Page 76 of The Island

She leaned all the way over and pulled back her leg.

If she timed this right…

She looked into the blue shark’s right eye and kicked it in the gills just as it was opening its jaws to take an exploratory bite.

Olivia saw and gasped and put her hand over her mouth.

The immature blue splashed away, annoyed.

The little girl, Niamh, turned and looked straight at the rocks but didn’t see anything. Or perhaps pretended not to see anything.

The boy and Ivan and Niamh continued to talk until they reached a thick clump of mangrove at the end of the little bay.

They disappeared into the trees and were gone.

“Let’s get to shore,” Heather said.

“Shouldn’t we wait a little bit longer?” Petra said.

“There’s a blue shark circling us. Let’s get ashore. Come on.”

They swam to the shore and dragged Owen into the shade of one of the mangrove trees.

“Do you think they will double back when they don’t find us?” Petra asked.

Heather shrugged. “I don’t know. I can only hope they’ll keep going until it begins to get dark. It doesn’t matter if they double back or not. We won’t be moving Owen again.”

21

Heather and Petra carried Owen to the shade of a mangrove tree and left him to recover. The seawater had cooled him down, but heatstroke wasn’t the issue now. It was dehydration. She fanned Owen with mangrove leaves, keeping him cool as best she could.

One hour.

Two.

Three.

The O’Neills didn’t return to the beach.

Olivia wrote SOS with stones and seaweed that they all knew the tide would take away.

The sun began to set.

Owen, amazingly, was still alive.

Water. If she didn’t get water tonight, the boy was going to die.

Petra knew it. Olivia knew it.

Heather went up onto the mesa and climbed an immature eucalyptus tree.

The heathland was empty. There were lights on at the farm- house two miles from here. Birds were roosting. Night was coming.

“Anything?” Petra asked.

“I think they’ve all gone.”

Heather began climbing down. She missed her footing on the branch beneath her and grabbed for a handhold on the branch next to her. The dry eucalyptus limb could not take her weight; it snapped and she fell eight feet into the hard dirt. Her back took most of the impact.