Sharks & Boys (12 page)

We drift in silence. Now my mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton. My tongue is swollen. The sea looks endless, and I’m reminded of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a Coleridge poem that I wrote a paper on last spring. “Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” Ms. Fleck loved that paper. I focused on the albatross as a symbol of innocence and femininity. I got an A+, and she asked me to read part of it to the class. But the class hadn’t been nearly as moved by my observations of the albatross as Ms. Fleck.

When I go to college, maybe I should study literature and not biology. Maybe I should study both and have a double major. Bio is something I like because Wick and I do it together. But literature has always been something I love. A wave knocks against the raft and brings me back to the moment. I hate the sea for being so salty and ill-tempered. What did I ever do to harm it? I mean, I recycle and everything. I can’t take looking at the sharks or the empty horizon. I close my eyes and wonder, how bad is this,
really
?

“This has happened before, right?” I ask. “We can’t be the first people whose boat sank.”

I think of how easy it was for the window to break and the ship to go down. It happened fast. A lot of waves hit her, and boom, the
Gretchen
was sinking. This has to be somewhat common. There are so many boats in the world. During big storms, a certain percentage must always sink. Maybe this is as common as blowing out a tire.

“Well, there’s the
Titanic
,” Wick says.

I think he’s trying to make me laugh, but it has the opposite effect. His comment makes me feel a little doomed.

“Don’t!” Skate says.

I jerk my head to look at him. Burr is touching Skate’s wound.

“We need to clean it,” Burr says.

I was going to mention that. I feel bad that I forgot to say something.

“We don’t have anything,” Landon says.

“It’s fine,” Skate says.

“It’s not fine,” Burr says. He’s parting Skate’s blond hair, staring deep into the gash. “There’s pus. It’s infected. We need to do something.”

“Could we clean it with salt water?” I ask.

“We could,” Munny says. “But there’s bacteria in that too.”

“You should dress it,” Sov says.

“What about a dress?” Burr asks. His voice sounds impatient.

“He said we should bandage it,” Landon says.

“Right. Right,” Burr says. “We can use my shirt.” He begins to lift his T-shirt over his head. His skin looks pale. I never realized he was so thin. His ribs wrap around his torso, bone by bone.

“Don’t use your shirt,” I say. “We should use Dale’s.”

Dale glances at me with a very surprised expression.

“Is my shirt somehow more sterile?” Dale asks.

“You’ve got a jacket you can wear to protect yourself from the sun. If Burr shreds his shirt he won’t have anything,” I say.

“She’s right,” Landon says.

Even adrift, I like being right.

Dale slides out of his dark blue Windbreaker and tugs his T-shirt over his head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without a shirt. I assumed he’d look exactly like Wick. But there is a lot more mass to him. His pectoral muscles rise away from his body in nicely defined squares. His abs are also flat and toned. He catches me staring at him, but I’m so tired that I don’t stop.

“Here,” Dale says. He tosses the shirt to Burr, and it almost flops in the water.

“Careful,” Burr says.

Burr immediately tears the T-shirt into strips.

“I don’t need a head bandage,” Skate says.

Burr keeps tearing. “Should I dunk them in the water or apply them dry?”

“I disagree with Munny,” Wick says. “I think we should use the water to clean the wound. Hospitals use saline water all the time to clean wounds.”

“The ocean isn’t saline water. There’s algae and bacteria. It could make it more septic,” Munny says.

Wick responds with a forceful voice. He even points his finger at Munny. “The salt will dry the wound and help seal it.”

“No, you’re supposed to keep stitches clean and dry and covered,” Munny says.

“We’re not talking about stitches,” Wick says. “It’s an open wound.”

“Shut up!” Burr says. “I don’t need a bio-nerd showdown. I think we should clean the wound.”

Munny huffs a little and looks away. “Bad idea.”

Burr takes hold of Skate on his stomach and behind his head. “I’m going to lean you back. Close your eyes.”

Skate laughs a little. “I feel like I’m being baptized.”

Burr gently lowers Skate’s head into the water. It must sting. I watch Skate’s face contort in pain. He tightly grips Burr’s hand at his stomach.

“It’s okay,” Burr says. “I’ve got you.”

“Do you need help?” Landon asks.

