Jack the Castaway by Lisa Doan

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

Over the next few hours, Jack reviewed his situation. He had a box of assorted sized Spider-Man Band-Aids, six tubes of Neosporin, three orange life jackets, a mesh bag full of snorkel gear, a canvas tarp, a book called Snorkel Now! Caribbean Edition, six pineapple sodas, six bags of potato chips, six bags of M&M’s, three towels, three hats, three pairs of sunglasses, and one green parrot.

The boat rolled up and down four-foot swells. Jack no longer felt sick. Everything that had been in his stomach was now in the ocean.

He stared at the bow of the boat, trying to piece together what had happened. Jack had always known his parents were dangerous. They were like little kids that kept running into the road. Sooner or later, they were bound to get flattened by a truck. But that was the thing—it should have been them on the boat, floating away from civilization. Not Jack. He hadn’t invented drift snorkeling or forgot the gas or made an eleven-year-old drive. His parents had.

His mom and dad would have to walk all the way back to Lee Beach to get help. How long would that take? What if the boat sank while he was waiting to be rescued?

He looked down into the water. It was dark. Purple-gray dark. Not like the pale blue around the island, with white sand and patches of sea grass on the bottom. This was just dark. Like there wasn’t any bottom.

Jack thought about drifting down, deeper and deeper. That’s what would happen if the boat sank. He would get too tired or cold to swim anymore. He would drown. If the sharks didn’t get him first.

Loco dug his claws into Jack’s arm, ran up to his shoulder, and said, “Bad dog.”

Jack jerked his head back from the water. “Yes, Loco, it is very bad. They didn’t put gas on the boat. I realize that it wasn’t on my checklist, but who would put something like that on a list? I mean, it would be like writing ‘Make sure the boat is actually in the water.’ Some things are just … not on a checklist.”

Loco preened his feathers and muttered, “Whatever.”

Jack didn’t have his watch on, but he didn’t need to. The bottom curve of the blinding sun touched the horizon. In moments, it would sink into the waves completely.

Sharks probably attacked under cover of darkness. They might have been circling underneath the boat ever since he had drifted away from land.

Jack put on a life jacket as the sun disappeared into the sea. He lay on the bottom of the boat with the tarp tucked up under his chin. Loco huddled under his arm and softly chanted, “Bad dog, bad dog, bad dog.”

A full moon hung heavy and close, as if it might drop out of the sky. The sea had flattened out. It sparkled for miles under the moonlight.

The stars, the moon, the water—everything was too big. Everything but the boat. That was too small.

The skiff heaved and rolled forward.

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