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Let me tell you about the last time I saw my dad.

We were up on deck, rigging our ship to ride out what looked like a perfect storm.

Well, it was perfect if you were the storm. Not so much if you were the people being tossed around the deck like wet gym socks in a washing machine.

We had just finished taking down and tying off the sails so we could run on bare poles.

“Lash off the wheel!” my dad barked to my big brother, Tailspin Tommy. “Steer her leeward and lock it down!”

“On it!”

Tommy yanked the wheel hard and pointed our bow downwind. He looped a bungee cord through the wheel’s wooden spokes to keep us headed in that direction.

“Now get below, boys. Batten down the hatches. Help your sisters man the pumps.”

Tommy grabbed hold of whatever he could to steady himself and made his way down into the deckhouse cabin.

Just then, a monster wave lurched over the starboard side of the ship and swept me off my feet. I slid across the slick deck like a hockey puck on ice. I might’ve gone overboard if my dad hadn’t reached down and grabbed me a half second before I became shark bait.

“Time to head downstairs, Bick!” my dad shouted in the raging storm as rain slashed across his face.

“No!” I shouted back. “I want to stay up here and help you.”

“You can help me more by staying alive and not letting The Lost go under. Now hurry! Get below.”

“B-b-but—”

“Go!”

He gave me a gentle shove to propel me up the tilting deck. When I reached the deckhouse, I grabbed onto a handhold and swung myself around and through the door. Tommy had already headed down to the engine room to help with the bilge pumps.

Suddenly, a giant sledgehammer of salt water slammed into our starboard side and sent the ship tipping wildly to the left. I heard wood creaking. We tilted over so far I fell against the wall while our port side slapped the churning sea.

We were going to capsize. I could tell.

But The Lost righted itself instead, the ship tossing and bucking like a very angry beached whale.

I found the floor and shoved the deckhouse hatch shut. I had to press my body up against it. Waves kept pounding against the door. The water definitely wanted me to let it in.

That wasn’t going to happen. Not on my watch.

I cranked the door’s latch to bolt it tight.

I would, of course, reopen the door the instant my dad finished doing whatever else needed to be done up on deck and made his way aft to the cabin. But, for now, I had to stop The Lost from taking on any more water.

If that was even possible.

The sea kept churning. The Lost kept lurching. The storm kept sloshing seawater through every crack and crevice it could find.

Me? I started panicking. Because I had a sinking feeling (as in “We’re gonna sink!”) that this could be the end.

I was about to be drowned at sea.

Is twelve years old too young to die?

Apparently, the Caribbean Sea didn’t think so.