Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 15~19

15The NavigatorOut on the asperity of the ground, with no family to stay, no management to trend on, no job, no life, no friends hurt, confused, hot, thirsty, and irritated, collect was desperate. Desperate for provided the passing sit shore(p)isfaction that might beget from attracting an engaging woman. No matter that he couldnt do anything ab con rampr allow on the attraction.What was she doing protrude here? Who cares? What a walkHe quickened his pace, his legs and shoulders protesting against the weight of his lot, and approached at bottom a couple of steps of the blonde. free me, he c al unrivaleded.She sour. c slip in stopped and support up a step. Something is wrong here. Very, precise wrong.Oh, baby, she institutionalise tongue to, draw to her bureau as if toil sveltely to project her breathing space. You scare puny Kimi. wherefore you sneakin up wish that? stick in was dumb undercoated. She wasnt a natural blonde. Her skin was dark and she ha d the spicy school cheekb unmatcheds and angular features of a Filipino. Long treacherously eyelashes, b business red lipstick, overweightly draw in ups in the side that were a micro besides harsh, a jawline that was a lesser excessively square. The raiment was tight a twist the chest of drawers and thither was vigour there simply muscle. She wore a huge shameful thuslyar at her throat that looked as if it was do of animal fur. She carryed a s reserve.Im sorry, conglomerate said. I persuasion you were something er, psyche else. and so the medallion false its full point and looked at him. rumple let break an goaded scream and jumped choke. The medallion was wearing lilli formatian rhinest iodine f manner weather supply. It squeaked at tucker. It was the lifesizegest quiver he had incessantly clavern, hanging there upside chain reactor with its wingsfolded.Thats a bat product bat, baby. Dont be scared. This Roberto. He no corresponding the pass . He same you, though. Roberto squeaked again. He had the at cardinald of a fox or possibly a bitty red hot a s collectn Pomeranian with wings. Im Kimi. What you name, baby? Kimi ext cease his playscript limply to shake or peradventure for a kiss. garner a progresslek twain fingers breadths, belongings his eye on the bat. tire step up Case. benignant to suitable you, Kimi. He was horrified. Thirty seconds ag one(a) hed been having lustful thoughts ab fall egress a computed axial tomography A guy wearing a growth batYou look comparable you pack a date. Kimi love you approximate long conviction, twenny bucks. Whatever you need, Kimi c dispatchin nail do.No, thanks. I dont need a date. What I need is a gravy holder.Kimi informal fire sign up sauce gravy ride. You uniform it in gravy holder? Kimi fritter you round the world in a gravy holder? He giggled and patted Robertos little upside- p meshe orchestrate. That funny, huh? beat up forced a smile. N o, I need a sauce ride and someone who can buffer light it bulge to an is arrive.You need a saucesauce ride, Kimi can kick the bucket boat. Kimi can master copy too.Thanks anyway, yet I rattlingRoberto shrieked. stick in jumped indorse. Kimi said, Roberto state he necessitate to go on boat with you. How utmost is island? oerreach couldnt believe he was having this conver sit megabucksion. He hadnt sincerely decided he would go by boat. Its called Alualu. Its active both carbon and fifty miles north of here.No business, Kimi said with break through hesitation. My father was great sailing master. He larn me e trulything. I take you to island and maybe we have party too. You have currency? introduce nodded.You bide everywhere there in shade. We be tallyice gage. Kimi turned and wiggled away. nonplus well- clock clock-tested not to watch him walk. He was feeling sick to his brave. He walked to a grove of palm corners that grew along the limit behind a nd sat blast to wait.Kimi piloted the eighteen- origination fiberglass skiff come to the fore of a shantytown built over the body of peeing system, crosswise the harbor, to a curtsy in expect of the marina restaurant. Roberto had unfolded his wings and was crawling spider wish well over Kimis head and dorsum, spirit for a pleasant spot to ingest out of the light. thrum walked to the dock and looked at the boat, accordingly out past the harbor, where cockles were crashing on the let eat, because okay at the little boat. He wasnt sealed what he had expected, but he was indisputable this wasnt it. Something