by Brenda Beem
I giggled so hard I had to sit. Takumi rolled over in the grass, looked up at me, and began laughing too. That relaxed, deep laugh I’d heard earlier.
“Missed,” he said with a gasp.
“Sure did.” Another wave of hysteria hit me.
Takumi brushed the feathers off as best he could. I helped pick off the ones stuck to his wet shirt and stuffed them into my pocket.
Takumi got to his feet and stared out at the direction the turkey flew. “I didn’t think turkeys could fly.”
“Well, it appears they can.” I wiped my eyes.
“Yeah!” Takumi put his coat back on and adjusted his hat. “But how cool is it that turkeys are on the island! The brochure talked about foxes, but not wild turkeys. Next time I’ll be prepared. We can set traps.”
“Nah! You should give your coat at least one more try.” I snorted.
“Very funny.” Takumi wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and kissed me.
I reached up, pulled a feather out of his hair, and tickled his nose.
Our eyes met, and he laughed. And laughed. And laughed some more.
With me.
Chapter Nine
The rain finally stopped, but everything was so wet, it almost didn’t matter. We continued on toward the oasis of trees. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so happy. If my ankle hadn’t hurt as much as it did, I’d say it was a perfect afternoon.
I smiled as I replayed Takumi’s adventure with the turkey in my mind. But the more I thought about it, the more I was sorry we hadn’t captured it. We’d been eating fish and seaweed for days. The thought of roasted turkey made my mouth water.
“You know, where there are turkeys, there are eggs. Maybe we could capture and raise a few hens, just for the eggs.”
Takumi glanced over at me. “You think we’ll be staying on the island that long?”
I stopped to think. I liked the feel of land under my feet. Now that the cons were gone, I felt safe. From what the President had said, the mainland didn’t sound all that great. Maybe we should find my parents and come back here to stay.
Takumi guided me along. “There is so much we don’t know about this island. What other animals are here? I bet some of the campers could fill us in. They had hours to research Santa Cruz before the tsunami hit. All we have is a little tourist pamphlet.”
I reached out to brush the top of a clump of tall grass that grew along our path. “How did Kat and her dad end up here? He doesn’t seem like the wilderness type.”
Takumi smiled when I mentioned her name. I had a sudden urge to pinch him.
“No,” he said. “Her dad isn’t Mr. Outdoors. He didn’t even know how to paddle the kayaks they came in.”
I recalled my first attempt at kayaking in Grays Harbor. I kept going in circles. Had Takumi shared that with Kat? I scowled. My perfect afternoon was fading. I walked faster.
Takumi didn’t notice. “Kat’s parents divorced and her mom remarried. Her stepdad is big into camping and kayaking. He told Kat about the island.” Takumi started laughing again. “She showed us how her dad tried and tried to put up a tent, but couldn’t. Kat is so funny.”
I walked even faster. Takumi kept chuckling. I told myself to ignore him. It was hard, however. My ankle was killing me.
“Wait up,” he cried. “You’re limping.”
I pretended I didn’t hear him and kept hobbling ahead.
Takumi ran to catch up with me. “Stop. Are you hurt, Toni?”
“Yeah,” I finally admitted.
We were almost to the camp. Debris lay scattered about. Mostly broken fence posts, signs, and parts of buildings. A small shed was lying under a large fir tree and appeared to be dry. Takumi helped me over to the metal surface and we climbed on top of it.
“Let me look at your foot.” He rested my leg across his lap.
I grimaced as he took off my shoe.
“I don’t think anything’s broken.” He felt around my ankle and the bones of my foot. “But it’s really swollen. Did you twist it?”
“When we first started out.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I thought I could just walk it off.” I pulled my foot back and massaged it.
Takumi’s brows knitted together. “I’m going to take a look around. Just rest, okay?” He handed me a bottle of water. “That’s all we have, so don’t drink it all.”
Takumi climbed over to a pile of bricks. Except for the roof, nothing was recognizable as a building or even a part of one.
