Surrounded by Sharks (6 page)

Davey recoiled the way you do when something hits you in the head. Think dodgeball. The difference being that he was in deep water, in every sense. He stopped his legs midkick. He flapped his arms under the water — once, twice, three times. His head moved backward above the water as his feet continued to drift slowly forward underneath it.

The thing floated in the water in front of him. It was still bobbing lazily from the impact. Davey just stared at it. It’s not that he didn’t know what it was. He knew exactly. It was a water cooler bottle. Replacing the empty ones in his parents’ home office with full ones was one of his standard chores. Brando still wasn’t quite big enough — or careful enough — to do it without spilling half a gallon on the floor.

But he didn’t expect to head-butt one in the Gulf of freaking Mexico. It took him a few moments to figure out what it was doing there. Then he realized that it was trash, washed out to sea just like he had been. It was partly submerged and tilted on its side, maybe a third full of water. It rose up and over each little swell that washed past them. It was the same cheap kind of bottle that his parents had downgraded to recently. It was made of thin, transparent, blue-gray plastic instead of the thicker, bluer, more opaque plastic of the name-brand bottles.

Davey looked at its humpbacked profile, its neck pointing up just enough to keeps its open mouth above water.
Yep
, he thought.
That’s the shape I thought was an island
. He felt like he’d just failed a test. He wasn’t getting closer to an island. He was getting closer to a water cooler bottle. He was treading water again, his legs rubbery and spent. He made his right hand into a fist. Then he reached out and smashed down on the top of the bottle. Stupid bottle!

The force of the blow pushed the mouth of the bottle underwater. Ocean water poured in. The neck tipped back up a moment later, and the bottle found its balance. It continued bobbing along on the water.

Davey did the same, but with more effort and a worse attitude. As his surprise faded, he made the obvious connection. He coughed up a single sharp laugh at himself for thinking a disposable plastic jug was an island. He was happy all of a sudden, almost overjoyed.
This thing floated!

He leaned forward, kicked his legs, and grabbed the bottle. He hugged it with both arms. Love would not have been too strong a word. Now, the big test: He stopped kicking his legs. He began to sink, taking the bottle with him. He angled the opening of the bottle up into the air. They kept sinking. He held his breath as his mouth neared the water. The bottle stabilized. Most of it was underwater, but the neck stuck up alongside Davey’s head. He glanced over. It looked like the periscope of a little plastic submarine. More important, it was keeping them both afloat.

He let go with one arm and smashed the water three times. The first two were just sheer happiness and relief. The third was more like,
In your face, ocean!

And now that he was thinking a little more clearly, he realized that he could make this even better. He gathered the little strength he had left. As tired as he was, it felt great. Because he knew he’d be able to rest after this, at least for a little while.

He waited for a little swell to pass. The bottle carried him up and over. Then he reached down and grabbed the bottom of the bottle. His mouth and nose dipped under the surface, so he moved fast. He lifted the bottle up and out of the water, kicking fiercely. His whole head was underwater now. Everything was under the water except his arms and the bottle. Above the little waves, he tipped the bottle down.

He tipped it down the same way he did when he replaced one in the office: just enough. It began to empty but stayed above the surface. He heard the splash of water on water. He wished that it really was full of bottled water, instead of salty brine. He would’ve drunk it all. As the bottle emptied, it became lighter. Even as his kicks grew weaker, they lifted him farther out of the water. Soon, his head was above the surface again. Then his shoulders were. Then he was holding a big empty bottle, way up in the air. The sun was shining through it, making crazy patterns.

He flipped it back around, top up, and dropped it back in the water. It floated higher now. Even when he grabbed hold again, it floated higher. Even when he allowed his tired legs to stop kicking, it floated higher. The top third of the thing was above the surface. He leaned down and rested his head along the top and his cheek along the neck. This didn’t solve anything. He knew that. He flicked his eyes forward and still saw nothing but a hazy blur of horizon.

But right at that moment, he didn’t care. Right at that moment, and for quite a few after it, he rested. He hugged the big plastic bottle tight — his own little island — and rested.

The Tserings were nearing the far tip of the island when they realized someone was chasing them. He wasn’t exactly running after them; it was more of an urgent walk that occasionally broke into an awkward jog. Brando was the first to notice.

“I think that guy from the hotel is after us,” he said.

His parents turned and looked. Once they recognized him, they stopped and waited for him to catch up. There was nothing around. Just the ocean on one side of the walkway and the far corner of the hotel grounds on the other. There were no other people, and the only sounds came from the small waves and gentle breeze.

Once he’d been spotted, Marco slowed down. He tried to act casual as he walked toward them, but the sweat on his forehead gave him away. He gave them a small wave. Then he reached up to wipe his forehead in an exaggerated way, trying to make a joke out of it.

Word had gotten back to him at the main desk that there was a family out beating the bushes for a lost boy. That was not, in any way, good for business. He was in charge of things today. The owners of the hotel would have his hide if this blew up. Every advertisement they ran, from the brochures at the airports to the header on the website, used the phrase
family friendly
. He didn’t want to spend the next year answering the phone and saying, “Oh, no, we hardly ever lose children. A very small percentage, really.” And he didn’t want all of the families checking out today going back home saying, “The craziest thing happened at the Aszure Island Inn. A boy just disappeared!” He didn’t want the families checking in to worry about it the whole time, either. He needed to help this family find their kid — and hopefully get them to shut up about it until they did.

