Shipwreck Island (3 page)

Sarah held up her plastic shopping bag. “But she just paid for my stuff with it! She must have taken it from you and—”

“Sarah!” her dad interrupted. “Yvonna didn't take my card. She has her own.”

“At your bank?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, at my bank. From my account.”

Sarah stomped her foot. “How could you do that? Give her our money like that!”

“Listen to me, young lady.” Her dad stuck his finger at her. “Yvonna is my wife. We've been married nearly a month already. Of course I'm going to share our money—my money—with her. What's mine is hers. And Marco's and Nacho's. That is how marriages work.”

Tears welled up in Sarah's eyes, and her throat felt thick. She whirled around, striding away from their gate. How could he do that? How could he trust a virtual
stranger
like that? She'd read about these kinds of things happening, people meeting people online, marrying them, then stealing all their money.

She wiped a tear off her cheek as she found an empty gate and took a chair that faced the windows. How could everything have changed so much? How could her dad have let it change?

She dropped her things on the floor and unzipped the small front pocket on her backpack. She pulled out the ziplock of her carry-on liquids and took out the perfume flacon that had been her mom's. She unscrewed the top and held it to her nose, breathing in her mother. She whispered, “I miss you. I miss you so much.”

Her dad sat down beside her, and she quickly shoved the perfume back in the ziplock and stuffed it in her backpack. He put a hand on her leg. “Sweetie, I know this is hard. It's hard to move on.”

She wiped her nose and said, “You don't seem to be having any trouble.”

Her dad sighed.

Sarah kicked her backpack. “It's like you don't even miss Mom.”

Her dad leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, then stared out the window. “I have missed her for six years.”

“Then how could you marry someone else?” Sarah sniffled.

“You don't think it was hard for me? To see her get sick and…” He trailed off, staring out the window for a moment. “We had so many plans for the three of us. She wanted to take you back to Japan, to show you where she lived when she was little.” He shook his head. “For a long time, I could barely function. It was all I could do to go to work, pay the bills.” He stared down at his feet for a moment. Then he raised his head and smiled at her. “But I had you to think about. And we got through it, right?”

Sarah nodded. “I thought we were doing fine. I don't get why you have to bring
them
into our life.”

“You probably won't understand until you're older. For now, I guess … you have to trust me. Trust that I know what is best for our family.” He put an arm around her and she leaned into his shoulder.

She had gotten used to their small family. Being with him, just the two of them, felt right. Why wasn't it enough for him? Sarah let herself pretend it was still just the two of them, that there was not an evil stepmother and her two children waiting for them at Gate 86. Trouble was, pretending wasn't as easy as it used to be. Eventually, she would have to get up and follow her dad, back to their most unwelcome new family. She asked, “But what if this isn't the best thing for our family?”

He patted her arm. “That's what this trip is for. So we can all get to know each other, figure out how this thing is going to work.”

And suddenly, just like that, Sarah saw a light at the end of that deep, dark tunnel she'd been heading for.
The trip.
What if it didn't work out? What if all the trip did was prove that the Murillos
were not
the best thing for their family? Maybe she should stop looking at the trip as a drag and look at it as an opportunity: an opportunity to get her life back to the way it was. She sat up and smiled at her dad. “You're right. This will be a great chance to get to know my new brothers. And stepmother.”

Her dad looked surprised for a moment, but then he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “That's my girl. Ready to head back to our gate? Start this journey?”

“Oh yeah.” Sarah nodded. “I'm more than ready.” She got a good grip on her backpack as her dad grabbed the bag from the shop. She followed him, already making plans for how to prove to her dad that the Murillos were the worst thing that could ever happen to her family.

 

4

Seven hours into the fourteen-hour flight to Shanghai, Marco woke up and glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes? He'd been trying to sleep for seven hours and had only been asleep
fifteen minutes
?

He groaned, not caring who heard him.

The flight was never going to end. And when it did, there would be the ten-hour flight to Australia, and then, finally, the four-hour flight to Fiji.

Marco knew that long before he ever arrived in Fiji, he would be long gone, having succumbed to complications from sheer boredom and discomfort.

On his right, Sarah had fallen asleep wearing her lime-green inflatable neck pillow, but sagged over and landed on Marco's shoulder. He pushed on her head, but it didn't budge.

She responded by snoring.

“Seriously?” When his mother had told him they were sitting separately on the plane, he'd assumed he and his mom and Nacho would be the three and Sarah and her dad the two.

But then Nacho had put up a fuss—which Marco could
tell
was totally fake—about wanting to be next to their mom, and then John had put up a slightly more mature fuss—which Marco could only
suspect
was fake—about it being his honeymoon and wanting to sit by his bride.

Thus, Marco and Sarah had ended up together, seated near the back, in a pair of seats on the side. Marco stared out the window, where he saw nothing but darkness.

Nacho's meltdown had to be bogus, because they'd both been on tons of trips with their mom. Usually they had to fly standby, and sometimes they got to sit up in first class. Marco looked again at Sarah, whose mouth had dropped open, a thin line of drool threatening to escape at any time.

“Oh, no way.” Marco shoved Sarah's shoulder, forcing her upright.

Her head jerked, and she blinked. “What?” She sounded groggy. Sarah looked first to her right and then at Marco. She blinked again and wiped her mouth, obviously not entirely awake. Then she frowned, realizing where she was.
And
who she was with. “Why did you wake me up? I finally got to sleep.”

“What?” Marco's forehead wrinkled. “You've been sleeping almost the whole flight. And most of the time on me!”

Sarah quickly leaned away from him, stretching her top half out into the aisle. “I was not.”

“Oh,
okay
. Whatever.” Giving up on sleep, Marco put his headphones on and tapped the screen of the built-in entertainment monitor on the back of the seat in front of him, hoping for some kind of decent movie.

