Isle Be Seeing You (4 page)

“Do you mind?” Angela added in a much less friendly tone. “Josh and I are trying to have a conversation here.”

I glared at her. Once again I was tempted to blurt out the truth.
As a matter of fact, I do mind,
I would tell her loftily.
That's my boyfriend you're having a conversation with—isn't that right Josh?
A tiny smile played around the corners of my mouth as I imagined her reaction.

I guess Josh noticed my expression, because he started to look worried. That reminded me that I had to control myself. At least a little.

“That's nice,” I told Angela. “But Cassie and Macy are looking for you. You're supposed to be helping with lunch, remember? They sent me out here to get you.”

For a second she; looked confused. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Ned said he'd take lunch duty for me if I gave him the rest of my breakfast this morning. Don't tell me he backed out on me!”

Oops. “Uh, no, he didn't back out,” I said quickly. “Er, I just don't think you should be allowed to do that. Trade jobs for stuff, I mean. It's not part of the rules.”

“She has a point,” Josh put in helpfully. “Maybe you should go back to the beach and take care of lunch, Angela. We can hold a meeting while we eat and decide
whether that sort of thing is allowed, and then you can work it out with Ned later.”

I was impressed. Not only was that quick thinking, but he actually sounded all sincere and anxious about it. Nobody would ever guess he was just trying to ditch her—it really sounded like he was thinking only about the good of the tribe. Of course, knowing Josh, he probably
was
thinking about the good of the tribe. I just hoped that he was thinking about being alone with me too.

Either way, Angela wasn't buying it. “I have a better idea, Josh,” she cooed, giving him her gooeyest, most look-how-cute-I-am smile. “This seems more like something we should handle in one of our leaders' meetings. So since Dani's here too”—she paused just long enough to give me a withering glance—“we might as well hold a meeting right now. We have tons of other stuff to discuss anyway'

“Like what?” I said. “We just held a leaders' meeting last night.”

Remember what I was saying earlier about Brooke considering herself a natural leader? I forgot to mention that once we got stranded, we found out that her personal definition of
leader
matched up with our definition of
unbearable totalitarian despot
. That's why the rest of us rebelled, kicked her out of power, and decided to elect a new leader. Angela and I both campaigned hard for the position, but almost everyone else wound up voting for Josh instead. He agreed to accept the job, but only if the two of us signed on as his co-vice-leaders.

Angela smiled smugly at me and slipped her hand into the crook of Josh's arm. “That's okay, Dani,” she said sweetly. “If you're too busy, Josh and I can hold a meeting ourselves and fill you in later.”

Josh glanced down at Angela's hand on his arm, looking slightly dismayed. But he didn't make a move to shake her loose or tell her to keep her cooties to herself. And it only took rne about 2.3 seconds to realize that the only thing worse than having Angela along on our “date” was having her on it without me.

“Fine,” I muttered. “Let's hold a stupid meeting then.”

As Angela started prattling away about something-or-other, I just stood there with my arms crossed over my chest, brooding. So far things with Josh weren't going the way I was expecting. Yes, he'd told me he liked me. Yes, we'd almost kissed—once. But was that really enough to be called a relationship?

I had no idea. It wasn't as if I had a whole lot of experience in this area. The only thing I knew was that Josh wasn't ready to tell people about us yet, and I needed to support him in that until he came to his senses.

After all wasn't that what a good girlfriend was supposed to do?

“Take that, you stupid thing,” I
muttered through gritted teeth, hacking at the stubborn stem of a large palm frond. I only wished it was Angela's scrawny little neck.

The last few sinewy strands of fiber finally gave way to the dull blade of my knife, and the frond fluttered to the ground. Kicking it over toward the pile at the edge of the path, I swiped one arm across my sweaty face. My work group was in charge of shelter and latrines that day. Luckily the current latrine was still in pretty good shape, which meant we didn't have to dig a new one. But the
strong sea breeze had ripped away some of the palm fronds that served as walls for our shelter, and it was our task to replace them. We'd already discovered that fresh, green fronds stayed put better and were less noisy than the dry ones that littered the ground all over the jungle, so I had volunteered to cut some new ones.

