“Of course,” said Mrs. Pike. “Okay, everybody. Let’s get ready.”
Monday morning started early, unlike most vacation days. By seven o’clock, I could hear Mom and Dad rustling around in the kitchen. Even though they had said the night before that we wouldn’t go out on any boats today until late in the morning or even lunchtime, I joined them for an early breakfast. I like spending quiet time alone with Mom and Dad.
But by eleven-thirty that morning my family, except for Claire and Margo, who stayed behind with Mary Anne, had gathered at the community center, ready for another day of boating and searching. We met up with Kristy and Stacey at the center. They wanted to come with us, especially since there was finally some news: Claudia’s boat had been found. It was in perfect condition — but empty.
“I don’t get it,” I said to Dad. “What could that mean?”
Dad was frowning. “I don’t know. That’s a real mystery.”
“The food and supplies are gone,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s a good sign. How could those things just disappear from the boat? They had to have been taken off. Some of them are stored under the seats.”
“That’s a good point,” said Dad.
The reporters, of course, were terribly excited by the news. They picked it up and shook it like a dog with a rabbit, and wouldn’t let it go.
They made everyone crazy.
Dad wanted to get us organized and on boats again. He called all of us — our family, Kristy, and Stacey — together on the dock behind the center.
“Since there are so many of us, we’ll take two big boats out today. We’ll divide up like this: Kristy, Stacey, Mal, and Jordan with me. The rest of you with your mom.”
Of course, Kristy and Stacey and I liked this arrangement fine. We wanted to be together. Unfortunately, so did the triplets — Jordan, Adam, and Byron. They did not want to be split up, but they didn’t have a say in the matter.
“Life preservers, everyone,” announced Dad.
We separated, stepped onto the boats, and put on life preservers.
Our second day of searching had begun.
We left the dock behind us and headed into Long Island Sound.
“Which direction are we going in?” I asked Dad. “Back to Greenpoint again?”
“I think we’ll go east of there,” he replied. “The empty boat was found several miles to the east.”
“Okay.”
Dad steered the boat, and Stacey, Kristy, and Jordan and I hung over the sides, looking, looking, looking.
“What are we looking for?” asked Stacey.
“Anything unusual,” said Dad.
“Hey!” said Jordan. “I have an idea. Let’s bear east but let’s go there by way of all the little islands. We can go out to Greenpoint and then go east. That way, if they landed on one of the islands, we can see them and rescue them.”
(Jordan desperately wanted to be a hero.)
“Well,” said Dad, “okay. That’ll take a long time to do, but it’s a good idea.”
I imagined us passing an island and hearing cries.
“Help! Here we are! Rescue us!”
Hmmm. Maybe it would be fun to be heroes.
So we headed for Greenpoint and soon passed it. We didn’t talk much as we moved. We just looked and looked and looked at the water and the islands. The water was as smooth as glass, and the color of an emerald. But the sky was still hazy and …
“Look up there,” said Kristy.
“What? What do you see?” asked Stacey, swiveling around.
“Oh, sorry,” replied Kristy. “I don’t see them. It’s just, well, I think we’re in for another storm.”
Kristy was pointing to clouds, to looming thunderheads.
“Oh, brother,” murmured Jordan.
“How much time do we have?” I asked Dad. “When do we have to turn around?”
“Now,” my father answered. “We don’t want to get caught in that storm.”
“Why can’t the weather clear up?” I cried. I nearly stamped my foot. I was so frustrated. “We’ll never find anything this way. Not if we have to keep turning the boat around and coming in.”
Nobody answered me. They knew the weather was something we just had to put up with.
“Uh-oh,” said Stacey suddenly. “Mr. Pike, what if Mrs. Pike didn’t see the storm clouds? What if they aren’t coming in?”
“They’re coming,” my dad answered. “I just spoke to Adam on the radio.”
“Where are they, anyway?” wondered Stacey. “I lost sight of them.”
