nobody else is around. I need to tell someone. Then I worry that I may be wrong. In the weekend survival course, Mr. Husky also said that as hypothermia sets in, the mind starts to unwind. Slowly, you go crazy and you don’t even realize it. What does it matter? I need to try. I don’t want to be the kind of person who’s only concerned with saving herself.

I’m a strong swimmer. I should try to look for him. Wouldn’t I want somebody to look for me? Just as I’m about to go under the raft, I push out into the darkness, instead. It feels like I’m swimming into an abyss. I kick further into the black water. After a few strokes I stop. “Burr! Burr!” I think of what my mother said.
“They’re like our own family.”
I scream for him again. I yell so loudly that it feels like my throat and lungs could burst. I stop. I spit out seawater. I want to find him. But the waves are too big. I can’t do this. I turn to swim back.

Skate is swimming toward me. This makes no sense. He’s hurt. He should have stayed with the raft. “Go back!” I yell.

He looks at me the same way Landon looked at me.

Skate is scared to his soul. He even asks the same question.

“Am I dead?”

I shake my head. It’s the second time tonight I’ve been mistaken for some sort of grim reaper.

“I was on the boat, too, remember?” I explain. “I was in the bathroom.”

He looks confused. That’s when I begin to understand what’s really happening. My mind is mixing things up. This is Burr! I try to explain things better.

“I came to talk to Wick,” I say. “The raft is this way!”

“Thank God,” he says.

He swims after me, and I hope I’m not wrong. What if I’m turned around? What if they drifted away?

I wasn’t wrong. I see the raft, but because everybody is under it, it looks abandoned.

Burr grabs on to the side of it.

“Are you okay?” I ask. Which, as soon as I say it, seems like a stupid question. None of us is
okay
.

“My head hurts, but I’m fine,” he yells. “I can’t believe I found you.”

I don’t let this pass. “I found you!” It matters to me that he understands that this wasn’t a coincidence. I want him to know that I was risking my life out there.

I can smell the beer on his breath, but I don’t think that he’s totally drunk.

“We’re all here,” I say.

He looks at me in disbelief. I guess that makes sense, because he can’t see anybody but me.

“Where’s Skate?” he asks.

“We’re under the raft.”

I try to show him with my hand that we need to dive under the side. He nods. When both of our heads resurface in the calm pocket, I say, “I found Burr!”

“Burr!” Skate says. I feel Burr swim away from me toward the other end of the raft. Inside this pocket it’s impossible to see anything.

“Are you okay?” Burr asks.

“Yeah,” Skate says. “You?”

“I’m good.”

Everyone is speaking. We’re in an echo chamber. I focus on keeping my head at a perfect level so that I don’t swallow any more water. We take turns saying things like, “We are so lucky.” Things now feel like they’re going to turn out okay. I mean, isn’t that how some disasters end? Everybody walks away from the ordeal with wounds that will eventually heal? And then we write gut-wrenching, inspirational books about it? While at the same time we pursue amazingly demanding professions? And we’re so thrilled with our jobs and our families and our lives that we eagerly wake up every day and kiss everybody we love on the forehead? It feels like an option. At this point, a happy ending seems totally within our reach.

“How are you feeling?” Landon asks.

“Are you asking me?” I say.

“Skate,” Landon says.

“I’m okay,” Skate say.

But I know that’s not the truth. Burr should know. Somebody should tell Burr that Skate hurt his head. I’d want to know if Landon was injured. We shouldn’t be lying to each other about our physical conditions. There are rules to lying. It’s okay to lie to make people feel better. But you should never lie if it endangers somebody’s life. We should be totally honest. We need to depend on each other. I decide I should tell Burr.

“Skate isn’t okay,” I say. “He hit his head.”

“I’m fine,” Skate says. “We don’t need drama, Enid.”

I can’t believe he said that. I kick to stay afloat and unleash more truth.

“He fell coming down the stairs. He slipped. He hurt his head. And he hit the side of the boat jumping off. He’s injured.”

“Is it bad?” Burr asks.

“It’s not bad,” Skate says. “Drop it.”

“He’s good,” Wick says.

Wick shouldn’t say that. He doesn’t know for sure.

Large waves continue to lift up the raft and set her back down. We manage to stay beneath her, treading water. It feels like it’s getting darker, even though that’s not possible.

“Do you think we’ll get rescued tonight?” Munny asks.

“Dude, nobody knows we’re out here,” Dale says.

“That’s not true,” Munny says. “Burr called the Coast Guard. They know our ship sank. They’re going to come and save us.”

I think back to the breaking window. I don’t remember Burr ever coming down those stairs.

“You called the Coast Guard?” I ask.

“I did,” Burr says. “I gave them our position too. Once the wind dies down, they’ll come for us. First with a copter, then I bet they send a cutter.”

There is a happy slapping sound. I imagine that it’s Landon slapping Burr on the back.

“Good job, man,” Landon says. “You’re one helluva captain.”

We continue to bob. I can feel the presence of the bodies next to me. Even though they are frightened and cold, they seem to be giving off hope. I don’t voice my doubt. I too want to believe that the Coast Guard will be coming for us.

I don’t
know how long we’ve been under the raft. It’s beginning to feel like a rubber cage. And eight animals, let alone teenagers, should never be forced to live indefinitely in a rubber cage together.

“The air is too thick in here,” Wick says. “We need more oxygen.”

He’s right. The air beneath the raft is stale, and it’s difficult to breathe.

“Let’s lift up the raft,” Dale says.

“It’ll blow away,” Landon says.

“We’ve got to do something,” Wick says.

