After a couple of minutes, their merriment petered out and they were able to get their breath back. They were both exhausted, but enjoying the endorphins that their laughter had released into their bloodstreams.
“Man, I needed that,” said Sarah.
“I guess I did, too.” Candi looked around them. “Where in the heck are we, anyway?”
Sarah looked up into the trees. “I have no idea.” She looked down at the ground. “But this seems to be some sort of trail we’re on.”
“Trail? Well, that’s weird, should we follow it?”
“Yeah, maybe there’s a Wal-Mart at the end of it, and I can buy some tampons.”
“Did you bring any money?” asked Candi, a sparkle of remaining laughter in her eyes.
“Honey, when you look like I do, you don’t need to bring money,” said Sarah, saucily, flinging her knotted hair over her shoulder and walking down the path like she was on a Paris fashion runway, except her flip-flops kind of ruined the effect with their sound and the sand they were spraying up behind her.
“That’s the spirit!” said Candi happily. Now they just had to find something that could be like a period pad and everyone would be permitted to live through the night unscathed by her majesty, the queen of menstruation.
***
The girls made it back to the campfire just in time to see Kevin stumble off into the bushes to vomit.
“Ew.”
“Sarah, that’s not very nice,” scolded Candi, walking over to where Kevin was leaning his hand on a tree.
“Are you okay, Kevin?” she asked tentatively.
“No, I feel like shit. My stomach is in knots.”
Candi looked back Jonathan who had a contemplative look on his face.
“Kevin, if you did get food poisoning from those oysters, I expect you’re gonna feel sick for a couple of days. You’re probably going to get diarrhea too.”
“Dude, if you say that word again, I’m gonna come over there and bust you up.”
“What word? Oysters?”
“That’s it!”
Kevin turned around as if he was going to head towards Jonathan, but his legs had other ideas. He fell to the ground on his knees, moaning as he went down onto his side in the sand, landing at Candi’s feet. He looked up at her and said, “Hey, sand fairy, can you get me some water?”
Candi moved quickly to get him some water from their precious stores.
“We need more water,” said Jonathan, worriedly. “I’m going to go do some exploring, see what I can find.”
“I’m going to stay here with Kevin. Maybe I’ll be able to get him to eat something,” said Candi as she lifted his head to help him drink.
Kevin stopped midway and fixed his gaze on her eyes. “If you say a food word, I’m gonna have to bust you up, too.”
“Yes, well, I’m very worried about that, for sure.” Candi looked over at Sarah and Jonathan and rolled her eyes. “Sarah, why don’t you go with Jonathan and help him look. I’ll stay here and look after the tough guy. See if you can find any more b-a-n-a-n-a-s for d-i-n-n-e-r later.”
Sarah shrugged her shoulders and started walking into the trees. “Come on, Jonathan, I don’t have all day to wait on you.”
Jonathan shot his sister a weary look before he got up to follow her into the jungle.
The last thing Candi heard was Sarah singing, “‘This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! I said this shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!’”
Candi couldn’t help but laugh. They were a million miles away from Gwen Stefani on the radio and everything else they used to think was normal.
She looked down at Kevin who seemed to be asleep again, his head resting directly on the sand. She looked around and decided to spend some time trying to create a more comfortable place to put him. She started by grabbing a nearby fallen palm frond, stripping it of its leaves, trying to figure out how to weave them into some sort of mat he could sleep on.
***
“I said this shit is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! The B is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”
“What in the heck are you saying, Sarah? Is that some kind of cheer or something? What do bananas have to do with football?”
They had been pushing their way through the trees for half an hour, and so far, everything looked the same. Trees, trees, sand, and trees. Birds chirping. Sun. Humidity. Trees.
“It’s not a football cheer, dork, it’s a song by Gwen Stefani. I’m surprised you don’t know that. The song only got played about a million times on the radio.”
“Don’t call me dork.”
“Fine. How about doofus.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t like being called doofus either. Nobody would. Why do you always have to be so rude, anyway?”
“Because, you annoy me. When I’m annoyed, I’m rude. Deal with it.”
“No.”
Sarah stopped tromping through the underbrush and turned to face Jonathan.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?”
“I mean No. I’m not just going to deal with your rudeness or act like it doesn’t matter. Words can hurt, Sarah; what you say means something. Even if you think it’s nothing, it’s not nothing to me – or anyone else for that matter. Just because you can say rude things, doesn’t mean you should say them.”
Sarah thought about what he said for a second. Her first instinct was to tell him to go get bent. He sounded like a parent or something. But then she started warring within herself. On one hand, this ‘take it or leave it’ attitude kind of defined who she was; but on the other hand, Jonathan seemed to be suggesting that her words had some kind of power, which was a concept she hadn’t really considered before.
She shook off the philosophical points that had started swimming around in her brain and opted for the standard Sarah response. “Whatevs.”
“Yeah. Whatevs yourself.” Jonathan, obviously disgusted with her complete lack of respect for anyone’s feelings, pushed around her to continue through the trees ahead. He kept up a fast pace, forcing Sarah to have to hurry to keep up. And she was wearing Candi’s flip-flops that were two sizes too small.