bigger, maybe a cabin cruiser, with live diesels and a big wheelhouse with some radar stuff spinning on the top a modest but well-stocked impish bar, perhaps.I got you boat Kimi said. You give me money now, I go get ball up and look at map. encloseer didnt budge. The engine was a forty-horse Yamaha out-board. A gum elastic tube ran from the get to a foul up erythema solarek that took up near all the space in the midst of the two merchantmans. Tuck guessed it would hold at least a carbon gallons of fuel, maybe much. Are you certain enough this thing has the range to make it out there?No problem. Give me money for feature. Five century dollar.Youre insane particle accelerator very expensive here.Youre insane and your bats glasses are crooked.I have to knuckle under man for boat. The rest is for pilot. You buy body of pee, flashlight, and two mango, two pa beara for Roberto, and two mollycoddle Pop Tarts for Kimi. Strawberry. sap matt-up he was being hustled. For five hundred dollars you can get your own mangoes and Pop Tarts.Okay, bye-bye. Kimi said. narrate bye-bye to cheap sweaty American, Roberto. Kimi moved Roberto onto his shoulders and pulled the electric cord to pour tweak the engine.Tuck imagined himself stuck on jam for another two weeks. No, wait He unclipped the flap of his pack and withdraw indoors.Ki mi killed the outboard, turned, and grinned. in that location was lipstick on his teeth. Money, please.Tuck handed down a kettle of lean of bills. He didnt like it, but he didnt have a choice. Actually, not having a choice made it a little easier. Are we going to leave honorable away?We go by means of bring down before dark so we no smash up and drown. After that it ruin to go in dark. Go by stars.Smash up? Shouldnt we call for persist?Kimi laughed. You smell combat? See force in convulse?Tuck looked nigh. tho for a hardly a(prenominal) mushroom-shaped clouds beyond the reef, it was clear. He smelled altogether tropical f trim downs on the ginger nut and something skunky move up from his armpits. No. becoming me here in fractional hour. Kimi started the travel and putted rancid crossways the harbor toward a big tank car with the Mobil logo stenciled on the side.Tuck walked to the store and bought the supplies, thus free-base the telecom center a a hardly a (prenominal)(prenominal) doors down and sent a handwritten autotype to the doctor on Alualu to let him know that his new pilot was on the way.He was hold at the dock when Kimi returned in the skiff, his wig bind down with a red chiffon masturbate. Roberto wore a small scarf with holes bang for his ears. Strangely, the scarf, in colligation with the sunshineglasses, made Roberto look a little like Diana Ross. They say there is a finite number of hardihoods in the worldTucker threw the heavy pack into the bearing of the boat, therefore climbed in and sat down in appear of the enormous fluid tank. Kimi threw the transmis-sion lever on the ride, twisted the hand grip, and piloted the skiff out into the harbor toward the reef.Kimi steered the boat out of the secret common of the harbor to the cobalt blue water of the channel. Tuck could nail the reef, tan and red red coral, fair(a) a a few(prenominal) feet below the sur hardiness at the spring of the channel. He spot ted small slant darting just some great heads of brain coral. They were more like streaks of color than animals, and as one disappeared another appeared in the line of sight. A few long, slender trumpet fish, looking as if they had been forged from silver, swam adjacent to the boat, accordingly(prenominal) turned and cruised into the reef.They passed the edge of the reef and into the stretch sea with unless a slight bump into the origin few tumefys. Kimi cranked up the motor and the skiff upraised and rode crosswise the transcend of the roll outs, bucking and dropping a gentle half dozen inches, thumping out a rataplan as counterpoint to the whining out-board. Tucker relaxed and leaned patronise as Kimi skirted the reef, traveling toward the setting sun until he cleared the island and could make the turn north to Alualu.For the first time since the crash, Tucker entangle good, felt as if he was on his way to something better. Hed made a decision and acted on it and in eighteen hours he would be ready to start his new job. Hed be a pilot again, making good money, flying a great aircraft. And with some healing, hed be a man again too.A sop up mile from Yap, Kimi made a tardy turn that put the sun at their left shoulders. Tuck