Gordon Korman: The Danger

English shook his head. “I let him dive, me. He is on my conscience.” He tossed the Zodiac into the water and stepped inside. As the outboard motor roared to life, he looked around helplessly. Kaz had been drifting for almost half an hour.

Who could guess how far away the boy might be?

Tired.

Kaz’s awareness diminished one wave at a time, until only that single word remained.

He bobbed in the heavy chop, kept afloat by the air in his B.C. But he felt nothing anymore — no motion, no spray, no heat from the blazing sun. He knew only his own exhaustion.

His sense of time had been the first to go. Underwater, fighting the current, he had lost track of the decompression schedule. Terrified of ascending too soon, he’d done the only thing that made any sense — stayed under until his oxygen had run out. At that point, he’d had no choice. He had broken the waves, gasping for air.

He had no idea how long he’d been floating here. Hours? Days? The one thing he knew with absolute clarity was that it couldn’t go on much longer.

He struggled against the confusion, reciting his name, address, and telephone number — concrete facts to replace his disorientation.

“My name is Bobby Kaczinski… I play right defense…”

Then what are you doing in the middle of the ocean?

It took a moment for him to come up with the answer to that question.

“I’m a diver. I was on a dive, but something went wrong.” He could not remember what, just that he was here, and had been here for a long time.

He barely noticed when the roar of the outboard motor swelled over the whitecaps. Nor did he recognize the dark features that loomed over him as he was lifted into the inflatable raft. But the face of his rescuer was the most welcome sight he’d ever laid eyes on.

Adriana and Dante hurried through the narrow streets of the tiny village of Côte Saint-Luc.

They had ridden their bikes back from the oil rig where they’d spent the afternoon with Star. At Poseidon, they’d been greeted by a message taped to Dante’s cabin door: Boy is at my home.

It was signed Menasce Gérard.

“What’s Kaz doing at English’s place?” Dante queried as they passed the bar and grill where they had bought Star’s lunch many hours before. “Do you suppose he’s got a dungeon in there somewhere?”

“That was no easy dive they went on today,” Adriana reminded him. “I’ll bet Kaz did well, and English is having him over for dinner. We might be invited, too.”

“That guy hates our guts,” grumbled Dante. “If he’s having us for dinner, it’s because we’re the main course.”

She swallowed hard, afraid to say it out loud. “Do you think they found the captain?”

“I sure hope so. I don’t like the idea of him lost down there.”

English lived in a tiny cottage in the center of town. The big dive guide answered their knock, scowling as usual. They looked beyond him to where Kaz sat in a high-backed rattan chair, drinking from a steaming mug.

Adriana stared. Kaz’s face gleamed with a thick coating of cream covering an angry red sunburn. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” said Kaz. “I’m okay.”

“But how’d you get roasted underwater?” Dante persisted.

“I lost the anchor line during decomp,” Kaz explained. “Drifted for a while. But we found the captain.”

“Thank God,” Adriana breathed.

English spoke up. “This ointment is the best remedy. There is an old woman in the hills who makes it. Also the tea. Good for the dehydration.”

“Don’t ask me to describe the taste,” Kaz added sourly.

“So what happens now?” Dante asked English. “With the captain, I mean.”

“The body will be shipped to his sister in Florida.” The dark eyes flashed bitter resentment at them. “You are maybe surprised there is no miracle cure for three days drowned?”

Adriana felt instant tears spring to her eyes. “You blame us for his death, don’t you?”

The dive guide didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “I blame only the bad luck. But if you do not come to my island, Braden, he is still alive, yes?”

“We’re so sorry,” she barely whispered. “He was really good to us.”

“I think you take your friend and go now.” It was not a suggestion; they were being dismissed.

Kaz stood up. “You probably saved my life — again.”

“It was you who found Braden,” English said grudgingly. He looked over to where Adriana, always the archaeologist, was staring at the weathered wooden carving of an eagle’s head and wings that hung in a fishnet in the window of the small cottage. “And you, mademoiselle,” he added impatiently. “What may I say that might drive you away from me and my property?”

Kaz spoke up. “Give her a break.”

“This piece,” Adriana persisted. “I e-mailed a picture of it to my uncle, and he thinks it might be just as old as some of the other stuff we found.”

English sighed. “If I explain you this thing, you will leave, yes?”

“Please,” said Adriana, flushed with embarrassment.

“The story of my supposed-to-be English ancestor — after the shipwreck, he floated to Saint-Luc on this wood.”

The girl’s eyes shone with excitement. “Uncle Alfie said the piece probably broke off a ship, because the back is all jagged! And the wood definitely doesn’t come from here!”

English was unimpressed. “This is family legend only — probably not true. And now you will do me the favor to go home.”

Kaz paused at the door. “It was worth it — going after the captain, I mean. I’m glad we found him.”

“I, too, am glad,” said Menasce Gérard.

Samuel came awake to the strong taste of rum being forced down his throat. He gagged.

“Drink it, Samuel,” ordered York. “It’ll clear your head.” Once again the burning liquid was forced past his lips.

Choking and spitting, he sat up and leaned back against the bulwark. He would have vomited, too, had there been anything in his belly. For three days, the crew of the Griffin had battled the storm. There had been no time for eating or sleeping with the destruction of the ship so close at hand.

The storm. That was what was different now. The tempest had passed, praise heaven. The rain had ceased, the wind was down, and the sea was calm. But the Griffin — the barque looked like the aftermath of a battle. Ropes and debris littered the deck. The mizzenmast had been snapped in half, and a loose starboard cannon had smashed through planking and partially collapsed a companionway.

The cabin boy’s eyes turned to York. The barber’s white smock was spattered with blood. Amputations of broken or crushed limbs, thought Samuel. The pungent smell of burned flesh filled the air. Stumps sealed, wounds cauterized, all to prevent an infection that would very likely come anyway.

The feeling of hopelessness that washed over Samuel was becoming more and more familiar. His had not been a happy life — he had been kidnapped from his family at the age of six, and had worked as a chimney sweep before running away to sea. Yet the despair that visited him now was sharper than what he remembered from his deprived childhood. Fear of dying was not nearly as unpleasant as fear of living. The captain and crew of the Griffin were privateers — licensed pirates. Murderers, torturers, thieves. The world would have been a finer place had the ship and all hands gone down in the gale.

“Any idea where we are, sir?” Samuel asked listlessly.