Page 34 of One Adult, Please

Then the second boat hits.

There's a wet crunch. The wrong person disappears between the two fake logs.

I'm still holding the friendship paddle like the wrong person might reassemble himself out of spite and ask for a rematch.

Joel notices first. Obviously. Joel notices structural weaknesses in buildings, machines, and apparently me.

"Grace," he says. "Breathe."

"I'm breathing."

"You're holding your breath."

"I'm preserving oxygen for the team."

"You okay?" Beck asks.

"I just hit a dead man in the head with sporting goods and then helped murder him with a theme park boat, so I'm going to say no, but in a functional way."

"Functional no," he says, nodding. "That's fair." He steps closer and pulls a gummy shark from his pocket and holds it out. "Emergency shark?"

I take it. It tastes like sugar and chemicals and not crying, which is exactly what I need.

Joel's hand lands briefly between my shoulder blades. Warm. Steady. Gone before I can decide what to do with it.

For one second, nobody says anything.

Then Beck says, softly, "Boat kill."

"No," I say.

"That absolutely counts as a boat kill."

Joel looks at the pinned wrong person. Looks at the boat. Looks at me. "It counts."

I hate that I'm pleased.

"We're sealed," Joel says. "Both maintenance doors locked."

"Exit is blocked," Beck says. "Loading platform is blocked. Boat kill is complete."

"We are not calling it boat kill."

"We have to call it something."

"We absolutely do not."

"Boat kill is accurate," Joel says.

I stare at him. He doesn't look sorry.

"Great. Building one. Addressed." I pull the where picture out of my pocket and unfold it on the loading platform counter. I find the log flume. I draw an X through it with a souvenir crayon that I grabbed from the kids' activity station near the funnel cake stand.

"You're marking the map with crayon," Joel says.

"I'm marking the where picture with the planning tool."

"It's a crayon."