Trial by Fire (10 page)

I
t was just before dawn when the rain came
.

There wasn't much of it—just a passing cloudburst. But the downpour was fast and hard enough to extinguish the small fire Buzz had managed to hold on to. A cloudy day seemed to be in the works. They still had the glass magnifier, but there would be no way to use it until the sun came out.

One step forward, two steps back
,
Buzz thought. Nothing was easy here. It felt like the island was working against them most of the time.

As the rain became a drizzle, and then a soft mist, he stood up and stretched. He, Carter, and Jane had taken shelter under a tree, but Vanessa had stayed away. She'd kept to the beach all night.

Now, as Buzz looked down to the shore in the earliest morning light, he realized he couldn't see her anymore. The spot where she'd been sitting before was empty.

“Where's Vanessa?” he asked.

“I thought she was over there,” Carter said, pointing.

“She was,” Buzz said, “but she's not now.”

“She can't be very far,” Jane said. “We're not supposed to wander off. That's her rule.”

“Maybe not for much longer,” Carter said. He set a coconut on the ground by the fire pit and took a chop at it with the axe.

“What do you mean?” Buzz asked.

“I mean, maybe we need to think about a new leader,” Carter said. With another swing, he took the top off the coconut and handed it to Jane to have the first drink. “That's all I'm saying.”

But Buzz couldn't think about that right now. He just wanted to find Vanessa and bring her back.

It was strange, how empty the camp seemed when one of them was missing. Especially Vanessa. At home, she had a million friends around her all the time. Even if she went to her room for a while, she'd be back downstairs hanging out with everyone else before long. Something about this didn't feel right.

Without a word to Carter or Jane, Buzz walked down to the water and then started up the beach to look for her.

He went slowly, keeping an eye out. Every minute or so, he turned all the way around, hoping to see Vanessa coming out of the woods, or hear her calling his name. But there was no sign of her anywhere.

The more Buzz thought about it, the more convinced he felt that something bad had happened. Maybe something very bad. They were going to have to get serious about looking for her, and soon.

Then, as he turned and started back, Buzz heard something. It was a foreign kind of sound. Nothing he recognized at first.

“Vanessa?” he shouted out again.

There was no answer, but the noise was still there. It was a humming of some kind in the distance. Or a buzzing. Or . . .

He turned and looked out toward the horizon. It took several seconds, but then he saw it. The small shape of a plane was crossing the sky—and coming straight toward the island.

Everything inside of Buzz seemed to speed up. He felt like his blood was suddenly running twice as fast as before. He jumped up and down, shouting and waving his arms.

“Hey! Hey! Over here!”

It was a useless impulse, he realized. Of course they couldn't hear him up there. They probably couldn't see him, either.

That's what the signal fire was for.

This was it. This was the chance they'd been hoping for. And that meant they had to get up to Lookout Point.
Now.

With one more glance in the plane's direction, he took off at a sprint for camp.

Carter was just starting to tear down the burned-out shelter roof when Buzz came tearing up the beach.

“There's a plane!” he yelled. “A plane! A plane!”

By the time Carter realized what he'd said, Buzz had already run past him and up into the woods.

In the next moment, Carter was running, too. He sprinted into the jungle, leaving Jane behind. That didn't matter right now. Getting up there as fast as possible was all that counted.

He tore through the woods, past the cave, and then uphill again, pushing himself as hard as ever.

Buzz was struggling to climb up the gravel slope when Carter got there. The loose ground was sliding away under his feet, and he wasn't making much progress.

With several fast strides, Carter was up and past him, yelling to Buzz as he went.

“Where's the plane?” he asked without slowing down.

“Off the beach!” Buzz yelled back. “To the . . . east! East!” he said. “And I think it was coming this way!”

Everything inside of Carter funneled down into one, singular purpose: reach the signal fire and get it burning—ASAP.

He heard Jane now, too, running behind him. “Go, Carter!” she yelled. “Hurry!”

At the top of the slope, he cut right and ran toward the tree bridge as fast as the narrow ridge would allow. It was all familiar now. He had this. He could hear the soft humming of the plane in the distance. It was the sound of hope.

When he reached the tree, he yanked himself up through the exposed roots and out onto the trunk, heading across in a fast, low commando crawl. He could hear Jane and Buzz again, catching up behind him. They were on the tree bridge now, too, but he didn't even look back. His focus was straight ahead.

At the far end of the bridge, he scrambled down faster than ever and started to sprint through the last stretch of woods toward the open ground of Lookout Point.

But halfway there, a scream from Jane stopped him short.

