"They have to look for us," I said. "Once they miss us, once we're not on the flight, people will start looking."

"Somewhere in the South Pacific," Wiggy said.

---

 

30. Seated Victory
 

"Hey, I'm stuck," Cakey said, smiling. "I got a flat tire. At least we got the big loads ashore before we ran out of gas."

"Yes, good work," Mirina said. "It was lucky Ding-Dong had the idea of the raft."

Wiggy frowned in disapproval. "I could have brought it all in the dory. These boats are made for stuff like this."

"Can you tow me, Wiggsy?" Cakey asked.

"Maybe," Wiggy said, "let's have a go." She switched places with Mirina so she could get in the tail-end of the boat, and took the end of the rope from Cakey.

"Do you need me, Hedwig?" Mirina said. "I'm thinking I could make the boat lighter by swimming ashore. Make your job easier."

"Go ahead," Wiggy replied, and Mirina slipped into the water. I expected the boat to tip a lot, but it hardly moved at all.

Wiggy tied up the boats, and got back to the oars. "I can swim to shore, too, if you like," Cakey offered. Wiggy shrugged, and Cakey dove in.

"Do you want me to go, too?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Please stay. I don't want to be alone." She moved back to the middle of the boat. "Can you sit there, so I can see you?" she asked.

I got into the back of the boat, and she picked up the oars.

"You and Mirina aren't telling everything, are you?" I asked.

"No, we're not," Wiggy admitted readily in a low voice, "but can I tell you later? Voices carry on the water."

I nodded.

"Don't worry," she said, "I'll tell you everything. I'll go crazy if I can't talk to somebody about it."

"Maybe we can be one of the search teams," I suggested.

She nodded, and pulled at the oars.

"Is it hard?" I asked. "I mean towing the boat."

"It's not so bad," she said. "I think it would be easier if the whole load was in here, but it's okay."

"Why didn't they try to row the longboat ashore?" I asked.

"We couldn't find the oars," she said. "Now it's completely useless, unless by some miracle we find gasoline on the island."

"Maybe we could make a sail for it," I suggested.

Wiggy's face grew dark. "You're starting to sound like Ding-Dong," she said.

I didn't answer at first. I just looked at her. When she didn't look up, I said, "I wish you wouldn't do that."

At that, her head jerked up. She was startled and embarrassed. "Sorry!" she squeaked. "I don't mean it."

"Ding-Dong actually had a lot of smart ideas back there."

"I know."

"She helped a lot."

"I know." Wiggy was very embarrassed now. "I'm sorry. It's just the pressure. I feel like it's all on me."
 

---

 

An hour later we were all moving again. We formed four teams, each with a walkie-talkie. Mirina, Graffy, and Grooty were one team. Knickers, Cakey, and Ding-Dong were the second. They each took one of the paths leading away from the cave. Wiggy and I took the dory so we could circle the island. Mirina gave me a pair of binoculars, and cautioned me to never take the cord off my neck.

"If you hand them to Wiggy," the Manley One instructed, "make sure you don't hold them over the water. Hold them over the boat, in case they drop."

"Okay," I agreed, more than a little irritated. I wanted to tell her that I'm not a child, but I bit my tongue and kept quiet.

Boogers had brought the food ashore, and decided to cook the haggis. Apparently the meal was going to be elaborate (by camp standards) so she stayed behind to prepare it. Donkey stayed with her, mainly so she wouldn't be alone, but also to help gather wood for the fire and haul water.

One of the first things that we found, even before the exploring began, was a fresh-water spring. I say "we" found it, but it was actually Ding-Dong. She wondered how the barrels of water in the cave's pantry got filled. "They're too heavy to move," she kept saying, and at last, after some crawling and wiggling and nearly losing one of the flashlights, she discovered that there was a water faucet behind the barrels. A hose was attached to it.

Thinking that the faucet had to be fed by a spring or a water tank, she took Cakey with her to look at the hill above the cave. Pretty quickly they heard water falling, and lo and behold there was a fresh-water pool with a spring bubbling above it. The runoff from the pool ran down the stony hill and disappeared in the shubbery.

