Adrift by Paul Griffin

Author:Paul Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2015-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Tuesday, August 24, afternoon, day seven …

“You have to stop scratching,” I said. I’d told him plenty of times, and I was getting close to yelling at him.

“Just a few more minutes,” JoJo said. “It’s the only thing that makes me feel good.”

“You’re tearing off your skin. Your nails are filthy. You’re infecting yourself.” I pushed his hand away from his shin. “I mean it, we’re going to have to tie your hands behind your back.”

“It’s not just the fly bites,” JoJo said. “My dermatitis flares up when I become stressed. Matt, my medications. I don’t do so well when I skip them.”

“Just keep washing the sores with salt water and then rinse with the fresh water.”

“We don’t have enough fresh water. I would rather drink my share. Anyway, it’s not just my skin. I take mood stabilizers, or I did until we rushed out here. So there, we are brothers now, if we weren’t already. I let you in on my secret. You’re not on medication?”

“I probably should be. Dri says I’m sad.”

“Yes, I know. And this tells me that Driana truly does not understand the meaning of the word sad.”

I didn’t like the way he was looking at her. He seemed to be annoyed with her. He had no reason to be. She was asleep under her tent—deeply asleep. Her arms were spread out a little from her sides, her hands palms up. Her head rolled with the waves, leaving her neck exposed. I kept thinking, Vulnerable. She’s so vulnerable.

It had started the day before, just after sunset. A bad feeling had come into the boat. It wasn’t exactly anger. A menace, maybe. I didn’t think JoJo was causing it, but he was picking up on it. He took a picture of a sore on the inside of his shin. It looked like raw chicken. He’d lost the most weight. He had the most to lose, and now his jeans hung loose. Mine did too. John was lean to begin with, but his cheekbones were becoming sharper. Dri seemed to be in the best shape, at least up until that point.

I lifted the water jug from the sea. We kept it there with a towrope to cool it and slow the bacteria from turning it bad. We’d cut the rations to stretch the supply, but that rainstorm was five long days in the past, and now we were down to a third of a jug. Our ration for today was three sips each. I took one of mine. The water still tasted of gasoline but I had a hard time not chugging it. JoJo held out his hand for the jug. He took all three sips at once. And then he took a fourth.

“Hey,” John said.

“What?” JoJo said.

“Easy. You pulled one too many out of the jug.”

JoJo cursed. “Sorry. I forgot.”

“You’re done until we cook up some more,” John said, but more was not on the way. Dri’s improvised distiller filled two peanut cans a day, and the sky had to be cloudless.

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