Lost! by Terry Lynn Johnson

Author:Terry Lynn Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

“It’s got sections.” She rolled it upside down. “I can hear more water sloshing around inside, like a coconut!”

“It’s a bamboo tree.” I didn’t want to move the beam of light, so I asked her to bring the section to me. “We can use this as a pot to hold over the flame! See? It’s like a bowl. Can you get the water out of the other section?”

Anna cut, but most of the water trickled out from her hacking. “It leaks when I hit it.” She tried getting her mouth underneath to catch it in time, but the water had drained. “We have to drink the creek water. I’m so thirsty.”

“Wait, I’ve almost made the fire.” I waved my hand in front of the beam of light. The beam felt hot, but nothing was happening. I adjusted the beam to make it smaller and was encouraged with a tiny bit of smoke. “It’s working!”

We stared at the pile. I expected it to burst into flame any minute the way I’d seen it happen on YouTube. But the smoke fizzled away.

“I think the leaves are too wet,” I said. “Can you find drier ones?”

“Where? Everything is wet. I’m just going to drink.” Anna dunked her face in and sucked up the water.

“Don’t!”

“Ahhhh!” She smacked her lips.

The slurping noises made me even thirstier. I didn’t know if the fire would ever work. I really wished I had my lighter from the kit. But it was harder than I thought to start a fire in a rainforest.

“This was supposed to work,” I said, trying to stay calm.

“You can’t plan for everything, Carter. No one knows everything.”

Her words made me uneasy. “That’s what I do,” I said. “I plan. I wrote a booklet at home for emergency protocols, and I make my parents hold fire drills. I have a ladder that I can hang out my bedroom window to escape. I keep a list of hurricane safety procedures in the house, how to turn off electricity and gas, that sort of thing. I boxed up a disaster supplies kit in the pantry—​canned food, bottled water, battery-operated radio, flashlight, and protective clothing. I make a specific emergency kit for each place we travel. I have to know everything to feel safe.”

Anna stared at me. “Well, you didn’t plan on getting stung by a scorpion, and that turned out okay,” she said simply. “No matter how much you plan, you have to be prepared for the unexpected. My dad always says, ‘Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.’ ” She took another drink. “Didn’t you say we should drink so we don’t get dehydrated from sweating? You better have some.”

The other side of fear? I’d have to think about that later. My head pounded. Maybe the danger of dehydration was worse than the danger of getting sick from drinking a parasite.

“At least it looks clean,” I said, dipping my hand.

I brought it to my mouth, but then gave up and copied what Anna was doing, sticking my face in and sucking.

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