As soon as Mickey saw the fish, he knew it was his. The water had gone tranquil and turquoise in the afternoon, and from the surface you could see nearly to the bottom. Mickey was on one of the rocky outcroppings that had ejected them from their boat earlier in the day. He stepped to the edge, let out a war whoop, and dove headfirst through the water and toward the fish. Of course, once he was a good ways under water he realized that the fish was not only much larger than it had originally appeared, but that it was a shark. A very small shark—only a foot and a half or so—but it still had frightening teeth inside its little mouth.
Well, Mickey thought, now’s as good a time to go as any, and he threw his arms around the shark and began kicking his way back up to the surface. The shark squirmed mightily in his arms, but once Mickey had gotten some air in his lungs, he put an end to the wrestling match by hitting the shark on the nose with his forehead. This was what his third-grade teacher had told him to do if he ever came face-to-face with a shark, and, absurdly, it worked. Mickey grabbed the stunned creature by its tail and swung it so that its head struck the rock with a fatal thwap! Then he tossed the lifeless fish into the dinghy and rowed back to shore.
He found the camping spot they had chosen earlier. It was on a high, dry space above the beach, with a good view of their ship. The sun was going down, and all along the rocky face of the island little fires were being lit with dry matches by other Ocean Term students. Greta had collected a bunch of palm fronds and sticks, and had managed to make a sort of tent out of them. She was kneeling on the ground and bending over to make sure the sticks she used for poles were secure. There was dirt on her tank top and cutoff jeans and she looked very wild and capable and like she would be down for pretty much anything. She looked primitive, in fact. Looking at her made Mickey feel all randy.
Meanwhile, Arno had collected rocks in a fireplace formation and had formed a burnable pyramid of twigs and kindling. He was blowing on their matches, which had of course been ruined when they all fell out of the boat earlier. He looked really out of his element, and Mickey imagined how much fun it would be to stomp on his head. Then he could carry Greta up to the highest point on the island and they could offer themselves to the gods, or something else very Aztec.
“Guess what’s for dinner,” Mickey called. Arno looked up at him with a seriously pissed expression. When Mickey threw the shark down in front of him, Arno stared at it, and then turned his face up to Mickey bitterly.
“How exactly are we going to cook that, genius?”
“Dude, I don’t know but I don’t think blowing on the matches is going to dry them out.”
“You got a better idea?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“Oh, my God, how did you catch that thing?” Greta came over to them, dusting off her hands. Her hair was a mess, and her face was a little sunburned. But her skin had faded over the night so that she mostly looked like she had a decent tan.
“Well, I …”
“The real question, and what I said in the first place, is how are we going to cook it.”
Mickey snorted, then went over to the fire pit. He took a flattened stick and another round stick and rubbed it up and down with a little bit of dried grass until a tiny flame emerged. He pressed the flaming grass carefully into the pyramid, and slowly but surely the whole thing caught on. Mickey fanned it with his wife-beater, which he’d torn off hours ago to let it dry in the sun.
Mickey smiled at Greta like a kid who’d just busted open the piñata. “A little trick my granddad learned during the Cuban Revolution, when he and Che were hiding from Batista’s army in the Sierra Maestra.”
“That is such a lie.” Arno sneered.
“Maybe, but it’s fun, which is more than I can say for you, you stuck-up little bitch. Now shut up and cook this thing.”
So they set about hacking up the fish with the knife from their survival kit. While they were waiting for the fish to cook, Greta excused herself to pee. Mickey and Arno watched her disappear into the bushes, and then Arno hissed, “Look, out of respect for you I decided to stop going after Suki. Why are you always chasing the girl I’m after?”
“What? You only stopped going after her once she disappeared! Are you insane?”
“I might ask you that question.”
They both stood instinctively and stared at each other. Mickey could feel the fury building inside of him, and even though he’d never been in a fistfight—at least, not with one of the guys in his crew—he felt like he might be about to be in one now.
A bright light shone on them just then, like they were in an episode of Cops or something, and then they heard Stephanie calling “Good work, sailors!” into her bullhorn. A few moments later, she appeared in their campground. She was wearing a very warm-looking jacket and leggings, and the guy who had been driving the boat earlier came along behind her holding a ridiculously powerful flashlight.
“This is quite a setup!” Stephanie exclaimed, going over to Greta’s palm tent and examining it. Mickey and Arno sat down on the log by the fire. She took little notes on a clipboard she carried. She looked over the fire, and the remains of the shark, and made little exaggerated mmmm-hmmmm noises.
Greta came back from the bushes and sat between Mickey and Arno as Stephanie finished her report. She strained her neck to see over the other faculty guy, and if there were anybody else in the group. When Stephanie was done, she looked at them cheerily.
“I can’t tell you how many points you got, but I can tell you your score is very impressive. All right, sailors, good luck getting through the night!”
When she was gone, Mickey leaned across Greta and shoved Arno off the log.