"The spring has to be capped somewhere above the pool," Ding-Dong said, pointing. "Or maybe there are two springs."

"Can we swim in it?" Graffy asked.

"I think we might want to use it for washing," Wiggy said.

"We can do both!" Ding-Dong proposed. "If we dam up the water over there, it will make a second pool."

Everyone groaned at the impracticality of it, and Mirina said, "Girls, we have to start searching. We have to find the adults, if they're on the island."

"How would they have gotten ashore?" Cakey asked. "We have the longboat."

"One of the rafts was missing," Mirina said. "You know that."

"Why would they get in a raft, when they could use a motorboat?" Cakey asked.

Mirina turned to Wiggy for an explanation.

Wiggy shrugged. "I have no idea. If it was me, I'd have put everyone in the dory."

"Oh! You think that silly dory is magical!" Boogers scoffed.

"It's made for ocean rowing," Wiggy retorted. "It's almost impossible to tip over!"

"Okay," Mirina interrupted, putting up her hands. "We're wasting time. We're wasting sunlight. Does anyone know when the sun sets?"

"About six," Wiggy replied.

"That gives us four or five hours of exploring. Less, really, because we have to get back to camp before dark. Each team, take a flashlight. And watch the time. Make sure you leave enough time to get back to camp before the sun goes down."
 

---

 

"So...," I began, as Wiggy gently pulled at the oars, "Do you really have no idea why the adults would take a raft?"

"No. No idea."

"Maybe they had to abandon ship while Flannery was bringing us ashore..."

"But then what happened to Flannery?"

"She climbed in the raft with them?"

"No. That doesn't make sense. She could have towed them ashore. But instead, she tied up the longboat..."

"So she must have got back onboard."

"Maybe she got back on the ship, and then they hit the reef. Then they all got in a raft."

"No," Wiggy insisted. "They would have gotten in the longboat."

"Maybe somebody came and took them away?" I suggested.

"Like who? A flying saucer?" Wiggy's eyes scanned the shore, reminding me to do the same. "Besides," she continued, "If somebody took them, why is the raft missing?"

"Maybe they got in the raft and someone picked them up?"

"They why wouldn't they come for us?"

We were silent for a while. Then I said, "Maybe they got in the raft and the raft went down. Or they were lost at sea."

Wiggy didn't answer. Nervously, I covered my eyes with the binoculars, and looked at the island. "There's a volcano," I observed. "Or a mountain, at least."

"It's a volcano," Wiggy said.

"Do you think we're in danger?" I asked. "I see smoke, like steam, coming out around the base and partway up the side."

"I don't know," she replied.

She rowed in silence. At last, I asked her, "Wiggy, what aren't you telling me? Is there some kind of secret here?"

Wiggy stopped rowing. She pulled the oars inside the boat and let go of them. Then she crumpled up into a ball, burying her face into her hands. She drove her elbows down between her knees. She cried, her whole body shaking. I moved closer, kneeling on the hard, uncomfortable floor, and tried to put my arms around her.

"Wiggy, what's wrong? Wiggy, tell me... Come on, Wiggy, get a hold of yourself. Tell me what's wrong."

At any other time, I would have let her cry. I would have just held her and waited. This time, I couldn't wait. To the truth, I was more than a little scared. Here we were, two girls in the middle of the ocean in a little boat. I don't know how to row. I could swim to some extent. I wasn't sure I could swim all the way to shore. I didn't know whether even Graffy and Grooty could swim this far.

And while Wiggy cried, the current was moving the boat. Not quickly, and not a lot, but it was moving. I didn't want Wiggy to cry for very long.

"Wiggy, please," I begged. "Tell me what's wrong."

Gasping for breath, she said, "Okay." She snivelled, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, which she cleaned by waving it in the water. She rubbed her face and gulped a few backward sobs.

"The thing is," she said, "I don't know whether anyone knows where we are."

"Didn't you plan this trip?" I asked.

"No, not really. I had to go through Mirina's father's secretary, and she's great and everything, but she has a million things to do. So, she booked the tickets, and signed up the Seward, but I don't know how many details she had.

"When she told me we were going to be on an island, I asked her, Which island? and she said, Does it matter?

