Isle Be Seeing You (11 page)

Josh glanced at me with concern. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Maybe we should switch off—let someone else lift for a while.”

“Good idea. Maybe Ned could—” Brooke broke off, glancing around. “Hey where'd Ned go, anyway?” she grumbled. “He said he'd be right down to help, after he finished cleaning up from lunch.”

Angela snorted, “He probably stuck all the dishes in the stream, then settled down to take a nap while the current rinses them off” she said.“I mean, I hate to come right out and call anyone lazy, but …” She pursed her lips into a prissy little
O
.

I winced on Ned 's behalf. I happened to know that he was up at the ridge at that moment. Macy and Kenny had asked if we could let him and only him in on the fire plan, and I'd okayed it. Ned wasn't the type to go around blabbing to people, and besides, he was really turning out to be a huge help—not only in collecting firewood, but in actually arranging it into something that might burn successfully.

“For your information, I just saw Ned,” I spoke up. “He's busy hauling water from the stream. Figured he'd get a jump on dinner!”

“Really?” Brooke looked surprised. “That's weird. I thought we had plenty of water.”

Oops. “Um, Kenny tripped over the big pot and spilled it all over” I clarified quickly. “So he's helping Ned get more.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that's all right, then.” Brooke seemed mollified. The others were obviously less than enthralled with my fascinating rendition of Ned Gets Water, Part 2.

I let out a silent sigh of relief as everyone started discussing the best way to move the rest of the larger logs into place. I was getting pretty good at coming up with cover stories lately; I only hoped I could keep it up for another day or so. That would give us enough time to get the burn pile ready to go. Then it would only be a matter of time before we were all back home enjoying electricity, flush toilets, non-papaya-based food, and all the other privileges of civilization. And in my case, watching Angela fume every time she saw me and Josh together.

The thought gave me strength. Well, mental strength,
anyway. I sighed, willing my tired arm muscles to keep functioning as we got back to work.

A couple of hours later the twins found me as I was rinsing my sweaty, bright red face in the stream. “Hey,” Chrissie greeted me with a little frown. “What are you doing hiding out back here?”

“Trying not to die of heat stroke,” I retorted, dunking both wrists underwater. Ned claimed that was supposed to help somehow, and I wasn't about to question him. He'd read more useful facts on the Internet than most of us could find in the school library. Most of them even seemed to be true. “Why do you ask?”

Cassie's eyes were wide and worried. “Angela's hanging all over Josh out on the beach.”

“So what else is new?” I muttered, swiping one wet arm across my forehead.

The twins sighed and exchanged one of their patented twinny we-understand-all-you-understand-nothing glances. It's one of their more annoying habits, actually.

“Yes, that's pretty much our point,” Chrissie told me with exaggerated patience. “The more time Angela
spends swooning all over him and telling him how great he is, the more likely she is to get him before he ever notices you.”

Gritting my teeth, I once again resisted the urge to let them know that he'd almost certainly noticed me while the two of us were liplocked out in the jungle. Swallowing my words that way was starting to give me big-time indigestion.

But even more stomach-churning was the thought that they might be right. How would I even know if Josh's feelings were changing? I hadn't been anywhere near alone with him since that little kissing session a couple of days earlier, thanks to the Secret Pact. And despite my best efforts to keep them apart, Angela couldn't possibly spend more time at Josh's side if she'd stapled herself to him. What if her near-constant presence wore him down, as the twins feared? Could her evil powers possibly overwhelm his good taste?

The thought made me feel crankier than ever. “Look, get off my case, okay?” I snapped at the twins. “I can't control what stupid Angela does. Or Josh either”

The twins looked wounded. “Fine, whatever,” Chrissie said.

“Yeah,” Cassie added. “We're just trying to help.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, even though I was still feeling irritated. Not so much at them—Cassie was right, they were only trying to help—but at myself. What was happening to me, anyway? I hated feeling so girly-girl and pathetic, worrying so much about what Josh thought of me or what Angela might do that I was practically paralyzed with anxiety. Keeping my true thoughts and feelings to myself instead of sharing them with whoever would listen. The real me wouldn't act that way.

