"What would Captain Janeway do?" Ding-Dong asked.

"Oh, Ding-Dong," Wiggy sighed.

"No, seriously. She'd increase hull integrity. Can we do that?"

"Mirina saw the damage from the hill," Wiggy explained nervously. "That's why she wants to unload the ship."

"All right," I said. "When's high tide?"

"I don't know," Wiggy said. "It changes, but it ought to be around noon."

"And right now it's what?"

She glanced at her watch. "Nine." She gulped and trembled slightly.

"It's going to be okay, Wiggy," I said. "If the ship starts moving, we'll get into the longboat."

Wiggy, her face as white as a sheet, looked at me and said nothing.

Ding-Dong said, "Okay, girls, let's concentrate on the task at hand. We only have a little time, so let's do all we came to do!" When Wiggy didn't move, she reached forward tentatively and took Wiggy's walkie-talkie.

She didn't talk into it. She just held it as if it somehow gave her authority. "Look," Ding-Dong said. "We could spend our whole time trying to figure the radios out. What we ought to do is *first* get everything off the boat we need, and *then* try to fix a radio in the time we have left. Maybe we can pull one out of this dashboard-thingy.

"But first, we need to unload. We ought to get out one of the rafts, if there still is one, and blow it up."

"Why?" Wiggy asked.

"Because Cakey can tow it behind the motorboat. With all that extra storage, we might only need one more trip back with the stuff."

"Good idea," Wiggy and I admitted.

"AND we three ought to go over the boat from bottom to top, and search super-well and super-carefully because we know what we're looking for, and the other girls don't."

"Right," I said, though I wasn't so sure *I* knew what we really needed.

"Okay," Wiggy said. "But it's a ship, not a boat."

We went up on deck, and Wiggy took a quick look at the things the girls were piling up to bring ashore. Then we went down, down to the lowest deck where there was water. Wiggy showed us where the hull was smashed in. It didn't look so bad to me.

"What would Captain Janeway do?" Ding-Dong asked.

"Oh, Ding-Dong," Wiggy sighed.

"No, seriously. She'd increase hull integrity. Can we do that?"

"Who's Captain Janeway?" I asked.

"Star Trek: Voyager," Ding-Dong replied. "So can we?"

"No," Wiggy said, rubbing her face. "We'd have to be outside and we'd have to have something to patch it with. Plus, it's stuck on the coral, so we'd have no room to work. If it comes off the coral, it'll take on water and start to sink. And I don't know whether we can stand on the coral."

"We might be able to patch it faster than it can sink."

"Ding-Dong," Wiggy said, "we have to keep moving. We'll keep what you said in mind, but I don't think it's feasible."

The three of us went through every inch of the ship. We piled the things we found (tools, lights, emergency equipment, compass, binoculars) on the steps, and Graffy and Grooty carried them up on deck. We never found a gas can or a siphon, even though we searched every cupboard and opened every door.

When Mirina came on board she examined the hull damage. She took Wiggy aside, talked to her for a bit, and somehow calmed her down. She worked and searched and carried and made everyone else do the same. By ten thirty we'd stripped the ship of everything we thought could be useful to us.

At one point the two of us were standing on deck together. The wind gently tousled our hair and clothes. I said, "Mirina, why are we taking everything? I mean, we have to be rescued by Sunday at the latest, right?"

"We're just being prudent, Marcie," she replied. "Because you never know." After a moment she said, "Ding-Dong told me about the radios. Can you show me where they are?"

We went into the wheelhouse. I pointed the four radios out and explained about the fuses. Her eyes ran around the room, and at last she got on hands and knees and crept into a corner under a table. After a few grunts and bangs, she emerged with a small plastic tackle box. "I guess you didn't look in here, right?" she said. She opened the box and lo and behold there were fuses of various sizes, along with wires and connectors and assorted tools.