But the screen stayed dark. “Seriously?”

Sarah noticed him having trouble and tapped her own screen. Nothing. She shrugged and pulled an e-reader out of her bag, then switched on her overhead light.

Marco just sat there, still tapping the screen that obviously was not going to work for him.

Sarah looked at him for a moment, as if trying to decide something, then let out a little sigh. She pulled the Harry Potter from her backpack, and held it out. “Need a book?”

Marco glanced at the illustration on the front and got a strange look on his face, like he smelled bad cheese. “I think I'm a little old for wizards.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She started to put it back, then stopped. “But, just to check, you liked it when you were a kid, right?” When Marco didn't reply, Sarah asked, “You did
read
the books, didn't you?”

Marco shook his head slightly.

Sarah's mouth dropped open. She said, a bit too loudly for a dark plane where everyone was sleeping, “You've never read Harry Potter? Who doesn't read
Harry Potter
?” Then she asked, in a more curious tone, like she really wanted to know, “How have you never read Harry Potter?”

Marco scowled. “I don't like to read.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Oh, but you saw the movies right? Of course you did.” She shook her head. “Didn't read the books, but saw the movies.” She clicked her tongue a couple times. “What a cliché.”

Marco adjusted himself in order to face her more squarely. “For your information, no, I have not seen the movies either.”

Sarah's mouth, again, dropped open a bit. And again, she said, much too loudly for a dark plane where everyone was sleeping, “You've never seen the movies? How have you never seen the movies?”

“Shh!” Marco held a finger to his lips. “You are so loud.” He sighed. “I'm not a big reader, so I didn't read the books. And…” He didn't say anything else.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I need to know this.” Sarah prodded him. “And what?”

He faced forward again. He didn't really want to admit what he was going to admit, but he knew it was the only way to get his snoopy stepsister/seatmate off his back. He said, “My mom wouldn't let me see the movies without reading the books first. And so I thought, what's the big deal anyway? But then all my friends were into the movies, and I didn't think I could sit and read all seven books so I could watch the movies and … I just pretended like I didn't care.”

Sarah's eyes were wide, listening like she'd never heard something so unbelievable in her life. “Why didn't you give in and read them?”

Marco shrugged. “It just became more important to stand my ground, not read the books. And not see the movies.”

Sarah held the book up, waving it a little bit. “But you want to, right? Don't you feel left out? Don't you want to know what
everyone else in the civilized world
knows?”

She didn't sound mean, she just sounded like she was on a mission to get him to do something he didn't really want to do. Marco looked out the window at the dark nothingness.

Sarah nudged him with her elbow. “You have to read it.”

Marco looked at her. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Because … they are the best and you are totally missing out?” Sarah waggled the volume in her hand. “I've read this eleven times. And I dragged it along to read again.”

Marco looked at the book. “It's pretty thick.”

Sarah shoved it at him, not all that unkindly. “Trust me, it'll fly by and you'll be reading ‘The End' before you know it. And then you'll be hooked and want to read the next one. Guarantee it.” Pompously, she tapped her e-reader. “Got them all on here. And then when you're done, you can watch all the movies, which, by the way, I own on DVD.”

There was nothing for Marco to do on that flight but sit there and not sleep and not watch a movie on the entertainment screen that did not work. So he reached up and pushed the button for the overhead light. He took ahold of the book, which he had no intention of even opening.

 

5

Sarah scrunched up her nose against the musty smell and took one lengthy and disgusted look at the hotel room. Threadbare bedspread. Yellowed pillowcases. Warped and dirty wooden headboard.

As exhausted as she was, after being on planes and dragging through airports for the past thirty-five hours, she could not picture herself lying on that bed. She could not even picture herself touching anything in that heinous hotel room. The only bright spot was that making the trip seem bad was going to be simpler than she planned, and she didn't even have to act her way through this situation.

She spun on her heel and headed back out to the hallway. “No way, not doing it. I'll probably catch bedbugs. Or some rare tropical disease.”

Her father had dark bags under his eyes and looked to be in no mood for any nonsense. “Sarah, it's just for one night. We go on our cruise tomorrow.”

Sarah scowled. “If it's just for one night, then why are we in a dive?”

Her father blew out a long breath. “The resort wouldn't let the five of us stay in the room I reserved for two. Despite the fact it was a suite with a pullout couch.” He held out his hands. “This one didn't seem that bad. We don't really have any other options at the last minute. It's this or the street. And I am tired.”

Sarah was rather confident that the street would be nicer, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Yvonna came down the hallway, rolling her suitcase, the boys following behind. She said, “Sarah, I'll stay with you and let your dad and the boys share the other room.”

Sleep with her stepmother? No way! Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but her dad shot a dark look her way. She shut her mouth.

Yvonna stepped into the doorway and froze, then sucked her lower lip inside her mouth.

John let out an exasperated sigh. “I know, I know, it's fairly sketchy. But we have no choice.”

Yvonna set a hand on his arm. “It'll be fine.” She smiled at her boys. “Inconvenience is adventure, wrongly considered. Right? And it's just for one night.”

Marco and Nacho exchanged a glance. Nacho unzipped his fanny pack, took out a clear travel-size bottle of hand sanitizer, and squeezed out a large dollop onto his palm, the stark smell of alcohol drifting toward Sarah. Then he held the bottle up and Marco held out his hand for some.

Marco rubbed his hands together. “We've stayed in worse.”

Sarah shook her head and went back inside the room. There was only the one bed, and it was a smallish queen size. Really? She had to actually sleep with her new stepmother?

Things could not possibly get any worse.

She dropped her suitcase and unzipped it to grab her bag of toiletries, and went into the dark bathroom.