Island 1- Shipwreck by Gordon Korman

Author:Gordon Korman [Korman, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: YA
ISBN: 9780439164566
Publisher: Paw Prints
Published: 1975-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Monday, July 17, 0645 hours

“Will! Wake up!”

Will rolled over and cast a baleful eye at his sister. “Beat it, Lyss. You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Come on!” She dragged him out of the narrow bunk. His elbow smacked Ian in the back of the head as he splashed to the deck. The water was now well over his knees, halfway to his waist.

“Ow!” The younger boy sat up. “What’s going on?”

“Yeah!” stormed Will. “This better be good, Lyssa!”

“Radford’s gone.”

“Gone?” scoffed J.J. “Where could he go? Out for a stroll?”

“He just — disappeared,” she said. “Maybe he fell off the boat.”

“I couldn’t get that lucky,” grumbled Luke. “Besides, Ratface is a career sailor. He’d never go overboard, not in calm seas like this.”

Up on deck they found Charla waiting for them.

“Notice anything missing?” she asked.

“You mean besides one psychopath?” J.J. retorted.

She pointed to the rigging around the foresail. There hung the inflatable lifeboat, exactly where they had stowed it the day before. But the Phoenix’s twelve-foot wooden dinghy was gone. “He must have sailed off in the middle of the night. Took the GPS too. And most of our food.”

“Heleft us?” Ian was wide-eyed. “All alone?”

“Impossible,” Will insisted. “Nobody’s that rotten. Not even Radford.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Luke. “Why would he set out in a wooden bathtub? Surely it’s better to stay on a sixty-foot boat.”

“It’s not exactly in mint condition,” Lyssa put in. “The mast’s busted, the bowsprit’s useless — “

“Not to mention the cabins are full of water — ” added Charla.

It took a few seconds for the truth to seep down.

“We’re sinking!” cried Will. “That’s why Radford split! Water’s coming in faster than we can pump it out! And he knew!”

Shocked silence followed. All six waited for someone to speak out, to say, “Of course not!

That’s not what’s happening at all.Here’s the real story — “

But the facts were undeniable. They had pumped all day to lower the water level, and in the morning it was high again — higher even. The schooner was leaking —sinking — and they were on their own.

Heart pounding, Luke thought back to the moment yesterday when the mate had gone from his usual loudmouthed, bullying self to quiet, sullen, and withdrawn. In that instant, Ratface must have made up his mind to desert them. He might as well have signed their death warrants. What chance did six inexperienced kids have on a sinking boat?

The unfairness of it suddenly seemed so weighty that it threatened to crush him. He was only here because he’d trusted a false friend with his locker combination. Never in Luke’s wildest nightmares had he imagined it would cost him his life.

“That scumball,” he said finally.

“Oh, no,” breathed Lyssa.

Charla sat down on the deck, her head in her hands.

“It’s all my fault!” moaned Ian. “I messed up his name. I got him mad at us!”

“Hey!” Luke grabbed him by the shoulder. “You don’t leave people to die because somebody made fun of you. God, to do

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