The Skeleton Tree Read Online Free Page A

didn’t
care
if the seaweed made me sick. I plucked out a wrinkled leaf and started eating, and once I’d started I couldn’t stop. Some of the seaweed was crunchy. Some was soft and slimy, and it slithered down my throat like globs of snot. All of it tasted awful, but I gorged myself anyway.
    Frank gazed out at the sea and across the little cove. Then he turned to me and asked, still chewing, “Where’s Jack?”
    The question sort of stunned me. I was afraid to tell him the truth in case he fell into his eerie sleep again, or in case he refused to move until I’d answered a hundred questions. So I told a shameful lie. “He’s gone ahead to look for help.”
    “Then let’s find him.” Frank stood up. He looked around again, down at my feet. “Hey, where are your shoes?”
    “I lost them,” I said.
    “Moron.”
    The cliffs were less than twenty feet high, but the rocks were sharp and jagged. With cuts on my hands, and nothing but socks on my feet, I climbed a lot slower than Frank. But he didn’t try to help me. He just scrambled up and disappeared over the edge.
    By the time I reached the top I was sure he would be miles ahead. But he was lying on his back on a bit of grass, with a dried stem stuck in his teeth.
    I had never imagined we would find people just beyond the cove. But it was still a huge disappointment to look to the north and see empty wilderness stretching on forever. If we had come to an island it was enormous, too big to walk around, too mountainous to cross. If we’d landed on the mainland, we might have to trek a thousand miles to find another person. It seemed useless to go on, but just as useless to stay where we were.
    “How far did we go before we sank?” I asked.
    Frank didn’t answer.
    “How long were we sailing?”
    He still ignored me. He spat out the grass stem and flicked his hair. “Jack’s dead, isn’t he?” he asked.
    I couldn’t admit it so bluntly. I just nodded.
    “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I was trying to help.”
    Frank glared at me. “The day I need your help, that’s the day I kill myself.”
    Well, I had already saved his life. But I didn’t point that out. Frank got up and started walking. A moment later, he whirled around and shouted at me, “Do you
know
he’s dead?”
    “Yes,” I told him. “I saw it.”
    “You saw
what
?”
    I felt tears coming into my eyes, so I turned away. “He was in the boat when it sank,” I said. “He was right in front of me, down in the cabin.”
    “Then why didn’t you save him?”
    I looked up and stared right back, not caring now if my eyes were red. “Why didn’t
you
save him?” I said.
    “I would have,” said Frank. “If I’d been that close.”
    “He told me to stay outside!” My hands were clenched so tightly that my fingernails pressed into the skin. “He went down to get the radio, and the water trapped him. What do you think I could do, you stupid idiot?”
    “You could have tried,” said Frank.
    I shrieked at him, “The boat was sinking!”
    Just a few feet apart, we snarled like animals about to kill each other. My heart was pounding, and Frank was flushed with anger. But just as I thought he was going to hit me, he reached up and flicked his hair again. Then he turned toward the sea, and a little bit of a calm came over us.
    “So what about the radio?” His back was toward me. “Did he get it? Did he call for help?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Why not?”
    I didn’t want to tell him about my fumbled catch. But into my mind came an image of Uncle Jack in the sinking boat, and it didn’t seem fair to tell less than the truth. “He got the VHF,” I said. “He tried to toss it through the hatch. But I missed.”
    A little sound came from Frank. Because I couldn’t see his face, I didn’t know if he was angry or amused. When he slowly turned around I saw only that annoying sort of pout that hid all expression.
    “You’re such a moron,” he