Absolute Pressure Page 7

  And still we fell into the deep black.

  My lungs began to hurt. Any second I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I would suck for air through my nose. All I would get would be water. I would be dead long before we hit the ocean floor two miles down.

  Then, suddenly, the water stopped tugging at me.

  I was free!

  Both my arms could move!

  My lungs were screaming for air. I bit down hard and kicked my legs.

  Up, up, I told myself, kick up!

  I fought against the water. I had to get to the surface. All I could think of was reaching air.

  I kicked. But the harder I kicked, the more I needed air.

  I kicked. I felt myself growing weaker, but still I kicked.

  And I reached cool air. The black of the water was now the black of night. With stars above. I tried to gasp for air, but my mouth was taped. I got a little air through my nostrils, but I needed more. I ripped the tape from my mouth and pulled in lungful after lungful of air.

  The noise of the GypSea grew fainter and fainter as it left me behind.

  I took in more air. It was great to be alive.

  It hit me. I was alive. What had happened? Where was Judd?

  There was a splash beside me.

  “Judd?” I called out.

  “Over here.” His voice croaked just like mine.

  We kept splashing until we were side by side. We dog-paddled to keep our heads above the water.

  “I can’t believe this,” I said. “How did you do that?”

  He coughed out water. “I had the key in my free hand.”

  He stopped again to cough out more water. “I didn’t dare try to unlock the handcuffs until we were in the water. I had to unlock your side first, because if I didn’t, you’d still be dropping and I’d have no way to catch you...”

  “Um, thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “We’re miles from shore. I’m not a good swimmer. And I’m scared of sharks.”

  “Let me show you something,” I said. “You got us here. I’ll get you to land.”

  chapter thirty-three

  He was paddling hard. He was afraid.

  “Listen,” I said. “Slow it down. It doesn’t take much effort to paddle. And if you swim in jerky movements, you draw in sharks. They look for quick, hard movements. It makes them think of scared or hurt fish. And that makes them think of food.”

  “I hate this,” Judd said. “Thinking of sharks circling us.”

  I did too. I had strong memories of watching the bull shark close in on me. But it wouldn’t do to add to Judd’s fear. So I didn’t say anything about it.

  Instead I got him thinking about doing something positive.

  “You can float without moving much,” I said. “Take a big breath. It will fill your lungs with air and help you float. When you breathe out, you paddle a bit to keep your head above the water. Then breathe in again.”

  “Thanks for the lesson,” he said.

  “No problem,” I said. “We may be in the water for hours.

  Without warning, a blinking light appeared on the surface of the water. It was so strange, it took me a second to identify it. Emergency light. On a...

  “It’s a life jacket,” Judd said. “Must be from the GypSea. Look around. I’ll bet we find another.”

  “But why?” This didn’t make sense.

  “Trust me,” he said. “If there’s one, there should be two.”

  I couldn’t believe it. It only took thirty seconds for us to find it. And about another ten seconds for me to slip it on.

  “Much easier than paddling,” I said. He probably couldn’t see my grin in the dark. But I didn’t grin for long. There was something else to worry about. “Don’t move your legs. Sharks won’t have a clue we’re here.”

  I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was to find these life jackets.

  I mentioned this to Judd.

  “I don’t think it’s weird at all,” he said.

  “No weirder than having a handcuff key in my free hand.”

  “It wasn’t a spare or something?”

  “No,” he said. “Let me tell you something about your Uncle Gord.”

  I felt my jaws clench. “You mean the guy who tried to kill us?”

  “The guy who saved our lives.” Judd bobbed, speaking quietly. “You don’t really think he meant what he said about getting rid of you, do you?”

  I was silent.

  “Look,” Judd said. “I was brought in undercover to investigate some loan sharking. If you think real sharks are vicious, they’re nothing compared to the human sharks who lend desperate people money.”

  I stared at the stars. “Uncle Gord was having trouble with his business.”

  “He couldn’t get money from the bank. He was at his maximum credit limit. So some guys in Miami lent it to him. At a huge interest rate that he couldn’t repay. It’s illegal, but it happens all the time.”

  “That’s why the FBI is involved,” I said.

  “When they had a good squeeze on him, they forced him to help out with smuggling other Cuban criminals into the United States. I needed to prove it.”

  “You said he didn’t want to kill me.” I really wanted to believe this.

  “Didn’t he try to send you out of town?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’m pretty sure he acted tough in front of them so they’d believe he didn’t careabout you. But as he wired us to the anchor, he slipped me the key.”

  “What?” I grinned.

  “Sure,” Judd said. “And he must have tossed out the life jackets without them seeing it.”

  I felt like crying again. From relief. Because worse than dying was thinking that someone I’d trusted had betrayed me.

  “You don’t know how much better that makes me feel,” I said into the darkness to Judd.

  “Probably as good as I’ll feel if a ship or an airplane sees us. It’s going to be a long night, even in life jackets.”

  chapter thirty-four

  It must have been my relief at being alive. Or sharing what we’d gone through. But in the darkness, I felt the need to talk.

  “Judd, have you heard of something called synesthesia?”

  “No,” he said.

  “It means joined perception.”

  He repeated it. “Joined perception.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got it. For a long time I thought I was crazy. Now I just know I’m strange.”

  “Synesthesia.”

  I did my best to explain. But for people who don’t have it—and that’s nearly every-body—it’s almost impossible to explain. It’s almost like trying to explain what color is. Nobody can really explain it. Partly because the brain is so difficult to explain.