When Carter turned to look, he saw that the ground holding up the nearest end of the tree bridge had begun to fall away. It was like a small avalanche of dirt and gravel. The tree itself had begun to slide right off the crumbling edge of the ravine.

Jane and Buzz were nearly all the way across, but still moving through the tree's branches. Jane was in front. She jumped the last several feet to land on solid ground just in time.

Behind her, Buzz wasn't so lucky. He jumped, too—and then disappeared over the edge, along with the tree itself.

For an instant, Carter's mind was divided. There was no way to get to the signal fire—their only chance of rescue—
and
to Jane and Buzz at the same time. But the thought had barely formed in his mind before he was racing back toward the ravine. Instinct made the choice for him. He had to save his brother if he could.

When Carter got there, Jane was already peering over the edge. He threw himself on the ground next to her and looked down.

Buzz was there. He hung on the side of the ravine wall, maybe six feet below. Both of his hands were clasped around a lip of rock while he kicked at the wall, trying to find—or make—a toehold. His eyes were wild with fear.

“Hang on!” Carter yelled.

“I don't know if I can!” Buzz said.

In the background, the sound of the plane grew louder.

“Buzz, whatever you do—don't let go!” Jane shouted. She lay flat against the ground, reaching for him as far down the ravine wall as she dared. Still, it wasn't enough.

Carter couldn't reach him, either. “Can you climb?” he asked frantically.

Buzz reached for an exposed root over his head, but it was just beyond his grasp. When he collapsed back, dust and gravel showered down in his face before falling to the ravine floor a hundred feet below. At the bottom, Jane could see the tree that had been their bridge until now, lying there like a giant dead body.

“What should we do, Carter?” she asked. He was already up and looking around the immediate area. “Rope!” he said desperately.

“We don't have rope!” Jane said.

“Maybe this will work,” he answered, tearing off his own shirt. “Hold on to me!”

Jane grabbed his legs as Carter threw himself down on the cliff's edge again and dangled the shirt.

“Buzz!” he yelled. “Can you reach this?”

Buzz strained for it, but his fingers barely whiffed at the cloth of the shirt. Above them, the sound of the plane was growing even louder. Carter scooted forward, inching his body a little farther over the edge.

“Carter, be careful! I can't hold you!” Jane yelled. If he went over, she'd never be able to stop him. They needed something longer. Something that Buzz could reach—and climb.

And then all at once, she realized what it was. “Use me!” she said.

“What?”

“Sit up!”

Carter scooted back up while Jane took his place. She backed herself over the lip of the ravine, feetfirst, and put her hands out for Carter to take.

“Lower me down there!” she said. “But don't let go!”

“That's crazy!” he said.

“Just do it,” Jane said. “Lower me down! Right now!”

There wasn't any choice. Carter took both of her wrists and she grabbed onto his, and they locked themselves together.

“Buzz!” Jane yelled again. “Grab my feet.”

“Jane, no!” he yelled. “It won't work!”

“Now!” she said.

“Yeah,” Carter groaned out. “NOW!”

Carter had a good grip on Jane, but she could feel herself slipping lower than she wanted to be. He was going to have to pull them both back up.

At the same time, she could hear the plane—almost directly overhead now. But they were hidden in the ravine. A stand of scrubby trees shielded them from above. There was no way to be seen here. No way to catch the plane's attention without getting to that signal fire.

“I can't do this!” Buzz said.

“YES, YOU CAN!” Jane shouted. “Just do it—RIGHT NOW!”

She barely even recognized her own voice. It came from somewhere deep inside—never as strong as that before. Never so adult.

The next thing she felt was Buzz's hand on her ankle. Carter gripped her wrists at the other end—but his hold was slipping fast.

“PULL, CARTER—PULL!” she called.

There was a terrible tension in her body. Buzz held on to her legs from below while Carter dragged her in the opposite direction from above. She couldn't see Buzz, but she could feel him scrambling higher and searching for a foothold. For a moment, it felt as if she were about to snap in half. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the worst. A sob caught in her throat.

And then, the tension eased. Buzz had found his foothold. He was climbing again, until he was at her side, pulling himself onto level ground.

At the same time, Carter yanked Jane up over the edge, and all three of them collapsed there, onto their backs.

Jane struggled just to catch her breath. “Too . . . close!” she said.

“No,” Buzz panted out. He got up to his knees and pointed into the distance. The sound of the plane was still there, but growing fainter. “Not close enough,” he said.

Carter forced himself onto his feet, and stumbled in the direction of Lookout Point. As long as they could still hear the plane, there was still some hope.

He staggered forward on wobbly legs, struggling to make a fast, straight line toward the open ground of the point. When he got there, the plane was still in sight, but no longer overhead. It had already started heading away from the island.