My prison had shrunk from Indiana to a small island to a tiny bungalow. Mackenzie and I were banished to our rooms for the rest of the day. We were barred from the Aquatic Centre for life. Artie ranted and raved about theft and destruction of property. He lectured on how easy it was to get lost at sea. On and on he went, laying it on super thick. I understood that we shouldn’t have taken the Jet Ski, but seriously, he was going over the top. His face was glowing red. The man might have had a coronary from one harmless joy ride.

Ariadne didn’t say one word. She stood there in a bright green kaftan over her hot pink bikini and shook her head from time to time. I didn’t know her well, but she looked extremely disappointed, as if we’d stolen the crown jewels or killed a puppy. When I had the chance to defend myself, I explained that it was all my fault.

“I expected more from you, Mackenzie,” was Ariadne’s response. Apparently she didn’t expect anything from me. She didn’t know that I knew her daughter was a criminal. She probably thought I was simply fulfilling my destiny. Like mother, like daughter. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want anything to do with me.

She walked us back to our bungalows. “I’ll have your meals delivered,” she told us. “I want you both to think about what you’ve done. Artie did me a favour and this is how we repay him. What were you thinking?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised her hand to silence me. “No excuses.”

The afternoon was agony. I laid out on the deck pretending not to care that Ariadne was angry. If she wasn’t going to talk to me then I wasn’t going to talk to her. I was relieved when she changed into a bright yellow dress and left for dinner.

I pounded on the wall I shared with Mackenzie. I felt horrible about dragging her into my craziness. She didn’t deserve to be grounded too.

“Go away!” she shouted through the wall.

“I’m really sorry!” I shouted back and pressed my hand on the wood as if I could shove my sincerity through the wall. I thought we’d had fun earlier. There was a glimmer in that moment when I’d thought we might be friends. Not the kind of friends I had at home, who were fun to hang out with, but a real friend with a connection to something that wasn’t just the same school or a love of bikes or swimming. What did my dad say about his two Navy buddies, the ones who’d been his best friends for thirty years? Friends help you move; your best friend will help you move … a body. I had loads of friends, but no partner in crime. And maybe this was the reason. I didn’t know how to be the kind of friend that moved bodies either.

“Mackenzie?” I called again.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted back.

Well, that was pretty clear.

I flicked through my graphic novels. Dad had got me hooked on superheroes. Today I wasn’t focusing on the heroes. My thoughts kept drifting to the baddies. Was my mom a super-villain like Lex Luthor, Cat Woman or Mystique?

I kept thinking about the few details I knew about her. I remembered the picture hidden in Ariadne’s handbag. I looked like my mom. Same hair. Same eyes. Same round face and small nose. I wanted to look at that photo again, but when I came back to the room, Ariadne’s handbag was gone. I noticed she had locked her jewellery box in the safe. My own grandma was suspicious of me. You borrow one Jet Ski and nearly crash it into a million-dollar yacht and you’re the Maldives Most Wanted.

Most wanted. That was funny. I was the most unwanted.

But my mom hadn’t deserted me. The fact that she couldn’t have visited me made me feel better. People went to prison for lots of non-scary things. Didn’t they categorize crimes as white and blue collar? I wondered if there were also fuchsia, teal, coral and chartreuse crimes. Maybe Mom had committed one of the lesser-colour offenses.

I watched an orangey-pink sun disappear at the horizon. My vacation had gone from awkward to awful. I’d never felt more lost and alone in my life. I wondered if this was what Mom felt like – stranded and lonely with no way to escape.

Escape. Maybe that was my only answer. I checked my watch. It would be early morning in Indiana. Artie and Ariadne would be swooning over dessert about now so I could probably sneak into his office unnoticed, call Dad and tell him I wanted to come home.

I dressed in a pair of cut-off jean shorts and shirt that I tied at my waist. It was the closest I could get to super stealth mode being the only short, blonde, white kid on the island. I decided to stroll along the beach that separated the bungalows and the Aquatic Centre. Everyone would be in the dining hall, so I’d approach the lobby from the back.