“Find anything?” I called out after he’d been exploring for a while.
“Just bricks and some wooden beams. If we had the whole crew, we could move the bricks. There might be good stuff underneath, but it would take too long to clear it by myself.”
I closed my eyes and pushed my jealous thoughts away.
“Toni!” Takumi’s urgent whisper startled me.
My eyes popped open. He bent over and picked up a broken two-by-four from the wreckage.
“Don’t move!” he hissed as he stared at a spot near me.
I grinned. “What? Another turkey?”
I turned my head and swallowed a scream. Slithering up from under the roof was the biggest snake I’d ever seen.
“Stay still!” Takumi carefully stepped toward me with his board. “Focus on me.”
I was too afraid to move. From the corner of my eye I could see that the snake’s head, and its enormous body, were now all the way up on the roof. Right beside me. The snake’s tail was still coming up from under the metal building. The snake just kept growing. Longer and longer. Its tongue darted in and out. I knew that was how snakes smelled.
I was smelly. It was coming for me.
Takumi was still a few yards away. The snake started to coil its long body. What did that mean? Did it coil before it struck?
I gulped.
Takumi was two feet away. “Okay, when I say roll, stay low, and roll away from the snake and off the roof. Got it?” he whispered.
I nodded.
The snake kept coiling.
“Roll!” Takumi yelled.
I rolled. Takumi swung the board like a baseball bat.
I crashed to the ground, whimpered, and grabbed my ankle.
Takumi knelt down beside me. “Are you okay?”
I looked up. “Did you get it?”
“Yep. It’s over there. In the grass.” Takumi stood tall and proud.
“My hero.” I shivered. “What kinda snake was it? It was as big as a cobra.”
“I don’t know, but we’re taking it back to camp. I’m sick of fish, and snake is supposed to taste like chicken.”
I made a face. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”
Takumi examined the dead snake. “Not as good as a turkey, but it will do.”
“I’m not eating anything that tried to eat me.” My nose wrinkled.
Takumi helped me up off the ground and tried to get me to sit back on the roof.
My hip was bruised. My ankle was worse. But all I wanted was to be far away from that roof. “There might be more snakes under there.” I hobbled to the pile of bricks.
He supported me, but kept looking back at the roof. There was a weird gleam in his eye.
“Seriously? You are not going to hunt for more snakes. We don’t even know if they’re poisonous or not.” I moved the bricks around to make a place to sit.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “But I need to go back and get the water bottle.”
Takumi stepped carefully to the roof. He got down on his knees and peered under it.
“Takumi!” I imagined a giant snake jumping out and devouring him.
“All right!” He snatched the water bottle up off the ground and turned it upside down. It was empty.
“Sorry! It fell.” I painfully put my shoe back on. “I’m ready to go.”
Takumi took his coat off and kneeled next to the dead snake. “Thing’s too heavy for my backpack.” He laid his jacket
on the ground and tried to bundle the snake up on it, but it was too long. Finally, he wrapped the snake around his neck and shoulders and wore it. It almost hung down to his feet.
I offered to carry his backpack but he insisted he could carry both.
It took us twice as long to hike back to camp. I tried not to complain, but I moaned a lot. Toward the end, I forced myself to ignore the snake and leaned on Takumi. That slowed us even more. When we got to where we could see the ocean, he left me at the base of a tree and ran to get help.
I limped over to where I could look down on the bay. Whistler hadn’t returned. It had been gone six hours, but now it was growing dark. I began to worry.
The doctor confirmed nothing was broken, and told me to stay off my ankle for at least two days. The sprain would take some time to heal.
While I was being helped from the doctor’s hut and back to our campsite, Takumi and Nick told me how they skinned the snake, sliced it into hamburger-patty sized pieces, and were grilling snake burgers over our campfire.
As soon as I was situated near the fire, Makala ran up to me and claimed snake was the best thing she’d ever eaten. “It’s so good. I could eat snake every day. I could eat snake for breakfast. I could eat snake for lunch. I could eat snake for dinner. Even Boots likes snake, don’t you, boy?”
