As we floated closer to the lights, we could make out Luno’s gloating expression. His smile was thin and ugly.
Frantically I jerked on the starter cord, and this time the old engine gave an encouraging kick before sputtering out.
Luno crowed, “I get you punks now!”
My sister poked me in the back. “Noah, look! Quick!”
Another figure had joined the bald goon at the end of the dock. I recognized him immediately in that flowered Hawaiian shirt, but just the stink from his cigar would have given him away. It was Dusty Muleman himself.
“I’m outta here,” said Abbey, poised to jump.
“No, wait.” I feverishly resumed hauling on the starter cord, one hard pull after another. Nothing makes you forget how tired you are like pure cold fear. I was working like a robot in high gear.
Then my sister cried, “Noah, duck!”
And ducking would have been a smart move, no doubt about it. Because I turned to see Luno with his meaty right arm extended, aiming a stubby-looking gun at the dinghy. Dusty stood off to the side, blowing lazy rings of blue smoke.
The scene was so unreal, I just froze. It was like watching someone else’s nightmare. I felt blank and numb and far away.
“What’s the matter with you? Get down!” Abbey yelled.
By now we’d drifted to within fifty feet of the dock, which made us an easy target. Finally an alarm bell went off in my brain and I threw up both arms, shouting, “Don’t shoot! We give up!”
Dusty chuckled quietly. Luno was leering like a psycho. He did not lower the gun barrel even one millimeter.
“You kids make bad mistake,” he said. “Now must pay.”
If ever I was going to wet my pants in public, it would have been right then and there.
Yet all I could think about was protecting my sister, so I threw myself on top of her. The landing wasn’t so graceful— I banged my chin on the gunwale and nearly capsized us. Wrapping my arms around Abbey, I waited for the explosion of a gunshot.
It never came. A fierce and breathless struggle had broken out on the dock. Peeking over the side of the dinghy, Abbey and I witnessed an amazing sight.
As if dropped from the stars, a third man had materialized under the dock lights—and he was pounding Luno into a sweaty lump of Jell-O. The only sign of Dusty Muleman was the slapping of his designer flip-flops against the ground as he scurried off in terror toward the Coral Queen.
The cheerful tinkle of steel drums now mixed with Luno’s odd piggish grunts, the wiry stranger swinging a deck mop with painful accuracy.
In fact, he wasn’t a total stranger to me and my sister. We were near enough to see the M-shaped scar on his weathered tan face, and the bright gold coin swinging from the chain around his neck.
“The pirate guy!” Abbey whispered gleefully. “Outrageous!”
“Don’t you move,” I told her, and clambered to the stern. I seized the handle of the starter rope and, from a squatting position, yanked with every ounce of muscle I had left.
By some small miracle, the rickety old engine purred to life.
I whipped the dinghy around, aimed it toward the channel, and twisted the throttle wide open. I glanced back just as the mysterious pirate was hurling Luno’s stubby gun into the basin. For an old geezer, he had a pretty good arm.
After reaching the open water, I slowed to half speed. Running a boat at night is tricky because you can’t see very far or very clearly, and a cheapo flashlight doesn’t help much. All kinds of hazardous clutter could be floating in your path—boards, driftwood, coconuts, ropes—and it wouldn’t have taken much to wreck the propeller blades on the old Evinrude.
Abbey perched on the bow, watching out for obstacles, while I tried to navigate by the lights of the shoreline: motels, mansions, RV parks, tiki bars. The darkest stretch was Thunder Beach, peaceful and deserted under a yellow moon. An ideal night for a momma turtle to crawl up and lay her eggs, I thought.
The salt air felt good on our faces as we ran against a light chop. Above us hung a glittering spray of stars that stretched all the way to Cuba. I was happier than I’d ever been, and so was Abbey.
“We did it!” she cheered. “We are so hot!”
“Adiós, Captain Muleman!” I shouted with a phony salute.