  At least I knew I wasn’t crazy.

  Only different.

  And after keeping it secret from everyone my whole life, I’d just confessed it twice in one day.

  First to Sherri.

  Now to Judd. Maybe because Sherri hadn’t treated me like Frankenstein when she found out.

  When I finished, Judd said, “You’re a lucky kid, Ian Hill.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Your Uncle Gord risked his life to save yours. If those guys had caught on to what he was doing, he would have been tied to the anchor with us. You’re pretty lucky to have someone who cares about you like he does.”

  Judd continued. “And to be able to see colors when you feel something? That’s lucky too. You get to experience the world in a cool way. I hope you’ll always remember that.”

  I had to admit, hearing it come from him did make me feel lucky. Because that’s exactly what Sherri had said when I told her. Cool.

  I was trying to think of something to say to that when I heard what sounded like an engine.

  I froze.

  Maybe the Miami guys on Uncle Gord’s boat had discovered the missing life jackets and turned around to finish the job.

  Then I r
ealized the sound was coming from the air.

  “Hey!” I said to Judd. “Look at those lights.”

  It was a helicopter. Coming in low and fast. Straight toward us.

  It passed over us.

  We yelled, even knowing there was no way that a pilot could hear us.

  But it turned around and circled us a couple of times. Then it hovered above us, pinpointing us by our blinking life-jacket lights.

  Five minutes later, we were safe inside the chopper.

  Headed home.

  chapter thirty-five

  It wasn’t luck that the chopper found us.

  With the life jackets, Uncle Gord had also thrown a search-and-rescue radar transponder into the Gulf waters. It was a small orange tube that floated and sent out emergency signals to the marine-rescue radio band.

  Yes, he’d taken care of us.

  And, as it turned out, he’d done more than that. He’d left a lot of information for the FBI on his computer, something theydiscovered when they used a search warrant to go through everything he owned. It gave details of all the men he’d rescued. Judd told me later that Uncle Gord’s information gave them a good chance of finding all the illegal Cubans.

  As for Uncle Gord, he totally disappeared. Except for the postcard I got about two weeks later. From Jamaica.

  All it said was: Made it. Glad you did too. I’ll be back when I can.

  He must have contacted someone in Key West to find out I’d survived. His postcard meant a lot to me. Uncle Gord really was like a dad to me. One who bothered to let me know he was alive. And one who made sure I knew I’d see him again.

  I told most of this to Sherri one morning about ten days later. All of it except for the bit about the postcard. It would be a lot better if the world thought there was no way of finding Uncle Gord.

  But there was one last mystery.

  I solved that one too, the morning I spoke to Sherri.

  “You’re going back in a few days,” she said.

  We were having the same milkshakes under the same tree.

  “But I’ve decided something,” I said. “When I finish high school next year, I’m coming back to stay.”

  “You like Key West that much?” “It gets in your blood,” I said. “I couldn’t think of living anywhere else.”

  “So you like Key West that much.” She glared at me.

  “Yup.” I grinned. I knew what she was wanting me to say. “Plus I do like a certain girl who lives here too.”

  She grinned back. “I guess that pebble really paid off.”

  I frowned at her. “Pebble?”

  “Sure. Remember the morning you were getting ready to leave? When Gord was giving you all those instructions about how to drive back to Chicago? When I pretended my shoelace was untied?”

  Now I nodded.

  “While he was talking to you, I went to the rear left tire. I unscrewed the cap. I put a tiny pebble on the valve stem. And screwed the cap back on so the tire would leak.”

  It took me a second. “The flat tire wasn’t an accident?”

  “Not a chance,” she said. “And I was following you on my scooter to be able to give you a ride back.”

  She reached across and touched my cheek with the back of her fingers.

  As I felt the softness of her fingers across my skin, I saw a burst of yellow.

  And loved it.

  Author’s Notes

  Synesthesia

  The condition that Ian experiences in this story is rare but real. There are people who feel, taste and hear color. Synesthesia is a neural condition in which two or more senses intertwine. To scientists, however, the cause is still a mystery. Some wonder if we all experience this as infants, before our brains learn to separate the senses, so that when we are very young, we not only hear our mother’s voice, but see it and smell it too.

  The Vandenberg

  The sinking of the Vandenberg to form an artificial reef off Key West has been delayed, perhaps indefinitely. This project, if accomplished, is meant to provide marine habitat and a major diving attraction.

  To track the project’s progress, go to www.bigshipwrecks.com.

  Mel Fisher and the Atocha Mother Lode

  Mel Fisher was a famous American treasure hunter who established a museum in Key West. On July 20, 1985, he discovered the wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha off the Florida Keys. It included forty tons of gold and silver, and about 100,000 Spanish silver coins, known as “pieces of eight,” plus emeralds and 1,000 silver bars. Altogether, this find was worth an estimated $450 million.

  To learn more about this discovery, visit www.melfisher.org/1622.htm.

  Sigmund Brouwer is the best-selling author of many books for children and young adults. He has contributed to the Orca Currents series (Sewer Rats, Wired) and the Orca Sports series (Blazer Drive, All-Star Pride, Chief Honor, Rebel Glory, Scarlet Thunder, Tiger Threat, Titan Clash, Cobra Strike, Winter Hawk Star, Hitmen Triumph and Hurricane Power). Sigmund enjoys visiting schools to talk about his books. Interested teachers can find out more by e-mailing authorbookings@coolreading.com.

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