by D. G. Driver
“Have the parents always done this?” I asked, feeling kind of like part of the thrill of this adventure had just been zapped away. Where I was from, parents were way cautious about everything. The school hosted skiing trips and campouts and stuff like that, but a teacher and parents always went along. Even most parties had parents holed up in their rooms pretending not to be aware of every little thing. Movies always showed wild, unchaperoned teenage parties and craziness like that, but that didn’t happen in my neighborhood. To be honest, I’m not sure if it was because the parents were worried about keeping us away from drugs and alcohol, or if they just wanted to make sure their houses didn’t get trashed. ’Cause that was always the result in the movies too.
I guess I was thinking that out here in the country, these boys had more freedom than back at home. Their parents would be less strict and more trusting. Maybe these boys were more trustworthy than us, or maybe the place harkened back to a time when kids were still free to explore.
My dad told me all the time of being a kid and being able to hop on his bike and go anywhere he wanted in his town. After school he’d head off with his friends to wherever, and it was all right as long as he was home in time for dinner. He talked about how when he got a car, he used to drive all the way from Newport Beach to Los Angeles whenever he wanted to see a Dodgers game, and his parents didn’t care. I can’t imagine a time like that. Parental rules had changed. Life had way more restrictions.
I guess that’s one of the main things that had appealed to me so much about this boating trip. Getting to go somewhere free of adults. Able to be stupid if we wanted to without parents telling us to stop.
“Have the parents always distantly chaperoned?” I asked again.
“Naw,” Alex said. “It wasn’t like this when my dad was a kid. You know, things were different then.”
I smiled because my new friend understood what I was feeling too. “So, it’s kind of a new thing?”
Alex paused as though trying to get all his facts straight. “It’s not new, really. The way they’ve made it their own social tradition is fairly new, but there have been ‘Dad Patrols’ for about thirty years or more now, ever since the drowning.”
It was the second time he mentioned that, so I asked, “Who drowned?”
Alex scrunched his eyes at me, looking at me really hard. “You haven’t heard about this?”
“No. Tell me.”
“I’m not sure if I should.” He rowed ahead of me a little bit, and I had to struggle to catch back up.
“Come on,” I urged.
“Look,” Alex said, carefully choosing his words. “All you need to know is that one summer when the guys were headed to the island, a sudden storm came up. That happens around here sometimes. Lightning and thunder and the whole thing. Here were all these guys on rowboats, ’cause they didn’t use the kayaks then, and the water was rocking them really hard. They were too far from the shore and too far from the island, right smack in the middle of the lake and completely exposed. Probably not that far from where we are right now. So, they all clumped together as best they could, stopped rowing, and just tried to hold all the boats together.”
He paused.
“You sure you haven’t heard this?”
“I’d never even heard of this camping-out tradition before yesterday,” I said. “This story is all new to me.”
Alex looked really sad as his eyes took in my stupid little rowboat as if for the first time. “Where’d you get that thing, anyway?”
“Behind my grandma’s garage,” I said. “She wouldn’t rent me the kayak.”
“Does she know you’re here?”
“No. I just took off this morning without telling her.”
“Not cool, man,” Alex said. “Not to that sweet old lady. She’s been through enough.”
“I’m sure she’ll figure out where I’ve gone,” I said. “She probably has already.”
“Yeah. You’ll be busted for sure.”
I didn’t want to talk about it. My guilt was thick enough already. “Tell me what happened with the storm,” I said, guiding him back to the point.
“One of the guys was a little farther away from the others. He had this…” Alex cleared his throat and looked away from me. “Well, his dad had built his boat from scratch instead of getting a store-bought one like everyone else. So, it was heavier and hard to maneuver.”
He kept his eyes as far away from me as possible. I guessed that he was continuing to scan the shore as he talked, but I wished he would look at me while he spoke. If not for the fact that I knew he was worried about getting lost, I’d have thought he was trying to avoid telling me something.
“The guy couldn’t catch up. He kept trying, but he just couldn’t get there. The current kept pushing him farther away, and he had to really dig into the water with his oars to turn back toward the rest of the group. A large swell in the water tipped him over the side while he was rowing hard on the one side to turn. He drowned before the guys could get to him.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
“Sure is,” Alex said, looking down at his lap. “As soon as the storm calmed down, which was only half an hour later, the boys all rowed back home and told their parents what happened. The trip was cancelled for the next few years. When it started up again, the ‘Dad Patrol’ became part of it. Everyone watches the weather carefully now, and if there is any chance of bad weather the thing is cancelled until the following year.”
“Lucky it’s sunny today,” I said.
“Yeah.” Alex squinted at the sun. “It’s hot.”
We rowed silently for a while. It was as if Alex ran out of steam. He paddled slowly and seemed distant, like he didn’t want to be near me anymore.
Finally, I had to ask. “You okay?”
Alex shrugged. “I still don’t see that cove.”
“Or the island,” I added.
He fell silent again, his head constantly cranked to the right to watch the shoreline change into something he recognized. The only thing I could do to help was keep my head cranked the opposite direction for a land mass slightly closer than what I was seeing. I heard him rummaging through his bag and peeked over my shoulder in time to see him do a quick blast from an inhaler. I acted like I didn’t notice.
