I climbed onto Matt’s charter and got settled on a small space of bow cushion. Matt patted me on the back on his way to the captain’s chair, as if he’d already been let in on the secret. I flushed. For the first time in my life, I was sick of being out on the ocean. I was ready to go home. I wrapped the beach towel around my waist like a sarong, leaned back, and shut my eyes, letting the rock of the waves lull the stress from my body, and waited for the roar and purr of the engine.
The click of Matt’s key in the ignition drew me out of my thoughts. Click. One whir. He tried to turn it over again. It caught. Then it died.
ENTRY 5
IF THERE’S ONE THING you understand better than I do, it’s what happens to people when you cram them together and take away their choices. No space. No privacy. No control over whether you get a meal today, or if the state will spring for air conditioning. You’ve never talked much about what happens in Pine Key Pen, and I’m guessing it’s a lot worse than being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of sweaty science nerds and a dead body.
We didn’t realize what was happening at first. When Matt’s boat wouldn’t start, everyone climbed off the Ruby Pelican and piled onto the Last Chance.
And then Captain Phil turned the key.
Click.
Two shocked seconds of silence broke into a wave of everyone talking at once. I couldn’t make out much. Some of them acted like a ride at Disney World had just broken down. Others threw F-bombs into the wind. Felix hid on the roof deck, the sound of his crying rising over the panic down below, along with Mom’s voice as she tried to soothe him.
Matt told everyone to “stay calm, stay calm.” This accomplished absolutely nothing. He tried to call the Coast Guard. The radio didn’t work. A girl took out her phone and found it was dead. And then everyone reached for their phones and discovered the same thing—black screens. Even the flashlights were useless. One girl—I never did learn her name—made a Bermuda Triangle joke, and the whole lot of us broke into nervous laughter.
Mom spent another five minutes transferring some of the passengers back to the Ruby Pelican—a really awkward game of musical boats—and Captain Phil and I poked around the engine. I put on a rash guard over my bikini top so he’d stop staring at my boobs. Felix climbed down from the roof and watched us fiddle with wires and fuel lines. Little circles of conversations started up behind me, mostly about whether we knew what we were doing. I was pretty sure we didn’t. Neither did Matt, apparently. The only thing louder than the clank of his tools as he chucked them onto the deck was the sound of his cursing.
After thirty minutes of troubleshooting on what seemed to be a perfectly good engine, Phil got up. Once he’d grabbed a silver flask from underneath the captain’s chair, he disappeared up the ladder.
Felix looked so small standing there in his SpongeBob rash guard and cartoon board shorts, hair sticking out in all directions, as it always does when I wait too long to get him to the barber. Mom works eighty hours a week now. I don’t remember the last time she took either of us anywhere but the docks.
“T?” Felix asked in a small voice.
“Yeah?”
“Is he coming back?”
“No, but that’s okay.” I smiled at him and picked up where Captain Phil left off, messing uselessly with the thermostat.
“Can you fix it?” Felix asked, wringing his skinny little hands.
I doubted I could do anything, but I didn’t have the heart to tell a seven-year-old that his big sister wasn’t good at everything. “Maybe.”
While I worked, Felix sat beside me and drew a cartoon shark on his knee. He’d gotten ahold of Mom’s good ballpoint pen—snatched it from her clipboard, little thief that he is.
Felix started doing that—drawing on himself—after his art teacher told him last year he “has talent.” Mom tries to get him to stop, but as soon as she turns her back, he’s sketching cartoons on his body again. Rainstorms on his calves. Superheroes on the tops of his feet. Whales on his forearms. Mom told me she’s afraid it’s some kind of compulsion. I don’t think so. I get the feeling art for him is like diving for me. Not an anchor, really. More like something that sets him free.
Felix looked up at the roof deck, where Mom was still trying to calm a hysterical diver. A couple of guys from the science trip were trying to help, and I silently thanked them.
“You think I’ll get in trouble?” He covered the shark drawing with his hand.
“Not today.”
“I don’t know. Mom gets mad at all kinds of things.”
“Well, she’s under a lot of pressure.”
On the other boat, Matt led a small group in singing “Three Little Birds.” The second time around Felix mouthed the words. He caught my eye and I returned his smile. But Bob Marley has always been your thing, not mine, so I played a different song in my head, one I’d picked up on the back patio of Nick’s Hula Hut. This super cool singer-songwriter had come through town for the Fourth of July—one night only. Felix fell asleep on my shoulder. Fireworks lit up the skies above the docks, and Vanessa Peters played her acoustic guitar, singing her heart out, like she knew what my life was about.
And I tell myself . . . everything will be okay from now on
If I just close my eyes . . . and believe it . . .
One of the guys on the roof deck of the Last Chance joined in, briefly meeting my eyes. I could feel that moment start to fade—I think we both could. We had a long way to go before we got to okay. Then Felix sang “Three Little Birds” louder, his smile widening, and for a second, I actually did believe it. Vanessa Peters and Bob Marley, singing a beautiful chorus in my head.
The song ended, and the splash of waves against the hull took its place.
Felix finished putting a remora on the shark and started drawing on the other knee. A manta ray this time. “Someone on the roof said we drifted into the Bermuda Triangle,” he said.
“We’re nowhere near it.”
“What happens in the triangle?”
“Compasses go wacky, but that’s about it.”
A voice drifted from the captain’s chair. “And it eats planes and boats. It eats everything.”
I turned to the voice. Teague. I’d heard his name spoken often since the boat breakdown. He’d been holding court over by the scuba tanks, so I guessed him for the science club president. His blond ponytail trailed over one shoulder, half covering the Stanford logo on his shirt. Advertising his bright future to the world. He doodled in a thick spiral notebook balanced on his knee.
Teague closed the notebook. A sticker across the cover read, The Universe is made of protons, neutrons, electrons & morons. I’m sure he thought being stranded in the middle of nowhere was one grand adventure.
“You know what’s in the triangle?” He leaned forward on his knees, lecture-style. I sent him a glance that said Shut up in front of my little brother—which he absolutely saw—but he went on anyway. “A hole in the Earth’s electromagnetic field.”
Felix’s eyes went wide. “What’s that?”
“It’s why our electronics are dead.”
Felix swallowed and his mouth fell into a frown, the one that precedes a bout of crying. “Dead?”