Wiggy and Ding-Dong came in at that point. "We're ready to go back," Wiggy announced. "Cakey's here and there's nothing else to bring ashore." You could see she was anxious to get off the ship.

Mirina nodded. She was thinking. "Wiggy," she said. "Can the four of us fit in the dory?"

Wiggy's eyes opened a bit. "Easily."

Mirina thought some more. "Okay. This is what we'll do. Cakey and the others will return to shore. We'll get the dory and bring it round to the ladder. The four of us will do one last, quick, thorough look over the ship, to make sure we didn't miss anything. Then we'll take the radios out and bring them ashore."

"They won't work without power," Wiggy pointed out.

"I saw some big batteries, like car batteries, down below. We can take one of them in a plastic bag."

"It might not be the right voltage," Wiggy said, "or amps or something."

"WIGGY!" Mirina shouted. "Stop! Okay, chances are it won't work, but what if it does? What if we have one chance in a million, and hit it? We have to try!"

Wiggy's eyes welled up with tears. They spilled down her cheeks. First came one sob, and then another. Soon she was crying openly, like a little girl who wanted her mother.

Mirina looked at Ding-Dong. "Send the other girls ashore," she told her. To Wiggy she said, "Come here, you silly goose! Come here, zusje."

The taller girl swept her hair behind her shoulders and wrapped her arms around the crying girl. Ding-Dong left, and I stood there not knowing what to do with myself. Wiggy cried on and on, while Mirina clucked and cooed like a mother bird.

"I can't do it!" Wiggy cried.

"Yes, you can," Mirina said soothingly. "We'll all help."

"I'm afraid!" Wiggy wailed.

"It'll be alright," Mirina told her in a soft voice.

"What if it isn't?" Wiggy demanded, still sobbing. "What if nobody knows where we are?"

Mirina didn't respond. She glanced at me, almost as if to see whether I'd heard. Then she lowered her eyes again and held Wiggy for a time in silence.

At long last, she put her hands on Wiggy's shoulders and stepped back, so they could look each other in the face. "Wiggy, listen. I know it's hard. I know it's especially hard for you, but you know things, you can do things, that the other girls can't do. You know this."

Wiggy sniffed. She wasn't crying any more. I saw a box of tissues on the table, so I handed her a few. She drew a ragged breath and blew her nose.

"I'm sorry, Mirina," she said. "Sometimes it's just too much..." and she started crying again.

"Okay, Wiggy, okay," Mirina said. I could see her patience was nearing an end. "Come on, my little pet, my petje."

Wiggy giggled a little in spite of herself.

"Wiggy, come on," I said. "If we get the radios out, we can go ashore."

Wiggy gave one or two more sniffs, grabbed two more tissues, and let out a huge groan of a sigh. "Okay," she said. "Has Cakey gone yet?"

As if in answer, we heard the motor start up.

"First of all, let's get the dory ready," she said. "If the ship starts moving, we want to be ready."
 

Forty minutes later, we were still struggling with the radios. We'd tried popping in new fuses, but they didn't change anything. The radios were still dead. Ding-Dong did her best to bring them to life, but nothing seemed to work.

"There are, like, a gazillion wires here," I said from inside the crawl space. "How can a thing have so many wires? It's just a radio."

"Don't worry about that," Mirina said. "Just follow each wire, one at a time."

I could see that Mirina and Wiggy were both on edge. It was probably the pressure of being in charge, of having to be the adults, so to speak. They both seemed at their limits. In spite of the sun we'd all gotten, their faces looked pale. They seemed shocked, overwhelmed. As far as getting the radios out, I was doing most of the work, and it wasn't going well. We'd sent nearly all the tools ashore, and there wasn't even a screwdriver to undo the screws holding the radios in.

"Look," I began. I was going to tell them we needed to give it up, when the ship suddenly, but very gently, rocked.

Wiggy swore. "Let's go," she said. "It's moving."

Mirina didn't argue. The four of us made way for the ladder. Just as we exited the wheelhouse, the walkie-talkie crackled to life.