Just to make conversation, I asked, “What was the kid’s name?”
“What kid?” Alex asked.
“The one that drowned.”
Finally, Alex snapped his head back toward me. His expression was a mixture of confusion and anger. But he didn’t say anything that matched the strength of feeling burning at me from his eyes. Instead, he completely changed the subject.
“I don’t feel comfortable being so far behind,” he said. “Do you mind if I row on up ahead until I catch sight of the guys to make sure we’re on the right track? As soon as I see them, I’ll come back and join you again.”
He waited for me to respond, but I didn’t. How exactly could I tell him that I didn’t want to be left alone in the middle of the lake in this rickety old rowboat when I knew what he’d done for me already by lagging behind?
When I didn’t answer, he said, “I can row pretty fast, and I’m not even close to being tired yet like you are. I could probably get to them and back, and you won’t have even moved a quarter mile.”
“I…uh…” I knew what I wanted to say wouldn’t be the answer he wanted to hear.
He bit his lip as if he understood my hesitation, and then he said, “I kind of want to let them know we’re still coming. Show them I got it handled, you know? Otherwise, if we get there really late, Chris is going to give us a hard time, and the others won’t be much better.”
Chris. It was always about that jerk.
“Why is Chris so mean to you?” I asked. “And why do you care?”
Alex sighed. “Chris and I live across the street from each other. We’ve been friends our whole lives. Last year he started high school, and I still had one year left at middle.
He grew a bunch, and I didn’t. His brother became a senior and big bully. Next thing I know, Chris is acting like he’s better than me because he’s older. He shows off around his friends and makes a big deal about me being a stupid, little kid.”
“But you’re only one year younger, right?”
“Yeah.” Alex nodded. “And now I’m going to be in high school too. I thought he’d stop picking on me, but it’s almost gotten worse, like he has to prove he’s some tough guy.”
“Lamont and the others aren’t like that,” I said. “Chris should chill.”
“It’s all his brother’s fault. Chris was nice before his brother took a bad turn.”
“You guys said his brother wouldn’t be there tonight,” I remembered.
“Nope. He graduated, so he can’t go. Campout’s only for high school boys. I’m so glad he won’t be there.”
“Me too.”
Alex smiled at me. “Don’t worry about Chris. I think he’ll be fine tonight, and maybe we can fix some things between us. I’m glad you’re going to be there, though, so I can have a friend to hang out with.” He looked up ahead and then back again. “So, you’re cool with me going ahead and coming back, right?”
No, I thought.
“Sure,” I said.
“If you want, pull up the oars and don’t row at all. Rest your arms a bit.”
“And just bob here in the middle of the lake?”
“You’ll be okay,” Alex said. “It’s not like there’s any sharks or anything.” Then he offered up a nervous laugh and added, “Your boat will probably keep going the right direction anyway. It always does.” With a big nod like I’d agreed to this plan, he hefted up his paddle and started picking up his pace. Within seconds he was well ahead of me. Leaning back, he waved at me and hollered. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just hang on.” And before I could say anything, he was out of earshot.
I watched my only friend in Smithville paddle out of sight as I sat there and rocked on the current. That last thing he said was odd, I thought. What did he mean by it? My boat would keep going the right direction—it always does? All I could think was that he meant that the current flowed toward the island.
Trusting Alex and not really knowing what else to do, I pulled the oars into the boat like he suggested. I rolled my shoulders and my head. Then I massaged each arm and arched my back forward and backward to try to get it to crack. It wouldn’t, so the pain didn’t vanish. I dared another sip of water but didn’t drink much in case I had to make it last. When I was done with all that, I stopped putting it off and checked my watch.
The digits clicked into place right at 2:15. I’d been at this rowing thing for five hours. Five hours on this lake, in this boat, and I hadn’t traveled very far at all. At least I didn’t think I had. What I had done, though, was get myself pretty far from the shore. Trying to row to land now would, in itself, take at least another hour, I guessed. Why didn’t anyone tell me it took so long to row a boat?
Afternoon sunlight beat on my forehead. The sunburn on my face itched. There’s that time when you can’t tell you’ve been burned yet, and then, all of a sudden, you’re bright red. I’d spent enough time at the beach to know to put on sunscreen when going outside on a hot day. In California I’d even been sunburned on cloudy days. So, why was I stupid enough to forget sunscreen for this trip? I was a complete idiot. My forearms looked like I’d held them on a skillet. The skin was so tight and red. I dipped each arm in the lake water to cool them off and splashed some water on my face. Relief was short-lived.
I didn’t know what to do. Just sitting there made me feel lazy and helpless. On the other hand, I was afraid to move. What if I got off course and Alex couldn’t find me when he came back this way? While I sat and baked some more in the sun, I felt myself get drowsy and had to catch my head drooping a couple of times. Great. Now I was going to fall asleep and tumble out of the boat.
