Page 10 of Touchdown

The man pulled out something that looked like a sweet roll. Pinching off pieces, he began to toss them one by one into the air. As he kept tossing, one gull became two became many.

Since they all liked to shriek at each other as they scrabbled for an unfair share of the goodies, conversation became impossible.

Great. A stupid bird was better at communicating than me.

On the other hand, the gull knew the guy. He must make regular deliveries to the island, and he'd been identified in the gull community as a soft touch.

I, by contrast, didn't even know where the fuck I was.

As I pondered this discouraging fact, the gulls gobbled his last crumb and then flapped off ungratefully in search of the fish course. The man waved. One hopeful gull circled back one last time, figured out the trick, and shrieked a final curse before disappearing.

“A guy's pretty desperate when he has to exercise his sense of humor on a flock of gulls,” I said. “You get the idea the idea he's more isolated than your average bear?”

“I think we took him by surprise. He expected to have to hike the pack up to the house.” Noah nodded at where the stranger had dropped the backpack on the beach. “Let me try. I think I can communicate with him.”

I had my doubts you could surprise anyone so hard they'd forget basic words like, “English,” and “America.” But what did we have to lose by trying?

“Go for it.” I gave him one last secret squeeze to the hip before I let go.

Noah's toga shifted dangerously as he moved forward. I really shouldn't have grabbed and tugged at him quite so much. Too late to worry about it now.

Still smiling, the man turned back to us.

“Hey,” Noah said. “I'm not sure you got what my friend is saying, but we're stuck here. We need to leave. SOS.”

He spoke even more slowly than I had. But he was using too many words.

“SOS,” Noah repeated. “You understand SOS?”

The man made a humorous gesture at his worn and faded boardshorts. Then another gesture at the two of us. Our togas entertained him. He understood that much. Or thought he did.

What did he think this was? Weird rich tourist kinks beyond a simple country boy's understanding?

We were pretty obviously too far out to sea to be the victims of a fraternity prank.

Or were we?

Maybe Tom Hanks's primitive raft could sail the storm-tossed seven seas, but I found it hard to believe a dugout could serve as long-distance transoceanic transport. You couldn't carry enough supplies for one thing. There wasn't enough sun or storm protection for another.

Had to be another island somewhere. Maybe an entire archipelago. And there were people on it.

If we could only make this guy understand.

Noah was now trying to talk to the guy in Spanish. That was working out about as well as the English.

The man, cheerful as ever—confident we were vacationers with an odd sense of humor—couldn't resist a tiny tug to Noah's slipsliding toga.

It was a tug too far.

The various inexpertly tied knots gave up the ghost. The toga sheet—pillowcase and all—tumbled to the sand.

Chapter 7

Noah put a hand over his exposed package—the natural response to having your clothes fall off in front of a total stranger on a clear blue day with a thousand miles of sky and sun all around you. He had the most adorable full-body blush.

Aw. So cute.

The guilty party slapped his hand over his own open mouth. Yes, he did it to mime shock. But he also did it in a vain attempt to hide his laughter.

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