Margaret Haddix: Sabotaged

“You’re a lot of help,” Jonah muttered. He dropped the sweatshirt he’d been carrying, so he could cup his hands around his mouth and scream, “Andrea! Come back!”

Andrea turned slightly-maybe to yell back at Jonah-and a wave knocked her sideways, somersaulting her deeper into the water.

She didn’t resurface.

“Andrea!” Jonah screamed.

He threw himself into the water and began paddling desperately toward the spot where he’d seen Andrea disappear. His shoes and clothes got waterlogged within seconds, dragging him down. But he didn’t have time to tug off even his sneakers. He kept pushing forward, doggedly, even though all the water in front of him looked the same now. He couldn’t remember where Andrea had vanished. He reached down, and his fingers brushed something soft-seaweed? Or Andrea’s hair?

Jonah kicked hard, lifting his head high above the water, trying to gulp in a good breath before he dove down to search for Andrea.

The wind seemed to be calling his name.

“Jonah! Jonah!”

Jonah looked to the right, and it was Andrea.

“Swim-parallel-shore!” she called.

Oh, yeah. Jonah knew that. That’s what you did when you got caught in an undertow.

He wasn’t sure if the force tugging at him was really an undertow-or if it was just the dragging weight of his own clothes. But he did a sort of modified dog paddle toward Andrea.

“It’s coming close!” she shouted.

It took Jonah a moment to realize that she meant the boat. It wasn’t just coming close-it was rising up, towering over them. In a minute, depending on how the wave broke, it could be slamming down on them.

“Watch out!” Jonah yelled, just as Andrea screamed, “The man!”

Jonah glanced back at the boat, and caught a quick glimpse of a man’s hand, clutching one of the splintering boards.

“This way,” Jonah shouted, getting a faceful of salty water. It seemed as if an entire gallon had landed in his open mouth. He sputtered and coughed, but still managed to grab Andrea’s arm and shove her toward the shore. That sent Jonah reeling backward, barely able to keep his head above water.

The waves heaved up, then hurled the boat down, down, down…

It didn’t hit Jonah. It hit a rock formation Jonah hadn’t even known was there. The boat shattered instantly, setting off an explosion of broken boards. So now it wasn’t just one boat Jonah had to watch out for, but dozens of sharp, pointed remnants of the boat, constantly being tossed by the waves near Jonah’s head.

And Andrea was swimming back into the debris.

“No! Don’t!” Jonah screamed.

“He’s right here!” Andrea screamed back.

She’d reached the man floating in the debris. He seemed to be trying to swim, but Jonah saw that that was an illusion: His arms and legs were only moving with the current.

“Help-flip-over!” Andrea called.

Belatedly, Jonah remembered that he should actually know how to deal with this situation. He’d taken junior lifesaving lessons at the pool the past summer. But the pool had always been so calm and safe, one kid at a time jumping into the peaceful blue water to “save” an instructor flailing about in imaginary danger. There’d been no hazardous debris, no heaving waves, no actual unconscious victim.

Jonah shook his head, trying to focus.

“Uh-armpit!” he screamed at Andrea. “Grab him by his armpit!”

Either Andrea couldn’t hear him, or she couldn’t understand. Jonah grabbed the man himself, yanking him by the arm to pull him close, then awkwardly turning him over. Finally Jonah wrapped his own arm around the man’s chest, both of them rolling in the waves together. Any of Jonah’s lifesaving instructors would have frowned and pointed out everything Jonah had done wrong. Jonah knew he wasn’t supposed to end up clinging to the drowning victim like this, as if he was just trying to use the victim’s buoyancy to keep his own head above water. And there was something Jonah was supposed to remember about clearing obstructed airways and checking to see if the man needed mouth-to-mouth or CPR. But right now Jonah was doing well just to breathe himself-to breathe air, that is, not saltwater. Jonah was starting to forget which was which.

“Maybe-we can-go in-there,” Andrea sputtered, her words coming out between waves and breaths.

Jonah looked, and the shoreline had changed. The current had flung them downwind from the sandy beach: Now they were facing rocks. And the waves were already smashing the debris from the boat against the rocks, splintering the boards into smaller boards-more dangers that Jonah and Andrea would need to avoid.

Jonah glanced down at the man in his arms. The man’s chest was moving up and down, but Jonah couldn’t tell if that meant he was breathing or if it was just his body bobbing in the surf, bobbing along with Jonah.

Sidestroke, Jonah reminded himself. Just do the modified sidestroke like you’re supposed to, and don’t think about anything else.

He’d only managed to take three strokes forward when something hit him in the head-something from the air, not in the water.

Now, that’s not right, Jonah wanted to complain. It’s not fair for everything to be dangerous!

He turned his head to look and discovered that a huge branch had fallen into the water.

“Grab on and climb out!” Katherine yelled. “Don’t swim! Climb!”

Oh…

Katherine was at the other end of the branch. Katherine must have thrown it in.

Had Katherine been trying to hit him?

No, Jonah realized, she was trying to help him. The branch was a wonderful thing to hold on to while the water seemed to be trying harder and harder to dash him and the unconscious man against the rocks. Holding on to the branch, Jonah could almost stand up. He braced his feet between two rocks and yelled at Andrea, “Help me drag the man in!”

She grabbed on to the branch too. Between the two of them, they managed to jerk the man toward the shore. When they finally reached dry ground, Katherine let go of the branch and helped Jonah and Andrea yank the man out of the water. Jonah fell back on the scrubby grass, completely spent. But Andrea leaned over the man, putting her ear against his chest, her hand beneath his nose.

“He’s alive!” she screamed. “He’s breathing!”

Jonah didn’t move. The ground seemed to be spinning beneath him. Overhead, the clouds were whipping across the sky with amazing speed. The contrasting motions-spinning earth, speeding clouds-were making Jonah feel nauseated. So he closed his eyes. But that just made him feel as if he was back in the water, being tossed back and forth by the waves…

“You saved his life!” Katherine said, in awe, her voice coming from the same direction as Andrea’s. “You and Jonah. That man would have drowned without you.”

… would have drowned…

… would have drowned…

Jonah winced, thinking about how moments ago, standing on the shore, he’d wondered if the capsized boat in the water was a trap or a trick set up by the same man who’d convinced Andrea to sabotage her own trip through time. Jonah had been worried about Andrea drowning. But this was something else. This was him and Andrea willfully changing time. Katherine had felt guilty about knocking down a pine cone in the wrong place. Now the three of them had saved a man’s life. What if the man went on to change history even more? He might have children he wasn’t supposed to have; he might turn around and kill someone who wasn’t supposed to die; he might do anything.

Jonah felt sick, but he couldn’t have said what was making him feel worse: Thinking that he could have stood by and let the man drown? Or thinking that maybe that was what he was supposed to do?