The blue dot was making its way slowly to some kind of shore. In about five minutes, Max could see the black silhouette of a coastline, and a pale orange swath of light in the distance to the left. “What’s that?” Alex called out.
“The out-thkirtth of Reykjavík, I think,” Max said.
They both paddled harder. But despite the steady ploosh . . . ploosh of the oars in the water, now the jet seemed to be standing still. Max felt his feet getting cold and realized he was standing in a puddle. “Is this thupposed to be happening?” he called out.
“You mean water in the cabin?” Brandon replied. “The answer is no. We’re taking on water like crazy. But we can’t do this without the doors open. Row harder, me matey. Yo ho ho!”
“This is not a time for dad jokes!” Alex shot back. “This water is freezing!”
Max began to shiver. The shore was still a black line on the horizon that seemed not to be getting closer. “I think we’re stuck on something,” Brandon said.
“How does a jet get stuck in the water?” Alex cried.
Brandon shrugged. “An old mooring, a buoy, a lobster trap?” He leaned his body out through the opening. “I can find out and loosen us.”
“Wait—you think you’re going to swim in this?” Alex said. “Human beings only last five and half minutes in water this temperature!”
“Really?” Brandon said.
“OK, I made up the number, but it’s something like that,” Alex said. “It’s cold, Brandon!”
“This won’t take long.” Brandon put down the oar and grabbed a life vest and a helmet with a flashlight from the chest. “Geronimo!”
Before they could protest, he leaped through the hatch and splashed into the ocean.
“That was really, really, really dumb,” Alex said.
Max activated his phone’s flashlight app and shone it out the hatch. “Where are you?” he called out.
“Woooo!” Brandon called from the darkness. “It’s awe—awe—awes-s-some!”
Max’s beam caught Brandon swimming though the rough water, until he swam out of sight, around the nose of the plane. “Stay where Max can see you, OK?” Alex cried out.
Brandon’s tether went taut, and Max could hear him call out, “I see the s-s-snag, but I c-c-can’t reach it! I’m going to unt-t-t-tie my kn-kn-knot!”
“You will not do that,” Alex said. “You will not even think of doing that!”
As Brandon’s rope went limp, Max turned his phone flashlight toward the shore. There, a pinpoint of light shone in the distance. Had it been there the whole time? Max couldn’t tell what it was—car? Lighthouse? Lamppost?
Max began flashing the Morse code for SOS—short, short, short . . . long, long, long . . . short, short, short . . .
“What are you doing?” Alex asked. “Stop playing with the light and help him!”
Before he could respond, a guttural scream cut through the beating rain.
“Brandon?” Alex cried out. “What’s up? Did you find it?”
Brandon’s response was more a series of yelps than a word. Alex and Max peered through the windshield. Brandon’s helmet light was moving swiftly—away from the floating jet. “What’s he saying?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” Max replied. “But that lookth like an undertow.”
“He-e-e-e-elp!”
That word was unmistakable.
“Stay here, Max,” Alex said, strapping on a life vest. “See what you can do. Find some flares. Whatever.”
“Alex, wait, you can’t jutht—!”
But Alex was out the door before Max could finish. As she hit the water, she cried out a very bad word and then began to swim.
Max stood at the doorway, his knees locked. He looked at the shore for the distant light, but it was gone. Max smelled ham when he was confused, and at that moment it was so strong, it nearly made him sick.
But he’d been in this situation before. On a submarine in water just as frigid. In Greenland. He and Alex had been afraid to jump in. They may not have, if not for Basile’s encouragement. The old man knew he would die, but he also knew Max and Alex were strong enough to withstand the cold.
Max would be strong enough now.
The smell was fading. He placed his phone on the rear seat of the plane and grabbed a life vest. Saying a prayer, he jumped out the door.
12
MAX’S body seized up. He tried to swim, but his arms were locked.
A wave hit him full in the face. As he coughed out seawater, his arms began to thrash wildly.
Don’t fight it. Left to its own devices, a human body floats. Especially a human body with a life vest.
Fact.