"Each time I talked to her, I tried to insist, but she said she didn't know."

"She didn't know!?" I repeated.

"Yeah," Wiggy replied. "I'm hoping that it was just an adult brushing off a child, you know? And that she DOES know and has it written down somewhere."

"Somebody in the company that runs the ship must know."

Wiggy scoffed. "I think we've met everyone in that company."

"No," I countered. "Somebody has to run the office, take phone calls and stuff."

"Yeah, somebody," she said. "Does that somebody know where we went?"

"Don't they have to?" I replied.

"I don't know," she countered. "Do they?"

I blew out a big breath. "So, potentially nobody knows where we are."

Wiggy nodded. "Except the adults, who are now missing."

"They have to look for us," I said. "Once they miss us, once we're not on the flight, people will start looking."

"Somewhere in the South Pacific," Wiggy said, and gestured with her chin at the vast empty ocean. "We could be anywhere. They never found Emilia Earheart."

She sighed and took up the oars again.

Something began wiggling around in my memory... something was bothering me. There was something else I meant to ask Wiggy... what was it?

"Oh!" It came back to me. "Wiggy, remember when we went up on the hill to look at the ship? You told me that you'd seen a map of the island before we left. How could you do that if you didn't know where we were going?"

She turned red and bit her lip. "Oh, yeah," she said softly. "Okay, look: I have a secret. I was going to tell you anyway, just... I was going to tell you later on.

"But listen to me, Marcie — this is a real secret. This is a big secret. You can't tell ANYBODY. You can't even hint at it. In fact, it's so serious that if you tell, then..." she hesitated a moment, weighing what she was about to say "... if you tell, then I'll tell your secret." She glanced at my crotch, as if her meaning wasn't obvious enough already.

I went white. I was stunned. "Wiggy!" I exclaimed. "You wouldn't!"

She looked uncomfortable. "I know," she said. "I wouldn't... so don't make me! I can't have anybody know!"

I couldn't speak, I was so upset. If I could have jumped out of the boat and swam ashore, I would have. I thought about doing it anyway. Maybe with the life jacket I was wearing, I could make it. Could I? Would I? Before I made up my mind, my eye fell on Wiggy, who looked miserable.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she said. "You *know* I won't tell! I'm just desperate!"

"Oh, Wiggy," I said. "Sometimes you're more than a little mean!"

"I don't mean to be!"

"You don't mean to be mean?"

"Don't be mad at me!" she pleaded. "Look: this is my secret. The first morning we were here, while it was still raining, I found a map of the island in the table, near the cave entrance. It was in a long plastic tube that hangs on the back of the table."

"So why didn't you tell anybody?"

She tapped her foot and looked uncertain. She opened her mouth twice before she actually began to speak. "Because I found a second map that shows where we are."

"You did? So where are we?"

"I don't know exactly, but there are some bigger islands, not far away. I'm pretty sure I can row to the closest one, and if I understand the map correctly, there should be people on it."

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. "So why won't you tell anybody?"

"Because I'm sure they wouldn't let me go."

"How far is it?"

Wiggy looked cagey. "I'm not going to say."

"You're not going to say? Well, how long would it take to row there?"

Again she gave me that cagey look. "I'm not going to say that, either."

"Why not? You told me everything else! Didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. But I know about rowing a dory in the open ocean. I've been in three long-distance contests. So I know what I can do. But you don't, and neither does anybody else."

"So?"

"So if I tell you how far it is, or how long it would take to get there, you'll start making calculations based on... based on nothing, and you'll try to second-guess me."

"Maybe that's a good thing," I offered.

"No," she said. "It's not. I can do it. If I talk about it, you and the others will stop me."

I looked at Wiggy's determined face. She set her jaw the way a little girl does when she's ready to dig her heels in. Whatever I said next, I had to be very careful.

"Wiggy, will you just promise me one thing?"

"What?" she asked in a cautious tone.

"Take me with you when you go?"

She shrieked with joy. She did a little seated victory dance, stamping her feet, wiggling her butt, and waggling the oars.

"Stop, Wiggy, stop!" I laughed. "You're getting me all wet!"

© 2008 by Kaleigh Way

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