Page 114 of Adrift

“Fuck no. I don’t know where he is.” Easton shook his head. “Actually, I think we’re good now. As good as anyone can be with him. I think?” He takes a step closer to Haley.

“That’s great, Easton.” She looks up from the kitten. “Where do you think its mother is?” Haley turns to me.

“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.” Easton tries to scratch the little demon’s head again, and it hisses.

“Shh. Don’t do that, Whiskers. Easton is a friend. No, that doesn’t feel right, either.” Haley rubs it behind its ear.

“Ah, she’s finally figured it out about you, Easton. You’re not a friend,” Dante says

“You shh, both of you. I was talking about Tiger. Nope, not Tiger.” She walks away shaking her head, taking the kitten down to the area right before the surf. When she puts it on the sand, it sits next to her, looks up and then plops down between her feet, curling itself into a ball.

“What sort of structure do you want to build?” Easton’s eyes follow Haley. Mine too.

“A treehouse,” I say. “The bugs are getting to me in the sand. And in the jungle, it gets too hot. But sitting in the top of the map tree, it’s almost...”

“Pleasant?” Easton suggests.

“I was gonna say not hellish, but pleasant works. I’ve got ideas.” I sit on one of the bigger logs near Dante and stretch out my leg, slowly, ignoring the little twinge in the top of my foot. Subconsciously, I wiggle my toes. Everything still works. “Right, ideas. The map tree is big, but there are two normal-sized large trees.”

“Normal-sized large trees?” Easton crouches next to me like a yoga instructor.

“Yeah, you know, like you and Dante are normal tall and Calvin is...” I give a shrug.

“I think I know what you’re talking about.” Easton takes a twig from the woodpile and starts drawing. “This one here. And the other one is a little farther away, over here?” He drawsx’s next to the large circle. “There’s another one over here.” He points across the path, and Dante marks it.

“Fuck, I didn’t think about it, but you’re right. There’s no reason why we can’t cross the path. We can make a new path, or if it’s high enough up, it won’t matter,” I say.

Dante pulls up next to me and sits. “What about this stove you’re so excited about?” What Dante means to say is the stovehe’s so excited about. He hasn’t stopped talking about it all morning. That and smiling, but then again, I get the smiling. Still, it’s a bit creepy. At least his sarcasm level has dropped.

“Yeah, well, we can have a kitchen down below. Near the trunk. If it’s cold, we can stay down below around the stove.” It sounds good. I can see all the little details we can build. I’ve even stared at the branches of the trees enough to know we’ll be able to connect them. I can envision it down to the last detail. When Easton mentioned the tree across the path, my brain cracked and the drawing in my head shifted over. Some of the new details are blurry, but I know they’ll come together. They always do when I draw a sketch. I cup my hands around my mouth. “Haley, can you and the demon watch the fire? I want to take Easton and Dante over to the map tree.”

She waves back with a big thumbs-up. “Don’t call Snuggles a demon.”

I give a thumbs-up back, and we head over to the map tree.

“See that branch? That one is big enough for a small platform, but if we join it to that tree, it will distribute the weight.”

“That’s a great idea.” Easton’s nodding right along with me. But Dante’s leaning against the big tree.

“What?” I cock my head at him.

“You ever build anything?”

“No.” I put my hands on my hips. “No, the kid who grew up in an apartment in the Midlands didn’t have a chance to build much but a little dollhouse for his sister. But I’ve been reading architecture books forever. You think you can do any better?”

“Unfortunately, yes. My dad wasn’t around, but my mom’s brother owned a construction company. I had to work with him all summer and most days after school. It’s fucking why I’m a chef. I got a job as a dishwasher at thirteen. It paid under thetable. So much fucking better than having to pick up soda cans and cigarette butts from the construction site.”

“What did you learn? You were a fucking thirteen-year-old when you started working in the restaurant. How the hell are you going to know anything about construction?”

“Oh, I didn’t stop working with him just because I got another job. Fuck no, that asshole wouldn’t take that as an excuse. But I didn’t have to go as often because I had a job, even though the asshole took some of my salary from it. We were living in an apartment building he owned. Correction, a rundown piece of shit he owned. Still, he thought he needed to punish his youngest sister for getting knocked up by the wrong guy. Dear old Dad. He had worked for my uncle for a year. Long enough for my mother to end up with my sister and me. She’s eleven months younger than me. Then he split with 100k of my uncle’s money and his truck. The best thing I ever did was pay my asshole uncle off and move my mom and sister the hell out of the place.” Dante scrubs his hand over his face.

I know exactly what he’s thinking. Who’s going to take care of them now?

He shakes his head and pushes off the trunk. “This will work. We just need to be careful not to kill the trees in the process. Supporting the limbs and keeping the weight balanced is crucial. All without a hell of a lot of supplies.”

“I should show you the fishing boat.” Easton puts his hand on Dante’s shoulder, and Dante stares at it. “Right. Do you want to see it or not?”

“Hell yeah I do.” Dante follows Easton down the path.

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