The sand warmed my feet as I walked along the shore. Away from the lights of the bungalows, the sky came alive with stars. At home the night sky was dotted with faint stars. Here there were more stars than sky. And not only that, they sparkled brighter, as if my home-grown stars were made of glass and these diamonds. I never knew there were so many stars in the universe.

Something furry brushed my leg and I jumped. It was only a cat. I scratched behind its ears. The night was so quiet that the cat’s purring surrounded me.

“You are much better company than that stupid ol’ Mackenzie,” I told the cat, which made her purr louder.

I wished I could go back to yesterday and start again. I wouldn’t snoop or ask too many questions. I was happier thinking my mom could be a fairy princess or simply a donated egg. I would be on my best behaviour and then maybe my grandma wouldn’t completely hate me.

My pity party ended with a bang.

Actually a series of ear-splitting bangs.

The cat bolted, and I lunged for a nearby palm tree.

Screams erupted from the direction of the dining hall.

Was that gunfire? I’d only heard guns on TV and movies.

I must have imagined it. My stupid imagination was in overdrive. Maybe it was movie night, and they were showing a gangster movie.

More shots. More screaming.

That wasn’t a movie. I dived face down into the shrubs.

The island was under attack!

I’d been scared before. When I was four and got lost in a cornfield. That time a snake slithered across my sandals when I went on a nature walk with my Brownie troupe. We had a tornado touch down two blocks from our house, but that wasn’t really scary because Dad was with me. He had constructed a cosy and architecturally sound bunker in our basement. He also sang One Direction songs badly to distract me when it sounded like a train was passing over our house.

Bang! Bang!

There it was again. The blasts shattered the silence and rippled around the island. I crouched behind a palm tree and squeezed my eyes shut tightly.

More screams.

I wasn’t scared; I was terrified. I thought it might be an earthquake until I realized that my body – not the earth below me – was shaking.

The island was deadly quiet. My brain flashed to every horror movie I’d ever watched – zombies, vampires, slashers with butcher knives, clowns with sledge hammers … a slideshow of horrors zoomed by in freakish fast-forward.

Think. WWDD. What Would Dad Do? Fear had whipped my mind into a big gooey marshmallow.

Breathe. That’s what he told me when I wrecked my bike and broke my wrist. I inhaled and exhaled. But I was doing it too quickly. My breath was crashing into itself coming and going. Just breathe. I calmed my panting into big gulping breaths.

I remembered Dad’s advice in case of an intruder: hide. We had determined the best hiding places in every room of our house. The best way to survive was to avoid confrontation. I could do that. I opened my eyes. I slithered through the sand and tunnelled further into the mini rainforest that separated the lobby from the beach. I found a cluster of ferns and flowers and burrowed into the sand as deep as I could. I swept leaves and twigs over me. I clawed at the dirt and ground it into my glow-in-the-dark white skin. I smeared it in on my face and muddied my blonde hair. Dad and Hunger Games had taught me about camouflage.

And then I waited.

And waited.

For what seemed like hours.

I checked my watch. Only fifteen minutes had passed.

This waiting wasn’t easy. Every nanosecond my brain was making up weird and terrible scenarios. Plain ol’ bad guys. Mass murderers. A mutant octopus with a machine-gun for each tentacle. Aliens with blasters that would liquidize human flesh. My body sort of itched and twitched. It wanted to run. I thought of Ariadne, Mackenzie, Luke and Artie. The faces of the old people on the island kept flashing into my mind. I hoped they were hiding too.

My dad told me to hide, but I forgot one important fact: my dad didn’t hide. I’d found his Navy medals. I’d seen pictures of him accepting an honour from the President of the United States. If my dad was here – and oh, how I wished he was – he would do something.

Do something.

Do something.

Do something.

I had to do something. But what?