Page 3 of Royal Shark
So I do. I swim freestyle with my head above water, telling her how much I want to go off island for school next year to get better teachers for math, how I want to go to Cambridge, which is the best for math, and how I’ll learn all about statistics, so I’ll always know the best odds and beat everyone at poker. My father taught me and my brothers to play poker when each of us turned seven because he thought it was a good way to learn numbers and people skills at the same time. I think he just wanted a game we could all have fun with. It was a father-son thing, but I taught my twin and Sara, too, so they’d play with me.
“You’ll have to teach me all your best poker tricks,” she says weakly.
Panic shoots through me. She never sounds weak. I fear she’s lost too much blood. “Almost there.”
Finally, we get to a point where I can stand. I scoop her up and carry her to the beach.
“Help!” I shout.
My guard, Thomas, runs over and takes her from me. She stares at me over his shoulder, her eyes begging me to stay with her. I glance at her ankle, still dripping blood, and race for my T-shirt on the sand. I shake it out, turn it inside out, and then tie it over her ankle to stem the blood flow. She makes a strangled noise at the contact. Blood starts to soak through the shirt.
“Oh!” Marie, our maid, exclaims as everyone gathers around Sara. “That’s going to need stitches.”
“Stitches!” Sara exclaims. “No-o-o! Please no stitches!”
Thomas rushes off with her in his arms, heading for the car.
“I’ll get her mother,” Marie says. “Come on, everyone, we’re going to pick up Sara’s mother and meet them at the health clinic.”
“Adrian!” Sara yells.
I run to her. “It’s okay. It won’t be that bad.”
Her eyes are so wide I can see the whites in them. “I don’t want a needle in my ankle! It’s already ripped open!”
“You have to,” I say. “It’ll be okay.”
“Don’t leave me,” she whispers.
“I won’t.”
I climb into the backseat with her on the drive to the clinic. Thomas and Marie have a quick talk about whether or not Marie should ride in the back with us to apply pressure to Sara’s ankle, but Sara says she’ll do it. She doesn’t want anyone touching her injury. A moment later, we’re heading to the clinic, just me and Sara in the backseat, with Thomas driving. The others follow in the second car. Sara looks really pale.
I do my best to make her feel better. “Oscar got stitches in his arm and it was cool. It looked like Frankenstein.”
“I don’t want to look like Frankenstein!” she wails.
I wince. “Not Frankenstein. Just cool. And it didn’t even hurt. They numbed his arm first.”
“They did?”
“Yeah.”
“Like with a special numbing cream?”
I debate what to say. Oscar said it was a huge needle. Finally, I say, “They can’t put cream on an open wound. It’s just a quick shot of medicine.”
She grabs my hand and squeezes tight.
I stare straight ahead. I’ve never held hands with a girl before. It kind of hurts.
“Keep talking,” she says.
“About what?”
“I don’t care. I just like the sound of your voice.”
It is deeper now. I lower it to an even deeper tone. “Remember when Chloe was two and she kept ripping off her swim diaper and leaping into the waves?”
