Flood by Kathleen Duey & Karen A. Bale

Author:Kathleen Duey & Karen A. Bale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

Chapter Ten

Molly sat down, watching Garrett sink to his knees. “Put your shirt on,” she said gently. “You’ll get a chill.” His face bleak, he didn’t answer her. She patted the dog, searching for something else to say. “There’ll be another plane, won’t there? I mean, if they’re flying along here, there’ll be another one soon, probably.”

Garrett raised his eyes and nodded vaguely. He shook out his shirt and slid it back on. He kept glancing at the sky, and Molly chided herself again for letting her piece of the drawer get away. If she had been able to paddle, too, maybe they’d have gotten out of the trees in time to be seen. Garrett was lying down again, his eyes closed. He looked blanched, weary.

Molly wriggled her toes, looking at the scrapes and cuts on her legs. “What do you think we ought to do now?”

“Nothing.”

Molly stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He opened his eyes and frowned. “We have one stupid little board to paddle with. And look.” He raised up on one elbow and showed her his right palm. The edges of the drawer front had raised big, ugly blisters beneath his skin.

Molly watched him lie back and close his eyes again. He had deep scratches all over his hands and arms. His right cheek was skinned raw and smeared with blood.

The dog whined and pushed its head against her shoulder. Molly hugged it, fighting a dark feeling that was creeping into her heart. They hadn’t come through the whole terrible night to just give up, had they?

Molly picked up the drawer front, sliding her hand through the pretty brass pull. The dog whined again, but moved away to let her stand up. She placed her feet carefully, taking small steps, lowering herself slowly, to sit on the back edge of the raft. She knew Garrett was awake, had felt the raft rock when she moved—but he didn’t say anything.

The dog settled itself beside her. Molly lowered the makeshift paddle into the water. She tried to make a long, smooth stroke, but she had put the drawer front in too deeply and very nearly tipped herself into the water.

Molly kept trying. The raft started to turn in a circle, and she shifted to change the thrust of her paddling. After a few minutes of getting nowhere at all, she managed to straighten the raft out and move it forward. Garrett lay silently as she worked.

Molly paddled them out from beneath the trees, then started them downstream again, staying far to the edge of the current. She sat still once the raft was moving steadily, the drawer front acting like a rudder again, steering a rough course in the brown water. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the swift torrent of the main channel again.

She headed eastward as much as she could. Somewhere, the flood had to end. There had to be a place where the river got shallow, then stopped, and dry land began again.

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