Pamela was looking at him like he was a stray dog. He wished he hadn’t gotten off to such a bad start with her. It was hard to undo a bad first impression. He plastered on a big, toothy smile and gave them another wave. Only Brando waved back.

“Did you find him?” asked Tam hopefully.

Pamela perked up a bit. The possibility hadn’t occurred to her.

Marco just shook his head. Tam and Pamela turned away from him to hide their disappointment, but Brando watched him closely.

“I should’ve gone the other way around,” said Marco. “Just walked three-quarters of the island trying to catch up.”

“Well, if you don’t have any news, why did you bother?” asked Pamela.

Marco looked at her.
Big smile
, he told himself. “Wanted to help you look!”

“Wanted to shut us up, probably,” said Pamela.

A bad attitude and smart, too
, thought Marco.
How am I going to handle this one?
His smile flickered and then fell from his face.

“We both want the same thing,” he said. “Any idea where he might’ve gone?”

Brando looked from his mom to Marco and back again. She seemed satisfied with his answer.

“No,” said Pamela.

“And you’ve checked …” Marco made a little circle with his left hand.

“Yes,” said Tam, “we’ve checked everything up to here.”

“Everything?” said Marco.

“Every last grain of sand,” said Tam.

Marco was sure that included asking every last person they came across. He cringed at the thought.

“Well, might as well keep going,” he said, pointing down the walkway with his chin.

They continued on in the direction they’d been heading. They had an extra person now, but not much use for him. Brando looked around. This part of the island was even quieter — and that was saying something. There were no bar stands or docks, no little clusters of people. In their place was an extra helping of trees and scrubby little bushes. He watched as Marco made a show of helping. He leaned over to look behind a tree and then leaned back to look up into it.

“My brother isn’t a monkey,” said Brando.

Marco looked down and flashed his big smile at him, but Brando wasn’t buying it.

“Where does this little path go?” said Pamela. She was a few steps ahead of the rest of them and pointing down at a little gap in the undergrowth.

“Goes to a little beach,” said Marco.

“We should check it out,” said Tam, but Marco had already caught up with them and started down the path.

Without another word, they turned and followed him. It was a narrow path, and they had to walk single file to avoid the saw grass. Marco moved quickly, barely looking down. He knew the path well. Hotel employees sometimes hid out back here, extending their breaks as long as they thought they could get away with.
It is definitely a place a kid could go and not be noticed
, he thought.

But when they reached the mouth of the path, there was no one there. No employees, and no missing boy. Brando pushed past him on the left as Tam and Pamela pushed past him on the right. He followed a few steps behind, and they all fanned out across the little beach.

“Davey!” called Pamela.

“You here, champ?” called Tam. “Where are you? We’re not mad!”

Brando let out a little burst of air.
Yeah, right
, he thought. But his eyes scanned every inch of the beach.

They all noticed the same things in a different order. Brando saw the No Swimming sign and then scanned the line of surf. Pamela scanned the surf first and then saw the sign. Tam was still staring into the deep shadows along the trees at the beach’s edge and nearly tripped over the thing. He read it.

“He’s not, uh …” Marco began, nodding toward the sign. He didn’t even want to think it, much less say it. But he had to. “Your son, he’s not much of a swimmer, is he?”

Pamela looked at him, horrified.

“No!” she said. She disliked him more now, just for saying that.

“No, he used to, but he doesn’t even …” said Tam. He was distracted, just now scanning the surf. He snapped out of it when he finished. “No, he used to go to the lake, but I don’t think he went at all last year.” He turned to look at Brando. “You guys go to the lake last summer?”

“Not much. Maybe twice,” said Brando. “He never wanted to.”

What he didn’t say was that he still wasn’t allowed to go alone. His parents already knew that, and Marco figured it out from his tone of voice.

“Yeah, Davey’s in more of an indoor phase right now,” said Tam. “And he definitely wouldn’t ignore a sign like this, either.”

“That’s true,” said Brando. In the last year or two, his brother had become the sort of freak kid who walked around fences instead of climbing over them.

“You should get a new sign,” said Pamela, frowning at the faded letters. “Or at least stand it up straight.”

“Not hotel property,” said Marco.

“I don’t care whose property it is,” she said, looking directly at him. Marco looked down and saw an old cigarette butt in the sand. He had an eagle eye for them at this point. He looked around, wondering if there was anything else he was missing.

Brando saw his eyes searching the ground and did the same. It occurred to him to look for footprints, but the beach was full of them now. Four fresh sets. He looked up and tried to see the beach the way Davey would. It was quiet, and there was shade over by the trees. It would be a good place to sit and read.

“He’d like it here,” he said. But the adults were still squabbling about who did or did not own the beach and didn’t hear him. He went up to where the first trees met the sand. He stood under one. Then he sat down. He positioned himself so that his legs were in the sun and the rest of him was in the shade. He pretended he had a book in his lap.

“Come on, Brando,” called Tam. “You can rest at the hotel later.”

Brando looked over. They were back at the mouth of the little path. He took a quick look at the bushes and trees behind him. Even with the sun burning bright overhead, they were stuffed with shadows. He looked closer. “Davey?” he said.

There was no response. He stood up and brushed the sand off his shorts. Twenty yards away, the grown-ups started back down the path. Brando hurried to catch up.