I closed my eyes as my face broke the surface. I gulped in air and held Dylan’s head above the scummy surface.

  Jervis and Takumi swam to me and pried Dylan loose. “He has water in his lungs,” I gasped. “Get Zoë.”

  They towed Dylan through the water to the dinghy. He wasn’t breathing. I didn’t know if he was even still alive. Zoë stood and barked orders to the boys. “Stay clear of the crude. Come this way.” She appeared totally calm.

  Nick pulled Dylan onboard. Zoë stretched the core of Dylan’s body out on the floor of the dinghy and then rolled him on his side. His legs hung over the edge as Zoë began mouth-to-mouth.

  I was so afraid I’d failed. We should never have opened that door. Now both of my brothers had drowned. It was my fault. All my fault. Someone was sobbing, and I realized it was me.

  “Let’s get to the boat,” Takumi said gently.

  “What?”

  “Come on.” Takumi tugged me toward the dinghy.

  Jervis, Takumi, and I held onto the dinghy and floated while Zoë continued to work on Dylan. I never took my eyes off my brother.

  “Breathe!” I prayed.

  Zoë blew into his mouth. Dylan didn’t move. Zoë breathed again and again. There was no response. She was crying to hard, she was gasping for air herself.

  Despair overwhelmed me.

  Nick tapped Zoë’s shoulder, and then shoved her out of the way. “Come on, Dylan!” Nick blew hard into Dylan’s mouth. He waited a minute, and blew again.

  Dylan gasped. Water spewed from his mouth. He turned his head and coughed. Water gurgled and he coughed again.

  I took hold of Takumi’s hand and squeezed.

  “Let’s get out of this toxic water,” Takumi said. He lifted me out of the water and into the dinghy.

  Takumi and I had wetsuits, but Jervis didn’t. I hadn’t noticed before how he was shivering in the water. “Jervis, your turn.” I reached down to him.

  Jervis got stuck half way on and half way off. Now that Dylan was going to live, I felt light headed. I giggled as I tried to pull Jervis onboard. He was too heavy for me and too numb to help much. Finally, he grabbed hold of the dinghy bench, pulled, and kicked.

  I heard a loud thump, followed by a splash.

  I peered down in the water. Jervis had kicked Takumi in the head. My boyfriend was floating, face-first, in a sheen of crude oil. “Takumi!” I screamed and scrambled to the stern. We had floated onto an island of black goo. Takumi’s head came up.

  His nose was bleeding and his entire face was covered in oily blood. He shook his head and I realized he couldn’t see. His swim mask was covered in solid oil.

  “Jervis, help!” I cried.

  Jervis rolled into the dinghy, leaned over, and grabbed the back of Takumi’s wet suit. With one giant effort, he yanked Takumi up out of the water and onto the dinghy.

  I sat Takumi up in the corner. He was struggling to breathe. He tried to wipe the goo off his mouth with his hand, but all it did was smear. I pulled his mask off. Thank goodness, his eyes had been protected. He gave me the thumbs-up sign.

  “Spit out the oil and don’t breathe it in!” I screamed as I searched for something to wipe his face with.

  He nodded, and then spit a mouth full of gross black crude onto the dinghy deck. He squeezed his lips together and tried to take in air through his bloody nose.

  I snatched Zoë’s cheerleader jacket and began wiping the goo off Takumi’s face. It helped a little, but not much.

  Jervis sat in the opposite corner. “Takumi! I’m sorry, dude.”

  Nick picked up the oars. Zoë sat Dylan up and cradled him in her arms. He continued to cough and spit water. Then he became agitated and pointed a little way off the port side. “Maps!” he croaked.

  The long plastic tube Dylan had risked his life for, floated a short way away.

  “Row us over there, Nick,” Jervis cried. “I’ll grab it from this side.”

  When we got close, Jervis snagged the tube and dropped it onto the bottom of the dinghy.

  Getting Dylan off the dinghy was hard. He was too weak to help. He’d been banged around so much I worried he’d be bruised or worse. Takumi’s wet suit was covered in oil and was a slippery mess to get off. But soon we had both guys in dry clothes and settled into their beds.