Boots was too busy staring at the pieces still grilling to respond.
“You should try it,” Angelina said. “It really does taste like…”
“Chicken,” Nick and Makala said together and giggled.
I made a face. Nick and Makala laughed.
Takumi winked at Makala and handed me a bowl of rice. “Sure you don’t want to try it?”
“Come on,” Nick said. “You need protein to heal properly.”
“Fine,” I sighed. Takumi beamed and dropped a small portion of snake onto my rice. I picked at it with my fork. It fell apart in chunks. At least it was well done. I held a bite up to my nose. It actually smelled good, kinda like roasted pork.
All eyes were on me. I put a tiny piece into my mouth and chewed. It really did taste like chicken. I raised my head and smiled. “You’re right.”
Everyone cheered. Takumi was the loudest.
The fire crackled and lit up the darkness as I finished my meal. I even had seconds of snake and studied our new home.
While we’d been snake hunting, Nick and Angelina had created a nice little campsite. The two tents were sheltered by the trees and the fire pit was close by, but in the open. When I stood, I could see the bay below. Even though it hurt, I kept checking.
But Whistler didn’t appear.
Chapter Ten
I hobbled to a stump near the fire and sat down. I zipped up my jacket to stay warm. It was so dark that just a few feet away from the fire everything looked pitch-black.
“So, what did you do this afternoon?” I asked Makala.
Angelina pulled her sister up onto her lap. “She learned how to skip rocks. I got my shoulder re-bandaged and Makala and Sophia swam for a while, didn’t you?”
Makala grinned. “Then it rained and Sophia and me played in her tent. We made clothes for her doll. I tried to dress Boots, but he ran away.”
Boots heard his name and barked.
Takumi and I laughed. Makala looked up at Angelina and grinned.
Nick said he’d worked on getting the campsite ready. “I spent most of my day searching for wood. But I also gathered pine needles and piled them under the sleeping bags. Hope they help. The ground’s pretty hard.”
I smiled at my friends. On the boat, we were together night and day. There weren’t these kinds of stories to tell. Hearing about everyone’s day was nice. Normal.
When it was my turn, I told the group about Takumi’s and my adventure. Takumi acted out his attempt at capturing the turkey. Everyone chuckled, but then began plotting ways to really trap or shoot a turkey.
Angelina said we shouldn’t waste bullets. Takumi suggested he hunt with the spear gun. Nick described a box-type trap he’d seen. It was fun to bounce ideas around.
I leaned over the fire and soaked in the heat. I sat back on my stump, then hobbled over to check out the bay. When my ankle wasn’t shooting stabbing pains up my leg, it throbbed. I finally gave in and announced that I needed to go to bed. Nick pointed to the tent on the right and said it was the girls’ tent.
Angelina was apologetic. “I’m sorry, but Makala wanted to sleep in a tent like Sophia instead of the doctors’ hut, and I don’t feel right…”
I glanced at Takumi. He shrugged. I kissed his cheek got ready for bed.
The ground was hard under the sleeping bag, even with the pine needles Nick stuffed under them. I lay there and decided that when Whistler got back, we should bring some of the cushions from the boat ashore to sleep on.
Dylan and Whistler! Where were they? I checked my cell. Still no service. I put my phone in my pack and threw the bag to the end of my bed. I’d just propped my foot up on the backpack when the tent flap opened and Kat came in.
“Angelina said you were still awake. Dad thought you might need these.” She shook a baggie with four pills in it. “They’re pain pills. They’ll help you get some rest.”
“That’s okay,” I said with the wave of my hand. “I don’t like the way pain pills make me feel.”
“Well, I’ll leave them here in case you change your mind.” Kat left the pills and a mug of water down in the corner by the head of my bed. “You’re supposed to take two, but you’re small. One might be enough.” She smiled her perfect white teeth smile.
“Thank you,” I muttered and readjusted my foot.
Kat’s eyes narrowed and she left.