To be on the safe side, I got off the small seat and curled up on the floor of the boat. There was a bit of a puddle down there because the water from when I first got in had never dried. In fact, the puddle seemed deeper than before. I wrote off any worry about it because I’d been splashing water. That had probably added to the water level, right? The whole side of my jeans and T-shirt got wet. I would have been mad about that, but it felt great. I could practically see the steam coming off of me as the water cooled my overheated body.
I reached over my head and tugged at the sleeping bag that I had shoved into the front of the boat to loosen it enough that my head could rest on top of it. This was a completely uncomfortable position, but it didn’t matter. I fell asleep before my body had a chance to argue with me about it.
And so, I drifted at the mercy of the current, asleep in an ancient handmade rowboat, in the middle of a lake I was unfamiliar with, in a town where I didn’t know anyone, and no one knew exactly where I was.
Yes, I was a genius.
9
Finding Land, But Where?
A loud knock on the side of the boat near my head woke me up. I jerked my head up, but pain shot through my neck and down my spine, so I put it back down on the sleeping bag. My whole body cramped from being curled up in the bottom of the boat. With a gentler twist of the neck, I looked up at the sky. The bright blue had given over to orange and coral clouds. Sunset was coming on. That meant I’d been asleep for hours.
Frantically, I wrenched myself out of my cubbyhole and got back up on the seat. I was still in the middle of the lake. The knock that woke me had come from a log floating on the water, which was now about five feet away from the boat. I gasped at what that meant, the realization that my boat wasn’t just sitting still on the water. Burying my face in my hands, I fought off the tears that threatened. Why was I so stupid about stuff? I knew a boat couldn’t sit still on a lake without being anchored. I knew that from movies and books. Despite what I knew, though, I agreed to just sit in this boat, without rowing, and wait for Alex to come back for me.
Well, obviously he hadn’t come back. Or worse, he’d come back, but I had floated far away from where I’d started.
I took a deep breath and lifted my head again. Using the oars, I rowed in a circle to try to figure out where I was. Nothing looked familiar at all. I saw some faint orange lights between trees on the nearest shore that looked like they might be from houses set back in the woods. That was a good sign. Maybe I could just row to shore and see if someone could help me get back to Grandma’s. I didn’t know if I could row to shore before dark, but I could try.
With a good grip on each handle and some renewed energy from my nap, I began rowing in that direction. While I rowed I thought about all the stuff Alex talked about earlier with the kid drowning and the “Dad Patrol.” I remembered that he said the parents went out on boats after dark and anchored near the island to keep a distant eye on the campout. If that were the case, they should be getting ready to head out to the water about now. With luck, maybe one of their boats would find me.
I’d been gone all day now. Grandma must have figured I’d found a way to go to the campout. She had to have people looking for me.
I imagined how her whole day had gone. After an hour or so this morning, she realized I still hadn’t come back in for breakfast. She walked down to the lake to find me and didn’t. For a few minutes she would have called my name, and maybe she even walked along the shore a ways to see if I’d gone exploring. Curious, but not worried yet, she went back to the house and called friends that lived nearby to check if any of them had seen me. None of them would be able to tell her what she wanted to hear. That’s when she’d put it together.
She would have grabbed her purse and keys and headed out to her car. It probably struck her odd that my bike was still there, thinking that I had walked back to the Square. It was a short drive for her, but she took it slow in case she caught me walking along the side of the road. Finally, she got to town and stopped at Taylor’s Tackle shop. Mr. Taylor shook his head at her when she
asked if I’d gotten a kayak from him. He probably said that he hadn’t seen me since the day before. He’d offer the suggestion that maybe one of the other families leant me a boat.
Then I imagined that Grandma headed over to the docks where all the boys had gathered this morning. They were already gone by then, so she hadn’t seen me out there in my rowboat meeting up with them. Still, she asked around to the few parents who lingered on talking with each other about their plans for later. None of them had seen me or even knew who I was. None of their sons had mentioned a new kid joining the group, and that was because hardly any of them knew I was coming. The couple guys who had invited me had probably assumed I wasn’t going to get to go anyway.
Frustrated, Grandma went home. That’s when she probably called my parents in France.
Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t want them to worry, with them being so far away and not able to do anything to help. It would have ruined their vacation. So, Grandma had kept it quiet for now. Maybe she still hoped that I would find my way back home that afternoon.
But now it was getting dark. If I’d just been out wandering, I would have returned by now. That meant I was lost somewhere. She might not have figured out that I was in the middle of the lake in the old rowboat from behind her garage, but she knew I was somewhere and couldn’t figure out how to get back. Grandma would have been on the phone by now to the parents going on patrol, to the police, to anybody who could help. She was probably frantic.
It would all be okay soon, I told myself. One of those people she’d called would find me out here, or I’d make it to one of those houses behind the trees up ahead. I’d be back at her house before bedtime. Feeling a little more confident, I rowed harder and with more determination.
The bank I was aiming for seemed to jut out farther into the lake than the shoreline to the right and left of it. It was a lot closer, and it was covered with some pretty thick woods. As it got darker outside, I expected more lights to turn on at the house hidden back there, but that didn’t happen. In fact, the light seemed really dim and distant. All I could think was that it was a porch light instead of a light shining out from someone’s window. It flickered slightly like a leaf from a tree or bush kept blowing in front of it.