“I’m good,” Burr says. He lifts Skate to a seated position again.

“This stings,” Skate says.

“It means it’s working,” Burr says.

Munny shakes his head. I catch Munny’s eye, and mouth the word
Don’t
. He nods and looks away. We don’t need any pessimists on board. We all need to stay upbeat. Burr wraps the torn shirt around Skate’s head. The green cloth presses around his hair and circles around his forehead, making him look like a warrior.

“It feels better,” Skate says.

“Good,” Sov says.

“Now we just need to be patient and wait,” Wick says.

“Yeah,” Landon says.

“We should tell stories,” Wick says.

My mind clicks back to my earlier question about boats going down. I want to hear stories about survivors. If we can do what they did, we’ll be okay. “What about the
Titanic
?” I ask. “How many of those people survived?”

“I saw the movie,” Wick says. “I think the guy who hit the engine propeller definitely bit it.”

He tries to laugh, but I ignore his joke.

“The movie was pretty accurate. A lot of people survived, right?” I ask. I open my eyes.

“These aren’t the kind of stories I had in mind,” Wick says.

“Dude, you can’t be serious. You think any of us know the actual number of survivors aboard the
Titanic
?”

“Around seven hundred people survived,” Munny says. He looks at Dale and smiles. “They were rescued by the
Carpathia
.”

“Really? I feel better knowing that,” I say. “Seven hundred is a lot.”

“Over twice that many died,” Munny says. “And the
Carpathia
itself was later torpedoed and sunk in World War I by a German U-boat. The
Snowdrop
picked up those survivors. I mean, the ones who weren’t killed in the attack.”

“That’s so depressing,” I say.

“Let’s lay off torpedo references,” Landon says. “Let’s keep things upbeat.”

“No,” I say. “Let’s stick with my question. I was serious. This has happened before, right? Boats like ours, small boats, they’ve got to sink all the time, right? People drifting in dinghies, this can’t be that unusual?” I’ve made fists, and I’m smacking my thighs with them. I focus on looking at myself and my own body. I refuse to look into the water.

“I’ve read some stories,” Munny says.

“Before you let loose more nautical disaster tales, do these stories have survivors?” Wick asks. “I mean, when I suggested telling stories this wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Yeah,” Munny says. “Some survivors.”

“I want to hear,” I say. “If there were some survivors, that means there’s got to be a way for us to survive too.”

“Well, the first story is pretty famous. A family sailing around the world in a yacht got attacked by a pod of killer whales.”

“Stop. You can’t be serious. I’ve been to SeaWorld, and Shamu licked my face. Orcas don’t sink ships,” Dale says.

Every time I look at Dale, all I see are his muscles. Do they give him an advantage over the rest of us? How can that be fair? Why have I never noticed them before?

“Actually, in this instance, they did. They mistook the yacht for an injured baleen mother whale. They’d already eaten her baby.”

“How do killer whales sink a yacht?” Landon asks.

“They ram it with their heads until it breaks apart,” Munny says.

“But they survived?” I ask.

“Yeah, the whole family made it. Their ship, the
Lucette
, sank, and they drifted for thirty-eight days until they were found by a Japanese tuna fisher.”

“Dude, that’s freaking impossible,” Dale says.

“Not if they had fishhooks and water and a few provisions,” Burr says.

“Yeah, they did,” Munny says.

“They should make a movie about that,” I say.

“They did,” Munny says. “It starred Ali MacGraw and Robert Urich.”

I don’t know who those people are, so I don’t say anything else.

“What’s the longest anyone has survived adrift?” Burr asks after a pause.

“Well, there was this couple that wanted to sail around the world in their yacht. They made it from England almost to the Galapagos Islands. But a harpooned sperm whale attacked their yacht and sunk it. They drifted for over three months in a dinghy. That’s the longest anyone has survived adrift. But they had some gear, and some drinking water. I think they made it a hundred and seventeen days.”

“Dude, the Coast Guard won’t let us drift out here for three shitty months,” Dale says.

“You’re right,” Burr says. “No way that’s happening.”

“I’m totally against whaling,” I say. I’m not surprised to hear that whales are starting to fight back.

“The couple didn’t harpoon the whale,” Munny said. “Another boat did, and the injured whale lashed out at their yacht by mistake.”