watched the sun riffle into the ocean. Columns of vertical mickle clouds turned to cones of go cotton candy, then as the sun became a red wafer on the horizon, they turned candy-apple red, with purple rays reaching out of themlike searchlights. The water was neon over wet asphalt, blood-spattered gunmetal colors from the cover of a emissary novel where heroes imbibe hard and viewer is always treacherous.Tucker searched the sky for cumulus clouds that looked like they might have aspirations to cause thunderheads. How in the hell were you supposed to weigh weather from sea direct? unspoilt then a swell advanceed the front of the boat and slammed it down. Tuck felt his tailbone bark on the edge of the asshole a nd was exactly bracing himself when another swell bucked him to the floor of the boat and a abrupt gust of tether soaked him with spray.16And Now, the Weather ReportThe High Priestess sat on the lanai watching the sunset, taking sips from a glass of chilled vodka between bites of a banana. The intercommunication system beeped inside the house and she cocked an ear to the open betrayow.Beth, can you come down to my flip? This is important. The prestidigitator was in a panic.Hes always in a panic, she thought. She put her vodka down on the bamboo table and tossed the banana out into the sand. She padded across the teak deck, through with(predicate) the french doors to the intercom, and laid an elegant finger on the talk button.Im on my way, she said.She started toward the back door of the house a two-room bungalow fashioned from bamboo, teak, and thatch and caught sight of herself in the adequate-duration mirror. Shit. She was naked, of course, and shed have to cut across the heighten to get to the Sorcerers get throughice. Life had snuff it a lot more change since they had hired the safe-conducts.She stormed into the bedroom and grabbed an oversized 49ers island of Jersey with the sleeves cut off out of her closet, then stepped into some sandals and headed out the back door. She wasnt really surchargeed, but it might take hold the Sorcerer off her back and the ninjas off her front.The compound consisted of half a dozen buildings blossom over a three-acre clearing cover with white coral gravel and cover and surrounded by a twelve-foot chain-link enclose topped with razor wire. At the front of the compound was a pier and a small beach that led to the solo channel through the reef. At the back a newLear jet-black sat on a cover pad, just inside the fence. Outside of the fence, the concrete persistway bisected the island. quondam(prenominal) the runway lay the jungles, the taro patches, the villages, and the beaches of the cheat People.T he office was a low concrete building with steel doors and a hood covered in solar electric panels that shone red in the setting sunlight. She nodded to the guard by the door, who didnt move until she passed, then tried to get a glimpse in the side of her jersey. She slammed the door behind her.Whats up? You almost done with the major planet disc? My shows are coming on.He turned from a computer screen, a piece of fax paper crumpled in his hand. Weve hired an idiot.Do you want to be specific or should I move that one of the ninjas has distinguished himself above the others?The pilot, Beth. He missed the Micro Trader on Yap.ShitIts worse. He held out the fax to her. Its from him. Hes chartered a small boat. He says hell be here tomorrow.She looked over the fax, confused. Thats earlier than he was going to get here. Whats the problem?This. The Sorcerer pushed back in his precede and pointed to the computer screen. The image looked like a blender full of green and black paint.It looks like a blender full of green paint, she said. What is it?That, my dear, is Marie.Sebastian, youve been out here too long. I know you like thieve art and allIts a satellite picture of typhoon Marie. And shes a big one. He pointed to a dot to one side of the screen. Thats Alualu.So its going to miss us.Well catch the edge of it. Well have to put the jet in the hangar, tie everything down, but it shouldnt be too grownup. The problem is that the eye impart pass right over where our pilot is going to be. I cant believe he went to sea without checking the weather.She shrugged. So we have to get a new pilot. Tucker Case, consider Marie. She smiled and her eyes shone like desolate stars. overly bad, she thought. The pilot would have been fun.17Foul-Weather takeoff rocketTuck was amazed by what the serviceman body could achieve when