The hardest part of Operation Royal Flush was over. We’d laid the trap and escaped, though barely. Being chased by Luno wasn’t part of the plan, but it didn’t spoil anything. For now, Dusty Muleman and his gorillas wouldn’t be able to figure out what I’d been doing aboard the Coral Queen, since the only clue had gone down the toilets.
Way, way down the toilets, into the holding tank—the last place they’d ever stick their heads.
Only later would Dusty realize what I’d done, and by then he’d have worse problems—namely the U.S. Coast Guard, which I intended to call first thing in the morning.
But as jazzed as I was, I couldn’t forget how close Abbey and I had come to being shot. Shot. It was unbelievable.
Why, I wondered, would Dusty stand there and let Luno take aim at a couple of pint-sized trespassers? We must have really annoyed him, I thought, with all our snooping around.
And what were the odds of being rescued for a second time by the same stranger? Either the old pirate was following us around like some sort of weird guardian angel, or Abbey and I were the luckiest two kids in Florida.
“Hard right!” she called from the bow.
I pushed the tiller, and we skittered past a glistening spear of two-by-four, only inches away. It would have punched a hole in the hull for sure.
“Good eyes,” I called to my sister.
“Thanks. What’s that noise?”
“Don’t know.”
“Noah, why are you slowing us down?” she shouted.
“I’m not,” I said. “Not on purpose, anyway.”
But the little boat was definitely losing speed. The loud noise that Abbey and I had heard was the outboard engine throwing a piston rod, though we didn’t know that at the time.
The motor conked out with a sickly rattle.
I knew we were in major trouble, but I went through the motions of removing the cowling and fiddling with the spark-plug connections. It didn’t fool Abbey for a second.
“I don’t suppose you brought Dad’s toolbox,” she said.
“Very funny.”
I tried to pull the starter cord, but it wouldn’t budge. The old Evinrude was stone dead.
A heavy, tired silence fell over us. Once again the little boat was at the mercy of the breeze, which was taking us out to sea, toward the Straits of Florida. Obviously our good luck had run out.
“We’re history,” my sister said. “Mom and Dad’ll go postal when they get home and we’re not there.”
The wind was clocking around to the northwest. In summer that usually means bad weather is on the way.
I said, “Better toss the anchor—no, wait a second …”
Too late. My stomach clenched when I heard the splash.
“Let me guess,” Abbey said. “The rope wasn’t tied on, was it?”
“My fault. I should’ve checked.”
“So I just threw our anchor away. How nice.” She sighed in discouragement. “Now what?”
We saw a distant flash of electric blue, which was followed by a slow deep rumble.
“Seven miles. Not good,” Abbey said.
Dad had taught us how to count the seconds between the lightning bolt and thunder—one thousand, two thousand, three thousand—to figure out how many miles away a storm was. Like Abbey, I’d counted seven.
“Maybe it’ll miss us,” she said.
“Yeah.” And maybe someday monkeys will fly helicopters, I thought.
In a few short minutes our mood had plunged from the highest high to the lowest low. The moon slipped behind a rolling gray carpet of clouds, and the freshening gusts smelled wet. Abbey scrunched low in the bow while I hunkered between the seats.
The lightning g
ot brighter and the thunder got louder, but all we could do was brace for it. Rado’s dinghy had no oars, and we were already too far from shore to swim—not that either of us was eager to jump in. I remembered Dad saying that you always stay with a boat as long as it’s still floating, because a boat is easier than a body for searchers to find.
Soon the wind began to hum, slapping us with sheets of cool rain.
“You all right?” I asked my sister.
“Snug as a bug,” she said.
The little boat slopped across the crests of the waves, moving farther and farther from shore. Stabs of lightning turned the dark into daylight, and I’d catch brief glimpses of Abbey, covering her face with the backpack. I felt horrible for getting us into such a mess, and I was furious at myself for letting her come along. It was one of the all-time dumbest things I’d ever done.