  I asked Angelina to heat some water on the barbeque, but decided not to wait for it to get hot. I grabbed our toothbrushes and stole a bottle of shampoo from Zoë’s stash. I’d seen television commercials about using dishwashing detergent for cleaning crude from seabirds, but we hadn’t had any detergent for a long time.

  Takumi focused clearing his nose. He hadn’t spoken. I hoped it was because he was worried that he might breathe the toxins into his lungs, and not that his vocal cords were damaged.

  I propped him up on pillows and washed the crude off his face and lips with the shampoo. It worked well. There were red marks on his skin from where the crude had been. My hand began to shake. What was this awful stuff doing to the inside of his mouth?

  Takumi pointed at the tooth brush. I poured shampoo directly onto the brush and handed it to him. I found a plastic bowl and a cup with fresh water. Takumi began cleaning his mouth, tongue, and teeth with shampoo. He’d spit, scrub, sip water, and spit again. He grimaced and gagged with the awful taste. All the while, he breathed through his nose.

  Every so often he would open his mouth wide and I’d inspect it. When it was almost clean, he handed the toothbrush to me. I found the few places he’d missed and brushed them.

  He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “I think you’re good,” I said. “Did you swallow any?”

  Takumi cleared his throat. “I don’t think so.” His voice cracked. He coughed. “I tried not to, anyway. In the end, I was losing it, and can’t be sure.”

  I kissed his lips. He smelled like gasoline. “You scared me. Does the inside of your mouth hurt?”

  Takumi inspected his mouth with his tongue. “A little, but not as much as my face does. Saliva must have protected my mouth. Kept the goo from sticking.”

  Angelina brought in a pan of hot water. I drug out the instant lemonade mix and sprinkled a little into the cup of water. “Here. Rinse your mouth again, then you should be good to drink something. Shampoo can make you sick too.”

  “I don’t know what tasted worse, the oil or the shampoo.” Takumi burped, and I covered my face. He smelled like a sick mixture of tar and gasoline.

  Angelina was in the galley pulling out supplies. “You might feel better if you eat something.”

  Takumi watched. “How about some soup? Dump a bunch of that catsup into a pot, add water and dried fish, and make fish soup.”

  “What! Waste my catsup?” I said, then immediately regretted it.

  “You don’t have to…” Takumi burped again and buried his face in a blanket.

  “No, no! I was just kidding.” I pulled out a large pot. “Catsup fish soup sounds good. Kinda like bouillabaisse.”

  Angelina laughed. “Let’s do it. At least it would be warm. I’ll add wood to the fire.”

  It did hurt to see half a bottle of catsup disappear into the pot, but the soup tasted wonderful. Dylan and Zoë even came out of their room to join us in the main cabin for lunch. Dylan rubbed a bruise on his chest and coughed a lot, but seemed to be mostly recovered.

  We took turns talking about what we’d seen in the harbor as we ate. Zoë kept studying Dylan. Worry lines creased her forehead.

  Jervis opened the tightly sealed plastic tube and pulled out the nautical maps he and Dylan had found on the yacht. They guys explained that the maps showed the depths of harbor openings and the entire coastline of Mexico and the Pacific coast of Central and South America. Immediately, they began to search for a place the Whistler could anchor and wait for us to join them.

  “Here!” Jervis cried. “The Tijuana River is close by. It flows into the ocean. We can anchor off the coast and send the dinghy in to collect fresh water and catch fish, or maybe even a duck or two.”

  Dylan inspected the map. “Sounds like a good plan. The border team can follow the river to the ocean, and radio us.”

  I held up my hand. “Now it’s Takumi and my turn for show and tell.” I dumped the contents of both our bags onto Takumi’s covers. Girls’ clothing brightened the room. Makala, Naomi, and Rebecca squealed and ran to the pile and immediately started grabbing.

  Angelina looked at Jervis, then stepped forward. “Girls, stop it. The three of you. Now. Put everything down.” She waited. “Now, one at a time… Rebecca and Naomi, you two get to go first.”

  “No!” Makala wailed.