So why couldn't I seem to snap out of it?

By just before dinnertime the next day, I was feeling much more optimistic. “You think it's big enough?” I asked, gazing at the tremendous pile of tree branches, driftwood, dry leaves, palm fronds, and assorted other combustibles that now took up at least half of the rocky bare expanse of the ridge.

“I think it's ready” Macy's eyes were shining with quiet excitement.

“Me too,” Kenny added.

Ned nodded. “Yep.”

It was a rare moment when all four of us were up there
together. The others were cooking, resting, or washing up before dinner and none of us were on food duty that day, which meant no one would miss us for a while. We'd taken advantage of that to whip ourselves into a frenzy of kindling collecting and branch arranging.

Ned nodded. “We could try lighting it tomorrow morning right after breakfast. That way it should be going strong by the time the boat goes by.”

“Excellent” I murmured. Suddenly rescue was so close I could almost taste it. We would light the fire tomorrow, someone would see it, and before we knew it, we'd be home again. Seeing our families. Sleeping on actual beds. Mr. Truskey could get the choo-choo germs flushed out of him and go back to his usual state of near sanity. And of course, the extra-special bonus—as soon as we were back in the real world, Josh and I could go public, I could enjoy the resulting Angela meltdown, and everything would be back to normal. I could hardly wait.

When we returned to the beach, we found the others sitting around the fire pit talking about the raft. “And we still need to figure out how to attach the rudder. Once that's worked out, I'm hoping to have it finished with
another good day's work,” Josh was saying eagerly. “Maybe two days at the most.”

My fellow fire builders and I exchanged a quick glance when the others weren't looking. Talk about cutting it close …

But it didn't matter. As long as we could get the fire lit in time for the boat to see it on its next daily pass, our plan would still work out just fine.

“Awesome, Josh!” Angela leaned closer and squeezed his arm. “That's all thanks to you. This raft is going to be so amazing.”

I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to watch her make eyelash-fluttering goo-goo eyes at him any longer. As far as I was concerned, the rescuers couldn't possibly come soon enough.

“Almost ready?” Macy whispered as she passed me on her way out of the shelter early the next morning.

I was sitting there, bleary-eyed, staring at the laces on my sneakers because it just seemed like too much effort to tie them. Every muscle in my body ached like crazy. Even my face muscles felt sore when I yawned. I'd
thought I was in pretty good shape—back home I worked out with the rest of the basketball team almost every day But basketball muscles were no match for the work I'd done over the past few days, running back and forth trying to do my share on two huge, difficult projects. Three, actually, if you counted trying to keep Angela from glomming onto Josh 24-7 like some kind of big, blond parasite.

But it would all be worth it, I reminded myself. Today was the day.

I reached forward and tied my shoes, groaning softly as my back and arm muscles creaked. Straightening up again, I glanced around the shelter. The twins were sound asleep nearby, curled up together like kittens. A few feet away Mr. T was lying on his back, his mouth hanging open, snoring loudly. Ned, Macy, and Kenny had already tiptoed out.

Josh, Ryan, and Brooke were already up and gone too, which was no surprise. Brooke was almost always the first one awake. And the two boys often went for a jog together before breakfast. However, my eyes narrowed as I noticed that Angela was missing as well. Unlike the other three, she wasn't exactly known as an early riser.

Then again, neither was I. Stifling another yawn, I flicked myself in the cheeks a few times with my fingers, trying to wake myself up. After dinner the night before, the four of us in the fire-building faction had huddled briefly to finalize our plans. We'd agreed to get up early and sneak up to the ridge to check on our fire pile and take care of any finishing touches. That way the fire would be ready to go right after breakfast. I shivered, and only partly because of the cool early-morning sea breeze.