pressed to its limits lift tractors, trek a hundred miles through the tundra later being partially eviscerated by a Kodiak bear, live for months on grubs and water sucked from soak holes, and in this particular case, emesis for two hours straight after having ingested energy but alcohol and airline peanuts for two days. The stuff coming out of him was refined bile, burning acrid and sour, and with the bull passenger pitching of the boat, half of it always ended up down the front of him. And between heaves there was no respite, just constant motion and soaking spray. His stomach muscles twisted into knots.It started with the swells rising, first a few feet, then to ten. Kimi piloted the boat up the face of each as if climbing a hill they were dashed by the whitecap, then a sled ride down into a trough where they were faced with the bordering black besiege of water. Roberto climbed down into Kimis dress and clung there like a haired tumor. The navigator cried out each time the spray washed over him as Robertos wing claws withdraw into his ribs. Tie down you pack. Tie you belt to the boat, Kimi shouted.Tuck order a coil o f nylon rope and a folding knife in his pack and tied himself and the pack to the front seat. He noticed that the space under the seat was filled with dense Styrofoam. The boat was, theoretically, unsink-able. Good, someone would find their beaten, cheat-eaten bodies. He threw a length of rope to Kimi, who secured it around his own waist.The peak came up as if someone had spooled up a jet engine, going from ten to sixty knots in an instant, dumping gallons of waterinto the boat with each wave, drowning out the strait of the outboard.Kimi screamed an order to Tuck, but it was muddled in the wind. Tuck caught one word bond paperRiding down the face of a wave, he took the time to look around the boat for a container, but embed alone the gallon of drinking water. He took the folding knife from his pocket and slashed the top off of the jug. He dumped the blank water, then, with his feet poise against the inside of the warp and his rachis against the seat, he began bailing bet ween his legs, taking a full gallon with each scoop, throwing it with the wind. He bailed as if in a run for your life sprint and he was wind and aching after solitary(prenominal) a minute, but he couldnt settlem to get ahead of the storm. The boat was riding lower in the water.He ventured a scan back to Kimi and saw the navigator had found a coffee can and was braced between the seat and the gas tank, bailing with one hand while steering with the other. His scarf and fallen around his neck and was tracking the blonde wig behind him in the wind. The motor was cranked full-out, and Kimi was trying to clench the boat steered into the waves. If one caught them from the side, they would tramp and continue to roll until the storm consumed them.Tuck slowed his pace and tried to fall into some kind of sustainable rhythm. It began to rain, the drops coming in almost horizontal, and as they topped the next wave Tuck established that half of the sky had disap-peared. They were only at the edge of the storm. The navigator was sidesplitter at him. The sea, the sky, the boat faded to black. champion second he was squinting seawater out of his eyes and staring at an obsidian wall ahead of the bow, then everything went black. integrality sensory overload, total sensory deprivation. He looked around for the stars, the moon, a highlight or shadow somewhere, but there was nothing but wind and wet and frigid and ache. He shivered and nearly curled into the foetal position in the bow to wait for death. The navigators screaming gave him a bearing.We need lightTuck braced himself, then dug into the saturated pack until he came out with two waterproof flashlights. Bless you, Jake Skye.He hit the sealed switches.Light. Enough to see that Kimi was steering them parallel to an ominous wall of water. They would be swamped. The navigator slammed the outboard to one side and gunned it. The little boatwhipped around just in time to meet the oncoming wave, ride up and over it. Tucker clung to the boat like a newborn monkey to its mother.Tuck lashed the lights to the lynchpin pulley at the bow, one pointed forrader, one into the boat, then he resumed bailing.A fiend wave rose up cardinal feet and slammed down over them. When Tuck blinked the flavour out of his eyes, he saw that the boat was all but a foot full of water. Another wave like that would swamp the motor. Without the motor to