Panic is one of the main causes of death in the water.
Fact.
Exposure is the loss of body heat, which can kill a person who stays in cold water too long.
Fact.
Max lifted his head. He took a couple of gasping breaths. A wave hit him on the exhalation, but he did not panic. He allowed it to wash over him. He blinked the saltwater from his eyes.
He could see Alex bobbing up and down at the front of the plane, one arm wrapped around an old log. As Max swam closer, trying to crest the waves, his cousin began swimming toward him. Her free arm was wrapped around Brandon, who wasn’t moving at all. “He got hit!” she shouted. “He didn’t see the log!”
Max kicked hard, reaching Alex in a few strokes. He grabbed onto another section of log with one hand and Brandon’s arm with the other. “L-L-Let’th get him b-b-back, bef-f-fore we f-f-f—”
“Freeze to death, I know!” Alex said.
Max turned. Together he and his cousin dug into the water. Max could barely feel the tips of his fingers now. His breaths were shallow. A tree branch swept up beside him, and he pushed it away.
He glanced up. He expected to be closer now, almost to the hatch. But the jet was farther away, and it looked like it was moving. “It’s f-f-floating away from us!” he yelled. The saltwater seemed to be healing his bitten tongue, but it did nothing to stop his jaw from shivering with the cold.
“We’re floating away from it!” Alex called back. “It’s the current, Max. The undertow. It’s taking us out to sea!”
Max thought hard. “An undertow . . . a n-n-natural current . . . doesn’t go ffforever . . . c-c-can’t f-f-fight it . . . b-b-best to wait it out . . .”
“We’re in Iceland, Max, not Mexico! We can’t wait. We’ll d-d-die!”
The cold seemed to be closing in like a fist. Max had to tell his lungs to expand and contract. Alex was right. Swimming to the ship would kill them.
But not swimming to the ship would kill them too.
“GEEAAHH!”
Max felt a sharp tug. Brandon was awake now, gasping, thrashing in the water. “Brandon, it’s OK!” Alex shouted.
“Actually, it isn’t!” Max shouted back.
Brandon’s face was bone white. “The—the j-j-jet,” he stammered. “Who’s inssside it?”
“No one!” Max said.
“Th-Th-Then why is it moving t-t-toward us?” Brandon asked.
Alex groaned. “Brandon, we can’t even see it anymore.”
Max looked at the pilot’s face. His eyes were not fixed in the direction of the jet, but off to the shore. Max followed his glance. A wave smacked them hard, and Max went under.
When he came up, he heard a low, deep moan. Not from Brandon or Alex, but off in the direction of the shore. He shook off the water from his eyelids and blinked. The sea surface was a constellation of spindrift and whitecaps, like an explosion of stars.
So it took a moment for Max to see that one of those stars was growing larger. He wanted to draw attention to it but the cold was freezing his jaw. “I—I shizz . . . somsh . . .”
As he tried to focus on it, Brandon grabbed him from behind. It was all Max could do to focus on the light. For a moment, it blinded him.
They say when you die, sometimes you see a white light . . .
Max looked away a
nd shoved the thought out of his head. That was not a fact. At least he didn’t think it was. The deep moan sounded again, much louder.
It wasn’t a human sound; it was mechanical.
As he struggled to stay alert, Max squinted and made out a shape, an outline of something floating on the surface. “What . . . is . . . ?”
“That thing I thought was the jet—it’s a boat, dude. Someone saw us!” Brandon said. “Yo! Yo—over here!”
Now Brandon was lifting Alex so she could grab onto the log. As she wrapped one arm around it, she waved with the other. She tried to shout too, but her voice was not much more than a whisper.
The horn sounded again, and a small fishing boat cut through the darkness. Max had to turn away from its harsh searchlight. Although his body was nearly numb, he felt a sharp rap to his head. Something bounced off it and dropped into the water a few inches away.
A life preserver, attached to a rope.
And another. A third.
Max, Alex, and Brandon each grabbed one, and Max felt himself moving. Toward the boat.
