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The tanker emerged from the darkness like some giant leviathan come to swallow them. It stood at least seven stories tall out of the water and was so wide it filled the horizon. Its pointed bow sent huge waves sluicing away, and two massive anchors stood out from the sides like the horns on a monster. Isabel quailed in fear. It was straight out of a nightmare.
“A ship!” Lito yelled. “We’ve drifted into the shipping lanes!”
But by now everyone had seen it. The rumble of the ship’s massive engines had awakened Mami and Señora Castillo, and everyone was scrambling around in the boat in a panic, making it rock dangerously.
“It’s coming right for us!” Amara screamed.
Isabel climbed over Iván, trying to get as far away from the tanker as she could. She slipped and fell with a splash into the bottom of the boat.
“Everybody settle down!” Señor Castillo cried, but no one was listening. “We have to get the engine started!” Papi cried. He yanked frantically on the starter chain, barely giving the engine time to cough and die before he
yanked on it again.
“Don’t! You’ll flood it and it’ll never start!” Luis said, trying to wrestle the chain from him.
“Where are the matches?” Lito cried. “We have to start a fire! They can’t see us in the dark!”
“Here!” said Iván. He lifted a matchbox from the Styrofoam carton that held the few emergency supplies they’d brought.
“No!” Papi yelled. He lunged for Iván’s outstretched hand, and together they fell against the side of the boat, tipping it. Isabel’s mother fell into the pool of water on the bottom and slid into the side of the boat with a thump. Isabel crawled to help her.
Lito grabbed Papi by the shirt. “What are you doing?” he demanded. Papi held the matchbox out of Lito’s reach. “We don’t want to be seen,
you old fool!” he yelled over the growing thunder of the tanker. “If they see us, they’ll have to rescue us! It’s maritime law! And if they ‘rescue’ us, they’ll send us back to Cuba!”
“Would you rather they send us to the ocean floor?” Lito yelled.
Isabel couldn’t help looking up as she pulled her mother out of the water. “It’s getting closer!” Isabel cried. The tanker was still hundreds of meters away, but it was so huge it felt like it was on top of them. They were never getting out of its way. Isabel’s heart thumped so hard she thought it was going to burst right out of her chest.
“If we don’t want them to know we’re here, maybe we shouldn’t start the engine!” Amara yelled.
“They’ll never hear us no matter what we do!” Señor Castillo said. The tanker was so loud now it sounded like a jet engine. He and Luis flipped a switch on their own engine and yanked the starter chain again. A puff of gray smoke poofed out from the engine, but it didn’t catch.
The tanker loomed larger. Closer. Isabel cringed. It was going to hit them!
Luis yanked on the chain. A cough. A sputter. Nothing. Cough. Sputter. Nothing.
Cough. Sputter. Nothing.
The sea swelled in front of the tanker, pushing them higher and away, and for a fleeting moment Isabel’s hopes rose with it. But then the swell passed, and they were pulled back in by the tanker’s massive draw. Their little blue boat spun sideways, and they zoomed toward the big ship’s prow.
The tanker was going to tear them in half, right down the middle.
Isabel looked up into the terrified eyes of Iván as he realized the same thing, and they screamed. Then suddenly they were both thrown to the bottom of the boat, and something buzzed like a mosquito underneath the howl of the tanker.
Luis had gotten the engine to start!
Their little boat shot forward in the water, darting out of the way of the tanker’s prow. But the waves thrown off by the big ship lifted up the back end of Isabel’s boat and dumped an ocean of seawater on top of them.
Isabel swallowed a mouthful of salty water and tumbled across the boat. She slammed into something hard, and her shoulder exploded with pain. She came up spluttering. She was hip-deep in water and the engine had stopped again, but none of that mattered right now.
Iván’s father had fallen overboard.
Isabel saw his white-haired head rise up out of the water. Señor Castillo gulped for air, then disappeared as a wave from the massive tanker’s wake rolled over him.
“Señor Castillo!” Isabel cried.
“Papá!” Iván shouted. “Where is he? Do you see him?”
Isabel and Iván frantically searched the dark water, watching for Señor Castillo to surface again. They had missed the huge ship’s prow by mere meters, but the waves the behemoth created as it passed were just as dangerous. The ocean heaved and sank, the little boat tipping over sideways as the waves caught it amidships.
Everyone was just getting back up from the floor of the boat when they were sent tumbling again. Iván rolled to the other side of the boat, but Isabel hung on. There! She saw Señor Castillo’s head pop up from under the water, but only for a gasping second—too quick to get enough air.
In a flash, Isabel remembered her grandmother disappearing under the waves just like that two years ago, and without another thought, Isabel dove in after Señor Castillo.
