I lean away from Shannon and try to stretch one of my arms but am stopped by the tent wall. “As soon as the rain or hail or whatever it is lightens up and the lightning goes away, we should keep going. I mean, it doesn’t really get dark, so we could put in a lot more hours before we stop to rest.”
“What about just staying here for the night?” Brooke suggests. “We could set up the rest of our tents after the storm passes.” She lets out a sigh. “I’m beat.”
“Seriously?” My voice cracks. “We can’t stay here any longer than the storm that’s pinning us down. When it leaves, we should make some tracks. You just feel tired because of the stale warm air in the tent. Once you’re back outside, you’ll wake up.”
“I don’t know, man,” Derrick says. “I mean, I’m feeling pretty sleepy, too.”
“Trust me,” I say. “Every time I had to ride on a warm bus to a cross-country or track meet, I’d get sleepy. The whole team did. But once we got off the bus and moved around, we were fine.”
“Josh,” Brooke barks, “Just because you’re some all-American athlete, it doesn’t mean the rest of us are.” She huffs. “You’re not in charge here. No one is.”
“Think about it.” I lean toward her. “We’ve got almost no food. We need to move while we still have energy from everything we’ve eaten the past several days.” I take a breath. “The longer we wait, the weaker we’ll get. And, if you’re really tired, I’ll carry some of your stuff. No problem.”
“I’ll carry my own stuff,” Brooke says. “But you’re not going to be the only one who decides when I carry it and for how long before I rest.”
“Enough.” Shannon leans forward so her face is just inches from Brooke’s and mine. “We can’t be using our energy arguing. If we don’t work together, we’ll have almost no chance of surviving long enough to be rescued.”
“Maybe we should each take turns being in charge for a day,” Derrick suggests. “You know, like we did at the Leadership Camp.”
“I like your idea in theory,” I say, “but I’m not sure it’s a good one for the current situation.” And the mix of people, I think but don’t say.
“So, you think you’re the only one who should make decisions?” Brooke asks.
“No, that’s not what I think.” I shake my head. “We should make them together—either by consensus or majority.”
“Consensus will take too long,” Shannon says. “Maybe if we had more supplies, that would work. Majority is the only way to go.”
“But there’s four of us,” Brooke says. “What if we try to make a decision and it’s a tie? Two to two? Then what?”
“Then we’d flip a coin or pick a number or do something random to make the decision and move on from there,” I say. “Agreed?”
“Sure,” Derrick says.
“Yes.” Shannon nods.
“Okay,” Brooke says.
The pelting on the tent starts to slow down. And the phase between the thunder and lightning lengthens.
It’s time to put our new leadership system to the test.
CHAPTER 17
“TWO TO TWO,” DERRICK SAYS.
I can’t believe Derrick voted in favor of staying, especially since the rain has slowed way down and we haven’t heard any thunder in like five or ten minutes.
Part of me wants to abandon Brooke and Derrick and keep heading toward Talkeetna with Shannon. I mean, do you stick to an agreement even when you think it’s dangerous and might result in everyone dying?
But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s tied, so we might still win. “Okay,” I say, in as even a voice as I can muster. “Now we need to somehow break the tie. Any ideas?”
“Easy,” Derrick says. “One of us could pick a number between one and ten, and then two people—you and Brooke—guess what the number is, and whoever is closer is the winner. Pretty random. Right?”
“Sure,” I say. “Let’s do this.”
“For this to be fair,” Derrick goes on, “we need two people to agree on the number. Shannon and Brooke should trade places so me and Shannon can quietly agree on a number and then you and Brooke can guess.”
“Sounds good,” I say, just wanting to get this whole stupid process over with. Pick a number. If you lose you might die. You might not die for a few days. But you still might die because of the number you chose. Great.
“Not so fast,” Brooke says. “It’s not fair. The person who goes first has the advantage.”
I swear I feel my heart skip a beat. “I don’t care who guesses first,” I say.
“Actually,” Shannon says, “Brooke’s right. And, this isn’t really random. Derrick and I are going to decide on a number, and then you and Brooke are going to think of a specific number and tell us what you think it is. Random doesn’t really involve thinking and strategy. But this guess-the-number contest does. It does matter who goes first or second. The second person to guess will be influenced by the first person’s guess. And the two people who come up with the number are picking it. That’s not random either.”
“Where’d you come up with that?” Derrick asks.
“Biology class.” Shannon stretches her arms out straight and yawns.
“I get your logic,” I say.
“Shot down.” Derrick sniffles. “Don’t worry. I don’t bruise easily,” he says in a fake crying voice, with a couple more sniffles thrown in. That gets a smile and small laughs from everyone, and for a moment, it’s like we’re not in a survival situation where there are twenty bodies buried under an avalanche and we’re the almost-out-of-food survivors.
“We still need to do something to decide,” I say. “Unless someone wants to change their vote?” After no one responds to that invitation, I go on. “Anyone have any ideas that are more random?”
“We could flip a bottle cap from one of our water purification tablet bottles,” Shannon suggests. “And we could decide before the flip what each side of the cap stands for. That’s probably about as close to random as we’re going to get out here.”
I lean forward and turn my head toward Brooke. “What do you think?”
Brooke moves her head from side to side and then says, “It sounds pretty fair. Except for the one flip. I think it should be the best of five.”
“One, three, five, seven, nine,” Shannon responds. “It won’t matter. But can we all agree on best of five?”
We all nod.
“It’s barely raining,” I say. “We should pile out of here, get a cap, and get this over with.” I’ve still got a sick feeling in my stomach from having to do anything but keep walking. Or maybe that’s just my hunger resurfacing now that the discussion is over. Then a humming noise invades my ears followed by the whop whop whop of helicopters.
“Unzip this thing,” Derrick says, leaning across Brooke and Shannon toward me and the door I’m sitting in front of. “Maybe we won’t have to flip that bottle cap at all.”