The hot chocolate made his tongue sting, and it felt like a dagger traveling through his frozen body, but Max eagerly took a second sip. “D-D-Delish—” he said, still shivering uncontrollably.
“Rogers family recipe!” said one of their rescuers, a broad, red-bearded man. “We’ve also got popcorn, crackers, cereal. A gourmet restaurant, eh?”
Max, Alex, and Brandon were wrapped in blankets, sitting in a cramped cabin with a buzzing light that made everything look slightly green. Another rescuer, a white-haired woman, was swabbing Brandon’s head with some red solution. “You took quite a bump there. Are you feeling faint, woozy?”
“Nah,” Brandon said with a grin. “Never felt better.”
“How many fingers?” she went on, holding up three.
“Six,” Brandon said. “Divided by two.”
Alex, who was holding his hand, elbowed him gently in the side.
Their third rescuer was a slight young woman with black bangs and black owlish glasses. She was gently wrapping a second wool blanket around Max’s shoulders. “Is that better?”
Max nodded. “Th-th-thank you for f-f-finding us,” he said.
“Don’t thank us,” she replied. “Thank whichever one of you sent the Morse code message.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open into a perfect zero shape. “That’s what did it?”
“The phone has a surprisingly high lumen count,” Max said.
“Max, you are my hero,” Alex declared.
The young woman’s eyebrows arched over her glasses. “I thought you might be Max,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Kristin. You texted me.”
“From the dating site?” Brandon piped up.
“Don’t mind him, he’s brain damaged,” Alex said.
“I’m the assistant director of the Icelandic Museum of Unusual Phenomena,” Kristin said, then gestured to the others. “Sven Rogers . . . Åsa Talo. Sven and I studied together, and now he and Ms. Talo run a rescue boat for Keflavik Airport. Your last name, Max?”
“Tilt,” Max said.
“I’m his cousin, Alex, and this is Brandon Barker, our pilot,” Alex said.
Max nearly spat out his hot chocolate. “Brandon Barker? That’s his name?”
“We were afraid for your plane,” said Sven Rogers, whose voice was too loud for the small room. “Your timing couldn’t have been worse, eh? We managed to get a few small craft in just minutes before you. No one expected that Eyjafjallajökull would blow again like that.”
“Don’t ever expect me to repeat that name,” Max said.
“Wait—those other small craft—you mean other private jets?” Alex said.
Sven stroked his beard. “One, I believe. The others were commercial.”
Max caught a quick glance from Alex. She said nothing, but her eyes flashed Niemand.
“What about our jet?” Brandon asked.
“We have alerted the authorities about it,” Ms. Talo said. “They’ll tow it in tomorrow after the weather clears.”
“We will pay for repairs,” Max said, “as long as it’s ready for us when we’re back from our tour.”
The cabin fell silent, rocking back and forth. Max could hear a whistling gust of wind from outside, and rain hit the porthole like a slap. “Um, this would not be possible for quite some time,” Kristin said. “If ever.”
Alex and Max sat straight up. “Why not?” Max asked. “The volcano that erupted wasn’t Snuffle, right?”
“Snaefell,” Alex corrected him.
“That is correct, it was not Snaefellsjökull,” Kristin replied, “but you see, Iceland lies on the fault line between two tectonic plates, the Eurasian and the North American. People think of our little country as the land of geysers. And those are pretty spectacular. But a geyser is water released by pressure through cracks in the Earth. And those cracks are created by volcanoes. This little island has produced a third of the world’s lava output over the last five hundred years. There are thirty active volcano systems, and many are connected along the fault line. If one goes, another often follows. So we must take precautions.”
“What kind of precautions?” Max asked.
Kristin sighed. “The authorities have ordered all tours of caves and volcanoes shut down until further notice.”
13
IN all his thirteen years, Max had never expected to hear the sentence that was uttered by Brandon Barker in the Apotek Restaurant:
“Whale meat is awesome!” he said with a barely covered burp.
“Ha!” shouted Sven. “This is a typical tourist reaction.”
Kristin smiled patiently. “We Icelanders—well, most of us—do not tend to order whale meat.”