“They’re a little ahead of us, but not this far east,” said Jordan. “Right, Dad?”
“Exactly right.”
We had turned around and were heading back. Jordan and my friends and I continued to scan the water for … anything.
We were about halfway back to Stoneybrook when Stacey said, “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” replied Jordan, who was standing next to her.
“That.” Stacey pointed out to the ocean. “Way over there.”
Stacey must have eyes like an eagle to see through the haze. I didn’t see anything but water.
“Mr. Pike,” said Stacey, “I see something floating over there. Honest. Can we head just a little closer to it?”
Dad looked at the sky and then at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “Here we go.”
We headed east slightly. Soon even I could see something in the water. But we weren’t sure what it was until we were practically on top of it.
“A piece of wood,” said Kristy.
“Hey, there’s another one!” shouted Jordan, pointing.
“Do you see any numbers or letters on it?” asked Dad.
“Yes,” said Stacey right away, not knowing why my father was asking. “I see a two, a three, and maybe part of a five.”
Dad looked grim.
“It’s from Dawn’s boat, isn’t it?” I said. My voice had dropped to a whisper.
“From Dawn’s boat?” repeated Stace. “What do you mean?”
“We know what to look for,” said Dad gently. “The numbers on the boats are what identify them.”
“And the number on Dawn’s boat had a two-three-five in it?” asked Stacey.
“Yes,” replied Dad.
“But … it can’t — I mean, that boat is in pieces. It’s all broken up. I can see several more …” Stacey trailed off.
Dad put us back on course to Stoneybrook again.
“Wait!” cried Stacey. “We can’t turn around now.”
“We have to,” spoke up Kristy, who’d been awfully quiet. “We have to beat the storm back. And we have to report what we found. Don’t worry, th —”
Stacey cut her off. Just barely holding back tears, she cried, “Don’t worry? You’re as bad as my father. Claudia and the others are … well, who knows where they are. Obviously, they’re not on either of the boats. And think of all the stuff that’s out here waiting to get them. There could be sharks, sea snakes, jellyfish. Not to mention these storms we keep having.”
Kristy put her arm around Stacey. I wanted to do the same thing, since Stacey had started to cry. However, now I had started to cry, too.
Jordan didn’t know what to make of the situation. He was as startled by the discovery of the bits of boat as we were, and he was worried about Jeff, who’s his friend, but he gave my father a look that plainly said, “Girls.”
Dad didn’t notice. Yelling over the wind that was starting to pick up, he said, “I really don’t think you need to worry about sharks or sea snakes, girls. Trust me.”
“Okay, what about drowning?” Stacey yelled back.
No one had an answer for that.
We sailed back to the community center in silence, unless you count the blustery wind that roared in our ears. We reached the center just after Mom and the others — and just as the rain began. The boats were barely docked when fat raindrops started to fall from the sky, and thunder rumbled. We dashed into the center, wh
ere Dad made a report about what we’d found.
Naturally, this caused the newscasters and reporters to become nearly maniacal, especially when they noticed that Kristy, Stacey, and I were all in tears.
We were rescued from their questions, though. Both Mrs. McGill and Charlie Thomas were at the center, so they drove Stacey and Kristy to their homes. Then my family and I went back to our house, where Mom actually put me to bed and made me some tea. I don’t remember the last time I was so upset.
Soon, though, feeling better, I phoned Stacey. We talked about everything except the awful pieces of wood.
“Do you think school will be open tomorrow?” Stacey wondered.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Everyone is searching. Half the teachers from SMS have been combing the beach.”
When Stacey and I hung up, I just sat on Mom and Dad’s bed. I didn’t know what to do.
I felt completely helpless.
My water collection idea had worked pretty well, but just after breakfast we discovered something: You couldn’t leave it alone too long, especially if the rain was coming down hard.
