Jack at the Helm by Lisa Doan

Author:Lisa Doan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

Jack felt as though his insides were in the wrong place. Maybe his stomach had taken a look over the precipice and decided to wait at the top. Jack grabbed the rope that ran around the sides of the raft and braced himself.

The boat flipped as it hit the white water at the bottom of the waterfall. Jack was pushed under. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down. When he let go of the rope and popped to the surface, waves crashed over his head, and his life jacket banged up against a boulder. The current whipped him downstream.

Jack struggled to turn himself so he could see where he was going. He forced his legs out to push off oncoming rocks. Ahead of him, the overturned raft bounced on top of the waves.

Jack was swept down a series of rapids. Choking on the water, he washed into a flat section of river and angled himself to the riverbank.

He lay there, heaving and looking around for the raft.

It had disappeared. So had Harry.

“Harry!” Jack’s voice bounced off the canyon walls. “Harry, where are you?”

He stumbled along the bank, climbing over boulders. The path he took was as full of twists as the river. Each time Jack thought he might find a good view around a bend, he just found another turn. After an hour, he spotted the yellow paddle end of an oar lying on a pile of rocks. Jack picked it up; it was the only sign of the raft he had found so far.

The sun passed over the cliffs, and shadows descended on the canyon. Jack staggered on until twilight. A chill settled into his bones. He crept up the slope of the riverbank and lay down on a flat boulder. The stone was still warm from the sun.

Each time Jack closed his eyes, all he could see was Harry. Harry thinking the rafting trip would be an adventure. Harry trusting Jack about which fork in the river to take. But they had taken the wrong fork; Jack was sure of it.

The night crept on, the stone cooling underneath Jack, and a light breeze chilling him to the bone. Finally, the sky lightened to pink.

Jack staggered to his feet, his muscles cramped from the cold. He drank water from the river and set off over the rocks. By midmorning he was hot and sweaty.

Jack sat down on a boulder to rest. He couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened to Harry. Maybe he had drowned.

But maybe Harry was fine and just … just what? If Harry were fine, Jack would have found him by now.

Harry wasn’t fine. He was gone.

Because Jack had been wrong. Wrong about buying the raft, wrong about sleeping on the sand, and wrong about the fork in the river.

Harry had said he trusted in Jack’s superior knowledge of the wilderness. Except, Jack didn’t have any superior knowledge.

“I’m always telling my mom and dad to be careful,” Jack whispered. “To stop making bad decisions.

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