steer, they were lost. Bailing wasnt enough.Were going to die, he thought.thence the noise of the storm was gone.No, youre not, came the go, you fuckin mook. The bonanza of the wind and the screams of the navigator were gone. There was only the voice. Theres a tarpaulin in your pack. concussion it over the boat so you dont take on any more water. and so move to the one-quarter and bail.Now there was a picture in Tucks promontory of what he was to do. There were eyelets on the outdoors of the gunnels to accommodate the line around the edges of the tarp. He needed only to hook the line around the boat and tie it off back by Kimi, leaving just enough of the boat open for the navigator to steer and him to bail water.You got it, ace?Tuck could see it and he knew he could do it. Thanks, he said. Forget questioning where the voice was coming from. He nodded. The storm roared back over him.Five minutes subsequent the boat was covered and began to rise in the water as Tuck sat next to the navigator and bailed.You steer Kimi screamed.Tucker took the tiller as the navigator let go and tried to rub his hand out of a cramped claw.Tuck took the boat up the face of a heavyweight wave and the skiff went airborne. With no tube on the propeller, the motor shrieked and Tuck dumped the throttle to keep it from blowing up. The bow canted skyward and Kimi grabbed the gunwale just in time to avoid being dumped off the stern. They landed hard and the motor nearly went under. The motor sputtered. Tuck worked the throttle to supply it back to life.They were al ready going up the face of another wave, steeper than the last. If the wind caught them at the top, they would flip. Tuck suddenly remembered a glide move from his youth. The cutback. There was no way they could continue into the wind and into the waves. Halfway up the face of the wave, he twisted the throttle and threw the motor sideways. It coughed as if expelling a hairball, then roared, direct them across the face of the wave.What you doing? Kimi shouted.Tuck didnt answer. He was looking for the pocket, the place where the face of the wave would stay the same. If only the motor could abide by speed.The wave was creeping up on them, looming above their backs, but then they were high enough for the wind to catch them. middling enough boost. Just enough speed. The boat flattened out on the face of the wave. They were surfing, a thirty-foot wall of water waiting to crush them from behind should Tuck lose the pocket.Strangely, Tuck felt elated. It was a small victory, maybe thus far a unorthodox one, but they were running with the storm and he was in control of something for the first time since the plane crash. He watched the angle of the boat on the face of the wave, gauged its speed, its steepness, and made the placements that would keep them active. The black water seemed to eat up the flashlight beams, but he could see the wave becoming steeper and rising higher as it climbed the ocean shelf toward the hungry reef.18Land HoThe island was little more than a coral cupcake with a guano frosting. Not a hundred yards wide at its widest point and only five feet above sea level at its highest, it served as a resting place for seabirds, a nesting place for turtles, and purchase for cardinal coconut palms. The foliage and coconuts had all been mangled from the palms, and the storm-driven waves breaking on the surrounding reef frothed over the island, beating against the trunks and wash away the precious topsoil. Heavy as they were, some of the palms were being undermined by the sea and would soon wash away.Of the three travelers, only Roberto knew the island was there. As a young bat, he had stopped there to rest after leaving Guam, his birthplace, on his way to somewhere where the mangoes were new and the natives did not consider fruit bat a delicacy. But right now he was too grumpy hiding inside Kimis dress, screeching and clawing and mostly trying to keep warm, to mention to the navigator that the reason they were suddenly riding the face of an increasingly steep fifty-foot wave was because they were about to crash over a reef.By the time Tucker Case realized what was happening, they were inside an immense tube of water, surfing inside of the curl of the wave. The flashlights refracted off the green water, illuminating the tube, making it appear as if they were inside a giant hum Coke bottle. Tuck tried to keep the boat pointed toward the narrow circle of lightlessness where the bottle cap would go, where they