Becca and Haley were cleaning up after our breakfast, which meant collecting the fish bones and dumping them outside the cave. (We figured that they were “natural” garbage and would disintegrate, unlike the rest of our trash.)
“Besides,” said Becca, working hastily, “we don’t want the cave to smell like fish.” Then she added, “Not that the fish was bad, Jeff.”
Jeff grinned. He knew that Becca and Haley and I had eaten the fish out of desperation, but he didn’t mind.
Becca had just run out of the cave with her pile of fish bones when the rest of us heard her exclaim, “Uh-oh!”
“What-oh?” asked Haley.
“Everybody get out here quick!” cried Becca.
Jeff and Haley and I joined her, but Dawn stayed behind with Jamie. Nobody had to ask Becca what the problem was. We could see it clearly. The water collector was full and about to collapse.
“Quick! You guys hold tight to the posts. Don’t let them cave in!” I yelled. Then I dashed inside and gathered up every empty container I could find. When I ran back out, I saw Jeff, Haley, and Becca each straining to hold up a stick. The fourth pole was about to cave in.
As quickly as I could, I submerged each bottle in the water, filled it to the brim, and set it on the ground. I was almost finished when … whoosh, crash! That fourth pole collapsed and the rest of the water splashed to the ground.
“Darn!” cried Jeff. “All that wasted water.”
“Well, it could be worse,” said Haley philosophically. “At least we have some water. And it’ll probably storm again soon. Then we can collect more.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Come on, you guys. Help me set everything up again. We might as well be prepared.”
The kids and I righted the poles and tied the tarp to them again. Then we examined our water supply.
“I guess it’s not the most sanitary in the world,” I said, thinking that every bottle had been drunk out of by someone else, and that the water hadn’t been purified, and I wasn’t sure how clean the tarp had been. “But it’s better than nothing.”
“I’ll say,” agreed Haley. She picked up a juice box that we’d torn the top off of, and drank thirstily. “Not bad,” she remarked, after she’d downed half of it.
“Okay, go slowly everybody,” I warned them. “Jamie will need some of this water, and we should make the rest of it last as long as we can.”
The kids helped me bring the water into the cave. I carried a bottle over to Jamie. “How’s he doing?” I asked Dawn.
Dawn’s face was as long as — as I’m not sure what. She looked awful.
“Not so well,” she replied. “I think his fever’s up again. And I’ve been wondering. Do you think we should wake him up to feed him?”
“Feed him fish?” I said, horrified. “He’d never forgive us.”
“I’m serious. He hasn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, and that was just a candy bar. Maybe he needs food to help him fight whatever he’s got.”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t wake him up just to feed him. But if he wakes up on his own and says he’s hungry, then Jeff can go fishing again. Meanwhile, here’s more water.”
“Oh, good,” said Dawn. “I am going to wake him up for a drink. His fever was down as long as he was having water.”
So Dawn and I roused the sleeping Jamie.
“We’ve got more water,” Dawn told him.
I helped her raise Jamie into a sitting position. Jamie drank for a long time. Then he fell asleep again.
“Claudia, can we go to the beach?” asked Haley, not looking terribly enthusiastic about the idea. “All of us?” Then she added dramatically, “The air is thick with germs.”
“Sure. I’ll come with you. Or maybe Dawn will.” I turned to Dawn. “Want to take a break and go to the beach?”
Dawn shook her head. “I’ll stay here with the germs.” She was trying to be funny, but she looked like she was going to cry any second.
“All right,” I said hesitantly.
I walked the kids outside. Their faces now looked about as long as Dawn’s. I was pretty sure that what with the excitement of breakfast and water-collecting being over, their worries were setting in again. Plus, they were bored with the beach. That came through loud and clear.
We reached the edge of the water and the kids plopped down and just sat there. They didn’t even talk. After a few minutes I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something.
“All right,” I said, “I’m going to take a little walk. Jeff, you’re in charge. Dawn’s back in the cave if you have any problems. Stay out of the water and don’t go anywhere without telling Dawn.” Before they could ask questions, I took off. I marched into the woods.
