He held them out, and I put antibiotic ointment and band-aids on his blisters.

“Thanks.”

I picked up the bottle of Benadryl. “This can save your life.”

“How?”

“It’ll stop an allergic reaction.”

“What about that one?” T.J. asked, pointing at a white bottle.

I glanced at him and looked away. “That’s Imodium. It’s an anti-diarrheal.”

He snorted when he heard that.

The life raft inflated with a carbon dioxide canister. When we pushed the button, it filled with gas so quickly we had to jump out of the way.

We attached the roof canopy and rainwater collector. The life raft resembled one of those bounce houses my niece and nephew loved to jump around in, though not nearly as tall.

“This should hold about three gallons of water,” I said, pointing at the water collector. Thirsty again, I hoped the afternoon rain came early.

Nylon flaps hung down on the sides and attached to the life raft with Velcro. Leaving them up during the day would allow light and air inside. The roll-down mesh doors provided a small opening.

We pushed the life raft next to the lean-to and put more wood on the fire before walking to the coconut tree. T.J. cut the husk off a coconut. He split it open by sticking the blade of the knife into the coconut, and hitting the handle with his fist. I caught the water that spilled out in one of the plastic containers.

“I thought it would be sweeter,” T.J. said, after he took a drink.

“Me too.” It tasted slightly bitter, but it wasn’t bad.

T.J. scraped out the meat with the knife. Starving, I wanted to eat every coconut on the ground. We shared five before my aching hunger dissipated. T.J. had one more, and I wondered how much food it took to fill up a sixteen-year-old boy.

The rain came an hour later. T.J. and I got soaked, smiling and cheering, watching the various containers fill to the top. Grateful for the sheer abundance, I drank until I couldn’t hold any more, the water sloshing around in my stomach when I moved.

Within an hour, we both peed again. We celebrated by eating another coconut and two breadfruits.

“I like coconut better than breadfruit,” I said.

“Me, too. Although now that we have a fire, maybe we can roast it and see if it tastes better.”

We gathered more firewood and found long sticks for spearing fish. We threw the tarp over the top of the lean-to and tied it on with the rope for added protection from the rain.

T.J. carved five tally marks on the trunk of a tree. Neither of us mentioned another plane.

At bedtime, we built the fire up as high as we could without burning down the lean-to. T.J. crawled into the life raft. I went in after him, wearing the shirt he’d given me for a nightgown. I closed the roll-down door behind me; at least we’d have some protection from the mosquitoes.

We lowered the nylon flaps and attached them with the Velcro fasteners. I spread the blankets out and put the seat cushions down for pillows. The blankets were scratchy but they’d keep us warm when the sun went down and the temperature dropped. The seat cushions were thin and smelled of mildew, but it was luxuriously comfortable compared to sleeping on the ground.

“This is awesome,” T.J. said.

“I know.”

A bit smaller than a double bed, sharing the life raft with T.J. would leave only a few inches between us. I was too tired to care.

“Good night, T.J.”

“Good night, Anna.” He sounded drowsy already, and he rolled onto his side and passed out.

Seconds later, I did too.

I woke up in the middle of the night to check the fire. Only glowing embers remained, so I added more wood and poked it with a stick, sending sparks into the air. When the fire burned strong again, I went back to bed.

T.J. woke up when I lay down beside him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. I put more wood on the fire. Go back to sleep.”

I closed my eyes, and we slept until the sun came up.

Chapter 8 – T.J.

I woke up with a hard-on.

I usually did, and it wasn’t like I had any control over it. Now that we weren’t almost dead, my body must have decided all systems were a go. Sleeping so close to a girl, especially one that looked like Anna, pretty much guaranteed I’d wake up with a boner.

She lay on her side facing me, still asleep. The cuts on her face were healing and lucky for her, none of them looked deep enough to leave a scar. She’d kicked off her blanket sometime during the night, and I checked out her legs which was the wrong thing to do considering what was going on in my shorts. If she opened her eyes, she’d catch me staring so I crawled out of the life raft and thought about geometry until my hard-on went away.

Anna woke up ten minutes later. We ate coconut and breadfruit for breakfast, and I brushed my teeth afterward, rinsing with rainwater.

“Here,” I said, handing the toothbrush and toothpaste to her.

“Thanks.” She squeezed some toothpaste on it and brushed her teeth.

“Maybe there will be another plane today,” I said.

“Maybe,” Anna said. But she didn’t look at me when she said it.

“I want to look around some more. See what else is on this island.”

“We’ll have to be careful,” she said. “We don’t have shoes.”

I gave her a pair of my socks so her feet wouldn’t be completely bare. I ducked behind the lean-to and changed into my jeans, to protect my legs from the mosquitoes, and we walked into the woods.

The humid air settled on my skin. I passed through a swarm of gnats, keeping my mouth closed and swatting them away with my hands. We walked farther inland and the smell of rotting plants grew stronger. The leaves overhead blocked almost all the sunlight and the only sound was the snapping of branches and our breathing as we inhaled the heavy air. Sweat drenched my clothes. We continued in silence, and I wondered how long it would take us to clear the trees and come out on the other side.

We came upon it fifteen minutes later. Anna trailed slightly behind me, so I spotted it first. Stopping short, I turned around and motioned for her to hurry up.

She caught up to me and whispered, “What is that?”

“I don’t know.”

A wooden shack, roughly the size of a single-wide mobile home, stood fifty feet ahead. Maybe someone else lived on the island. Someone who hadn’t bothered with an introduction. We walked toward it cautiously. The front door hung open on rusty hinges, and we peered inside.

“Hello?” Anna said.

No one answered, so we stepped over the threshold onto the wooden floor. There was another door on the far side of the windowless room, but it was closed. There wasn’t any furniture. I nudged a pile of blankets in the corner, and we jumped back when the bugs scattered.

When my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I noticed a large, metal toolbox on the floor. I bent down and opened it. It held a hammer, several packages of nails and screws, a tape measure, pliers, and a hand saw. Anna found some clothes. She picked up a shirt and the sleeve fell off.

“I thought maybe we could use that, but never mind,” she said, making a face.

I opened the door to a second room, and we crept in slowly. Empty potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers littered the floor. There was a wide-mouthed plastic container lying next to them. I picked it up and peered inside. Empty. Whoever lived here probably used it to collect water. Maybe if we’d explored the island a little more, walked farther and found the shack earlier, we wouldn’t have been forced to drink the pond water. Maybe we would have been on the beach when the plane flew overhead.

Anna looked at the container in my hand. She must have made the same connection because she said, “What’s done is done, T.J. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”