Thirteen Pearls (19 page)

Grim-faced, Leon didn't reply. Instead, he dived into the pool and stayed under for longer than I thought would have been humanly possible, before resurfacing to gulp in more air and plunge below.

I ran up and down the rocky ledge, scanning the pool from the outside, peering into the murky green shadows.

And then, just as Leon broke through for air for the sixth or seventh time, I heard a voice from the track below. ‘I want Tiny Teddys.'

I was too relieved to scream at him. Instead, I raced along the path and swept him into my arms and squeezed and squeezed until he squirmed and kicked. And then I squeezed some more.

Leon carried Aran all the way down the track to the tinny. We motored back to T.I. and loaded up at the IBIS. Then it was homeward bound. As the sun dropped in the western sky across the Arafura Sea, the ocean turned shifting shades of apricot and pink. I pictured Kaito waiting for us at Thirteen Pearls. Had I missed him today? Was I excited about the prospect of seeing him again? Would it be totally weird to answer: not really and kind of . . . ?

One of the girls at school was always saying that she knew whether she wanted to be with a guy from the very first moment of the very first kiss. If she had butterflies then it could go somewhere. If the butterflies didn't show there was no point. She reckoned she 'd even stopped kissing some guy she'd hooked up with at a party. She 'd said to him, ‘I'm not really feeling anything now. Are you?' He'd kind of mumbled something back and then she 'd said, ‘Yep. Definitely nothing there. Let's just call it a night, hey?'

When I thought about Kaito, did I get butterflies? That full-on stomach-twisting, nerve-wracking sensation? He was good-looking and he was a great kisser and he played the shakuhachi flute and he was heir to a pearl fortune, but did that mean I really cared for him?

Tash would have paid me out for over-analysing. She'd say I should just go with it (whatever that means). But to my relief by the time Thirteen Pearls came into view nervous energy thrummed through my legs and up my spine. And I didn't think it was just the vibration from the outboard motor. As if to confirm my thoughts the motor gave an abrupt sputter then cut out.

Leon swore.

Aran looked up from where he 'd been dreamily clutching his elephant and staring at the changing colours of the sea.

‘What is it?'

Leon pulled the cord to start her up again.

It didn't take. ‘She 's run out of fuel.'

Something inside me froze. I thought about the tinny with the seven people drifting all the way to New Guinea. We had food in the boat. Lots of it. But no water and no shade. ‘Isn't there a jerry can?' I asked, knowing there wasn't, because Uncle Red had needed the attached funnel to fill the tank for the new pump. ‘So what do we do?'

Leon wiped a hand across his forehead. ‘I'd better swim over and get the other dinghy.'

‘You have to be kidding!' I couldn't stop the sharp note of panic in my voice.

‘It's either that or drift without any lights and hope we hit an island.'

‘But the currents are bad here. Kaito told me how dangerous they are. What if you can't make it back?'

Leon was already standing. ‘It's only a k or so away.'

Looked like more than a kilometre away to me. And what about sharks and crocodiles and other creepy creatures? ‘But—'

It was too late. He 'd already dived off, causing the boat to rock violently from side to side. I reached for Aran and squeezed him against me with one arm while holding onto the boat with the other.

The light was fading fast. Leon's silvery splashing and dark head became fainter and fainter and then he disappeared.

Overhead, stars had begun to appear. I cuddled Aran and pointed to the different constellations. I was determined not to let the creep of fear infect me. I was planning to sail solo for heaven's sake.
Get a grip, Edie.
The last thing I should be frightened of was being alone in the ocean. Besides, I wasn't alone: Aran huddled against me.

In the distance, Thirteen Pearls drifted further away. Only it was an illusion; it was our boat that was moving.

I foraged through the boxes of shopping to distract myself. Why hadn't I bought a packet of matches, a torch, a solar flare . . . ?

A quarter moon hung low in the east. Still rising. That was one positive, but I doubted it would give enough light for Leon to find us if he made it back to Thirteen Pearls.

If
he made it . . . I shouldn't even be thinking like that. In every survival book I'd ever read, it always emphasised that the number one survival tool is the mind. I needed to keep positive, no matter what. And anyway, Leon had that amazing animal sense. If anyone was able to swim through treacherous shark-infested currents in the dark and not get eaten or swept away, it would have to be him.

Something glimmered pale green in the bottom of one of the boxes. I reached in and unearthed it. Aran's new soccer ball – glow-in-the-dark. Nice

How did it work? If I kept it in the dark would that conserve its glow factor or did it work the other way around? Where was Wikipedia when you needed it?

Aran yawned and snuggled against me. It was cooler out at sea and I pulled his head onto my lap and encircled the rest of his curled up body with one arm so that he could sleep. I kept my eyes peeled until it grew too dark to see.

Then my concentration swung to sounds.

Only the quiet lap of the ocean against the boat and the occasional splash as a fish leapt from the water and plunged back in again. I thought about what would happen if Leon didn't make it into shore. Or, if he did, whether they would find us. What would my plan be? There were no oars to row (not that I had a hope of rowing to Thirteen Pearls with the size of the tinny and the strength of the currents). And even though I could get my bearings via the stars, I didn't have any maps to make sense of them.

I remembered reading how, about sixty years ago, this Norwegian guy who'd wanted to prove that the South Pacific islanders originally sailed from South America had built a traditional raft out of balsa logs with only a single square sail made out of materials from pre-Columbian times. His crew sailed over four thousand miles in a hundred days and
they
all survived.