The wind-whipped raindrops stung our skin, and every thunderclap sounded like a bomb. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop my knees from knocking against the hull. I didn’t want Abbey to know how frightened I was, or how much danger we were in. If a lightning bolt struck the dinghy, we’d be roasted like crickets on a radiator.
I wiped off my wristwatch and checked the time: twenty minutes to one. Mom and Dad were home by now, probably going nuts trying to find us. I felt like throwing up.
“Hey, Noah?” Abbey said.
“What?”
“My butt’s underwater.”
“Mine, too,” I said glumly.
“Shouldn’t we, like, do something?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
We spent the next two hours bailing the boat, which is a major pain when all you’ve got are empty food-dye bottles that hold one measly ounce of liquid. Lucky for us, the storm blew through swiftly, the rain quit, and the dinghy didn’t sink.
No sooner had the stars come out again than I heard Abbey snoring. I wasn’t sure how far offshore we’d drifted, but I could still see the faint string of lights that marked the coastline. I stretched out on one of the seat planks, staring up at the moon and wondering how long it would take for somebody to spot us. I was determined to remain awake, in case a boat passed close by; then I could signal for help with the flashlight.
But my eyes didn’t stay open very long. The next thing I remember was the sun warming my cheeks, a seagull squawking overhead—and something moist splatting in my hair.
One lousy little juice box.
“That’s all we’ve got?” I said to Abbey. “What happened to the Gatorade?”
“I drank it,” she said. “I would’ve brought a whole cooler if I’d known we were getting lost at sea. Want some juice or not?”
She was still red in the face from laughing after the seagull crapped on my head—I thought she was going to have a total coronary. Then I almost fell overboard while dunking my hair in the water, trying to wash the poop out. Abbey thought that was really amusing, too.
And I guess it was. At least it kept our minds off the situation, which was getting more depressing by the minute.
I was happy to share the juice box, even though I usually can’t stand fruit punch. When you’re thirsty enough, you’ll drink just about anything. It was only eight in the morning, and we were already damp with sweat. That’s your basic July in the Florida Keys. By noon, I knew, we’d be in rough shape.
I was ticked at myself for not saving some of the rainwater we’d bailed from the boat. “Remind me not to try out for Survivor,” I grumbled to Abbey.
She arranged the backpack on her head like a fat bumpy hat. “I used to think Dad was the psycho in the family, but look at us!” she said. “No water, no shade, no food, not even a fishing rod so we can catch something to eat.”
A small airplane passed overhead—the third one of the morning—and we both stood up to wave. The plane circled once and then flew off, dashing our hopes again. From that altitude the dinghy must have looked like a blue dot on blue paper.
“Noah, when am I allowed to get scared?” Abbey tried to make it sound like she was kidding, but I could tell she was partly serious.
“At least we can still see the shore,” I said.
“So how deep’s the water here?”
As we’d floated east, past the reef line, the color had changed from turquoise to indigo. I didn’t know the exact depth, but I guessed low on purpose.
“Fifty, maybe sixty feet. Not real deep.”
“Not for a tuna maybe,” said my sister, “but way too deep for me.”
“Were you planning on taking a swim?”
“Yeah, me and the hammerheads.” She scanned the horizon and frowned. “You said there’d be charter boats all over the place. You promised somebody would find us by nine o’clock.”
“Yeah, and there’s still an hour left on my prediction.” I was trying not to sound as bummed as I was.
Miles away, we could see the blocky shape of a freighter steaming south, and a few deep-sea boats trolling back and forth. None of them were heading our way.
Not even close.
I tried to pull-start Rado’s engine again, but it was no use. When I closed my eyes to take a break from the sun, I realized I was already thirsty again. My father says the summer heat in Florida is like the devil’s oven, and that’s about right.
Something started whining like a rusty hinge, and I looked up to spy another seagull circling the dinghy.
“Betcha five bucks he takes a dump on me, too,” I said.
Abbey managed a giggle. “I’m safe under the backpack.”
It was amazing how calm and good-natured she was, considering the trouble we were in. Lots of people I know, grown-ups included, would’ve freaked out.
