Luna lunged for Adri’s throat. He dodged her and dropped into a taekwondo stance.
How many fighting styles did he know?
I stepped between them just in time to stop Luna from trying to grab his neck. She knocked into me hard. I nearly fell.
“Luna, stop!” I shouted.
Esme was crouched down, head in her hands. This time, she couldn’t or wouldn’t help me.
“Please!” I begged.
Luna drew back, looking like thunder. She stamped over to Esme, helped her up and stormed off with her in hand.
I staggered after them, glancing back to see Adri 128walking some distance behind.
Why was he bothering to follow us?
My wristband beeped. I looked down at the arrow flashing on its golden surface. Right. We were all headed in the same direction. I just hoped that Adri would stay as far away from Luna as possible, for all our sakes.
A mix of emotions whirled inside. In case it wasn’t clear before, I knew now that Adri would sacrifice anything and anyone to rescue his parents, including us.
As betrayed as I felt, was he really wrong? Wouldn’t I do anything for my family? But to hurt someone else to save them: that was the problem. Mum always said, “Two wrongs didn’t make a right.”
My head and heart fought for answers. What hurt most was that I still felt bad for Adri. That night in the samaan tree, over a year ago, when we were on the run from the beast, he had told me about his mum’s fight with cancer, their move from Trinidad to Queens, New York, and how he didn’t fit in at his school in Manhattan.
Scholarship kid, Indian kid from the Caribbean, kid with the weird accent: there were so many 129reasons to feel like he didn’t belong.
Talking with him had made me realise that I’d always felt out of place myself – at school and in the new places we’d moved to because of Da’s job, and now Jake’s. I was even the odd one out in our blended family. I’d only ever felt like I belonged in certain moments, like going camping with Da, swimming, or doing gymnastics, and spending time with Adri when we were friends.
Now, even that was gone.
I picked up the pace, battling anger toward him, the Council, and myself.
I couldn’t give up on him, but if things kept going like this, we might never find our way back.
I dashed tears from my eyes. This was no time to cry. I had to be ready for whatever the Council was going to do next. It was time to focus on what was going on around me.
We were walking along craggy ground, with a ridge covered in thick scrub running on one side of us, and on the other, a small lake dotted with large blue herons and white-headed terns. The water had a briny smell. The sea couldn’t be far away. Maybe the test was waiting for us there. 130
The arrow led us to a barely visible track that cut to the top of the ridge. The vegetation was thick. Luna and Esme struggled through first, their backpacks barely making it past the clinging brambles. As they pressed on, I lost sight of them among the low, criss-crossed branches.
They were probably still mad at me for protecting Adri. I could hear him crashing through the brush behind me, but I didn’t stop. I wasn’t ready to face him.
Suddenly, from up ahead, I heard a shout.
“Luna! Es!” I screamed.
Were they in trouble? I looked back and Adri was nowhere to be seen.
Great. I had to do this myself.
I shoved and broke my way through the branches, forcing my way to the top of the ridge. By the time I got there, I was heaving; covered with dirt, twigs and sweat. What I saw snatched my breath away.
Esme and Luna stood motionless to my right. Stretching out beyond the ridge beneath us was a wide lake: every square inch covered in pink, fluttering flamingoes.
I had never seen that many birds in one place. 131There seemed to be thousands of them, so that the lake was more pink than blue. They stood in the water, completely relaxed. Their long, stick-like legs, swan-like bodies and arched, elegant necks led up to a white patch just below their round, yellow eyes. Their curved, black-tipped beaks bent gracefully down to the water to grab their next meal – most likely the pink shrimp and algae that gave them their signature colour.
Some of them even balanced on one leg like they did in pictures!
Adri broke out of the bushes next to me, huffing and pouring sweat.
“Shh,” I warned him not to disturb the birds.
But his eyes weren’t even on the flamingoes and now I could see why. Beyond the lake, was the sea, separated by a thin green belt of grass and a narrow strip of road.
The road was long. It stretched horizontally to the right, along the coast, following the sandy shoreline.
As my eyes followed that line, the landscape became even more strange. The flamingo lake was in a great expanse of flat land, separated from the sea by that long ribbon of road. 132
This land was anything but ordinary. The flats were divided into massive, sharp-edged plots, like giant rectangular puzzle pieces. Some of the plots were green, others were orange, but as we looked to the right, they became different shades of pink: some neon, others close to purple, and still others that were almost white.
“They’re ponds,” Adri said under his breath.
Somehow, he had managed to get binoculars out of his backpack and was peering down at the multicoloured flats.
“Look,” Luna gasped.
I leaned forward to see what was so shocking that it had interrupted her rage at Adri, even for a second.
“What are those?” Esme wondered.
Adri gave a low whistle, while my mouth hung open in silence.
All the way to our right, in the distance, beyond the brightly-coloured flats, were what looked like towering pyramids by the sea. Unlike the ones in Egypt, they were a glaring, spotless white, almost blinding in the light of the sun.
Something white from the sea …
I knew what the pyramids were made of. 133
“I know where we are!” I blurted out.
In one breathless rush, I told them everything Da had told me about the Bonaire pekelmeer or salt lakes, and the colourful salt flats where large crystals were formed from seawater by the heat of the sun. Those fifty-foot pyramids in the distance, were each made of tons of salt, ready to ship to people around the world.
There was stunned silence as we took in what we were seeing. It was so much bigger than I had imagined.
