“Maybe we can get Bodo to do that part,” whispered Peter conspiratorially.

“I hope so,” I said, winking at him.

“So what’s the deal with the dead people?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you later. It’s sad.”

Peter studied my face a little closer. “You’ve been crying.”

I turned away to grab some more cans. “Yeah. Like I said. It’s sad.”

Peter didn’t say anything in response - he just grabbed what he could in one armload and left with it to find spots for it in the trailer.

Bodo came over with a ring of keys jingling in his hand. “I got da keys. You want me to go unload da canoes?”

“Yes, please. I’ll finish getting stuff out of here. I figure we need to get it all now. We can’t expect this place to stay untouched for long, now that its protectors are dead.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Okay, see you later.”

He jumped back up on the sill and fell out head first again.

I shook my head at his antics. I’d never known anyone like him before this life-changing event, and I wondered what I would have thought of him if I had met him a year or two years ago. I also wondered whether he acted this way back then or if the world having changed had somehow made him different.

I know it had made an impact on the way I acted. It probably should have made me more distrustful and introverted, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect. I was more open to other people now and had lost some of my preconceived notions about people my age. Where before everyone had appeared so different from me, now they all seemed the same. Maybe they had different wrappers on the outside, but inside we were all just … people - the only exception being the canners. They were nothing like me. Inside they were monsters, hidden on the outside by wrappers that looked normal.

I shook my head, trying to make the visions of the two canners who I’d had the close encounters with leave my mind. I thought of Bodo’s eyes instead, how they looked when they stared at me while he reassured me that everything was going to be okay. It brought me a measure of peace, and even made it possible for me to look over at the brother and sister on the floor without feeling sick. I noticed for the first time that they were holding hands.

“Thanks, William and Rachel. We appreciate you sharing your parents’ stuff with us. We’ll put it to good use, I promise.”

“Who are you talking to in there?” asked Peter, his face at the windowsill again.

“No one … myself. Here.” I handed him a bag of Doritos.

“Holy crap-on-a-stick, Bryn, it’s a bag of nacho cheese Doritos!”

I smiled. “I know. We’re going to have a serious party tonight.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

BY THE TIME I HAD emptied the small shack of anything we could use, Bodo had taken all the canoes down and lined them up on the beach. Each one had two oars inside it, one with a wide paddle-part and one with a narrower one. I’d never used a canoe before so I had no idea what difference the sizes would make. Something told me I was going to find out soon enough.

“Let me help you with that,” I said to Peter, as he struggled to maneuver the trailer to the edge of the bank that led down to the canoes.

“Thanks.”

Buster kept running down to the canoes and then back up to the trailer, apparently excited about the idea of whatever we were doing. I didn’t know about small poodles being much for the water, but he sure seemed to think it was cool.

“We should do an assembly line thing,” suggested Peter. “I’ll throw stuff down to you one at a time and you can pass it to Bodo to put in the canoe.”

“Works for me,” I said, looking over to Bodo for his approval.

“Sure. Go aheadt. I’m ready.”

Peter began with the canned goods. I managed to only drop about one out of every ten cans, but I blamed it on Peter and his not so amazing tossing skills.

“I’m over here, Peter, not over there.”

“Sor-ry. I’m trying to get them right to you but they’re different sizes. It’s hard to estimate the force exactly right.”

“Excuses, excuses,” I teased.

“I’m not going to throw the chips. I don’t want to break the seals on the bags.”

“Good thinking.”

Once we’d moved the lighter items, the last things remaining were the grenades, backpacks, and the bikes and trailer themselves. One canoe was almost completely full of the other stuff. Bodo came up to join Peter and me at the top of the bank.

“What are we going to do with da bikes?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not like we can ride them in the water or use them in the small bits of floating forests there are out there.”

“Yeah,” said Peter, “but we’re going to want to have them to go look for things when we need to later … back in that town. I mean, we’re not going to be out in the swamps forever and ever without ever leaving for anything, right?”

I shook my head. “Probably not.”

“So we need to keep dem. But do we need to take dem with us is da question.”

“I don’t think we should leave them here. Someone will eventually find them and take them.”

“Okay, den. So we bring dem with us. We need to disconnect da trailer.”

“I’ll get on that. You guys get the other two bikes down there and the sensitive cargo that’s left in the trailer.”

Thirty minutes later we had everything to our names piled up in three canoes. We tried to stack all the bikes in one, but it made it to top-heavy and it looked like it could tip over too easy. We sat on the dock, drinking water from our bottles and eating a bag of the chips we had found in the shack. I handed a few to Buster who crunched away at them and then licked up every single crumb that dropped. He drank water out of my cupped hand for a few seconds and then gave up, running down to the water’s edge to drink from there.