“I just thought of something,” she said. “If we’re stuck here on the boat, who’s gonna call the Coast Guard on Dusty Muleman?”
“Good question.”
“Know what? This really bites.”
“Yeah, it does. I’m sorry, Abbey.”
“What for? We tried to stop something bad, and it didn’t work. Doesn’t mean we were wrong to try—Noah, are you listening to me?”
I wasn’t.
“What are you staring at?” Abbey demanded.
“A boat,” I said, “unless I’m so whacked out that I’m imagining things. I swear it’s coming this way.”
My sister shot to her feet.
“You see it, too?” I asked anxiously. “Or is it a mirage?”
“Nope, it’s the real deal.”
“Outstanding!”
We started waving and hollering like a couple of dweebs. This time, though, it actually worked. Pushing a frothy wake, the boat headed straight at us.
It wasn’t a big one, maybe a twenty-four-footer, but it might as well have been the Queen Elizabeth. Abbey and I had never seen a more glorious sight.
Two figures, both of them hatless and wearing wraparound sunglasses, stood at the console under the T-top. As the boat drew closer, it slowed down and banked slightly, revealing large orange lettering on the side.
TROPICAL RESCUE, it said.
“Noah, is that who I think it is?” Abbey asked weakly. “The one and only.”
“You want me to start sobbing and shaking?” “Not yet,” I told her. “First let’s see how pissed off he is.” “Is that Mom with him? Please tell me it’s not Mom.” “No, Abbey. Mom usually wears a shirt.” We quit waving and cupped our hands to our eyes, trying to see the bare-chested person through the glare. With relief Abbey said, “Oh good, it’s a man.”
“Yeah, but guess who.”
“Who?”
“Check out the scar, Abbey.”
She gasped. “This is so insane.”
The man riding with my father was the old pirate.
We were speechless as the towboat idled up to the dinghy. Dad tossed a rope, which I hitched to the bow cleat.
“Hey, guys,” my father said. “Long night?”
We nodded lamely. The stranger stood next to Dad, smiling and fingering the gold coin on his n
eck. He seemed to be studying us closely.
Dad helped me and Abbey aboard the towboat. Then he pulled us close and squeezed like he might never let go.
“Are you two okay?” He examined us from head to toe, and seemed pleased to find no bullet holes, shark bites, or missing limbs.
“We’re good,” I told him. “Just a little thirsty, that’s all.”
The old pirate guy handed each of us a cold bottle of water.
“Who are you?” Abbey asked him without even saying thanks. “I’m sorry, but it’s driving me crazy.”
The stranger took off his sunglasses and glanced over at Dad. It wasn’t exactly a sad look, but there was something heavy about it.
“Kids,” said my father, “say hello to your Grandpa Bobby.”
SEVENTEEN
“This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Petty Officer Reilly speaking.”
“Yes, I’d like to report a boat dumping sewage in the water.”
“What’s the name of the vessel?”
“It’s called the Coral Queen.”
“The gambling boat? At the Muleman marina?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you witness this violation personally?” Petty Officer Reilly asked.
“Look for a bright purple trail leading to Thunder Beach. But you’d better hurry!”
“Who am I speaking with?”
“Underwood. Paine Underwood.”
My second phone call was to the Island Examiner newspaper. This time I used my own name, not Dad’s.
Miles Umlatt remembered me, of course.
“It’s good to hear from you, Noah, but I’m sort of busy now. A bait truck just flipped over in Key Largo, and there’s live shrimp all over the highway.”
“Want a real story? A front-page story?”
Miles Umlatt said, “Sure, you bet.”
He was humoring me, playing along. I could picture the bored look on his pale splotchy face.
“All that stuff my dad said about Dusty Muleman? Well, it’s true. Every word.”
Miles Umlatt said, “I know how you must feel, Noah. If it were my father, I’d stick up for him, too—”
“You want proof? Get over to Dusty’s marina right away.”