There’s silence. We’re all looking at the horizon, probably each secretly hoping to see a Japanese tuna fisher and not a whale.

“There was a boat that sank off the coast of North Carolina in the eighties,” Munny says. “
The Trashman
.”

“I’m not picking on you,” Wick says. “But how the hell do you know that?”

I’m not surprised to hear Wick needle Munny. Ever since he accidentally saw the intelligence charts a few months ago that ranked all the twins by IQ, he’s been preoccupied by his listing as second-smartest twin. I don’t take the rankings all that seriously, though there does seem to be some validity to them. From brightest to dimmest the studies yielded the following results: Munny, Wick, Sov, me, Landon, Burr, Skate, and Dale.

“After we read
Life of Pi
in Culture Club, I got real interested in sea disasters,” Munny says. “It’s called utilizing your local library in order to pursue your interests. I highly recommend it.”

I ignore Munny’s comment. I’m so relieved to hear about a boat like ours sinking.

“How did they all survive?” I ask.

“They didn’t. Only two survived. They were found by a Russian freighter,” Munny says. “Three didn’t make it.”

“Crap!” I say. I don’t like those odds. Two out of five. Two out of five! I scan the boat. People’s faces range from freaked out to disappointed. Burr gazes at the horizon. Skate keeps his bandaged head down. Dale keeps opening and closing his mouth. I think he’s mouthing
son of a bitch
. Landon stares in to the bottom of the raft, while Wick gives my hand a few reassuring squeezes.

“Doesn’t anybody know of a more positive boat story?” Landon asks.

There’s a long silence, and I can hear small waves harmlessly licking against the rubber sides of our raft.

“Noah’s ark,” Skate says. His voice sounds happy but thin.

We all turn to look at Skate. His eyes are closed, and he’s leaning heavily into the side of the raft.

“That’s a great story for us all to think about,” Landon says.

I wrinkle my face. I don’t think Landon actually knows that much about the story. Other than a few funerals and one wedding, and about five months of Bible classes with my grandma when we were nine, we haven’t been to church. I don’t think we own a Bible.

“How long did they drift?” Landon asks.

“Forty days and forty nights,” Burr says.

“And they were carrying animals, which is a burden we don’t have,” Landon adds.

He’s acting like it’s a pep rally. I half expect Landon to try to lead us in a cheer for Noah.

“After forty days and forty nights, the rain ended, and a hundred and fifty days later the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat,” Skate says. He licks his lips several times and continues. “Noah sent out a raven, but it didn’t come back. So he sent a dove three times. The first time, the dove came back. The second time, the dove returned with an olive branch in its beak. And the third time, the dove never returned. This was the sign that the flood was over.” Skate opens his eyes. His spirits seem lifted. I didn’t even realize that he’d read the Bible. I thought Mormons were all hung up on their own book.

“Thanks,” Landon says.

I feel like I should say something too. It took a lot of effort for Skate to tell us that story. “I really enjoyed that,” I mumble.

We drift, and nobody offers another Bible tale. Nobody offers anything.

“I can’t wait until this is over,” Wick whispers in my ear.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Yeah,” Dale says. “Mom is probably pissing herself right now.”

It bothers me that Dale was listening to what Wick whispered to me.

“She might not know anything about it yet,” Wick says.

“The Coast Guard would have notified her by now. Right?” He directs his question at Burr. But Burr is still staring into the horizon. “Burr? Dude, I’m talking to you.”

He turns his head and looks at Dale. “Yeah,” he says. “I think so.”

I can’t be the only person who notices how unsure he sounds.

“You think so?” Dale asks.

Burr’s voice grows more assertive. “I don’t know all of the Coast Guard’s procedures. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s not obsess about the Coast Guard.”

“I bet our parents don’t know yet,” Sov says.

“The Coast Guard wouldn’t know which families to notify,” Munny says.

“Wouldn’t they try to get in touch with the boat’s owner?” Landon asks.

“My parents are listed,” Burr says.

Mentioning Mr. and Mrs. Riggs makes us stop talking. I finally break the quiet. “Mom might drive down,” I say to Landon. “When I don’t call her back, when you don’t call her back, she might figure out that I came here.”