Page 22 of Swept Away

“No, please, I didn’t meanthatpart,” I say, covering my eyes. “I do not want reminding of that. Eugene is fine. He can be a Eugene.”

I find myself thinking of Penny, perhaps because she would have saved this seagull, and probably named it, too. She wouldn’t have made a plan, though, or a ladder, or tied herself to the boat—she’d have thrown herself into the water without thinking, and I would have had to figure out how to get her back again. That’s our dynamic: from the day we met, she became the cute baby sister I always wanted. Penny is all sunshine; she’s spontaneous, perky, the human equivalent of a cup of coffee.You need a hug, gorgeous, shesays to me sometimes, wrapping her arms around my middle, and then,Succumb!she’ll command me, when I resist.

Thinking about Penny takes me to Mae, but that’s too painful, too much, and my mind rears back from it like the thought has teeth.

I wonder if Penny’s worrying about me. Whether they’ve sent out search parties yet. I hope she just thinks I’m not replying to her WhatsApps because she kicked me out; the thought of her being frightened makes my stomach bottom out. I know she’d keep it from Mae for as long as she could, but…

I shiver. How long does it usually take for people to report someone as missing? Surely the busybody neighbor at the marina would have sounded the alarm when she saw the houseboat gone in the morning. So why are we still here?

“I’m not sure…how much longer I should stay in the water,” Zeke says, and I can hear his teeth chattering as he speaks.

“Sorry. Let me go find something to put him in.”

I spin on my heel and step inside the boat, the little door swinging shut behind me. I head for the bedroom, which is a mess—in a space this small, it doesn’t take much to make it look untidy—and I open the wardrobe. I’ve not hung up everything from my bag yet. Avoiding creases didn’t seem a priority, and I’m reluctant to do anything that feels like moving in, which is obviously ridiculous, since movingoutis currently impossible.

My first thought is my holdall, though a distant corner of my brain reminds me that it cost me fifty quid and will probably never be the same again if it’s had a terrified seagull inside it. But while I’m emptying out the contents into the base of the wardrobe, I lose my footing and end up falling forward against the back wall, one hand slamming into the wood. And a panel comes loose.

I yelp, flinching back as it clatters to the base of the wardrobe. It’s exposed a small, hidden cubbyhole, built into the wall of the boat, just wide enough to hold a cardboard shoebox on its side. Thebox looks old, its lid stained and warped; if it’s Penny’s, I don’t recognize it.

I ease it out, wrinkling my nose at the fusty smell, and lift the lid. There are five, maybe six large notebooks inside, leather-bound and battered.Ship’s Logis printed on the front of each one.

“Lexi?”

I stand up so fast I make myself dizzy. Zeke’s bobbing around out there in the freezing cold sea while I’m getting all Nancy Drew in here. I tip the logbooks out on top of our bags and leave the bedroom, grabbing my towel from the bathroom as I go, then doubling back just as I reach the door to snatch the scissors out of the sink. Whatever the deal is with this shoebox, it’ll make a better seagull holder than my bag, and that’s all that matters right now.

“This is looking veryBlue Peter,” Zeke says, eyeing the objects I’m clutching. One of his arms is now wrapped around the back of the broken kayak. “Do you think Eugene is concussed? He’s gone still.”

I finish punching holes into the lid of the shoebox and lean over to examine the bird. It’s sort of staring at nothing, but don’t birds generally do that? What is a standard resting bird face?

“He’s fine,” I say firmly.

Zeke, on the other hand, looks worryingly cold. There’s a faint tinge of blue to the edges of his lips now.

“AreyouOK?” I ask.

“Just a bit cold, that’s all.”

I’m sweating through my long-sleeved tee—it was cool out here first thing, but now the sun is warming the deck, and the sea is turning a deeper, purer shade of blue. It looks like itshouldbe warm, which I guess is probably what Zeke thought before he leaped in.

“Here,” I say, “use this to hold him.”

Zeke catches the towel above his head, then gently wraps it around Eugene, who flaps a little and lets out a single quietcaw, butnothing more. This feels like a bad sign. If I was a bird, and a giant human was trying to wrap me in a towel, I’d want to object a bit more than this.

“OK. Hmm. I didn’t think about how few hands I’d have at this point, did you?” Zeke says, voice labored as he attempts to clamber onto the broken kayak, one knee up, like a spider trying to lever its way up out of a plughole.

This is all as per the plan we drew up in the notebook, complete with diagrams that I now realize gave us very little other than a sense of control over something, but at least I’ve found out I would be able to beat Zeke at Pictionary.

He keeps getting up onto the kayak, grabbing at the rail, then almost losing his hold on Eugene and splashing back again. It’s like watchingTotal Wipeout. I can’t quite believe he’s doing this. The muscles in his shoulders and stomach are popping as he tries to balance—it’s the strangest mix of sexy and daft, and despite myself, I’m smiling.

I lean over the side just as he manages to get into a standing position on the back of the kayak, surfer-style. He pretty much throws me the bird in its bundle of towel, and then he’s twisting and losing his footing and splashing right into the water again, a proper belly flop. I’m laughing, the sea-splattered towel clutched close to my chest. The wind picks up the loose hairs at the nape of my neck and cools the spots of seawater on my bare feet. For a moment something seems to open up inside me, like a shell cracking, as though my slightly frantic giggling is setting something free.

I get Eugene into the shoebox as Zeke hauls himself up the rope ladder and then collapses on a deck chair, immediately drenching its blue-striped fabric. It’s a while before I look around—I’m checking Eugene over, as though I think I’m some sort of seagull vet. Beak: present and correct. Wings: yes, two. Talons: unnervingly sharp.

The moment I turn and see Zeke’s face, my stomach lurches.

“Are you all right?” I ask, alarmed.

“Fine,” he says, but his chest is heaving and his face is drawn.

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