I glanced over my shoulder down the path. On my way out of camp I'd made sure to mention—loudly and several times—exactly where I was going, hoping Josh would hear about it and decide to track me down for another try at some alone time. Even while I was doing it, I already felt like the world's biggest dork. Or worse yet, the world's biggest Angela. But what choice did I have?

I looked around for another low-hanging frond, ready to hack out some more of my frustrations on the local flora. As I chopped away at my new victim, it crossed my mind that my parents probably wouldn't recognize me if they saw me attacking my chores with such enthusiasm. They're always saying I spend way more energy trying to talk my way out of chores than I would need if I just went ahead and did them in the first place. But it's really not the same thing at all. Once you've had to spend most of your time figuring out how to find enough to eat for
your next meal or where to dig yet another latrine because the old ones filled up, making the bed or emptying the dishwasher just isn't going to seem like a matter of life and death anymore.

While I was thinking about that, I heard footsteps crunching the fallen leaves behind me. I spun around, Josh's name already on my lips. Luckily it stayed there and didn't spill over into actual speech or anything, because instead of Josh, I saw my little brother coming toward me.

“Oh,” I said. “What do you want?”

Kenny took a deep breath, looking earnest. “Listen, Dani,” he said quickly. “Don't interrupt me this time, okay? I've been trying to tell you since the hurricane—I feel really bad about what happened. See, I should've figured out a storm was coming because of the way my animals were acting. If I'd told everybody, maybe it would've helped. Maybe the shelter wouldn't have got so busted up, and we wouldn't have lost those tarps, and … Well, anyway. I felt kind of, you know, dumb or guilty or whatever. Afterward.”

I rolled my eyes. “Who do I look like … Dr. Freud?” I was honestly perplexed as to why he was telling me all
this. Kenny and I aren't exactly in the habit of sharing our deepest feelings with each other out of the blue. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you, if you'll shut up and listen.” He actually started to look sort of excited. “See, I think I figured out a way to make it up to everyone. I was up on the ridge fixing up my zoo yesterday. You know that other island you can see from up there? The close one?”

“Yeah. What about it?” From the ridge near the top of the mountain, if the weather was clear, it was possible to see several neighboring islands. Most of them were way off toward the horizon, but one was much closer, probably only about a mile or two away as the choo-choo bug flies.

“I guess the hurricane knocked down a bunch of big trees or something,” Kenny said, “because there's a big gap there now, and you can see past that island to another one on the other side.” He paused, staring at me as if trying to read whether his words were sinking in. “And I saw smoke coming from that one!”

My conscious mind had had enough experience with Kenny over the years to realize that most of what he said was an exaggeration or a delusion, if not an outright lie.
I guess my subconscious hadn't gotten the message, though, because my stomach gave a nervous, excited little jump.

Then my conscious mind wrestled control back again. “Big whoop,” I said. “There was tons of lightning in that storm—it probably started a forest fire or something.”

He kicked at the ground excitedly, accidentally sending half my palm fronds into the bushes. “That's what I thought too,” he said. “But I've been checking every time I go up there. The smoke is still there, and its still in the same exact spot. I'm pretty sure its from a campfire. There must be a tribe living there or something!”

I stared at him, not sure what to think. Was this part of some elaborate scheme to make me look stupid? It wouldn't be the first time. I winced as I suddenly remembered the time Kenny had convinced me that my favorite NBA player was doing an autograph-signing session in the ballroom of the local Holiday Inn. It wasn't until I found myself barging in on a meeting of the local nudist colony that I figured it out.

“Anyway,” Kenny began eagerly, “I think if we—”

“Hey, McFeeneys!” Josh suddenly appeared on the trail, sending my already overwhelmed brain ping-ponging
off in yet another direction. “What's going on?”

