Surrounded by Sharks by Michael Northrop Page B

they’d been heading. They had an extra person now, but not much use for him. Brando looked around. This part of the island was even quieter — and that was saying something. There were no bar stands or docks, no little clusters of people. In their place was an extra helping of trees and scrubby little bushes. He watched as Marco made a show of helping. He leaned over to look behind a tree and then leaned back to look up into it.
    “My brother isn’t a monkey,” said Brando.
    Marco looked down and flashed his big smile at him, but Brando wasn’t buying it.
    “Where does this little path go?” said Pamela. She was a few steps ahead of the rest of them and pointing down at a little gap in the undergrowth.
    “Goes to a little beach,” said Marco.
    “We should check it out,” said Tam, but Marco had already caught up with them and started down the path.
    Without another word, they turned and followed him. It was a narrow path, and they had to walk single file to avoid the saw grass. Marco moved quickly, barely looking down. He knew the path well. Hotel employees sometimes hid out back here, extending their breaks as long as they thought they could get away with. It is definitely a place a kid could go and not be noticed , he thought.
    But when they reached the mouth of the path, there was no one there. No employees, and no missing boy. Brando pushed past him on the left as Tam and Pamela pushed past him on the right. He followed a few steps behind, and they all fanned out across the little beach.
    “Davey!” called Pamela.
    “You here, champ?” called Tam. “Where are you? We’re not mad!”
    Brando let out a little burst of air. Yeah, right , he thought. But his eyes scanned every inch of the beach.
    They all noticed the same things in a different order. Brando saw the No Swimming sign and then scanned the line of surf. Pamela scanned the surf first and then saw the sign. Tam was still staring into the deep shadows along the trees at the beach’s edge and nearly tripped over the thing. He read it.
    “He’s not, uh …” Marco began, nodding toward the sign. He didn’t even want to think it, much less say it. But he had to. “Your son, he’s not much of a swimmer, is he?”
    Pamela looked at him, horrified.
    “No!” she said. She disliked him more now, just for saying that.
    “No, he used to, but he doesn’t even …” said Tam. He was distracted, just now scanning the surf. He snapped out of it when he finished. “No, he used to go to the lake, but I don’t think he went at all last year.” He turned to look at Brando. “You guys go to the lake last summer?”
    “Not much. Maybe twice,” said Brando. “He never wanted to.”
    What he didn’t say was that he still wasn’t allowed to go alone. His parents already knew that, and Marco figured it out from his tone of voice.
    “Yeah, Davey’s in more of an indoor phase right now,” said Tam. “And he definitely wouldn’t ignore a sign like this, either.”
    “That’s true,” said Brando. In the last year or two, his brother had become the sort of freak kid who walked around fences instead of climbing over them.
    “You should get a new sign,” said Pamela, frowning at the faded letters. “Or at least stand it up straight.”
    “Not hotel property,” said Marco.
    “I don’t care whose property it is,” she said, looking directly at him. Marco looked down and saw an old cigarette butt in the sand. He had an eagle eye for them at this point. He looked around, wondering if there was anything else he was missing.
    Brando saw his eyes searching the ground and did the same. It occurred to him to look for footprints, but the beach was full of them now. Four fresh sets. He looked up and tried to see the beach the way Davey would. It was quiet, and there was shade over by the trees. It would be a good place to sit and read.
    “He’d like it here,” he said. But the adults were still squabbling about who did or did not own the beach and