“My hands are blue!” Thea said.
“I can’t feel my lips!” D.J. said.
“Enough with the bellyaching!” Fish said. “Just give it a little time. Trust me, cockroaches, you’ll get used to it.”
I don’t think he meant the water, though. I’m pretty sure he meant the pain and suffering.
But either way, I wasn’t so sure I believed him.
River School
For the rest of the afternoon, we had something called river school. If you’ve never heard of it before, don’t worry. Neither had I. All you need to know is that it’s one of the top five most boring things I’ve ever done.
Fish talked (and talked) to us about hydrology, ecology, biology, and more ologies than I can remember. I think there were a couple of ographies in there too.
We also learned about safety, safety, and more safety. After another raft inspection, Pittman made it sound like there were at least thirty-three different ways to ruin your life by not paddling correctly or “staying sharp on the river.”
They told us what eddies and wave trains were too. And supposedly, it was super-important for us to know every last difference between Class 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 rapids. They went over it about six times.
Finally, they put us up on the rafts. On dry land. That’s where we learned to paddle. (Kind of.) I think everyone was getting as bored as I was by then.
“If you fall off, float on your back and keep your feet in front of you,” Pittman said.
“Don’t try to fight the water!” Fish said about a dozen times. “The water always wins.”
“And remember,” Pittman told us, “you always work as a team. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Arnie said. “What’s for dinner?”
Pittman ignored him. “Okay then,” she said. “That means we can move on to the quiz.”
“Say what?” Diego said. “Nobody said anything about a quiz.”
“Duly noted,” Fish said. He and Pittman were already busting out the paper and pencils.
“Anyone who gets at least eight out of ten questions right on the first try earns an extra tag,” Pittman said. “Less than that, and you take the quiz again—after a one-hour review session.”
In other words, I’ve never wanted to pass a quiz so much in my life.
And here’s another surprise for you. I didn’t get eight out of ten answers right. I got nine out of ten! So I guess I was paying a little more attention than I thought. Maybe because I was a little more scared of this rafting than I was letting on. Heck, if I could die because I didn’t know when the Revolutionary War started, I bet I’d do better on history quizzes.
Carmen passed the quiz too. In fact, her answers were all exactly the same as mine.
Imagine that.
Camp Pizza
When Fish said we were having something called camp pizza for dinner that night, I got pretty excited. We all did.
But if you’re thinking, Don’t get your hopes up, Rafe, then you’re one step ahead of me. I had to find out the hard way.
Camp pizza is made of saltines and tomato soup. You dip the saltines in the soup, and when you eat it, you say, “Mmm, pizza.”
Yeah, right. Camp pizza tastes like pizza the way licking a cow might taste like a hamburger.
I didn’t even care. I just wanted get inside my sleeping bag, stick my head on a balled-up T-shirt for a pillow, and go to sleep for the next eighty-two hours. I think Thea was already asleep in her soup. And Burp looked like he’d been awake since he was born.
“I’m ready to pass out right now,” D.J. said. “Food or no food.”
“I hear that,” Carmen said, because I guess she was so tired from all that goofing off.
“Paddles in at oh seven hundred, people,” Pittman said. “That means wet suits on at six thirty and chow at six.” Which really meant we had to get up at five if we wanted to make breakfast in time.
But meanwhile, all I had to do was sleep. I didn’t have to build anything, carry anything, learn anything, or even listen to anyone until the sun came up again. The ground under my sleeping bag may have been hard and lumpy, but after that long day we’d had, it felt like I was checking into the MegaLuxe Hotel.
And I thought, Ahhhh! Best part of the day!
And then it was more like zzzzzzz… because I was out like a broken headlight.
Right up until the world’s biggest thunderstorm came to town.
Storm of the Century
So imagine you’re in your own bed at home. It’s raining outside—hard. You can hear it falling on the roof and blowing against your windows. But you don’t care. You’re all wrapped up tight like a burrito, warm and dry in your blankets.
Okay, now take away the cozy part. And the warm, dry part too. While you’re at it, put some holes in the roof and rip out the windows. In fact, take away everything except the rain, wind, thunder, and lightning.
Now throw in a flimsy tarp that makes Swiss cheese look like reinforced steel, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what it was like inside our shelter that night.
We were all shoved into the corners, trying to stay out of the drip-drip-drip-drips that kept coming in. Except then the drips turned into drops, and the drops turned into a waterfall. Most of our packs and bags ended up soaked.
I tried to pull my sleeping bag over my head, but that didn’t get me too far. It wasn’t like I was going to sleep, anyway. Not with all that lightning and thunder going off.
Every time we got a flash, I could hear Arnie counting on the other side of the shelter. It was like—
FLASH!
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi—”
And then—
KA-BLAM!
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Counting the miles,” he said. “Every second is one mile. That’s how far away the lightning is.”
“So it’s still, like, six miles away?” Diego said.
“Something like that,” Arnie said.
