The Stranger in the Lifeboat

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calls and “Security! Call security!” Gibberish. I ignored him. Little Alice was
draped over Geri, squeezing her arm. I thought about the morning when Mrs.
Laghari straightened Alice’s hair, licking her fingers and flattening her
eyebrows, the two of them smiling and hugging. It felt like years ago.
And Nina? Poor Nina. From the moment I met her on the Galaxy, she
looked to believe the best in people, and she went to her death believing the
stranger in our boat would save her. He did not. He did nothing. What more
proof of his charade do we require? She told me once that she had asked the
Lord about prayers. He’d said all prayers were answered, “but sometimes the
answer is no.”
I suppose it was no for Nina. It infuriates me. When I glare at the man, he
returns my look with a placid expression. I can’t imagine what he is feeling
or thinking, Annabelle. Or if he feels and thinks at all. When we had food, he
ate it. When we had water, he drank it. His skin is chafed and blistered like
ours. His face is hollow and bonier than when we discovered him. But he
utters no complaints. He does not seem to be suffering. Maybe delusion is his
best ally. We all search for something to save us. He thinks it is him.
Yesterday morning, I awoke to see Geri fussing with a patching kit.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled.
“I’ve got to try and patch the bottom, Benji,” she said. “We don’t have
enough people to keep bailing. We’ll sink.”
I nodded wearily. Ever since the shark attack, which ripped a hole in the
lower tube, one of us has been constantly shoveling water out of our tilted
raft bottom. It’s an endless, tiring task, only tolerable because there were
many of us. But Lambert is slow at bailing, and lately he has been out of it.
Little Alice tries, but she fatigues quickly. That leaves only me, Geri, Jean
Philippe, and the Lord. Even collectively, we don’t have the strength
anymore.
“The sharks, Miss Geri,” Jean Philippe protested. “What if they come
back?”
Geri handed him a paddle, then handed one to me. “Bang ’em hard,” she
said. When she saw my reaction, she lowered her voice. “Benji, we have no
choice.”
We waited until the sun was high, when sharks are least likely to be
prowling for food. With Jean Philippe and me leaning over the sides, paddles