Summer by Summer (10 page)

I smiled and tugged on my tennis shoes. “Hey, you stitched this.”

He nodded. “Knew we’d be going inland. At least, I’d hoped you’d want to go with me.”

“Did you think I’d just sit here while you go do all the work?” My arms crossed over my chest.

“No, I didn’t.”

“I’m not a baby, Bray. Even if I did act like one last night.”

“You didn’t, Summer.”

He was just being nice. I watched him stoke up the fire. “Good thinking. No more matches.”

“Actually, I’m hoping the other matches in the box have dried out. But the fire is also good for signaling a rescue plane or boat.” He moved to the edge of woods and grabbed both life jackets.

“Are we taking those?”

“No. I want them visible from water and the sky.” He stretched one out on top of the cooler and placed the other at an angle against it.

Bray was smart. I wouldn’t even have thought of doing that. The fire, maybe. But the life jackets? No. I was in good hands. Maybe we were actually going to survive this.

Bray

Summer seemed a whole lot better than she had been the night before. I couldn’t say I hated holding her while she slept, but the circumstances could have been better. I’d kept her in my arms all night and hadn’t moved for fear of waking her. Today, my joints screamed because of it, and my side was aching.

I’d listened to her breathe with the sounds of the waves and crackling of the fire closing us in a cocoon. Being on the beach pretty much alone didn’t scare me; I’d slept near the shore plenty of times in Belize while camping with Dad or after beach parties. The only annoying thing was the crabs. I woke once last night to find a small one crawling onto Summer’s arm. I removed it without her knowing. From now on, I’d watch for crabs. There wasn’t much more than that on the beach that could hurt us.

What I wasn’t as sure about was the island interior. This wasn’t
the swamps of southern Florida. This was the jungle. Florida swamp, I could navigate. Jungle, well, I didn’t feel quite as confident. But we had no choice. I just hoped there’d be water.

One small puncture in an otherwise solid wall of foliage would be our entry point. I knew how to look for animal trails. There should be at least some inland animals on the island.

The sun-dried bushes cracked and popped as we stepped beyond the safety of our makeshift camp. Here, the sand was darker, mixed with dirt that would help me pick up any kind of tracks. Right away, I saw the telltale sign of rat tracks. I peeked back at Summer. Best to keep that find to myself.

The cloud cover was nice while we were on the beach, but, as we dove deeper into the jungle, I wished the sun would come out. With the dappled light and the dense foliage overhead, it felt like we could be missing things. Like a creek. Or a snake. Or a café. Maybe a Starbucks.

“What?” Summer said, and I had to retrace my thoughts to see what I’d mumbled.

“White chocolate mocha at Starbucks.” That was all I had to say.

A long sigh. “My favorite is mocha raspberry.”

“With whip?”

“Of course. If I go in on a Saturday and they ask if I want whip, I say, ‘Yes, it’s whipped cream Saturday.’ ”

“And if you go on a Tuesday?”

“It’s whipped cream Tuesday.”

“I get it.” I took Summer’s hand and helped her over a log.

“Bray?”

Something in her voice made me stop. I turned to her.

“Do you think they’ve let my parents know I’m missing?”

A splash of cold snaked down my spine at the thought of our parents thinking we might be dead. “I don’t know, Summer.”

“My mom didn’t want me to come here.” Summer had stopped
on one side of a log. She stared down at it. “We have to promise to take care of each other while we’re here, okay? For our families. For Joshie. We have to be strong.”

She was strong. “Okay.” I reached out and took her hand, partly to help her over, partly for reassurance that I wouldn’t let her down.

Her denim shorts hugged her thighs as she straddled the felled tree and then threw her other leg over so that she could pause in a seated position. There, she rested until I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. She squeezed back, letting me know she understood. We had to keep moving. Had to keep our minds on the task at hand, not on what was happening with our folks.

“Sssshh.”
Slap
. Her hand clamped over my mouth, eyes wide and staring into me with such fierceness, I thought daggers might fly from them.