I figured that, with the groceries (now I was wishing I hadn't bought so much fresh food, but lots of stuff with additives and preservatives in it instead), Aran and I could go for a couple of weeks easily. I could use food containers to catch rain for drinking water, and as long as the cardboard didn't get too soaked I could fashion a makeshift shelter out of the boxes.

There would be people searching for us. There were satellites and search planes, and T.I. had a military base so there'd be plenty of manpower. This thought cheered me until I thought again about Leon swimming through the dark water towards an island he wouldn't even be able to see by now.

Perhaps we were going to die. I tried to think some profound thoughts – is there a God? Was this my destiny from the moment I'd entered earth? Or was it a kind of
Sliding Doors
scenario like in that movie where you get to see what would have happened if the main character had made it through the sliding doors of the train; how life would have unfolded if she 'd arrived home at a different moment. What if I'd stayed back on the island with Kaito? Or what if Kristiana had sent her evil email a day later and Leon hadn't insisted on going for a swim over at Prince of Wales so that we 'd had enough petrol to make it back to Thirteen Pearls?

I reached down into one of the boxes again and scrabbled around for the packet of salt and vinegar chips Leon had stuck in. I tore it open and stuck a chip in my mouth. Crunch. Last meal. I mindlessly shovelled them in, one after the other, as if I was watching a dumb DVD with Tash. That was a weird thing about potential disasters – it could all seem so normal, almost boring. Right now we were very possibly headed on a collision course with slow dehydration and painful death. Yet here I was, drumming my fingernails, mindlessly munching chips, and waiting for the interesting bit.

If I'd had a pen and paper I could have written some sort of farewell letter. Not that I knew what I'd say – something wise and loving to my parents and Tash and the world at large that would be printed in the
Courier Mail
and rank number five on Yahoo Mail's Top Ten news stories. ‘Tragically lost at sea . . . '

And it would be accompanied by one of those video montages with weepy background music as the images fade into each other. Me and Tash splashing each other at the Esplanade swimming pool. Me with a big white smudge of sunblock on my nose, holding two nail guns up in the air, either side, like some deranged cowboy. A soft-focus glamour shot of me in a black dress at the Cairns Yacht Club dinner dance . . . Surely there had to be some better shots? I wanted there to be little wobbly, wind-buffeted thirty-second clips of me hauling in a massive fish. Me sitting with my arms wrapped around my knees, windblown hair, gazing into an endless ocean sunset. Me mobbed by twenty Fijian kids with laughing eyes and huge white smiles. Me battling a wave of green water crashing down on the
Ulysses
. Okay, maybe not that one. But the point was – I hadn't lived enough yet. I wanted better photos for my montage.

I
hadn't lived enough yet? What about Aran? He was only four. What would his video montage be? Riding on elephants through a parting of jungle vines, sitting on a bamboo woven mat spellbound by his great grandfather's stories, being reunited with Lowanna and clinging so monkey-tight a crowbar couldn't part them. Aran grown up and a senior diplomat for the international peace process. Aran in fits of laughter telling
his
kids the ingenious ways he tortured his one-time babysitter. All those hours I'd spent fruitlessly attempting to scrub the pink dye out of the sheets – I laughed aloud. Aran stirred and nuzzled into my stomach like a baby animal. And then I felt it – a shock of love. A sudden burst of fierce, protective love. I would not let him die.

Suddenly, I heard a sound that wasn't the sea. In the distance was a pinprick of light. I willed the tinny to stop drifting. The light pulsed – shrinking and flaring like an aperture in the darkness. I held up the soccer ball (now at pathetic half-glow) and shouted myself hoarse.

The boat went straight past, its long, triangular beam of light missing the tinny by what felt like a heartbeat. I willed it to turn. The boat kept going, then in a sweeping arc circled around the other side of us.

It had taken too wide a berth; it was going to miss us again. I screamed over the drone of its engine and threw the ball into the air towards it. It landed with a thwack against the black water and drifted away.

Suddenly, the other boat's engine cut out. A long low ‘Coooooeeeee!'

‘Over here!' I screamed, my throat raw.

The boat started again. This time it made smaller and smaller circles until finally the tinny was caught in the glare of its beam. The boat putted up alongside us. Kaito was steering, and Leon, still soaking wet, threw me a tow-rope. ‘Sorry I'm late.'

W
E TOLD THE STORY FOR
the fifth time. Each time it grew in size and severity until Leon had been forced to punch a Great White on the nose in his quest to reach Thirteen Pearls, and Aran and I had been almost washed up on the coast of New Guinea . . .

One thing no one mentioned, but which we were all relieved about, was that Uncle Red wasn't around. Actually, he would have been the biggest element of danger. He 'd have gone completely crazy.

Aran was sound asleep, worn out, in his trundle bed, and Kaito padded around the kitchen making us all cups of exquisite tea.

Somehow the three of us found that easy friendship again, like we'd had that first week before Kaito and I had hooked up. And the good thing about Leon's unexpected swim (apart from minor stuff like rescuing us from drifting for days without water in the baking sun) was that he didn't seem to be brooding about the breakup with the Danish supermodel. If anything, he seemed more cheerful than ever. ‘Best swim I've had in ages,' he said, flexing his shoulders.