“Well, you’re really missing something!” Brandon said, shoveling in another mouthful.
Max swallowed hard against a churning in his stomach. The restaurant was big and cheerful, with twinkling Christmas-style lights and tables full of laughing people. All of Reykjavík was a kind of picture-book city, full of low-rise buildings along narrow streets, with a view of the ocean on one side and giant mountains on the other. Kristin had shown them to the Viking Manor Hotel, which had soft, comfy beds and humongous TV screens. The walk to the restaurant through the local streets, even over ash-covered sidewalks in the rain, had lifted Max’s spirits.
Until he saw the whale meat on Brandon’s plate, which was a deep red and looked barely cooked.
“I love whales,” Max said. “I love them almost as much as yaks. I think I’m going to get sick.”
Brandon forked the entire rest of the whale steak into his mouth. “There,” he said, chewing. “It’s gone.”
“Isn’t it illegal to eat whale?” Alex asked.
“Most species, yes,” Kristin replied.
“Only the minke whale is served,” Ms. Talo added. “It’s plentiful here and has the added quality of being legal to eat.”
“I want to try auk!” Brandon bellowed.
“Auk?” Alex said. “As in the cute bird that looks like a little penguin?”
Max stood. “I smell wet dog.”
The three adults stared at him, baffled.
“He smells wet dog when he feels disgust,” Alex said. “It’s synesthesia. Associative smells. It’s all the talk of whales and auk. I think it’s time for a little walk. I didn’t mean for all that to rhyme.”
As Max bolted up from the table, Alex took his arm. They headed toward the back of the restaurant, winding their way among the tables. “It’s been a bad day,” Alex said. “How are you feeling?”
Max took a deep breath. He stopped before reaching the restrooms. “Better. I liked the rhyme. It took my mind off those cute animals.”
“Max?” Alex said. “Remember when we were in the Yak Restaurant in Kathmandu? And you thought they served yak, but they didn’t? And when you went into the restroom, you saw a clue that led us to one of the ingredients?”
“Armando of K
athmandu, yeah,” Max said.
“You found that,” Alex said. “No one else knew about it. But remember what happened when we got to Armando?”
“Nigel. He appeared out of nowhere.” Max cocked his head curiously. “Wait. What’s the connection? Why are you bringing this up? Are you worried that Niemand might be here?”
“The volcano is shut down,” Alex said. “If Niemand and Bitsy didn’t make it there in time, they’re stuck too. So yeah, Reykjavík’s a pretty small city, and they have to eat. All I’m saying is, keep your eyes open. If you see them, try not to let them see you. We can make a plan—”
“To ambush them!” Max said with excitement.
Alex smiled. “I’ll meet you back at the table.”
As she went into one restroom, Max walked to the other, farther down the hall. Inside, it was dark and moody, with blue lighting and black tiles, and he was the only one in there. The sink was a polished steel bowl, with a spout at the bottom. He put his hand in front of the sensor and it shot up like a geyser into his face.
Stepping back, he shook the water from his face and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. In the blue light emanating from below, he looked like a zombie. “Arrrr . . . naaaarrchhh . . .” he growled.
The sound echoed in the room, which made him giggle.
Behind him, the stall door swung open slowly. Which meant someone had heard him. He caught a whiff of gasoline, which to him was embarrassment. So he looked down at the soap dispenser and concentrated very hard on washing his hands.
He wasn’t expecting anyone to grab his arm.
With a gasp, he found himself being pulled backward into the toilet stall. He stumbled into the darkness. As the door shut automatically, a voice shushed him.
Max spun around. He was face-to-face with Kristin. “If I go any farther,” she said, “I’ll fall into the toilet.”
“Wh-Wh-What are you doing?” Max stammered.
“Sssh,” she said. “In front of Sven and Åsa I cannot speak of certain things. You and your cousin are the ones who found the great hidden treasure of Jules Verne, yes?”
Max swallowed hard. “I smell sweaty feet.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m feeling claustrophobic. Can we go somewhere else?”
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