The rustling came from beyond us. Crunching dry leaves. Summer’s hand, still pressed against my lips, trembled.

Silently, I slid the dive knife from the sheath. Something moved just beyond the patch of brush beside us. It leapt into the clearing and Summer jolted.

The fat gray squirrel inspected us for a moment, then his bushy tail quirked in warning. A tiny nose twitched, and he scampered up the tree.

Summer let out a laugh. “He sounded like a giant coming through the dead leaves.”

I dropped to my knees and started scraping away the brush.

“Bray, what are you doing?”

“Where there are squirrels, there are nuts.” Summer landed beside me, and the two of us foraged.

She found the first one, and you would have thought it was the Hope Diamond the way she grinned. Our search took us to the bottom of a hollow tree. Inside, we found a handful more. “What kind of nuts are these?” she asked.

“Not sure, but I don’t think we can pass up anything since we don’t know what we will or won’t find.”

“Right.” Summer bobbed her head, and sandy locks of her hair fell in front of her face.

“We can take them back to camp and eat them later. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure.”

She was resilient, I’d give her that. I continued to dust the ground, but Summer had stopped. Sitting back on her haunches, she brushed her hair behind her ear, and her eyes darted back and forth. “Do you hear that?”

All I heard was her breathing.

Summer cupped her hand around her ear and I did the same. Off to the right, a steady whooshing sound. “That’s not the beach — it’s too constant, no waves.”

We rose at the same time and broke out into a run. The forest cleared enough for us to zero in on the sound. I paid attention to the turns so I could find our way back to the beach. As we neared, we knew it had to be water, though we still couldn’t see it. Maybe we’d come to the edge of the island, but I doubted it. Unless my sense of direction was completely off, I knew we should be somewhere central. Plus, no mountains yet. If we’d traversed the island, we should have at least seen a difference in the terrain. No, we hadn’t made it across. That meant somewhere here in the middle of the island was water. From the increasing sound, I’d guess it to be lots and lots of water.

Lots
was an understatement, I realized as we stepped into a clearing. Summer had gone before me and was standing still, breathing hard from the run through trees and brush, and when she turned to look at me, her face was alive. She stepped aside, giving me full view of the clearing. A waterfall anchored the lake and poured from a rocky mountainside. The glistening white water splashed into a
crystal-clear pool. It was the best thing I’d ever seen. I glanced back to make sure I had a fix on which way the beach would be. We’d hiked for over an hour, and I needed to know I could retrace our steps so we wouldn’t get lost navigating our way out. We had a bit of a path now, which would make the trip back easier, but still. One wrong turn and we could be spinning through the foliage for hours.

Summer grabbed my hand. “Come on!” A hundred feet away, she abandoned her tennis shoes. She was in ankle-high water before I could stop her.

“Summer, you should probably keep your outer clothes dry.”

Her face fell into an instant frown and her mouth tilted into a bow.

I knew she was shy. Her hand flattened over her shirt as if unsure what to do.

“Just dive in. We can dry your clothes out at the fire.”

Her bottom lip slid between her teeth and she kneaded it. Something in my stomach flopped. “No,” she said in a small voice, stepping from the water. “You’re right. My clothes need to stay dry.”

I angled to face the water, giving her what privacy I could.

From my periphery, I could see Summer stripping from her pale gray T-shirt. Everything in my gut seized into one ball.

“Your mom picked out this swimsuit.” When I started to turn toward her to answer, she yelled. “Turn around!” But it was too late; I’d seen how the bright pink bikini top clung to her. It fit perfectly, and I had to force myself to look away. I knew behind me she was shimmying from her jean shorts.

I turned away from her and entered the water. She was mumbling something about wishing she’d worn her one-piece. Why had she worn the bikini? My mind played with that question while I lowered my body into the cool lake. Moments later, she was beside me. We reached down and pulled handfuls of water into our mouths. It wasn’t enough. I drank until I couldn’t stand the thought of more.

