The sky was so dark it might as well have been nighttime. The only light was from the constant lightning flashes that made Maya think of a broken strobe light—uneven and random bursts of bright in the dark. The rain was heavy and only getting heavier. The surfboards were doing next to nothing in the way of protecting the two girls. The wind was pushing the rain at different angles each moment. First it would pound on their right sides, then the wind would shift, and their left sides would get soaked.
Maya stood up, fighting against her dizziness and the beating rain, to try and arrange the boards in a way that might keep them a little drier. First, she tried to prop them into the sand at an angle so they would be a little more like a tent, but the wind blew the two boards straight out of the ground. If they hadn’t had their ankle leashes still attached, they would have lost the boards forever. The fact that Paige’s leash was attached to her right leg was an unforeseen blessing. Maya shuddered as she thought about how painful it would have been for her friend’s broken left leg to be jerked in the direction of the flying board.
She tried a few other ways of arranging the boards, but the result was always that they either flew away or provided little shelter. In the end, they both decided the most practical thing was just to lie on their backs holding the boards over their bodies. At least that way, they could be sure they wouldn’t lose their only means of getting back to shore.
It wasn’t just the rain that was a problem. Some of the waves were big enough to wash over the sandbar. Every few minutes, they’d get slammed with a wall of water, not big enough to push them into the ocean but definitely big enough to cause Paige significant pain. Maya saw Paige clench her jaw and slam her eyes shut every time it happened. She’d breathe deeply for a few moments, but when she noticed Maya looking, she did her best to look like she was perfectly fine. It was obvious she wasn’t.
The minutes dragged on. The intense pain in Maya’s head was becoming more of a dull ache, but Maya became more and more concerned for her friend. Paige was turning pale.
“Maybe we can make a splint or something,” Maya suggested.
“Out of what?” Paige asked through clenched teeth.
“My board. I’ll break it apart if it’ll help.”
“Maybe if I’d just sprained it, but you saw it. The bone needs to be reset. Do you know how to do that?”
Maya shook her head.
“Then I’d rather you didn’t touch it,” Paige said flatly.
Helplessness washed over Maya. The feeling reminded her of the fourth grade. There had been a class hamster, Scoots. Each kid got to take Scoots home for a weekend to care for and play with the little guy. During the weekend he spent at Maya’s house, she got home from surfing with her parents on Saturday and went into her room to feed the hamster. He was just lying there, breathing but not moving. She put food in his dish, but the hamster didn’t seem to care. All of Sunday, she sat at her desk with her chin on her hands watching the tiny animal in its cage. Scoots didn’t move. He didn’t eat. He didn’t drink water.
There was a part of Maya that knew what was happening, even if she didn’t want to accept it. She’d felt embarrassed and ashamed then—the same way she felt now on the sandbar. She was unable to help, paralyzed by circumstances beyond her control, forced to just wait for the outcome.
On Monday, after that weekend in fourth grade, Maya had brought Scoots’ cage back to the teacher, but the hamster wasn’t in it. Maya tried to shake the memory. Paige is going to be fine, she told herself. But even as she did, Maya wasn’t sure she believed it.
“I’m going to try again,” Maya said.
“Try what again?”
“I’m going to try for the shore.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Paige sounded equally confused and angry. “The storm’s gotten ten times worse! There’s no way you’ll make it!”
“You need help, and this thing isn’t letting up!”
Paige grabbed her hand. “You’re not going out there! I don’t care if I have to tackle you, broken leg or not! You’re not doing it!” She paused for a second, then gave Maya a sad little smile. “All in favor say ‘aye!’” she shouted over the rain and ocean.
Maya shook her head and started grinding her teeth, but she stayed put. “Aye.”
The storm seemed to have reached its peak. It was bad, but at least it wasn’t getting any worse. Anything worse would be a hurricane, Maya thought. She kept one hand holding her board in place and rhythmically pounded the other one on the sand. The pounding gave her something to focus on other than the lightning, the rain, and her friend’s broken leg. There wasn’t anything she could do, at least not right now.
Another flash of lightning lit up the dark water in front of them. Maya thought she saw something. The strobe effect of the storm made it hard to see clearly, but for just a second, she was sure it was there. It was floating farther out, somewhere between the sandbar and the coast, and even the briefest sight of it made Maya’s skin crawl and gave her the sensation of a centipede crawling up and down her spine.
She could have sworn she saw a shark’s fin cutting through the top of a wave.