“My dad got struck by lightning once,” Burp said. “It was on a night just like this—”
“Shut it, Burp!” D.J. said. I guess Burp’s reputation had gotten around camp by then. But Burp wasn’t one of my problems that night. Everything else was.
And then—
FLASH!
We all counted this time. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Miss—”
KA-BLAM!
“Four miles,” Diego said.
“Oh, man,” D.J. said. “That’s not good.”
I could hear someone crying over in the girls’ shelter, but I couldn’t tell who it was. I think Sergeant Pittman was in there too, trying to calm them down. But I didn’t get to figure it out because the next time around, it went like this—
FLASH! KA-BLAM!
And then two and a half Mississippis later, we had enough. We all bailed on our wet, miserable little shelter and made a beeline for the warm, dry tent that Fish had set up for himself.
“What are you people doing in here?” Sergeant Fish yelled at us. “It’s just a little rain!”
“Yeah, and the Grand Canyon’s just a little hole in the ground,” D.J. said. “I think I saw that Noah guy going by in his ark.”
“It’s crazy out there!” I said.
“And we’re scared!” Diego said.
“Oh, you’re scared?” Fish said. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Maybe we should all head over to the nearest IHOP for some pancakes until this blows over.”
“Can we really do that?” Burp said, a little too excitedly.
“NO, WE CAN’T REALLY DO THAT! NOW GET OUT THERE, SECURE YOUR SHELTER, AND HUNKER DOWN!!!”
“But our shelter’s toast!” Arnie said.
“Duly noted,” Fish said. “I guess that means you’ll have to tie it down properly this time.”
“But—” I said.
“Now, go! MOVE, COCKROACHES!”
“
But—” D.J. said.
“MOVE, MOVE, MOOOOOVE!!!!”
I didn’t think anything could be scarier and louder than that storm, but I was wrong. So we all piled out of Fish’s tent like five blind mice, and started looking for our flashlights, some rope, and whatever was left of our shelter.
Three words: Worst. Night. Ever. At least, until the next night.
Rafe on a Raft
In the morning, the river looked about three times as high and five times as mean as the day before.
First thing after what passed for breakfast (soggy granola), we had to put on our wet suits. Which were already wet from the storm.
Have you ever put on a wet wet suit? It’s kind of like trying to climb inside a tube of toothpaste. And then once you finally get it on, you try not to panic because it feels like there’s no way you’re ever getting that thing off again.
That’s usually right about the time you figure out that you should have gone to the bathroom first.
When we got down to the river’s edge, Pittman and Fish were tying our two four-person rafts together into one big raft and putting all of our packs into two of those kayaks.
“Change of plans, people,” Fish said. “The water’s a little high this morning, so you’ll head downriver as one team to make sure everyone sticks together.”
“Why? Is the river more dangerous now?” Burp asked.
Fish and Pittman looked at each other, and then Pittman looked at Burp.
“It’s fine, no problem at all,” Pittman said, but that pause was just long enough for everyone to figure out the real answer. “Everyone gear up and let’s shove off.”
Nobody talked too much while we were putting on our life jackets and helmets. Then we picked up our paddles and piled onto that big raft.
“Remember everything we told you!” Pittman said. “I’ll be out front in one kayak, and Sergeant Fish will come behind.”
“Out there on the river, we talk and you listen,” Fish said. “We call a command and you do it, no questions asked. That’s how you—”
“Stay alive?” Carmen said.
“Run a smooth expedition,” Fish said. “Now, let’s do this! Move! Into the water!”
Pittman was out in the water by now, paddling in her kayak, while Fish shoved us off from the shore. I don’t really know what he was expecting, but I’m pretty sure the next ten seconds didn’t go the way they were supposed to.
As soon as he let go of the raft, we took off—quick. We flew right past Sergeant Pittman, who had way better control of her kayak than us newbies on our big raft, and just kept on going. Next thing I knew, we were shooting straight down the mighty Arkansas at top speed, like something out of a movie.
And if it was a movie, it would be called—
Running the Gauntlet
I can’t tell you a whole lot about those first ten seconds. All I remember is the screaming.
“Something’s wroooooong!” Thea yelled.
“You THINK?” Carmen yelled back.
“Where’s Pittman and Fish?” Diego said.
I looked back and they were already about a mile behind us.
“SLOW DOWN!” Fish screamed.
“Verrrrrrrrrry funnnnnnnnnnny-y-y-y!” Thea yelled.
“How?!” the rest of us chimed in.
Pretty quick, the water went from fast to faster and white to whiter. We were up to our eyeballs in rapids before Fish and Pittman were anywhere near catching up to us. It didn’t seem to matter how hard they paddled, they just couldn’t make up the distance.
The rapids were like a roller coaster on steroids. We rode up the front of one wave, and—slam! Down on the other side. Up the next swell, and—sploosh! Back down again. That raft was bucking like a bronco, and all we could do was hold tight. Paddling? Forget about that. We were just trying to stay on.
We flew up—and down. And sideways. And around. And back up—and back down.
And here’s the thing. I don’t know exactly how long that part went on, but somewhere along the way, it actually started to get—fun. Sure, we were cold and wet and terrified, but at a certain point, we were also realizing something.