  Angelina stood with her hands on her hips. “Makala, the girls arrived here with nothing but what they had on. You have a backpack full of clothes. Now step back or you will go to your room.”

  Makala fell to the floor and wailed. I felt sorry for her. She’d been the center of attention forever. Now, she had to share Jervis with his sisters. And they made a point of always excluding her.

  Angelina picked her up and held her on her lap. Makala buried her face and sobbed quietly.

  Rebecca and Naomi began sorting through the clothes. Rebecca carefully folded and organized the clothes into piles. Tops in one. Bottoms in another. Naomi helped by handing her one piece at a time.

  Naomi picked up a pink Hello Kitty shirt. She stared at it for a long moment, glanced at her sister, then kneeled beside the quietly sobbing Makala. “This is too small for us,” she said and handed the shirt to her.

  Makala stopped crying and gave a questioning look to Angelina.

  Angelina smiled. “Say, ‘thank you’.”

  Makala took the shirt and sniffed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Naomi said and continued helping her sister. The girls took turns and the process went smoothly. Makala even ended up with a couple of new outfits, although Jervis’s sisters clearly had more. When all the clothes were divided up, the girls scurried off into their cabin to change. Their laughter brightened our day.

  One by one, they modeled their new outfits. Zoë started to comment that some of the combinations didn’t work well together, but both Angelina and I glared her down.

  Jervis gave me a hug, and mouthed thanks. He moved to thank Takumi, but Takumi burped and quickly climbed out of bed. “Good thing we found the airplane magazines,” he said.

  “What?” Dylan asked. “Why?”

  “We have toilet paper.” Jervis smiled.

  I grimaced as the bathroom door closed. What was the crude oil doing to his stomach?

  “Do you want to see the clothes I brought with me?” Makala asked the girls. “I even have clothes for Boots.”

  Boots barked when he heard his name and chased his tail.

  Naomi and Rebecca followed Makala and Boots back into the cabin.

  “My turn,” Angelina announced when the girls were gone. She grabbed her pack and dumped it. Large chef knives, silverware, and a set of hard plastic dishes lay scattered on top of where Takumi had been laying.

  “This is great.” I picked up the knives. “We can make spears out of these.”

  “Spears? I was thinking we needed knives to clean fish and stuff…” Angelina said.

  I examined the blades. “The kids we saw at the airport had spears. It makes sense. Most people don’t own guns, and those who did are probably running out of bullets. We should go along with it. Make some wicked spears of our own. Leave the guns to guard the boat.”

  Takumi came back to the room and picked up one of the bowls. “Awesome. We needed more dishes. I can have soup in a bowl instead of a wine glass.”

  “The wine glass was pretty classy though,” I said.

  Nick picked up his bag. “I win the prize for coolest find.”

  “Not cooler than the maps,” Dylan argued.

  “Okay, maybe not as cool as the maps, but almost. Look at these.” He added his treasures to Angelina’s.

  It looked like a pile of old school cell phones. They even had little rubber antennae. “But cell towers are…” I shook my head.

  “Not cell phones. Marine radios. A set of four. Can you believe it?”

  “So, walkie-talkies, huh?” Dylan examined one.

  “No, you guys don’t understand. This stuff was on the freighter. These are commercial grade, marine, two-way radios. They broadcast over UHF and VHF.”

  I shrugged. “Great.”

  Nick huffed. “These are marine quality. They can communicate with our boat radio. And they run on batteries … don’t need cell towers, or satellite service.”

  “We can talk to the boat from a distance?” I examined one closer.

  “Yep!”

  “How far away from the boat do they work?” Jervis asked.

  “Well, that seems a little unclear. If there is nothing blocking the signal, they could broadcast for up to five miles. If we are within a few miles, they should work well. But what is really cool is that even if we can’t respond on the handheld radios, we can hear messages from the boat. Over water, the boat’s radio can send signals up to a hundred miles.” Nick passed the other two radios to Zoë and Jervis.

  They looked pretty simple. “We can take them with us when we go to the border crossing,” I smiled. “These are very cool, Nick.”

  “Thank you. I thought so, too. And I have one last thing.” He took a small circular case out of his pocket and handed it to me. It opened like an old-fashioned pocket watch. But inside was a compass.

