Cold.
The water hit with such a shock of cold that Cass thought she was going to pedal up and out of it again like some cartoon character. Instead, she flailed and splashed and smashed one arm against a piling as salt water poured into her raincoat and filled her shoes.
She gave a hard kick, righting herself and pushing her head above water.
"How do you like it?" Jason yelled.
She spun until she could make out his form, black against gray sky, striped by the web of hair covering her eyes. "What?" she sputtered. Water dragged at her coat, at her legs, as she tried to stay afloat, and he was asking how she liked it? A wave of fury slammed through her. "What the hell are you talking about?"
She managed to drag one arm from the water long enough to shove wet hair out of her face. Jason became clearer: black hair dark above his yellow raincoat, arms crossed over his chest.
"I asked how you like it, going for a swim in this water."
She was open-mouthed with disbelief. It was a bad idea; a surge lifted her and slapped salt water into her mouth. Bile burned her throat as she coughed and all the while she was still flailing at the water, fighting the drag of shoes and clothes to keep afloat. She should kick them off-that's what you were supposed to do if you fell into the ocean with your clothes on-but she was only a dozen feet from the dock. Besides, it was her only coat.
Jason watched her the way she might watch a barracuda. "Just tell me what the hell you want with me."
Cass yanked at her sleeves as she sculled, freeing first one arm, then the other. Instantly, swimming became easier.
"I know you're following me," he said.
"Following you?" Was everyone on this island crazy? She gave a mighty kick and tossed her coat onto the dock. She wasn't cold anymore. She was hot, pulsing with anger instead of blood. Jason just stood there. What. The. Hell. "Isn't this the point when you apologize profusely and offer to help me out of the water?"
"I nearly drowned last week, you know that? And now you show up here as if nothing happened. Is this all some sick joke or-"
"Last week, I was in Argentina."
For the first time, he faltered. "What?"
"I. Was. In. Argentina." She spoke slowly, enunciating each syllable. "We sailed in last night. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay?"
"No frickin' way. I saw you."
A few strokes took her to the stern of the Andiamo, where a ladder extended into the water. It was surprisingly difficult to pull herself up: her clothes dragged at her, heavy with water, and her forearm ached where she'd hit it. She bit her lip, determined not to show how much it hurt.
Jason glared at her. "I want some answers!"
A shudder began deep in her gut and trembled through her entire body. She was shaking with shock and anger and so furious she hardly dared speak-furious at this jerk who'd sent her into the bay without so much as an apology, furious at herself for caring, for thinking he was cute and might be nice.
Jason opened his mouth again.
No. Freaking. Way. She couldn't stand to hear another word.
"Get lost," she said. When he didn't move, she lunged at the side of the boat. "Go on! Get out of here!"
He stared.
Energy drained out of her, leaving her feeling like a marionette with her strings cut. "Go away," Cass said again. Then, with what little dignity she could muster, she retreated below deck.
#
"Cass?"
She sat up so quickly that she banged her head on her cabin's low roof. Her heart hammered triple time, sweat soaked her shirt, and she could feel her hair sticking in tight coils to the sides of her face.
"Cass! Come out here!"
With a rush of relief, Cass recognized Jen's voice. She crawled out of bed, dodging the pile of wet clothes she'd left on the floor, and made her way to the deck, where the rain had settled into a gentler rhythm against the boat. Beyond, a million tiny pockmarks colored the water's surface silvery-gray. The air had cooled in the last hour or so, enough that Cass shivered when it touched her sweaty neck and back.
Jen moved back as she climbed through the hatch opening. "Did you have a nice morning?"
Just like Jen, Cass thought, not to notice that her hair was sticking every direction because she'd slept on it wet. She probably hadn't noticed the pile of wet clothes, either. Jen tended to be oblivious to things like that. Cass imagined herself explaining the morning's events-Joe's weird warning, Evie's story, Jason shoving her into the water-and settled for a shrug. Jen was already worried about coming back to this island; give her any more reasons to worry and she'd be unbearable.
"I heard you stopped by the Mercantile," Jen went on. Her tone held an implied question.
"Yeah," Cass said. "I picked up some groceries."