“Wait up, Jonathan, you’re going too fast!”
Jonathan ignored her. His attention was elsewhere. Soon he disappeared in the trees ahead of her.
***
The sound of the water got louder. As Jonathan pushed through a particularly thick stand of bamboo, he reached an outcropping of rock that rose up above the jungle floor at least thirty feet. They had reached the southern end of the island. This was the big outcropping of rock they had seen from out in the ocean when the boat was still a hundred yards offshore.
Coming from a crevice in the rocks was a stream of water. It dribbled over the edge and fell to the jungle floor, disappearing quickly into the sandy loam.
Jonathan approached the rock and held his hand out under the water. It wasn’t cold, but it was cooler than the air around him. He hesitantly put a drop of the water on his tongue from this finger and found that it wasn’t salty.
“Whoo-hooo! I found it! I found some water!” He looked around to share his enthusiasm with Sarah, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Sarah?” he called out, confused. Now where the heck is she? God, what a pain in the butt she is sometimes. He thought about that for a second and then amended his thought. All the time. She is a pain in the butt every second of the day that she’s not sleeping.
Jonathan headed back in the direction he had come, finding Sarah sitting on a fallen tree.
“Hey, come on, I found something seriously cool.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? Come on!”
“No. I’m not going anywhere with you. You are rude and you are not a gentleman; all you do is insult me, so I’m finished. Continue, Christopher Columbus, I’m staying here.” She folded her arms and refused to budge.
Jonathan was flummoxed. What was she going to do? Sit in the jungle by herself all night? Besides, she was the rude one,
not him. He considered leaving her there, but he knew his sister would kill him if he did. Plus he could never do that. His parents raised him to take care of weaker people. Only thing was, she didn’t seem very weak. That’s why a piece of him still wanted to leave her there.
“Okay, listen. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so honest with you back there. Next time, I’ll just keep my comments to myself. Now can we go, please?”
“No.”
Jonathan grabbed his hair in frustration. “What do you want me to do? I can’t just leave you here!” He threw his arms down at his sides in disgust.
“Sure you can. You left me in the dust just a minute ago, might as well do it again.” She stared off into the distance, refusing to meet his eyes.
Jonathan sighed, the fight going out of him. “Yeah, about that. Sorry. It’s just that you really frustrate me sometimes, and I’m not used to that. Candi is more level-headed than you are, and she’s really the only girl I’ve ever been around, other than my mom – and she doesn’t really count.”
Sarah turned to look at him with her eyebrow raised. “Seriously? You’re a junior in high school, and you’ve never been around another girl? Had a girlfriend?”
A sarcastic puff of air escaped Jonathan’s lips. “Yeah, right, Sarah. Me? A girlfriend? Get real.”
“I saw you with that girl on the ship. Sucking face. Don’t tell me you don’t know your way around a girl’s panties.”
“Sucking face? Who says that anymore? And anyway, she grabbed me and kissed me to keep some other guy away from her, so it wasn’t a real kiss.” He turned to go back in the direction of the water. “And I don’t think I want to talk to you about this anymore, so let’s go.”
“Oh, poo, just when things were getting interesting.” Sarah stood up to join him. “I’ll come with you, but only if you agree to slow down and wait for me, and only if you agree to be interrogated by me until I am satisfied with your answers.”
This girl was nuts. He just shook his head no.
“I’m dead serious. Either you agree to my terms, or I will stay here all night and you can explain to level-headed Sugar Lump why her perfect brother left me out here to die with the vipers and the cannibals.”
“Fine. Whatever. But there are no vipers or cannibals here that I’ve seen, and you probably should stop calling Candi Sugar Lump, because if she ever gets really mad at you, you’ll be sorry.”
“Oooh, I’m so scared,” laughed Sarah.
“You should be. She might be little, but when she finally gets mad, look out. I know some karate, but she’s sneaky, and she doesn’t fight fair.” He shivered inwardly as he remembered her last kick to the family jewels.
The pair continued through the trees, Jonathan in the lead.
“So, what did you find?”
“I found water.”
“No, you didn’t!”
“Yes I did!”
“Oh, my god, I could just kiss you right now Jonathan.”
Jonathan felt his face go red. He was trying not to picture that kiss, but it was impossible. Sarah was the biggest pain in the butt girl he’d ever met, but for some reason she got under his skin, and not always in a bad way. Or maybe it was in a bad way. He was so conflicted.
They reached the stand of bamboo and pushed through. Sarah saw the splash of water coming off the top of the rock. She let out a squeal of delight and clapped her hands.
“Holy mother of all things holy, it’s a shower! It’s not just water, it’s a friggin’ shower! Jonathan, you are the king of the island!” She grabbed him in a bear hug and planted a big kiss, right on his lips, before running over to the water and letting it flow across her hand and then down her arm.
Jonathan watched her as he felt the warmth from her kiss travel down to his chest and into other regions of his body. The kiss didn’t seem to affect her at all, but it was definitely affecting him. He turned around so she wouldn’t see exactly how much.
***
As the water ran down to her elbow and then dripped off onto the top of her foot, Sarah reached up with her other hand to touch her lips. The enthusiasm of the moment had caused her to throw that kiss out there – but she was still feeling the effects of it, even when the discovery of the water should have washed it all away.