I laid back and listened to the conversations around the fire. Kat joined right in. She told a story about when she was a little girl and collected snakes. She hid one in her shirt and it bit her in the stomach. She described running down the street, holding the snake out by the tail and screaming. The crew roared with laughter.
I gritted my teeth. The story wasn’t that funny. And where was Kat sitting? I couldn’t stop myself. I had to know. I spun around painfully and crawled to the tent flap. Kat was perched on a stump right beside Takumi. Their legs were almost touching. He was grinning from ear to ear.
My ankle caught on the edge of the sleeping bag as I hurried back into bed. I yelped quietly with the pain. It was killing me. There was no way I was going to get any sleep hurting as much as I was, but no way would I touch the pills she gave me either.
With a sigh, I laid back and tried to rest. I didn’t know what hurt worse, Takumi being with Kat, or my ankle.
****
I woke the next morning still tired, but not as angry with Takumi. Maybe it was because my ankle felt better, but probably because I hadn’t heard that Whistler was back. I was beyond worried about Dylan.
A thick fog had come in during the night and covered the bay and the camp. It was cold and damp. I hated leaving my warm sleeping bag, but I had to check to see if Whistler was anchored. Takumi was already up and building a fire.
“How’s the ankle?” He crumpled a page from a National Geographic magazine and then tossed some twigs on top.
“Better.” I hobbled over to the edge of the cliff. I couldn’t see anything but white. It was like being in the middle of a cloud. “Can you see if Whistler’s there?” I squinted.
Takumi lit the paper and the fire blazed to life. “Couldn’t see a thing. I’ll go down to the water and check as soon as I get the fire going.” He blew on the sparks. “It’s freezing this morning.”
“It is.” I picked up some pine needles and threw them on top of the small flames. The fire sparked and crackled. Takumi crisscrossed two large boards across the fire. When they caught hold, he stood.
“Be right back.” He took off down the trail to the beach.
Nick crawled out of his tent and joined me. “Did the Ice Age find us again?’ he hugged himself.
“It’s the fog. The moisture in i
t makes it so cold. It should burn off.” I held my hands over the flames and fed the fire as I impatiently waited for Takumi to come back.
Nick went back to his tent with a sleeping bag wrapped around him. “I should have grabbed a heavier coat before Whistler left.” He sat bundled in the sleeping bag and poked at the fire. “Didn’t it come back during the night?”
“I don’t know.” I adjusted the boards on the fire. “Takumi went to check. We couldn’t see the bay through the fog.”
His sleeping bag looked cozy. I quietly snuck mine out of my tent without waking Makala or Angelina. Boots woke and sneezed in annoyance. I covered him back up and he didn’t move. My sleeping bag dragged along the ground as I walked to the fire, but I felt much warmer.
Takumi returned and shook his head. “Fog’s even thicker down there. But I’m sure Whistler isn’t in the bay.”
“Where can they be?” I stared wide-eyed at Takumi.
“They’re fine.” Nick’s eyes narrowed with concern. “I bet their plans changed and they had no way of letting us know.”
Takumi stirred the fire and added another board. “Nick’s right. They could be floating just outside the bay, waiting for the fog to clear.”
I started limping back and forth from the cliff to the fire. Makala and Angelina woke and joined us. Someone had thought to bring metal coat hangers. Takumi crisscrossed them over the fire, then sat a pot of water in the center of them. Soon the water began to boil. He handed out cups of hot water, and joined us.
He blew on his cup, and took a sip. “M-m-m! This is the best mocha I’ve ever had.”
Makala stared down at her cup of water and tipped her head. All of a sudden she caught on and continued with the game of pretend we’d played on the boat. “I have the best hot chocolate!” Then her lower lip trembled. ‘Ervis always puts marshmallows in my cocoa.”
Angelina gave Makala a hug. “When Jervis gets back, he’ll give you double marshmallows. I’m drinking hot apple cider. Ummm!”
Makala shook her head. “I want ‘ervis.”
I knew how she felt. “So, what is everyone planning to do today?”