"You met Joe, then? Did you talk much with him?"
"Not really." Cass hugged herself against the air's chill, wondering where this conversation was going. "Why?"
Jen bent to straighten the tail of the rope that tied them to the dock, which was already wound into a neat coil. "I didn't realize he was still around until I stopped by the Mercantile to get the power switched on. He said you'd already taken care of it."
Cass thought again of Jason pushing her off the dock. Yeah, she'd taken care of it.
Then Jen's face brightened with that smile that made everyone love her, even if she did have a tendency to forget everything but whales and acoustics and her special fluid-filled microphones and monitoring systems. "I have a present for you."
Cass followed her pointing finger to the dock, where a patch of candy-apple red gleamed beside the nearest light post, so bright and cheerful that she wondered why she hadn't noticed it immediately. It was a cruising bike, the kind with tall handle bars, chrome fenders, and a body of curving red steel. She looked from it to Jen and back again before vaulting over the side of the Andiamo. "It's perfect. Fantastically, amazingly perfect!"
Jen pushed a strand of wet hair off her forehead. "I ordered it as soon as we decided to come. I figured you'd need it, since there are no cars on the island."
"No cars?" Cass's gaze traveled to the marina and the boat-filled lot beside it. She didn't see a single car or truck and didn't remember any from the gravel road beyond. "Seriously?"
"Rodger's Island isn't on the ferry route, so everything has to be brought over by private boat. You'll see a few four wheelers and dirt bikes around town, but when I was here last, most people walked or biked. I figured there would still be a bike at the Piper Center that I could use on days I don't need the whale boat." Jen jerked her chin toward shore, where a scuffed-looking mountain bike leaned against the fence. "But I thought you would need some kind of transportation, too."
There were lots of cool things about living most of her life on a sailboat. Cass could winch a jib with the best of them, read tide and current charts, and her weather sense was even better than Jen's. She'd been nosed by dolphins and orcas, swum with angel fish and sea turtles, and she could do pretty much whatever she wanted for school as long as she stayed on top of her online math class. But the flip side was that she missed a lot of stuff other kids took for granted: soccer games, birthday parties-the kind with other kids, not just Jen and a few field scientists-and, of course, learning to ride a bike.
Cass ran her fingers along the bike's gleaming curves. The paint was the bright red of a macaw's plumage, with white detailing and chrome handle bars. It had a bell, two baskets mounted behind the seat, even streamers dangling from the handlebars.
"Streamers?" she asked.
Jen's smile broadened. "I never got you a bike before. I wanted to do it right."
The bike's weight in her hands filled Cass with an aching mix of happiness and hope. It was the first thing she'd ever owned that belonged so completely to the land. It felt like a promise.
She grasped the handlebars more firmly and started wheeling it toward shore. "Let's give it a try."
Jen hesitated. "It's raining, Cass." She held up one hand, a sheepish expression on her face. "Besides, I don't have a helmet for you. And I need to go back to work. I spent all morning putting this bike together and I still need to make a run to check the sea monitors. They haven't had their recording chips replaced for a month and no one's cleaned the sensors since Peter's accident."
"I see." Cass's voice fell flat, but she did see. If any one of the monitors stopped working, the data collected by the entire assembly would be compromised. It just meant that she was on her own again.
It wouldn't usually bother her. In fact, she'd wanted time to explore the island-it was just that after the morning's events, she wasn't yet ready to strike out on her own again.
"Do you have plans for the afternoon?" Jen asked.
Cass shook her head. "Only schoolwork, which," she added, "I shouldn't have to do. This is North America. Remember summer vacation?"
Jen grimaced; it was an old argument. "We won't be here long enough for you to change your schedule, but you could take the afternoon off and come out on the boat with me."
"And do my schoolwork?" Cass asked. She held a hand out to the rain, which still beat a steady rhythm on the dock. "My papers will melt."
"No." Jen hesitated. "Just come with me. You can help me check monitors."
------
A/N
Up to 36 reads already? So awesome! If you're liking the story, please let me know. If you're enjoying this, please come back next week to read more. And vote :). More to come next Tuesday.
Cheryl
PS-Good luck to everyone taking finals this week!!!!