Surviving Bear Island by Paul Greci

kayak—as much as I like seeing them, I wish they’d just leave us alone.”
    Now they were twenty yards away and one of them surfaced with a salmon in its mouth. It shook its head back and forth, tossed the stunned fish into air, and swam after it. The other sea lions dove. Maybe they were all fishing. I mean, if given the choice between harassing kayakers or eating, they’d probably choose to eat.
    â€œThat’ll keep them busy.” Dad said. “We need to work our way back toward shore.”

CHAPTER 9
    WHEN I tried to breathe, I felt all these sharp pains, like when I was helping Dad build a deck and my stomach slammed into the end of a beam and knocked the wind out of me, only this was a hundred times worse.
    I rolled onto my side and curled up, my whole body trembling, like how a dog quivers when it’s scared.
    I lay there until the trembling died down and I could breathe without all the pain.
    I lifted my head, then moved my arms and legs. They seemed okay. I sat up. That’s when I noticed the taste in my mouth.
    I spat some bloody saliva, ran my tongue between my teeth and lower lip, and felt two flaps of flesh where there shouldn’t have been any. And under the flaps, I poked the tip of my tongue into two deep gashes.
    I spit more blood. The gashes stung, like pieces of hot metal were pressing into them.
    If my mouth had been open when I’d hit the ground, I’d have broken my teeth.
    Check everything. Carefully.
    I pressed a finger onto my bottom lip and it came back bloody. I wished I had a mirror. I mean, I didn’t know if the blood was from the gashes, or someplace else. I pulled my lip out and curled it down, trying to see the damage, but that didn’t work ’cause my nose blocked my view.
    I ran my hands across my face but didn’t find any more blood. My lip felt tight, like I’d been punched in the mouth by the mountain. And my cheeks on both sides of my nose just below my eyes screamed with pain.
    I lay back down on my side and pulled my knees to my chest. I was never gonna make it to the Sentinels.
    My sweat cooled and I started to shiver.
    Get up.
    â€œShut up.” I waited but didn’t hear anything in response. “Good.” I said. “I don’t want you whispering crap into my ear. You say almost nothing for three years. You can’t just turn it on and expect everything to be okay.” Another shiver ran through my body. The bottoms of my feet were going numb.
    â€œOkay,” I told myself, “If I just lie here, I’ll die for sure. And, what if I don’t find my dad? I make it to the Sentinels but he doesn’t? What then?”
    Live in some kind of home for the homeless?
    Or with my uncle and his family in Michigan? I’d seen him once my whole life. He came up after Mom died. Tried to talk my dad into doing some kind of religious ceremony. Said there was still time to
save
my mom.
    Take one day at a time. One moment at time.
    I sat up and put my hands on my ears. “Shut up. Just shut up.”
    I stood, and pain shot through my right hip.
    Bruises. Just bruises. But in my mind I saw a broken leg. A broken arm. And bleeding, lots of bleeding. No one to help me.
    And then I thought about my dad. If he was down there in Hidden Bay and I just gave up, then what would happen to him? If he lost me, it’d just send him over the edge again. My chest tightened. “I’ll find you, Dad. I’ll make this right.”
    I used baby-steps to pick my way down the last of the steep section, my hip throbbing with every step. I kept glancing over to both sides and behind me. I mean, not that long ago I’d kicked a sleeping bear, and yeah, it’d run away, but it could be anywhere. Bears weren’t as scary when they ran away, but still, if that bear had wanted, it could’ve had me for lunch. Could’ve pinned me down like a flopping salmon.
    Then I was working my way through flat