The Stowaway Solution by Gordon Korman

Author:Gordon Korman [Korman, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Aiden wrapped both arms around Meg and squeezed. The United States government had not been able to pry them apart; the ocean would not succeed, either. Whatever their fate, it would happen to them together.

The next wave struck hard. But as the Falconers tried to ride it, a second swell blindsided them at a ninety-degree angle. Aiden felt the collision as a rocket booster — an irresistible force that launched the siblings straight up.

They broke free of the water, and for an instant they seemed to hang there, suspended above the furious ocean. Aiden waited for the sea to grab them and drive them under — a dive from which they’d never recover. There was no energy left in them to fight this enemy. They were going down for good.

Whump!

They struck solid rubber. Aiden looked around in bewilderment.

The wave tossed us right onto the raft!

The hatch was just a few feet away, flapping wildly in the gale-force winds. He pushed his sister through it and scrambled inside, zipping the canopy behind him.

He collapsed to the waterproof floor, landing face-first in a pile of life jackets. “Quick!” He shrugged into his own vest and helped Meg into hers.

“Won’t make — any difference,” she managed to say, her speech interrupted by the chattering of her teeth. “If the — raft sinks, we’ll die of hypo — thermia.”

“Never thought I’d be colder than in the tank.” Aiden shivered. He tried to embrace Meg to preserve body heat, but the frigid wetness of their clothes made that pointless. “We’ll dry off sooner or later. Just keep the flap shut!”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t go back out there if the Death Star was landing on our roof!”

Without warning, the inside of the raft lit up like a baseball stadium at night. Shocked, Aiden and Meg scrambled to their knees and squinted through the plastic window of the canopy.

The conning tower of the Samantha D loomed over them, about twenty yards off. Two powerful floodlights cut through the storm, trained on the life raft.

“Oh, come on!” Meg howled in frustration. “They’re sitting on a billion gallons of stink oil that needs to be in Seattle! Why can’t they leave us alone?”

“We’ve got to get away from that ship!” Aiden agreed urgently.

“How?” she demanded, slightly hysterical.

“With these!” Aiden pulled a pair of oars from behind the food stocks. “Come on!”

He unzipped the flap, and the two poked their heads out into nature at its most violent. Soaring waves sent white water cascading high in the air, where it mingled with the lashing downpour to form an icy liquid atmosphere. They began paddling madly.

“Don’t beat at the water!” Aiden called. “Pull with your whole body!”

But he knew it was no use. A hundred oarsmen couldn’t propel the raft in these conditions. They might as well have been rowing with wet noodles.

A swell broke over them, and the interior of the life raft was suddenly awash.

They heaved with every ounce of dwindling strength they had left. All their efforts had crystallized into this one impossible moment.

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