"Wiggy? Mirina? This is Cakey. We're out of gas."

"Hang on," Mirina replied. "We have to abandon ship. It's moving. I'll call you right back."

In a matter of moments, we were down the ladder, in the dory, casting off. Wiggy gave a few pulls on the oars, and we were well away from the ship. It was visibly rocking. I had nothing to compare the sea level to, but obviously the tide was coming in.

"Is the anchor down?" I asked.

"Yes," Wiggy replied. "You can see the chain right there." She pointed.

"Hang on," Mirina interrupted. "Cakey, Mirina here. How far are you from shore?"

"Uh, too far to walk," Cakey replied. "I don't know. Far, not far. Graffy and Grooty tried to tow us in, but they couldn't."

"All right," Mirina replied. "Any girls who can swim ashore should do so. Cakey, you stay in the boat. We're on our way. Mirina out."

To Wiggy she said, "Do you think you can tow the motorboat with this dory?"

"And the raft?" Wiggy said. "I don't know. I do have an idea, though. It depends on how far they are from shore. We'll see. If I can't tow them, maybe we can run a rope from the boat to the shore and pull them in."

"So, wait a minute," I said. "About the ship: If the anchor is down, the boat — the ship — will stay where it is."

"Yeah," Wiggy replied. "Maybe forever. But we're not going back on board. It's too dangerous."

While Wiggy talked, she pulled at the oars. Again, I was amazed to see how natural she seemed in a boat. She rowed as if it was no effort at all. She seemed calmer, too, as if being in the rowboat, out on the water, made everything right with the world.

Still, she shook her head, and in her small squeaky voice, said, "Mirina, what are we going to do?"

Mirina, whose eyes were scanning the ocean in every direction, said, "We don't lose heart."

"And then?"

"We put our stuff away in the cave, and then we explore the island."

"Mirina, you know what I mean!"

"I do know what you mean, Wiggy. None of us know how long we'll be on the island, so we have to get organized. But the adults, they might be on the island. If they are, we have to find them. Maybe they came ashore on a different part."

"But Flannery told me that the reef is only open at this one point, at the cove."

As Wiggy spoke, we rounded the hill and came in sight of the cove. The longboat, with the raft behind, was sitting in the middle of the water. Cakey, alone in the boat, waved to us. I waved back.

"Wiggy," Mirina said in a low, serious voice, "listen to me. Do you know anything about coral reefs?"

"No," she admitted.

"Neither do I. We can imagine all sorts of things. Maybe they could walk across it. Maybe a wave could carry them over and leave them ashore. Maybe when the tide is high, they could simply row above it. We don't know."

Wiggy didn't answer.

Mirina went on. "We have to do what we can. The next step is to explore the island. We need to know where we are. We need to see if the adults are here with us."

"Okay," Wiggy agreed.

There was something in the way they talked that bothered me. There was something that they weren't telling. I had to get Wiggy alone and find out what it was. There wasn't any reason to think we'd be on the island, even in the worst case, for more than a week. But the two of them talked as if we could be here much longer. Mirina was obviously preparing for what could be a long haul. It wasn't just "prudence."

And another thing: She'd seen the hull damage from the hill, but hadn't told anyone but Wiggy. A chill ran through me. That was why Wiggy was so scared, when Graffy and Grooty towed her out to sea! But Graffy and Grooty had no idea of the danger that they'd been in — we'd *all* been in. None of us had!

So: lesson learned? Mirina didn't always tell the truth. I mean, the whole truth. It was easier to get us aboard when we thought it was just a lark. If the girls had known the danger, they probably would have gone anyway. I know I would have. But then, it would have been our own choice, not Mirina's.

As Wiggy pulled us up next to Cakey, I thought, I have to keep an eye on the Manley One. I've got to get Wiggy to tell me what's going on.

© 2008 by Kaleigh Way

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