“Hi, Josh!” Kenny greeted the older boy. “I was just telling Dani—”

“Never mind,” I interrupted, all thoughts of fire and Kenny and rescue and everything else fleeing to the back corners of my mind like roaches from the light. This was it! All I had to do was ditch my little brother, and Josh and I might finally get enough time alone together to figure out where we stood and what to do about it. “Its not important.”

Kenny's face fell, and I felt a twinge of guilt. But I pushed it aside. I could deal with him later.

“Scram,” I told Kenny. “We can talk about this later if you want. Josh and I have, uh, important leader business to discuss right now.”

“But—,” Kenny tried again.

“Go on!” I glared at him warningly. “I'll tell Josh what you told me, okay? But only if you leave us alone. Oh, and if you carry those palm fronds back to camp for me.”

Kenny glanced from me to the pile of fronds and back again. His face shifted halfway into its stubborn, oh-yeah-make-me expression, but then he sighed. “Okay,” he said meekly. Without another word he quickly gathered up
the fronds and scurried back down along the path toward the beach.

Amazed, I started trying to remember the last time Kenny had done what I asked him to do without making a fuss. Then, realizing that was a waste of time, I turned and smiled uncertainly at Josh. “Um, hi,” I said. “Want to go for a walk or something?”

“Sure.” As we strolled deeper into the jungle, Josh glanced over his shoulder in the direction Kenny had gone. “So what was that all about?”

I sighed and waved one hand, as if trying to shoo the whole topic of my little brother out of our way. “Oh, nothing much. Kenny says he was up on the ridge and he spotted some smoke from another island.” I shrugged. “I'm sure it's just a wildfire or something. Either that, or he's trying to lure me up there so he can feed me to his creepy crawlies.”

“Hmm.” Josh looked thoughtful, not even cracking a smile at my witty remark. “You're probably right.”

I tilted my head, trying to read his expression. “What?”

Josh glanced at me and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I dont know. I just wonder if maybe we should check it out. See, I've been thinking about ways we could, you know,
maybe get ourselves off the island. Just in case.”

“Just in case what? Ms. Watson will find us eventually.”

He shrugged. “I know. But we still dont know how long that will take, especially after that hurricane. That could really delay things, especially if it hit the mainland, too. It could be, like, weeks before they get their act together enough to really start searching again.”

“I guess.” Naturally it had already occurred to me that the hurricane couldn't have done our search party any favors. But somehow I'd been imagining the probable delay in days rather than weeks. Could Josh be right?

“Anyway, if there really is a tribe living on that island, that's big news. Huge.” He smiled at me hopefully. “I know it's probably just a wildfire like you said. But maybe we should hike up there right now and see for sure—there's plenty of time before dinner”

I still had my doubts about Kenny's story, but the thought of a nice, private afternoon walk through the jungle with Josh made me decide to keep such thoughts to myself. “Okay,” I said agreeably. “At least that way we'll know if there's anything to it before Kenny blabs to anyone else.”

“Good point.” Josh nodded. “Let's go.”

We were already heading in the right direction, so we just kept moving. The jungle was so humid it felt like we were walking through a car wash. Moisture slid from leaf to leaf and from leaf to ground in a steady drip-drip-drip chorus, harmonizing with the steady, soft hum of insects and the occasional familiar drone of a passing choo-choo bug. We came to a clearing—the hurricane had knocked down several large trees, leaving an open spot in the canopy that allowed the bright afternoon sunlight through, which instantly raised the air temperature by at least ten or fifteen degrees and changed it from a car wash to a steam bath. As we stepped back into the shade on the far side of the clearing, I felt something tickle my hand. I almost shook it off, thinking it was just another mosquito or choo-choo bug zeroing in on some nice human flesh. Just in time, though, I realized it was Josh. I let out a silent little sigh as I felt his hand slip into mine. This was more like it!