“Okay,” Paige said once they were out of earshot of Kai and his friends. “So where are we actually going?” They were walking down the boardwalk that lined the beach.
“Ripper’s Cove,” Maya said flatly.
“You’re not serious.” Paige stared hard at Maya, who was avoiding eye contact.
“I am serious. He thinks he’s better than us, so let’s prove he’s not by surfing somewhere he’s too afraid to go.”
“This is stupid. Like, really stupid.” Paige groaned. “There’s a good reason he’s afraid to go there.”
“Yeah,” Maya said. “He’s not good enough.”
“I’m kind of thinking it has more to do with the sharp, dangerous rocks everywhere,” Paige replied.
“We’ll be fine.” Maya was walking fast again, but this time it was out of anger, not excitement. “We’re both better surfers than he is. We can surf Ripper’s Cove, no problem. As long as we’re careful, neither of us will get hurt.”
Ripper’s Cove was actually named Ripley’s Cove, at least that’s what it was called on every map of the area. But none of the locals ever called it by its real name. The cove was about a mile down the beach from where Kai and his friends were surfing, and no one would be there. No one was ever there. It was too dangerous. Unlike where Kai was practicing, the ocean floor at Ripper’s Cove was mostly sharp, jagged rock rather than soft sand. Everyone in town called it Ripper’s Cove because anyone who surfed there was pretty likely to get shredded by the rocks, at least according to the legend. Maya had never actually surfed there herself.
“Megan Wolf broke her arm there last year,” Paige said. She was more or less pleading with Maya to turn back. “Mike Franssen slashed open his leg! He had to get thirty-seven stitches!”
“Megan and Mike are amateurs,” Maya said, waving away Paige’s concern. “They’re not even as good as Kai, and we’re both better than he is.”
“Maybe you are, but—”
“We’ll be fine. Besides, they weren’t careful. They went to Ripper’s Cove just for bragging rights—to say they did it.”
“Uhh,” Paige said. “Isn’t that kind of what we’re doing?”
“No!” Maya said a little too defensively. “We’re . . . making the most of summer.” Even she had to admit her argument was pretty thin. “We’re going to Ripper’s Cove. All in favor say ‘aye.’”
Paige rolled her eyes. “Nay! Let’s just go somewhere else. There are a dozen places to surf around here. It’s not like Kai’s going to check. Let’s not surf there and say we did.”
“Paige,” Maya said, turning around to face her friend. “We’ll be fine. As long as we’re careful and we head out beyond the rocks, we’ll be perfectly safe. Besides, if anything happens to one of us, the other one will be there to help.”
“Yeah,” Paige admitted. “That’s true.”
Maya nodded, satisfied with the answer and turned around to keep walking.
“Will you stop walking so fast?” Paige said, softer this time than before.
“Yeah,” Maya said, slowing down. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I’m just mad.”
“Don’t let Kai get to you.”
Maya didn’t say anything. She just kept walking, although now she made more of an effort to walk at a reasonable pace.
Kai had been like this for years. Even Maya had to admit that he’d earned the right to be proud of his skills. Back when they were ten years old, Kai had entered a competition that was supposed to be for ages twelve to fifteen and won the thing. He nearly got the trophy too, but one of the kids he’d just barely edged out tattled on him to the judges. He’d been disqualified, unable to go home with the trophy that was nearly as tall as he was, but that hadn’t stopped his ego from inflating.
Even though Paige didn’t think of herself as the strongest surfer, Maya knew she was still good enough not to injure herself on the rocks. Kai might be afraid of Ripper’s Cove, but Maya wasn’t. And there’s no reason Paige should be either, she thought.
“Did you hear about those two windsurfers?” Paige said. She was obviously trying to steer the conversation away from Kai.
“Huh?” Maya said. She hadn’t been paying attention.
“Those two windsurfers. Just a couple days ago.” Paige said again.
“No. What happened? They get hurt?”
“One of them, yeah,” Paige said, a little concern in her voice. “Shark.”
“Seriously?” Maya stopped for a second.
“Yup,” Paige replied. “Apparently it came out of nowhere.”
“Are they all right?” Maya had heard of only a few shark attacks around the area, and most of them had been minor—smaller sharks that couldn’t do any real damage. They’d bite someone and freak out everyone at the beach, but the real danger was minimal.
“One of them is fine,” Paige said. “But the other one is still in the hospital. Apparently he got his board snapped in half and his leg chewed up pretty badly. I heard the shark was huge.”
“What kind of shark was it?”
Paige got a serious look on her face. “Bull shark.”
Maya felt a shiver go down her spine. Movies and TV shows with scary shark scenes always show a great white because they’re so big. But most suffers know great whites prefer open water, so they don’t usually come around the shore. Bull sharks are something else entirely. They are only about a third as big but five times meaner. Their smaller size allows them to come closer to shore just to rip and thrash at anything unfortunate enough to be in the water at the time.
Bull sharks terrified Maya.
Her uncle had accidentally hooked one while fishing just off the coast once. It had been strong enough to pull him straight out of the boat by the fishing pole. Luckily he’d managed to make it back onto the boat before the shark could attack. “I lost a pole, but I kept my life,” he said when he told the story to Maya’s family. “Pure luck that I’m alive.”
“They’re lucky,” Maya said about the two windsurfers.
“Yeah,” Paige replied. “That’s what they said too.”
Maya felt another shiver. “I changed my mind. Let’s talk about school.”
Paige laughed. The girls chatted about their schedules for the upcoming year. Paige had already committed hers to memory: times, teachers, classroom numbers. Maya barely remembered what classes she was taking. But from what Paige was telling her, it sounded like they were going to have at least a few classes together this year.
It took a little over twenty minutes of walking for the two friends to reach Ripper’s Cove. There was no formal entrance to the cove, so they had to hop the wooden fence of the boardwalk, cross some grass, and walk down an embankment just to get there.
Even the beach of the cove wasn’t particularly inviting. Most of the sand was covered by long, flat pieces of shale rock. With their shoes on, they’d be fine, but once they took them off, they’d have to pay attention to where they stepped. The edges of the rocks were razor sharp. But the serious danger was when they were in the water. Maya knew that larger pieces of the same sharp shale were hidden under the waves. And they might be tilted at angles, ready to impale whatever fell on them. For a second, she wanted to scrap the plan—turn around and either surf somewhere else or even do something else.
No, she thought, pushing the thought from her brain. It’s the last weekend of surfing. We came all the way here. We’re doing this.
She walked confidently onto the beach, past the sign that read:
RIPLEY’S COVE
ROCKY AREA. SURFING NOT ADVISED. ENTER WATER AT YOUR OWN RISK.