“Well, why are we standing here?” Esme broke out excitedly. “Let’s go see the flamingoes!”
Their feathers matched one of the colours in her hair. She got ready to slide down to meet them.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I jumped in reluctantly. “I think that area is a sanctuary. If we go near the birds, we might scare them into leaving this place and never coming back.
“She’s right,” Adri agreed with me, for once.
Luna screwed up her face at him. “Who died and put you in charge?”
Just then one of the flamingoes raised its neck. A triangular beam of red light came out of its left eye and scanned Esme head to toe. 134
“What …?” Luna grabbed her as we scrambled back into the shelter of the bushes.
“Intruders! Intruders!” the flamingo announced in a robotic voice, while its neighbours flapped and squawked.
Some of the flamingoes flew away to safety. Others rustled and honked in protest, crowding together at the far side of the lake.
Thankfully, when we ducked down, the robot-flamingo stopped its warning.
“Animatronic animals for surveillance and security,” Adri hissed. “Courtesy the Council.”
I had to admit that I could see good uses for that kind of technology, like protecting sanctuaries and catching poachers. But now, we were the ones in danger of being exposed.
“How do we get over there?” I asked anxiously.
The arrow on my wristband was pointing toward the sea on the other side of the flamingo lakes and salt flats.
Luna decided: “We’ll have to walk around the long way, to the road.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right.
So, we stayed crouched in the brush and used the 135bent trees as cover until we made the trek along the top of the ridge.
Finally, we were a good distance away from the flamingoes.
Only then did we go down to the salt flats. We crossed on narrow strips of ground between the ponds. Adri was right. They were covered in shallow water. I could even see the crystals forming in some of them. Their colour probably came from the same algae and tiny creatures that made the flamingoes pink.
We walked for what felt like forever. One thing was for sure, the salt flats were even bigger than they looked. The sun beat down hard, and the heat of the ground made it feel like we were walking on hot coals. I had never seen anything like this before, far less walked across it. The pink flats stretched out for miles around us, shimmering in the glare of the sun.
At first, I welcomed the sea breeze, but after a while, it felt like I had salt everywhere – crusting my face, stiffening my hair and burning into my skin. Without any kind of shade, there was no protection from the sun. I thought of the enslaved people, a few generations ago, who were forced to work in this stinging heat day in and day out. Da had told me 136that not far from here, the white one-room, slanted-roof houses some of them had lived in, stood empty at the edge of the sea.
These thoughts filled my heart with an ache beyond exhaustion, mixed with a growing sense of pride. These mums, dads and children had survived impossible odds. If they had made it off these salt flats, so could I.
“Thank God!” Esme exhaled.
Adri groaned in relief.
Finally, we’d reached the end of the flats.
We rushed across a strip of grass and the narrow, paved road, onto the deserted beach. The arrow on my wristband flashed faster: a signal. There, tied to a stake in the sand, were two small canoes, dugout and shaped from tall trees. Inside each boat, there were two oars.
“You mean …?” I asked, but the answer was obvious.
The Council expected us to row out to sea.
The others looked as unhappy as I was.
“Are these things safe?” Esme asked skeptically.
“They better be,” was Luna’s matter-of-fact answer. “I didn’t come all the way out here to drown.”
Hysterical laughter burst from my lips. 137
“I’d rather stay on land, but according to this,” I tapped my wristband, “the door’s out there.” I flung my hand toward the sea. “And it shuts in about an hour.”
Adri was already inspecting the canoes. They were clearly built for two.
Luna walked past him as if he weren’t there.
“Be careful,” she warned me. Her thick eyebrows lowered as she helped Esme into the nearest boat.
That meant Adri and I were together.
“You’ll be okay,” Esme said hopefully as they pushed off, sunburn starting to form on her freckled skin.
I didn’t have much of a choice.
“Still want to do it all by yourself?” I asked Adri angrily, climbing into the canoe behind him and grabbing an oar.
He ignored me and started rowing. I pulled my oar roughly through the water on the other side. The boat twisted off-course.
“Hey!” Adri protested, “We need a rhythm here.”
“Now you want to work together?” I pushed back in a rage. “The Council took your memories. Well, why won’t you work with us to get them back?”
I couldn’t stop the hurt from pouring out of my 138mouth. “You know what you are? Selfish! You sold us out. You don’t care what happens to the rest of us!”
Adri had stopped rowing. I dragged my oar through the water, twisting the boat even more.
He exploded, “I don’t care! Don’t you get it? I don’t care what you think. I just want my parents back.”
His face twisted with anger. We weren’t going anywhere.
I refused to let him see me cry. Instead, I rowed furiously, spinning us around.
“Fine! I get that you want to save them! But you think this is the way? Betray us and do exactly what the Council says? They lie for a living. They’re never going to do what they promised. If you would just trust me, we could help your parents!”
“Why would I trust you?” he shouted. “I don’t even know you!”
I stopped rowing and stared at him numbly.
“You’re right; you don’t. And I don’t know you anymore either …”
Before Adri looked away, I saw something like tears in his eyes.
“Fine,” his voice cracked. “Great. We don’t know each other. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. 139But can we get out of here now?”
“Fine.” I whispered.
Maybe I’d gone too far. Was any of this really his fault? I just wished he wasn’t so stubborn. At least that was one thing the old and new Adri’s had in common.
I cracked a small smile, then bit back a sob. Maybe he was still in there, somewhere. But this wasn’t the time to find out.
We picked up our oars and started to row. It was time to move the boat forward.