We weren’t just screaming and out of control. We were actually riding those rapids!
It was awesome!
And dangerous!
And then…
That’s when I saw what Fish and Pittman later called the Gauntlet, dead ahead. Emphasis on the dead.
When we came around the next bend in the river, we were headed straight at this WALL of white water. And just past the wall, there was another wall, and another. It looked like the whole river was standing up.
“I don’t like… the look… of that!”Arnie said.
“Me neither!” I said.
“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?!” Carmen said.
“What CAN we do?” Thea said.
“EVERYONE HOLD ON!” I said.
“Hey!” Burp said. “This is just like the time when I—”
“SHUT UP, BURP!” everyone yelled—right before we hit that first wall.
All of a sudden, that raft wasn’t underneath me anymore. It was more like in front of me. The whole thing stood up straight and we slid off like fried eggs off the grill at Swifty’s Diner.
I tried to remember what Pittman and Fish had said about falling in. I put my feet out in front of me—at least I remembered that much—and my life vest kept me from going under. Mostly, though, my thoughts were going something like glub-blug-blah-blab-glub-HELP!-blah-blub-glug.…
I wasn’t on the raft anymore. Now I was the raft. We all were. When I looked around, I saw a bunch of helmets and life vests—but I couldn’t tell who was who. It was just a big mess of cockroach soup, shooting downstream toward the calmer part of the river.
The good part about how fast the Gauntlet runs is that it doesn’t take long to get spit back out of it. Pretty soon we were all stumbling up onto the banks and counting heads. We were soaking and bruised and a little shaken up, but we had ridden the rapids. If Pittman and Fish would have let us, I think some of us would have gone again. Myself included.
The Sergeants showed up pretty quick, anyway. Pittman looked scared, but Fish just looked mad. Maybe at the river. Maybe at himself for not catching up. Or maybe at us for not being superheroes.
“Everyone okay?” Pittman said.
“We’re okay,” Arnie said.
And in a weird way—I don’t know if anyone else felt it—I actually felt like we were more than okay. We’d survived! And that’s not all.
My hands were blue. I was shivering like a leaf in the wind. But more than anything, I was wondering how many tags we were going to get for this.
That’s right—it was all about the game for me. Still.
And that’s when I knew for sure that I was in it to win it.
Taking Out the Trash
After that, Pittman towed Fish’s kayak behind hers, and Fish took the raft with us.
I’m not going to lie. Fish was amazing on the river. He got us paddling all together, and we shot those rapids like fish in a barrel. It was capital AWE, capital SOME. I didn’t fear for my life once.
But when we got to the take-out (where you TAKE your rafts OUT of the water, another example of clever raft naming), it was back to the same old Fish.
“All right, cockroaches, let’s get you good-for-nothings doing some good for something. Everyone take a garbage bag,” he said. Then he started handing bags out from this shed where we turned in our paddles and life jackets.
At the take-out, there was a parking lot, a picnic area, and some bathrooms, all with overflowing garbage cans. It looked like everyone who came there had the world’s worst aim with their trash. Now it was up to us to “leave the place better than we found it,” like Captain Crowder had said what seemed like ages ago.
“I want to see full bags, people,” Pittman said. “A full bag earns a new tag! No slacking!”
I got busy right away. The end of
day three was coming up fast, and I still only had nine tags, even after earning an extra by helping out with the cooking. I was right about our trip on the river being worth a little extra tag-wise, but I still had to hustle if I wanted to fill two garbage bags before sundown.
That’s right, two bags. You haven’t forgotten about Carmen, have you?
As usual, she spent most of her time not getting anything done while I did all the work. And to tell you the embarrassing truth, I didn’t even think about it anymore.
But then I started to notice how quiet Carmen was. That was weird—for Carmen. She wasn’t even standing near anyone, and the only time she said anything was when some guy at the picnic area laughed at her tattoo. Then she said plenty, but I’m not allowed to put those kinds of words into this book.
Still, I could tell something was wrong. In fact, she hadn’t bossed me around for hours, ever since our raft tipped over. I was starting to think maybe the mighty Arkansas had scared her more than she was letting on.
“You okay?” I asked her, once I’d made sure that everyone else was out of earshot.
“I will be soon,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, I’m out of here,” she said. “I’m quitting this stupid program.”
“What?” I said. That wasn’t what I expected. At all.
“You heard me,” she said. “Pittman and Fish can shove it.”
“But you can’t quit now,” I said.
TIME OUT FOR A SECOND!
I know what you’re thinking. Carmen quitting The Program could have been like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and my birthday, all rolled into one. Why would I ever say something as stupid as that?
There were a million things I could have said instead. And a million more I should have said.
Here’s the thing. I don’t think our rafting trip was the only part that scared Carmen. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d just figured out who was the one crying in the girls’ tent during that thunderstorm. I don’t know—if I can be afraid of heights, maybe Carmen had a thing about water. Or maybe The Program was just getting to her.