She turned to look at him, but his back was to her. She snorted in disgust. Typical. He was probably looking for bugs or something.
“So, what’s next, Magellan?” she asked with feigned casualness.
Jonathan looked sideways, up to the top of the rocks where the water was coming from. “I’m going to climb up there to see where the water source is.”
Sarah followed his eyes and saw a pretty steep rock face that disappeared up and over to its other side, out of sight.
“I’m not so sure that’s such a good idea.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No, seriously, Jonathan, what if you fall?”
“I’m not going to fall.”
“Well, how about if we get a rope just in case?”
“No, I don’t want to take the time to get a rope, I’m going now.”
Sarah sighed in frustration, but she was too happy about the water discovery to let his know-it-all-ness get to her. She followed with her eyes as he started making his way up to the highest point of the rock pile.
As Jonathan reached the top, Sarah heard him gasp. Then she heard some sliding sounds. He disappeared in an instant, yelling out as he fell.
Then there was silence. Even the birds had stopped chirping.
Sarah ran over to the rocks and scrambled up to get higher so she could see better. Jonathan’s head had disappeared over the edge somewhere, and she had no idea what was on the other side.
“Sarah!”
“Jonathan, are you okay?!”
“No!” he grunted out. “I slipped. I need a rope or something, quick!!”
“Holy shit, Jonathan, you told me NOT to get a rope! Hold on, I’ll be right back!”
“You’d better hurry up. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on!”
Sarah scrambled down the rocky slope as fast as she could in flip-flop-covered feet.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod ... shitshitshit.”
She continued her litany as she stumbled back to the stand of bamboo. She scanned the ground for a loose piece, and luckily found one that felt pretty solid, sitting among the stalks. She wrestled it out of the pile and then rushed back to the rock. She kicked off her flip-flops, climbing up to get back to where she had last seen Jonathan.
“Jonathan!”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Okay, I got a stick. There wasn’t any rope.”
“Well, I don’t think a stick will work,” he said weakly.
“The stick is going to work, Jonathan! Now shut up, and for once in your life, listen to me.”
Sarah inched out on her butt across the top of the hard surface. She could see where Jonathan had slipped. There was a small pile of sand with a sliding shoe print in it. She scarcely noticed the amazing view of the ocean and jungle below, although she did feel the refreshing cool breeze since it was now blowing across her hot and sweaty face. All she could see was the top of Jonathan’s head and the rest of his body trying to cling to the other side of the rock. He had hold of a thick, dangling tree root that was growing out of the boulder in front of him. It was the only thing keeping him from falling about fifty feet into the tops of the trees below.
“Okay, I’m going to lower this stick down to you, and you’re going to take it and use it to pull yourself up to me.”
“It won’t work, Sarah! I’ll pull you over the rock with me, and we’ll both die!”
“No, you won’t! I have two spots for my heels to hold on. I’m not going anywhere. Now grab the damn stick before I hit you with it and knock you down off this rock myself!”
Jonathan risked a look up at Sarah. She was staring at him determinedly. “Shit, Sarah, you sure are bossy.”
Sar
ah smiled. “You just said ‘shit’. I’m telling everyone when we get back.”
“Okay,” he said breathlessly, “here I go.”
Jonathan grunted as he used what little momentum he could create by swinging his lower body out and then towards the rock, to transfer his right hand to the stick Sarah was holding.
His hand made contact.
He grabbed on as hard as he could.
Her body lurched forward with the weight of Jonathan now holding onto the stick, but her heels dug in and she didn’t let go.
“You sure about this, Sarah?”
“Sure as I’m gonna be. Now shut up and grab the stick with your other hand. My heels are killing me.” She could feel her bare feet bruising with the pressure.
Jonathan took one last look at Sarah’s face and said, “Try not to let me go.”
“Not a chance.” She gritted her teeth, ready for the pull of Jonathan’s full bodyweight.
***
Jonathan let go of the tree root and grabbed onto the stick with his other hand. He felt the stick go down, as his weight pulled Sarah forward even more. He couldn’t risk looking at her face. He focused on using the leverage she provided to get a foothold on the side of the rock.
Finding a small bump with the edge of his sneaker, he used it to push himself up a foot. He moved his lower hand up the stick, above his other hand. He tried not to think about how his lower hand was being crushed between the stick and the rock. There was blood dripping down his wrist.
He felt around for another foothold with his other sneaker. He touched another bump on the rock and secured his toe to it as best he could. He pushed up and was able to transfer his left hand to a place on the stick above his right, scraping the skin off his knuckles and the back of his hand.
He risked a glance at Sarah, and it gave him renewed energy.
Her face was bright pink, sweat running off her in rivers. She was focusing all of her energy onto holding that stick. For him. For the first time since he’d met her, she had nothing to say.
He knew if he didn’t get up there in the next few seconds, one of them was going to see what it felt like to fall from a very great height – very possibly it would be both of them. By now, he knew that look on Sarah’s face. It meant she wasn’t going to let go, even if it meant she was going down too. Damn stubborn woman.