“So do we go in one canoe together and pull the other ones somehow? Or are we going to each take one alone?” asked Peter.

“I will tell you what I think,” said Bodo. “You guyss go in two empty canoes, with Peter in da front. We can attach da three canoes with our stuff to you, Bryn, and each udder. Den, I can follow in a canoe with all da udder boats behindt me.”

“Like a big convoy,” said Peter, smiling.

“It’s not ideal, but I guess it’s the only way we can make sure that we don’t leave behind a boat for someone to follow us with.”

“Is the current strong?” asked Peter.

“I have no idea. I guess we’re going to find out.”

“We can handle it. It’s not a problem.” Bodo beamed at us, rubbing his hands together in excitement. “We are almost home, guyss! I can feel it! And I haff extra energy right now, so we should use it before I get tiredt again.”

“You’re right,” I said, standing up and brushing myself off. I’m not really sure why I bothered, since my jeans were beyond ever being clean again. I guess old habits die hard. “Might as well do this now. I don’t want to be fighting currents or alligators when the canners might be out and about, listening.”

“Alligators?” asked Peter meekly. “Are you serious?”

“Kind of. I mean, they do live here, you know.”

“Yeah, but they’re shy right?”

I shrugged. “Let’s hope so.”

Peter stood up. “Bryn, sometimes I don’t know if your lack of concern is bravery or … something else.”

“Tell me you weren’t going to say stupidity.”

“I didn’t say it,” said Peter, trying to look innocent.

“Go ahead, call me stupid. But I got us this far.”

“Yes, you did,” soothed Bodo. “You’re not stupid, you’re brave. Maybe a little more creatif dan udder people, but dat’s a good thing to me.”

“Thank you, Bodo,” I said, just before sticking my tongue out at Peter.

“I’m sorry, he’s right. Without you I would have been sitting in my aunt’s house still, looking at my last batch of tomato sauce and wondering where I was going to find my next meal.”

I smiled hugely. “And here you are, getting ready to float away with a bunch of boats filled with baked beans and nacho cheese Doritos instead! How can you possibly doubt my awesomeness?”

“It’s gonna be gassy in this swamp,” he said, giggling.

“You’d better not, Peter. You’ll get kicked off the island. I’m not kidding.”

He just shrugged, stepping off the dock and going over to an empty canoe. “What are we connecting these things together with?”

“Da chain,” said Bodo, picking up one end of it and passing it through a metal loop on the front of an empty canoe. He dragged it down the length of the boat, clanking and banging it along its side until he got to the next one. He only had three of them strung together when he ran out of links. “We think needt a rope.”

“I saw one in the shack,” I said.

“I’ll go get it,” offered Peter, scrambling up the bank.

“It’s behind the counter!” I yelled. “Grab the blanket off the windowsill on your way back!”

“Okay!”

“I probably should have already taken that rope. I didn’t think we’d need it but that was stupid.”

“Don’t worry about it. We can come back and get da last few thingks later. Nobody expects you to be perfect all da time.”

“I do,” I said, thinking about how hard my dad had worked to be precise and careful with his decisions and actions. I kept thinking that if I just did what I could now to live up to his standards, it would somehow keep him from floating away out of my memory or something. I was afraid to think that at some point, I was going to start forgetting what his face looked like.

I pulled the picture of him and me out of my pocket and stared at it while I waited for Peter to come back.

Bodo came over and stood next to me. “Is dat your dad?”

“Yeah. We were somewhere here in the Everglades.”

“Dat’s cool. Dat means his spirit is already here.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. I never thought of it that way.”

Peter came back with the rope still coiled and the blanket, much more subdued than he was before. “There are some slivers of glass in this thing. I don’t know what you want to do about that.”

“Just fold it over to cover them. We’ll worry about getting them out later. I think we can still use it.”

Peter balled up the blanket and shoved it in the canoe with our backpacks. “Are we ready?” he asked, standing in the sand and looking down at the ground.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. His sudden change of mood was strange.

“I saw the two kids in there.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’ll tell you about them later.”

“I read the note.”

I walked over and gave his shoulders a quick squeeze. “Sorry. It sucks, I know.”

“I know it’s better that she’s not suffering anymore. Maybe they’re the smart ones.”

“No, they’re not. Come on, let’s get out of here. It’s too depressing. Let’s go find our new hang out.”

Peter picked up Buster and walked over to the canoe in front and sat inside at the back of it, putting Buster down by his feet. “I’m ready whenever you guys are.”

Bodo and I exchanged glances, saying nothing.

***

Bodo went into the water and pulled the first canoe out with Peter on board, pointing it towards the center of the waterway.

“Go aheadt. Get in,” he said, gesturing to me and the canoe behind Peter that was now in a few feet of water.