Clay craned his neck to look. Clouds clustered around the plane, obscuring his view. Ahead, where Skipper had pointed, the clouds were so thick, all Clay could see was a wall of white. Or grayish white.
“I can’t see anything.”
“No kidding. It’s the bloody vog.”*
“The what?”
“The vog. You really don’t know anything about where you’re going, do you, Shakespeare?”
“Why, what’s to know?”
“Who says there’s anything to know,” the pilot snapped. “Besides, nothing I tell you is going to do you any good now, is it?”
“Well, what’s vog?” asked Clay, who was getting increasingly nervous.
“You’re so smart, figure it out. Think v- word then -og word… vuh-og.”
“Vampire dog?”
“No, vog is volcanic smog.” The pilot shook his head. “Vampire dog? You really have something against dogs, don’t you?”
“No… what are you doing?”
Clay was thrown to the side as the plane entered a steeply banked turn.
“Circling the island so they know we’re here.”
“But how can they see us?” asked Clay, gripping the seat in front of him.
“They can’t. But sometimes they can hear.”
Just as the plane tilted so much that its wings were near vertical and Clay thought they were going to drop out of the sky, the vog suddenly cleared. Instead of all white, Clay now saw all black. It took a moment for him to realize he was looking at land and not ocean or outer space. He was torn between terror of the plane falling from the sky and fascination with the forbidding sight below. It looked as though the entire island had been charred in a massive fire. Where was he going, Mordor?*
“Why’s it all black like that?” he asked when Skipper had at last righted the plane, and Clay’s heart rate had returned to normal.
“Lava. That’s all lava rock.”
“Sheesh. That must have been a gnarly eruption.”
In the vast blackness, he could just make out the twists and turns of what must once have been raging rivers of lava headed into the sea.
“What are those white squiggly things?” Clay asked.
“You’ll see.…”
As they skirted closer to the shore, the white squiggles became letters; they were written on the black rock beach like chalk letters on a blackboard. Clay admired them for a second. Then—
“Wait!” he cried. “It says SOS! Somebody’s in trouble!”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Shakespeare, but those letters have been there for years. So whoever it was…” The pilot trailed off.
“What? What happened to them?”
“What makes you think I know?” said the pilot evasively. “Now hold on.…”
The plane hit the water with a tremendous splash, like a giant child doing a belly flop.
They taxied for a moment, then Skipper turned off the propellers, and the plane coasted to a stop. When the windows cleared of spray, Clay glanced toward shore. The black rock beach looked decidedly inhospitable.
“Where’s the dock?”
“There isn’t any,” said Skipper, who was already climbing out of his seat.
“You have a raft or something?” asked Clay, starting to sweat (whether from nervousness or the tropical heat, he couldn’t have said).
“A raft? What do you think this is, The Love Boat? No, don’t tell me, you never heard of The Love Boat, either,” said the pilot, opening the door.* “You gotta swim, Shakespeare. Or walk. It ain’t deep.”
Clay felt a rush of warm, thick tropical air as he looked out at the turquoise water.
“What about my backpack?” He gestured to the large backpack beside him—purchased especially for camp and already bursting at the seams.
The pilot shrugged. “It’ll dry.”
Before Clay could protest, Skipper threw Clay’s heavy backpack into the water.
“Hey! It’s gonna sink!”
“So get going. I don’t like hanging out here any longer than I have to.”
“Why? You make it sound like there’s something wrong with this place.”
“Just go already, will ya?”
There was no way for Clay to change into his bathing suit; it was in the backpack. Bracing himself, he closed his eyes and jumped out of the plane, fully dressed.
The water was surprisingly warm and, as Skipper had promised, not very deep. Clay’s feet hit bottom just as his head was about to go under. When he straightened up, he found that the water was chest-high and as clear as a swimming pool. He could see his sneakers digging into the sand. His backpack was floating nearby, slowly drifting out to sea, shoulder straps and waist belt trailing behind. Clay lunged for it.
As soon as Clay had secured his backpack on his back, Skipper held a large cardboard box out the airplane door. Clay recognized the box that had been taking up half the space on the plane.
“You’re supposed to deliver this,” the pilot shouted.
“How—?!”
“Hold up your hands!” Skipper tossed the box in Clay’s direction. Clay almost fell backward when the box landed in his hands, but somehow he managed to keep it out of the water.
He looked toward the shore; it was a good forty feet away. Getting there without dropping the box was not going to be easy.
It was then that a more serious problem occurred to him: “Hey, Skipper!” he shouted. “There’s nobody there.”
“You were expecting flowers and coconut drinks?”
With that, Skipper closed the door of the plane.
Cursing to himself and holding the box above his head, Clay started wading as quickly as he could—which was not very quickly—toward dry land.
“Hey, Shakespeare!” Clay turned to see Skipper waving out of an open window.
“Yeah?”
“I should probably warn you.…”
“About what?” Clay shouted.
Skipper shouted something in return, but Clay couldn’t quite make it out; the propellers were whirring again.
“Did you say, Beware—you—scary?”
Skipper shouted again, louder.
“Beware—the—you—bury?” Clay repeated.