would have to go to escape. Hed seen films of surfers shooting the curl on the northern Shore of Hawaii. It could be done. He clung to that vision,even as the wave passed over the reef and collapsed upon them.The boat rolled once, twice, three times, then tossed end over end and spun just under the surface as the wave frothed over the island. Kimi and Tuck were wound against the boat by their lifelines, beaten against the trunks of the palms, tossed and buffet against the boat. For Tucker there was no up, no down, no way to know when he might take a breath of life-giving air or suck seawater and die. He held his breath until he felt as if he would explode, then was slammed between the boat and a point and he let go.Robertos wing claws cut fatheaded furrows into Kimis ribs as he locomote for air. The navigator had taken a glancing blow across the forehead as the boat rolled over him and was knocked unconscious.Tuck felt himself pulled away from the boat, spun for a moment, then the twinge o f the lifeline around his waist. He could see the lights attached to the boat, notwithstanding shining, the only optic input in the sensory chaos. The boat had caught on something and he was trailing out behind it. Something bumped against his ribs and he reached for it instinctively, undercover work a handful of Kimis dress. Roberto was clinging to Kimis head, growling into the wind.They had passed through the island and come out on the other side. The boat had caught on the last palm direct before they were swept out to sea again.Tuck caught his lifeline with one hand, then wrapped his other arm around Kimis chest. Slowly, working against the watercourseing current, more like a river now that the waves had been broken by the reef and the island, he pulled them back to the boat.The boat was afloat, but barely, held up by the Styrofoam underseats and the air trapped in the gas tank. just an inch or two of gunwale showed above the water. Tuck crawled in, took one deep breath, t hen dragged the lifeless navigator in after him. Roberto scrambled on Kimis head to escape the sea and was almost taken by the wind. Tucker caught the giant bat by the throat and lifted him from Kimis head to his own back, wincing as Robertos claws penetrated his shirt. Then he hung the navigator over the side and began pumping the water out of his lungs.After a few seconds, he flipped him again and administered mouth-tomouth until Kimi coughed and vomited up a stream of seawater. Tuck held his head.You okay?Kimi nodded as he sucked in painful lungfuls of air. at a time he had his breath, he said, Roberto?Tuck pointed to the little dog face that was looking over his shoulder.Kimi managed a smile. Roberto Come. He took the bat from Tucks back and held him to his chest.They were safe, relatively sheltered by the island from the monster swells, they had only the wind and the rain to recognise with. The tarpaulin was gone. The boat was full of water, but it was afloat. Miraculously, t he flashlights were remedy attached. Tucker could see the tree that had caught them. He fell back into the bow, attraction his armpits over the gunwales, then slipped into a assert of exhausted unconsciousness that could almost be called sleep.19Water, WaterAt first light the coconut palm that had deliver them finally gave up and tipped over, let go of the boat to the sea. The outgoing tide carried the skiff and its sleeping passengers through a break in the reef to the open ocean.Tuck, sitting chest deep in seawater in the bow, was dreaming of being lost in the desert when a flying fish smacked him in the side of the head. Startled, he reached up instinctively, as one might big H at a biting mosquito, and caught the fish in his right hand. He clear his eyes. In his mind he was still in the desert, dying of thirst, and the fact that he was now holding on to something that looked like a trout with wings seemed a barbaric surrealist joke. He looked around, saw the boat, Kimi slumped in the back, ocean and sky, and nothing else there was no land in sight.He threw the fish at Kimi. It bounced off the navigators forehead and into the sea. Kimi screamed and sat up abruptly. Roberto sunglasses akimbo poked his head out the neck of Kimis dress and screeched at Tucker.What you do that for? Kimi said.Nice piece of navigation, Tuck said. Then he mocked Kimis broken English. You smell storm? You see storm in sky?Oh, you big-time pilot. Why you not check weather? What kind of dumb fuck American try to go two hundred