Summer’s lips skimmed the waterline. “This feels so much better than the saltwater.”

“Right?” I filled my mouth and shot the water out in a stream, just ’cause I could.

“Saltwater is sticky.” Her hands reached up and scrubbed at her scalp as she ducked under the water over and over, leaving a trail of dirty sand with each douse. She inhaled a deep breath, causing her chest to rise, and she leaned back, floating on the surface, her arms outstretched, hot pink swimsuit bobbing like a buoy. Suddenly, I was thirsty again.

I mimicked her — though floating on my back had never been my specialty. Above, a canopy of trees hung over the lake, closing it off from much of the sun’s glare. I stayed there, beside her, thinking how things were finally looking up.

That’s when I heard the plane.

CHAPTER 6

Summer

I don’t remember swimming to the edge of the lake, but there I was, grabbing my shirt and shorts and pulling on my shoes. The buzzing of the rescue plane grew louder. They’d never see us here in the deeper part of the island. Without talking, we ran, Bray in front of me. Longer legs and wider strides caused him to easily pull ahead. When he reached the large tree trunk he’d helped me over, Bray turned and looked at me. “No,” I said. “Keep going.”

I could climb over the tree myself. In sections where the path was clear, I looked overhead, trying to catch a glimpse of the plane, but couldn’t. I could still hear it, though. Buzzing like a fly by my ear, first along one side of the island, now moving toward our beach. I kept hoping it would get louder, but it didn’t. Just seemed to stay an even distance away. But a plane was
there
and it had come for
us
, I was certain. That was really all that mattered. They’d see the campfire. Thanks to Bray, they’d see the life jackets. We were going to be safe.

When I reached the beach and burst through the foliage to the smooth sand, Bray was yelling and waving his arms like crazy. My heart almost burst; the plane was moving away.

I yelled and ran all the way to the ocean, where water splashed into my tennis shoes. “Hey! Come back.” I turned to Bray. “They’re coming back, right? Just circling around for a better view?”

But I could see in his face they weren’t. His dark blue gaze met mine.

I pointed beside him. “But the fire. The jackets.”

He stared over at them. Shook his head.

“How could they not see those?”

I spun around to stare at the sky where the plane grew smaller and smaller. The whine of the engine was getting more and more faint. It was the loneliest sound I’d ever heard. Helplessness cut into my stomach, causing me to drop to my knees. The plane was just a tiny speck now. Almost completely gone from view. “Maybe they’re sending word that we’re here,” I whispered.

Bray met me in the water and reached a hand down toward me. “Maybe.”

I gazed up at him, searching for hope. “I mean, maybe they couldn’t land here. So, they’re sending a boat back for us, right?”

I saw the war in his eyes. Agree and give me false hope, or just tell me the truth. Bray ran a hand through his hair. He drew in a long breath and watched the horizon. It was cruel to make him choose whether to lie to me or not. I slipped my hand in his and let him pull me up from the water.

“It’s okay. I already know.”

Bray squeezed my hand.

“They didn’t tip their wings or anything, did they?” My fingers instinctively intertwined with his, clinging to him because he was all I had.

His head shook slowly. “If they’d seen us or the camp, they would have let us know they were coming back.”

Bray released my fingers and wrapped his arm around me. “I’m sorry, Summer. It’s my fault we weren’t here.”

I threw a hand in the air. “If they didn’t see bright orange life jackets and a blazing fire, odds are they wouldn’t have seen us, either.” Anger unfurled inside me. “No, Bray. It’s not your fault. But I think we can only count on ourselves. No more waiting for a plane. When it comes, great. But until then, it’s up to you and me.” Nervous energy flew off my body in palpable waves. We had water. We had a stash of nuts and coconut. We could sleep on the beach. We could survive. For a while at least. “Right now, surviving and making our situation the best it can be is the most important thing.”