“Right!”
“So I’m supposed to bury something? Or not bury it?”
But by then the plane was taking off, leaving crashing waves in its wake.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
MAROONED
If you’ve ever been shipwrecked on a desert island, then you know how Clay felt. Me, I’ve never been shipwrecked anywhere. Car-wrecked, yes. Train-wrecked, yes. Shipwrecked, no. (Unless you count the time my cat wrecked that model sailboat I was building out of matchsticks; boy, was I mad about that!) So you’ll have to pardon any inaccuracies as I do my best to re-create the scene on the island after Clay waded ashore. Of course, having read about plenty of castaways, I do consider myself something of an expert.*
Clay stood on the black rock beach, drenched from head to toe. His feet sloshed in his shoes whenever he shifted his weight. His backpack sat beside him, leaking seawater. The still-semidry box he was supposed to deliver to camp lay about a yard away, where he’d dropped it in relief when he finally made it to dry land.
But to what land had he made it? Where was he?
In one direction lay an unending expanse of blue; in the other, an unending expanse of black. The lava had demolished everything in its wake. The landscape looked so lifeless, so alien, it could have been a photo taken by a Mars rover.
His eyes landed on a snaking line of white shells. It was the first S of the SOS sign he’d spied earlier from the plane, now only a few feet away. The letters were about twenty feet long from top to bottom, and remarkably well preserved, considering they were so old.
It must have taken somebody a long time to collect so many shells, Clay thought. These were letters made by somebody very determined.
Somebody desperate.
Somebody afrai
d.
A castaway marooned on a tropical island, for example.
Clay felt a wave of panic overtake him. What was he going to do if nobody ever came? Try to make a shelter out of his backpack? Spear fish to eat? Rub two rocks together and build a fire? He knew how to do exactly none of those things. As for drinking water, his water bottle was already half-empty.
When Clay was younger, his brother’s best friend, Cass, had been a survivalist. She constantly lectured Clay about disaster preparedness. If only he had paid more attention!
Don’t freak, he told himself. Think. You may not be a survivalist, but this isn’t the first time you’ve been on your own.
Clay felt in his pocket for his wallet. It was wet, but still there. The black leather wallet was a gift from his brother—one of the few Clay had kept—and it had a secret compartment. Clay moved his school ID from the secret compartment to the main compartment; that way, if he perished on the sand, the person who discovered his body would be able to identify him.
The sun was getting hotter, and as his clothes dried, he could feel it burning his skin. In a matter of minutes, he went from being wet with seawater to wet with sweat.
A large boulder about twenty feet inland looked like it might offer some shade. It would be a better place to wait, Clay decided. At least he wouldn’t get sunstroke.
He hoisted his backpack onto his back, picked up the cardboard box, and then sloshed across the black rocks in his wet shoes.
As soon as he stepped behind the boulder, Clay let out a cry of surprise.
He wasn’t alone after all.
A four-legged animal was standing in the shade of the boulder, drinking from a near-empty bucket of water. The animal was about the size of a pony, and he had the long ears of a rabbit, the long face of a kangaroo, and the long, shaggy brown-and-white fur of a rug in Clay’s father’s office. The rug, Clay remembered, came from Peru.
Duh, it’s a llama, Clay said to himself.
A large bumblebee buzzed around the water bucket, and the llama kept twitching his head, trying to make the bee go away. Clay couldn’t tell whether he should approach or whether he’d be shooed away as well.
The llama was wearing a bridle with a rope attached where you might expect to find reins. A greeting card was hanging from his neck:
Hola. ¿Cómo se llama? Yo me llamo Como C. Llama.
During his preschool years, Clay’s favorite cartoon had featured a Spanish-speaking boy naturalist who was always saving animals with his girl cousin, and Clay still knew enough of the language to translate:
Hello. How do you call yourself? I call myself Como C. Llama.
The llama’s name was What is your name? How cheesy can you get, Clay thought, smiling despite himself.
He flipped over the card. On the other side was a note in English:
Go west, young man. The llama will guide you.
PS—Don’t let him eat anything you didn’t personally bring with you.
So he had a guide. That was the good news.
The guide was a llama. That was the bad news.
Clay gave the llama a tentative pat on the back of the neck. The llama didn’t seem to mind. Then again, he didn’t seem to particularly like it, either.
Around the llama’s back there was a leather strap that functioned, Clay assumed, like a bridle. Awkwardly, Clay placed the cardboard box on top of the llama and partially secured it with some of the extra string hanging from the animal’s neck. The now-empty water bucket he tied above the llama’s rump.
“Well, here goes nothing,” Clay muttered. The llama had obviously been sent as some kind of test, and there was nothing to do but try.
He tightened the waist belt of his backpack. Then he grabbed the llama’s harness and tried to swing himself onto the llama’s back, behind the box.
His ears flat back on his head, the llama snorted and jerked away. Clay landed on his backpack, belly up, arms waving, like a beetle in distress.
Before he could recover, the llama spit in his face—a big green wad of chewed grass and llama saliva.
“Yuck! Man, did you have to do that?!”*
As Clay wiped the thick spittle off his cheek, the llama sat down on his back legs, camel-style.