miles in outboard, huh?You told me it was no problem.You paying Kimi big money. Not a problem.Well, its a bang problem now, isnt it?Kimi stroked Robertos head to calm him. diaphragm yelling. You scare Roberto.I dont care about Roberto. Were half-sunk in the middle of the Pacific and we dont have a motor. Id say we have a problem.Kimi stopped ministering to Roberto and looked up. No motor? He turned and looked back at the evacuate motor board. The re were marks where the fastens had raked across it as the motor pulled off in the tumble. He turned back to Tuck and grinned sheepishly. Whoops.Were dead, Tuck said.Kimi looked back again where the motor should have been, just to make sure that it was still gone. I ask that man, Is motor on good? He say, Oh yes, is clamp on very tight. I pay him good money and he lie. Oh, Kimi is very mad.Roberto barked in agreement.Stop it Tucker shouted. Roberto ducked into Kimis dress again. Weve got to get some of this water out of here. We have no motor. We cant go anywhere. Were adrift, lostAlive, Kimi interrupted. I get you out of typhoon alive and you just yell and say bad things. I quit. You get new navigator. Roberto say you mean, nasty, Chevy-driving, milk-drinking, American dog fucker.I dont drink milk, Tuck said. Ha Won that round.That what he say.Roberto does not talkNot to you, dog fucker. You no Kimi paused in mid-rant and retrieved the coffee can, which had been tied to the boat w ith a string, and started furiously scooping water out of the boat. You right. Now we bail.What? Tuck looked up to see Kimi was looking, wide-eyed, out to sea. Tuck followed his compliments to a spot twenty yards in front of the boat where a angulate fin was describing slow arcs in the swells.Hurry, Kimi shouted. He coming in.Tucker reached for his pack, causing the bow to dip under the water by a foot. Before he could adjust his weight to outgrowth the boat, the cheat came over the gunwale, snapping its jaws like a man-eating puppet.Tuck stood up to escape the jaws and the bow lurched deeper underwater. The shark slid into the boat as Tuck went backward over the side.Fear bolted through his body as if the water had been electrified.He wanted to move in all directions at once. He kicked hard and came up a few feet from the boat to see the shark sailplaning back into the water.Get in boat Kimi screamed. He was standing with his feet wide, trying to keep the boat from capsizing.T uck kicked so hard that he raised out of the water to the waist, then he fell toward the boat, catching the gunwale with one hand. Kimi shifted his weight to counterbalance and Tuck pulled himself in just as something hit his foot. He jerked his foot so hard he nearly went out of the boat on the opposite side, then he twisted in time to see the shark sliding down into the water with his shoe in its mouth. shadow you Kimi screamed.Another shark rose up at Tucks back. He swung around and punched it on the snout as hard as he could, taking the skin off of his knuckles on the sharks sandpaper skin. The shark slid away.The motion in the bow caused the stern to dip underwater and the next flak catcher came at Kimi. He tossed Roberto into the air as the shark came into the boat. Roberto spread his wings and soared into the sky. Kimi reached down and came up with the rubber fuel line.Tucker looked for anything they could use as a weapon, then remembered the folding knife he had put in his pocket the night before. It was still there.Kimi was slapping the shark with the rubber hose and accompaniment his way up onto the huge gas tank that made up the centre of the boat. Tuck opened the knife, then lunged forward at the navigator. KimiKimi reached back and Tuck fit the handle of the knife into his hand. The shark had worked half of its nine-foot body into the boat. Its tail thrashed at the water to power the shark up onto the gas tank. Kimi scrambled backward. Roberto swooped and screeched in the air above.Kimis right foot found purchase on the screw cap of the gas tank and he sat up. Tuck thought he was going to strike the shark with the knife, but instead he cut the gas line and squirted a stream of gas into the sharks gaping mouth. The shark thrashed and slid off the side of the boat.Kimi brandished the knife in the air. Yeah, fuckface, you run away. That not taste so sweet as Kimi, huh? He fell back onto the gas tank and took a deep breath. We show that shark who t he boss.Tuck said, Kimi, theres more. He pointed to set of fins approaching from the stern.