Page 101 of Adrift

“Holy shit! Fantastic, Sassy.” Dante forgets about Calvin and Easton the second he sees the cast-iron pot. He looks back at the jungle. “But where’s my coffee?” He laughs.

“I had a second pan, but I dropped it.” For a moment, my head clears of the guy’s fight. I knew Dante would be over the moon with the pots.

“This is perfect, but let’s not wave the metal around in a storm. We’ll go back and find the other one tomorrow, love.” His laugh rolls with the crashing waves. He tucks the pot under a mat in the makeshift kitchen area. “It’s brilliant! Where did you find it?”

“Uh, a derelict fishing boat.” I turn back to the jungle. I feel like I can hear them fighting, but I know I can’t. Not over the waves crashing, even though the tide is at its lowest.

“You two go get in the raft. I’ll go back and see what’s going on with them.” Zane cocks his head inland.

I’m furious at both Calvin and Easton. We’ve got enough going against us; we don’t need the two of them having a contest for control every other day.

“Let’s go get dry, Sassy,” Dante says.

The wind shifts and the rain starts up again, pelting the side of the raft. “Dry sounds good.”

Dante places a hand on my back, and Zane disappears into the jungle.

The rain is picking up again, but we both take our time getting all the sand off our feet. If I had imagined being stuckon an island, I would never have guessed it would be the sand that drove me the craziest. If I’d spent any time thinking about it, I would have. But I guess when you think about being on a deserted island, it’s always about what three things you would bring.

Dante closes the flap to the wind. He’s made good use of his time. The raft is tidied, and in the center of it are four bowls of jerky and coconut.

“Are you hungry, Sassy?”

I look out the little slot of the window. “I...”

“They’re adults. If they want to act like little boys, let them get bloody and wet.” He hands me the coconut bowl. “It’s not warm, but it’s something to eat.”

“Thank you.” I can’t help glancing back at the flap. The coconut is tasty, and he’s right: I need to eat. Without him, we’d be chewing on fishbones. I sit facing the flap. I can just see out while not too much rain is getting in.

“We’re going to lose light soon.” Dante sits across from me.

I nod at him and start eating. Something is different. It tastes better. I look up at him.

His eyebrow arches. “I knew you’d be able to tell.”

“It’s good.”

“I harvested some salt. It’s hard with the damn rain. But... Okay, enough about that.” The way he shuts down the conversation, I have a feeling I don’t want to know where he found the salt. And I’m not asking. “What else did you find?”

“Oh, a lot. And I think there’s even more that Easton and Zane haven’t told us about. It started to rain; we were trying to hurry back here. And then?—”

“The fight was about you?”

“Yes.” I purse my lips. It’s not the first time Dante has shown his intuition. “There’s a frying pan somewhere along the trail, and a ladle and a big metal spoon. Easton was carrying a chair,and Calvin had a huge net.” The words tumble out like I’m an excited child.

He nods.

“But even better, the ship is made of wood. I’m not a carpenter, but I think we should be able to build a structure. Something more than this raft. But...” I stare at the raft wall, wondering what is going on outside.

“That’s good. Eat, Haley. They’ll be back soon.”

I’m eating without thinking about it. Each bite swirls in my stomach. I sway to the left occasionally to get a better line of sight to the jungle. The wind is really blowing the tops of the trees around. And it makes me think of all the mats I made. I inch over to the flap.

“Where do you think you’re going, Sassy?”

“I should make sure everything is secure.”

“I’ve already done that. What you need to do is get dry.” He holds out a towel, and I take it. I’ve already forgotten what it is to smell clean. But I’m grateful we have a little reminder of civilization.

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