“Great,” said Clay, pushing himself up.
When he got to his feet, he grabbed the rope and pulled, but the llama barely blinked.
“C’mon, boy—get up!”
The llama still refused to budge.
Exasperated, Clay sat back down. His backpack fell from his shoulders.
“Fail… epic… flippin’… fail.”
Whoever had left the llama for him was downright cruel. Somebody who delighted in torture. And he was supposed to spend the summer under this person’s care? Forget it. When he got to camp, he was going to call his parents and demand that he go home right away.
Correction: if he got to camp.
The greeting card dangled from the llama’s furry neck, taunting Clay. PS—Don’t let him eat anything you didn’t personally bring with you, Clay read again.
“What’re you supposed to eat, then, my shoes? Oh—I know!”
He started digging in his backpack. Before Clay could pull the carrot tops all the way out, the llama grabbed the entire bunch with his mouth.
“Hey!”
As Clay yanked his hand away, the llama gulped down the carrot tops in one bite.
The llama looked expectantly at Clay.
“Sorry, I don’t have any more,” said Clay, examining his hand to confirm that he wasn’t missing any fingers.*
The llama nudged him.
“I told you. No more carrot tops.”
The llama nudged him again. The card around his neck flipped over.
Hola. ¿Cómo se llama? Yo me llamo Como C. Llama.
“I know, I read that already. Your name is a joke. I get it. Like como se llama. It’s hilarious. A laugh riot. Total cheese-wizardry.”
The llama nudged him again. More like poked him. If you can poke with your mouth.
“What do you want already?” A funny thought crossed Clay’s mind. “I’m not answering, am I? You want to know my name?”
Well, it couldn’t hurt to try.
Sheepishly, he introduced himself. “I’m Clay. Yo me llamo Clay.”
The llama nodded his head in a way that almost looked like he was saying hello.
“Um, nice to meet you,” said Clay. “Mucho gusto.”
Wow, Clay thought to himself, five minutes alone on a deserted island and you’re already talking to animals! Next thing you’ll be having conversations with the rocks.
“Now, stand up. Please. Por favor.”
Whether because he understood or (more likely) because the bumblebee kept buzzing in his ear, the llama rose to his feet.
“Gracias,” said Clay, relieved. “Now let’s go—¡vámonos!”
He picked up the rope attached to the llama’s bridle and held it like a leash, then started walking along the lava field road in a direction he hoped was west. (He knew that the sun always sets in the west, but the sun was too high to say with certainty which way it would set.) The llama followed slowly but willingly behind.
“Wait, you’re supposed to be guiding me, Como, remember?” said Clay, stopping to let the llama take the lead. “This is the way, right? Correctamente? Or, er, correcto?”
The llama didn’t respond, but he didn’t switch directions, either. He just kept going. Clay took this as an affirmative.
The bee circled the llama one last time, then flew away across the lava fields.
The road, which was less a road than a trail, and sometimes hardly even a trail, twisted this way and that, seemingly without rhyme or reason. As far as Clay could tell, they were following the coastline, but they also seemed to be rising. At least, that is what he judged by the tiredness in his legs.
Around them, in every direction, was lava—in ever stranger and more menacing formations. There were lava pits and lava towers and big, lo
oping lava arches. Some lava formations looked like castles. Others looked almost like people, lurching through the lava fields.*
Despite the heat, Clay shivered.
“What happened here, anyway? ¿Qué pasó?” he asked the llama. “It’s like the world was just going about its business and then—boom! Huge explosion. Full-on apocalypse. I mean, where are we? ¿Dónde estamos?” He gestured to his surroundings.
“I know, I know, the real question is, why am I talking in Spanish to a llama?” he said, taking a swig from his water bottle. “¿Por qué yo hablo español? What do you care what language I speak? You’re a llama!”
A flock of blue birds flew overhead. Parrots.
“Now, those guys—they’re the ones who talk, right?”
Clay called out to them. “Hey, parrots! Hablas español or ingles? Is this the way to Earth Ranch—you know, the camp for bad kids? Hijos malos.”
The birds squawked in answer—but in a way that sounded nothing like English or Spanish or any other human language. Nonetheless, they were the first living things Clay had encountered on the lava trail.
Cheered, he continued walking.
As the trail began to steepen, the lava ended with unexpected, almost surreal suddenness. Behind, everything was black. Ahead, everything was green. A sea of grass. And in the distance, a forest.
A grayish bush with purplish berries grew on the side of the trail. The llama stopped and was about to have a nibble when Clay remembered his instructions and pulled the llama away. Though small, the berries looked juicy and Clay wanted to try one himself, but he decided it would be unfair to eat what the llama couldn’t. Besides, the berry might be poisonous.
He thought of the pilot’s cryptic warning: Beware—the—you—bury. Could Skipper have meant berry and not bury? As in, Beware, don’t you eat that berry!? Or maybe it was a kind of berry—a you-berry or ewe-berry? Or, maybe the message was just, Ewww, berries!
Another large bumblebee buzzed around the bush, irritating the llama. Clay tugged on the llama’s leash and kept going.