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Unplugged(8)
Author: Gordon Korman

It hits me—we’re on the far side of the lake, heading out into the river. That’s why we’re moving so fast—the current is taking us. This crazy Californian is going to get himself killed—and me with him!

I’m not sure exactly when we stop pedaling. It doesn’t matter, because at this point, the Saline River is in charge. Anyway, the agony doesn’t last long. We’re picked up by the downstream flow, which directs us into a huge slanted rock. The slope acts as a ramp, and we’re catapulted onto the far riverbank and deposited into a giant, scratchy bramble bush. There we hang, imprisoned by the branches, unable to move.

“You okay?” I ask Jett when the thumping of my heart slows enough for speech.

He just laughs. I guess that means yes.

Here I am, terrified that we broke the rules, the boat, and almost ourselves. We made an enemy out of Brandon, ticked off the pathfinders, and maybe my family will be kicked out of the Oasis and blame it on me. But there’s something about Jett’s cackle of pure unholy glee that makes it seem like everything’s going to be fine. I spend my whole life stressing out about what could happen and what might happen. And here’s this guy who not only doesn’t care; he acts like consequences are something that couldn’t apply to him in a million years. It makes no sense, but at that moment, I love the kid!

Besides, my arms are so badly scratched that I can’t even feel my latest rash.

 

 

4


Jett Baranov


Question: How many pathfinders does it take to rescue a treed pedal boat?

Answer: All of them.

Even the great Nimbus himself joins the team to come and pull me and the itchy kid out of that bush. The Oasis has a motorized launch that they have to use to get to us on the opposite bank—not that we made it very far.

Considering how ticked off everybody should be, the pathfinders are being surprisingly cool about it. They’re even making excuses for us, saying the current is extra strong today and blah, blah, blah. Janelle actually apologizes for putting me at risk.

I tell them outright, “You didn’t put me at risk. I did it on purpose.”

Tyrell snickers a little at that one. The kid is growing on me. He’s one of the few people around here with a sense of humor. Too bad I’m not joking. Getting myself bounced from the Swamp Gas Hilton isn’t a joke; it’s a sacred quest.

“Look, this is a hundred percent on me. What can I say? I’m a bad person. I do this kind of thing all the time. I totally understand if you have to kick me out.”

“The blame is ours,” Nimbus insists. “We’re pathfinders. If you haven’t found a place for wellness within you, it’s because we have not yet shown you the path.”

I may be Silicon Valley’s Number One Spoiled Brat, but I know right then and there that I’m out of my league. I could build an atomic bomb and blow the Oasis off the face of the Earth, and Nimbus would find a way to pin it on the plutonium and give me a free pass. I’m never going to get myself booted out of here. It’s just not possible. The fix is in. The more awful you behave, the more it proves you need wellness. And if you’re good, they can just claim the wellness is working. It’s a lose-lose.

“I’m still in trouble, though, right?” I ask hopefully.

“For each of us, the road to becoming whole takes different turns,” Nimbus informs me. “But there is no trouble here.”

The only hole I want anything to do with is really deep and the other end comes out in California.

At least Matt reacts like a normal person. The minute we’re back in our cottage, he blows his stack at me. It’s almost a relief to get yelled at.

“What’s the matter with you, Jett? Bad enough you broke every rule in the book. But you could have wound up drowning or cracking your head open on that rock! And not just you—you had to drag a poor innocent kid into danger with you! A kid whose only crime was to try to make friends!”

“I deserve to be punished,” I agree. “Maybe you should take away something that’s important to me. My phone; my tablet; my laptop. Oh, wait—someone already did. How about my freedom? No, that’s gone too. I guess you’ll just have to send me to bed without any dinner. Please,” I add, “I saw the dining hall menu. It’s beet casserole night.”

“Poor you,” Matt says sarcastically. “It must be really hard to be so much smarter than everybody else, but you still have to put up with the rest of us.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t come up with a way out of here yet, so I’m not that smart, am I?”

He sighs. “You know what your problem is, Jett? It’s always all about you. When it rains, does it even cross your mind that everybody else gets wet too? All these ‘terrible’ things that are happening to you—the food, the no technology, the wellness stuff—do you even notice that I’m here right next to you? I couldn’t call up your old man even if I wanted to. I’ve got no phone either. I’m stranded here, the same as you.”

Matt has a point. That was probably Vlad’s plan all along. My dad may be an epic jerk, but no one can say he isn’t a genius. If he sent me to some rich-kid Club Med sleepaway camp, he’d have to listen to me complain all summer. I’ll bet he thought he died and went to heaven when that Google guy told him about this place. Not only am I physically out of his hair, I’m out of his hair virtually too. Here, the only way to communicate with the outside world is by snail mail, and Vlad is famous for his policy of never reading anything written on “dead trees.”

Well, congrats, Dad. You’ve got me on the ropes, but the fight isn’t over yet. I have a few tricks of my own up my sleeve.

Matt snores.

I can hear it through the thin walls in our two-bedroom cottage. Evangeline, the nutrition pathfinder, says that a diet rich in tofu and soy makes you a better sleeper. I don’t know if it’s the tofu, but you couldn’t wake Matt up with a brass band. The first three nights I complained about it. I’m not complaining anymore.

Matt’s sawing logs, deep in dreamland, as I ease open the front door and slip out into the night. I’m half expecting a wailing alarm as I’m caught in the blaze of a searchlight. But no—the Oasis is deserted. Maybe tofu really does make you sleep. There was enough of it in the beet casserole to knock out an army.

I steal across the compound of cottages, past the dining hall and the meditation building. It’s after two a.m., but it’s still hot and the humidity is at least a million percent. The mosquitoes are the size of dive-bombers, which at least makes it easy to swat them away. There’s a faint smell of sulfur on the nonexistent breeze, and I can make out the bubbling of the Bath. I haven’t been in there since that first morning when I cannonballed in and scalded myself half to death.

Even in the sweltering darkness, I can see the steam cloud hovering over the hot spring. I sidle up to the rocks, squat down, and dip my pinkie into the churning water. God bless America; it’s like sticking my finger in a boiling kettle. How do the old people survive it, much less love it?

I keep walking. The welcome center is dead ahead, at the foot of the road we came in on. I hear a purring sound and duck behind a bush. Sure enough, there’s an electric golf cart moving away from the building and starting on the path that circles the property. I recognize the driver—another buddy—the word, not the name. That’s the official title of everybody who works here who’s not a full pathfinder. Buddies and pathfinders. And suckers—meaning us, the guests.

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