  “This is perfect.” I threw my arms around his neck. “I was worried how we’d find our way. The city will be a mess and street maps won’t help much.”

  Nick’s face turned red. “So, should we get going? It’s already after one.”

  I looked at Takumi.

  “I’m feeling better,” he said. “The soup helped a lot.”

  “Really? We have a long way to walk.” I stared into his eyes.

  “Really.” He grinned. “I’ll bring two magazines and should be just fine.”

  I made a face while everyone else laughed. “Well then, I have one last treat.” I knocked on the girls’ door. “Makala, Rebecca, and Naomi. Come out for a second. I have something else for you.”

  The girls had changed their clothes again. Boots was wearing a dress and looked miserable, but Makala was all smiles.

  I reached deep into my coat pocket, pulled my hand out, and opened my fingers. “Who wants a gummy bear?”

  Chapter Ten

  The rain poured down on us as we made our way across the ruined city of Santa Barbara. I threw my hood up and focused on my next step. The wreckage was widespread, that much was certain … there were no clear paths. Rarely did we walk on the ground. We made our way climbing over downed high-rises and collapsed homes. The tsunamis had tossed cars and trucks on top of one another, often lodging them in the middle of a destroyed structure.

  We carried our new homemade spears. Nick was in charge of the compass and kept us going southeast. It was slow going and exhausting. I didn’t complain, but I’d overloaded my backpack. It grew heavier with every step. An hour into our trek, it stopped raining. However, it didn’t really matter. We were dripping wet and everything was slimy and slippery.

  As we made our way inland, a horrible smell overwhelmed me. People and animals were buried under the rubble. I could smell them. Sometimes a cold tremor ran down my spine. I wondered if that meant I was stepping over a restless spirit.

  I gasped. A small foot with a faded orange tennis shoe was sticking up from under the beam of a collapsed apartment building. I took a few more steps. Inside a car, I saw the body of a woman who had been dead for a long time. I shivered.

  Nick put his hand on my shoulder. “We told Angelina we’d radio in at four. It’s almost time,” Takumi said.

  I’m sure the guys had seen the bodies too, but no one had said anything. We searched for the highest point we could find, and began scaling the pile of broken buildings. At four o’clock, I took Nick’s spear from him. He climbed on top of a storage box, stood tall, and flipped on the radio.

  “Whistler, this is ‘Boots on the Ground,’ come in please. Over.”

  We listened: Static. Nothing.

  Nick repeated his request.

  Angelina’s voice suddenly came over the radio. “Hi, Boots on the Ground, this is Whistler. Good to hear your voice. How’s it going? Over.”

  “It worked!” Nick whispered and adjusted the volume. “Good to hear your voice too. It’s going slow. No clear paths, but no hostiles either. Over.”

  “How far do you think you have gone? Over,” Angelina asked.

  We looked at one another. It had been three hours of hard climbing over wreckage.

  “Tell her… maybe two miles. Hard to tell with all the ups and downs,” Takumi said.

  Nick relayed the message.

  “Oh…” Angelina sounded disappointed. “You still have a long way to go. Over.”

  “Eventually we’ll get out of the downtown area and the going should be easier. Over.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk again at six. Over.”

  “Sounds good. Has Whistler left the bay? Over.”

  “We’ve had light winds. We’re finally heading out of the harbor now. Over.”

  “Careful. Over,” Nick said.

  “Okay. Until six o’clock, this is Whistler, over and out.”

  “Until six. Boots on the Ground, over and out.” Nick’s smile slowly faded.

  We searched for the easiest path off the debris pile we stood on. Nick pointed out an old escape ladder sticking up in the rubble.

  “Is everything okay with you and Angelina?” I asked Nick as we worked to get the ladder loose.

  Nick scowled. “Why’d you ask that?”

  “We are living in close quarters. It’s hard not to see and hear everything. And Angelina has been a little … well, not quite herself lately.”

  Nick dragged the rusty escape ladder over to where we stood. Takumi ran to help and together they dropped it down alongside the mountain of wreckage we stood on.