How, I wondered, could we attract attention to ourselves so we could be rescued? Becca had been right in trying to draw the attention of people in planes, but the shells were not going to work. What else could be seen from a plane? I looked all around me. I saw trees and shrubs and some flowers I didn’t recognize. I saw poison ivy and avoided it. I noticed logs and leaves and branches and insects.
And then I saw something bright on the ground. What was it? I bent down and picked up a broken piece of … glass? No, I could see myself in it. It was a piece of mirror. It was big, and the edges were jagged. I had to hold it carefully. I didn’t know how it had found its way to the island, but I knew what to do with it.
I raced out of the woods, along the beach to the cave, and inside the cave to Dawn, who was dozing next to Jamie.
I shook her shoulder. “Look what I found!” I said in an excited whisper.
“What?” Dawn sat up dazedly.
“A mirror, that’s what.”
“Big deal. And where have you been? I looked outside before and I couldn’t see you. Just Jeff and Becca and Haley.”
Ooh, touchy. I ignored Dawn’s outburst. “Don’t you know what we can do with this?” I asked her. “If we wash it off, we can use it to signal planes. Seriously. I saw it from up above because it was in a little patch of sun. If I saw it, maybe a plane could see it — if the haze ever burns off. We just have to learn how to angle it to catch the sun. I think.”
“We-ell,” said Dawn dubiously.
“Look, we don’t have any better ideas,” I told her. “And it will give the kids something to do, um, as soon as this next storm blows over.”
I had just noticed how dark the sky was, so I herded Haley, Becca, and Jeff back inside. We waited out the brief rain shower, filled empty containers, and cheered because the water collector didn’t collapse.
And then … and then … we noticed something. The sky had become as clear as a bell! We ran to the beach with our prize, the mirror.
“I want to wash it!” cried Haley, dashing to the ocean.
“Okay, but be careful. It has sharp edges,” I told her.
Haley washed the mirror as if sh
e were washing a bomb. Then she dried it on her shirt and handed it to me.
“Beautiful,” I told her. I looked at the sky. “Now let’s just hope the sun stays out.”
“And that a plane flies overhead,” Jeff pointed out.
That was true. In the meantime, we experimented. The sun did stay out and the four of us stood on the beach and practiced trying to catch its rays.
Once, Becca did, and she nearly blinded us with the glare.
“It’s kind of like calling Batman!” she exclaimed.
We laughed.
I was glad that the kids seemed hopeful again, but I knew that what we were trying to do had only a slim chance of working. We hadn’t seen a plane all day.
Still, you never knew.
“Come save us, Batman!” cried Haley.
When I picked up the phone that Sunday to call Bart, I was half hoping he wouldn’t be there. Unfortunately, Bart himself answered the phone.
“Hello?” he said.
I knew it was Bart’s voice. “Hi,” I replied. “It’s me, Kristy.”
I was using the Pikes’ upstairs phone and hoped that no one was listening to my call.
“Hi!” Bart sounded glad to hear from me. That would wear off soon. “What’s up?” he asked. Then he rushed on, “Oh, any news of your friends?”
“No. That’s why I’m calling. Bart, I want to go out searching with the Pikes today, which means I won’t be able to hold practice for the Krushers. Besides, half the kids on the team are either searching or down at the community center waiting for news, so they couldn’t come anyway. I’ve got to call off our game tomorrow. We can’t hold it if we don’t practice.” What I didn’t add was that if my friends hadn’t been found by tomorrow then we’d probably go out searching again anyway. But I didn’t want to think about that.
There was silence at Bart’s end of the phone.
“Bart?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
“So our game’s off. I’m sorry. We’ll have to reschedule it.”
“Kristy, I think this is pretty irresponsible of you. We’ve had the game lined up for weeks. You’re going to disappoint a lot of kids.”