I crawled out of the shelter and caught up with Macy just outside. The sun was rising above the horizon but hadn't yet had time to burn off all the night air, making the beach feel sort of misty-cool and pleasant. Brooke was over at the fire pit stoking up the embers, and Kenny and Ryan were down by the water untangling one of the fishing lines. All of them were well out of earshot.

“Listen,” I told Macy, keeping my voice low just in case. “I've been thinking. When you all explain about the fire and stuff, I'm going to pretend I didn't know anything about it, okay?”

She looked surprised. “What? What do you mean, Dani? I thought we all agreed to tell the truth about it as soon as the others notice the smoke.”

“You guys
can
tell the truth.” I knew Macy took truth telling seriously. She's one of the most honest people I'e ever met. “I'll just keep quiet about my part.”

That was a conclusion I'd reached the night before, after lying awake worrying about our plans. My gaze drifted to the mountain rising in the center of the island. If Ned's calculations were right, our giant fire would quickly begin to emit huge clouds of smoke that would be visible for miles around. We'd sort of figured that just seeing that would be enough to convince the raft builders that rescue would be on the way before long. And to help explain why we'd done it.

But would it really explain
everything?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the answer to that question was no. Not even close. What would the others think when they realized that we'd all been keeping our plan a secret from them?

What would Josh think?

I bit my lip. Had it been a huge mistake to keep the fire plan a secret? When I'd made the others agree to that, I'd mostly been thinking of avoiding Angela's obnoxious comments. But now, the closer we got to putting our plan into action, the more clearly I could imagine the
awkward moment when Josh figured out what was going on. Had I betrayed him? I didn't really think so. But I wasn't sure he would agree, and I couldn't take any chances. Maybe when we got back home, I would figure out a way to tell him, but until then, it just seemed easier to play dumb.

Macy was still staring at me worriedly. “But Dani …,” she began.

“What are you guys talking about?”

Luckily it was Ned. Macy told him what I'd just told her.

“Oh.” Ned looked confused. “But why don't you want them to know, Dani? You should get credit for all the hard work you did.”

“Its okay,” I insisted. “Really. My mind is totally made up, okay? I'm going to talk to Kenny about it too.”

Macy sighed. “Okay, Dani. If that's really what you want.”

“Yeah,” Ned added.

I could tell they still didn't understand. But that was okay. Later on I could probably figure out a way to explain it to them.

Luckily none of the other early risers were paying much attention to us, and we managed to slip away from the beach without arousing suspicion. We gathered at
the ridge, but there wasn't much to do other than tuck in some dry leaves that had blown around a little during the night.

“Okay, then.” Macy glanced around our little group. “We'll meet up here again after breakfast, right?”

“Except for me,” I reminded them.

Ned shrugged. “Except for you.”

When we got back to the beach, we found the fire pit almost deserted. I wandered into the shelter—which was empty—to change into my bathing suit. I was planning to be going for an innocent swim in the lagoon when my coconspirators made their big announcement.

I returned to the fire pit. “Where is everyone?” I asked the twins, who were perched on a log, eating bowls of papaya-colored mush.

Chrissie stirred her food and yawned. “Ryan finished eating already and went down to fish,” she mumbled sleepily. “Mr. Truskey's still sleeping, I think. Dunno about anyone else.”

“Brooke's over there,” Cassie added helpfully, pointing toward the food-prep table, where Brooke was prying open a coconut. “Oh, and there's Ned coming now”

I grabbed a bowl and helped myself to some mush. Don't
get me wrong; I noticed right away that the only two people missing were Josh and Angela. But I didn't worry about it too much at that moment. I figured she was just up to her usual shenanigans, keeping him company while he washed his face in the stream or something. It was annoying, but I comforted myself with the fact that it would be over soon. Besides, my grumbling stomach seemed like a much more urgent issue at the moment.

Ned, Macy, and Kenny joined the twins and me at the fire pit. Brooke wandered back over eventually too. We were all still eating when we heard a triumphant cry from farther down the beach.

“Whazzat?” Cassie asked through yet another yawn. “Did Ry catch another baby shark or something?”