“I say we lift it up,” Burr offers.

“That’s a bad idea,” Landon says. His voice is loud and certain.

I feel like I should agree with Landon, not only because he’s my brother, but because he’s historically proven himself to be a reasonable person under duress. “I agree with Landon,” I say.

“No. We need to lift it,” Dale says. “We could die under here.”

Nobody wants to die. Nobody wants to hear anybody talking that way.

“We should try it,” Wick says.

“I agree,” Burr says.

“Yeah,” Munny says.

Landon loses out, even with my vote. The guys decide to lift up the right side of the raft. As soon as they do, a gust of wind catches it, and just as Landon warned, flings it out of our grasp. The rubber cage flies across the water. A gust of wind hits my face. As I try to tread water, I instantly am overtaken with feelings of panic and despair.

“Shit,” Burr yells.

Burr, Landon, and Wick all start swimming after the flyaway raft. The wind continues to beat against my face. I reach out to Sov and Munny so that we don’t drift apart. Waves march over us.

“Dude, it’s gone,” Dale says.

“No it’s not,” I say, spitting out water. “You’re not even trying.”

“Neither are you,” he says.

I know he’s right, and I shut my mouth. But I’m too tired to swim after it. Sov puts his hand on my shoulder.

“It’s okay, Enid,” he says. “Do you want to borrow the life jacket?”

“No,” I say. “You keep it.”

The yellow-and-black jacket is almost too big for Sov. His head could actually fit through one of the armholes. But I think he’s wearing it correctly. It’s so sweet of Sov to offer it to me. Without it, who knows if he and Munny stand a chance.

I turn and look at Skate, who’s able to tread water. He’s quiet and not acting like himself. I’m not sure when it happened, but the bandage has slipped off, and I don’t see it anywhere. It’s too dark to see the wound. After he fell, I was so busy trying to fix the gash that I didn’t think about how bad it was. But the cut was so deep, I could see his skull.

When Landon finally reaches the raft, they are close enough that I think I can see that the raft is upside down again. Wick and Burr reach it too, and the three of them begin swimming back to us. When they get here, we all slip under it again, glad to be sheltered from the wind. Living in a rubber cage does have its advantages.

“We all shouldn’t come in at the same time,” Dale says. “We should take turns. The air will turn to crap again.”

“We’re not sending anyone out into the storm,” Landon says.

I’m not used to seeing him be so assertive. But I’m relieved, because I think that he’s absolutely right.

“We need good air or we’ll suffocate,” Dale says. “We’ll die.”

The word
die
hangs in the air. Dale really needs to quit saying that word.

“I have an idea,” Munny says. “Next time the air gets thick, we can lift up the raft on the side that isn’t opposite the wind. If we do it carefully, just a little, the raft won’t blow away.”

His suggestion is followed by silence.

“Good idea,” Skate says.

These are the first words that Skate has spoken in a very long time.

“I think that will work,” Burr adds.

“If we’re careful,” Landon says.

“I don’t think that will work,” Dale says. “We need to take turns. What if one of us suffocates? It’s so dark under here, we wouldn’t even know anybody had died.” His voice is thunderous beneath the raft.

There’s a splash. Then another. Wick has grabbed Dale by his shirt and shoved him. Wick pulls Dale close to his face.

“Stop saying we’re gonna die,” Wick says. “I mean it.”

Dale pushes Wick away.

“Don’t fight,” I say. “I think it uses more oxygen.”

“We should take turns. Pick numbers,” Dale says. “There isn’t enough oxygen under here for eight people.”

“We’re not picking numbers,” Landon says. He’s moved closer to Wick and Dale. “Stay over here, Enid.”

I feel like Dale’s comment was directed at me. Because I wasn’t supposed to be here. I am taking up oxygen. “You’re making me feel guilty for being alive,” I say.

“We need more air,” Dale says.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. My whole body tightens. Then I realize it’s Burr.

“Enid, don’t feel guilty. God, you helped me find you guys. Without you, I never would have spotted you or the raft.”

This response brings silence. I’m glad Burr stuck up for me. But I can’t quite shake this sudden onset of guilt. “Thanks,” I say. “But I really shouldn’t be here.” I say that last sentence in a whisper. I try to take fewer breaths.

Landon moves to my side and brushes up against me.

“The Coast Guard will find us soon. We can talk about that later.”

I keep treading water.

“I’m so cold,” I say.

“We all are,” Landon says.

“Let’s huddle together,” I suggest.

“I can’t believe this has happened. I’m so pissed,” Dale says. He swats at the water and makes a slash.

“Get over it,” Burr says. “Enid’s right. We should huddle.”

We move together and pack ourselves into a tight circle. It helps a little. We all tread water. The waves have calmed. The sea continues to pick us up and set us down, but it’s nothing like those earlier swells. We continue to float beneath the raft. Every hour or so, we gently lift up one side of the raft like Munny suggested. It works. We’re able to replenish the air without losing the raft.

“How much longer before the Coast Guard comes?” Wick asks. “Do you really think they’ll be able to find us? We’ve probably drifted pretty far from where the boat went down.”

“They’re experts,” Burr says. “They’ve got years of experience studying drift patterns. They’ve got our coordinates. They’ll be here before dawn.”

It feels good to believe this, so I do.

“When did you call the Coast Guard?” Wick asks.

“Right as she was going down,” Burr says. “I barely made it out.”

“Man, that’s brave,” Landon says.

Nobody says anything for a long time. I think we’re all stuck on the same thought. We want dawn to come. We want to board a ship again. We’re ready for the Coast Guard. We’re ready to be safe and dry and home.