Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,20

still wondering why the bird doesn’t seem strange to anyone else when a foghorn kind of noise blasts from out on the water. I jump, my heartbeat ratcheting up, breath sharp in my lungs.

“Where is it?” I say.

It’s a clear enough day, the sun up somewhere behind the gray sky. You can see the shore from here, a smear way out across the waves. And in between, no boat, no ship.

“Just wait.”

“But I don’t see.”

Another foghorn, and the others look ready, like this is the way it’s supposed to be, and then, out of the gray, like it’s pushing through some great fog, the prow of a ship.

It’s a tug with a blunt nose and a faded hull. Too big to get close on our side of the island, but the ferry pier is just right, jutting out over deep water. I recognize the ID stamp as the tug swings closer, the white number and the stripes of yellow and blue on the stack. I saw these sometimes in Norfolk. Navy-issue, they mean, from Camp Nash on the coast.

The wake is just hitting the shore as the ship turns, and if I squint, I can make out two people, bigger than they should be in bright-colored suits, moving around on the flat tail of the deck. The ship is turning, the motor getting louder and louder until Carson crams her fingers in her ears. There’s a big orange crane near the back—I can make it out now—and it’s lifting, extending, and we watch it hoist a pallet from the deck, over and out across the water, to the end of the pier.

The crane releases and the pallet crashes down. Under us the pier boards shudder. I take a step forward, but Julia throws her arm across my chest.

“They have to give the all clear,” she says.

The hook has released and the crane’s retracting, and the two people are just standing there on the deck, looking at us, and I’m waiting for one of them to wave or something when the horn goes off, and it’s so close and so big that we just stand there, mouths open, let it wash over us.

Eventually, it stops, and I take a gasping gulp of fresh air.

“Now we can go,” Julia says.

The water’s slapping against the supports as the wake gets bigger, now the tug is moving fast again. Two seagulls land noisily on the railing of the pier. They’re watching us, watching the supplies the boat left. Here to scavenge, to get what they can. They must follow the tug from the mainland.

Now that we’re closer I can see that there’s a lot in this delivery. And I mean a lot, more than what they usually carry back. The pallet is covered with wooden cartons, all nailed shut, and on top of those are five or six bags, the kind Boat Shift always come home with.

“What is all this?” I ask. I know the push of Byatt’s ribs too well. She needs this food. We all do.

“It’s between us,” Welch says. “That’s what it is.”

“It’s okay,” Carson is saying, and I fight to tear my eye away from the pile of cartons. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

“Is this all food? This could feed us for a week.”

“Longer, probably,” Julia says dryly.

They’re all watching me, waiting for something, only I don’t know what. “Is it always like this?” Maybe this is the first time, maybe they’re as surprised as I am, but Welch nods calmly. “I don’t understand. Where does it all go? Why doesn’t it come back to the house?”

Welch steps toward me, her body between me and the food. Julia and Carson slot in alongside her, their faces solemn save the anxious frown blooming on Carson’s brow.

“Listen to me very carefully,” Welch says. “I picked you for a reason. This job is about protecting those girls back at home. Even when it’s hard. Even when it doesn’t look the way you expect it to.”

I shake my head, take a step back. This isn’t right. I can’t make sense of it. “What are you talking about?”

“Some of the food is off,” Welch explains. “They send a lot, but maybe only half of it’s unspoiled. All sorts of bad things in there. Expired products. Pesticides.”

“Pesticides?” I say, incredulous, but Julia and Carson are nodding, grim expressions to match Welch’s. “We’re starving because of pesticides?”

“Your systems are so compromised already. I’m not sure you can afford to take risks