Storm Warriors Read Free Page B

and trim are vermilion, which makes it so sailors can see it from far out in the ocean.
    I also found swampy places on the sound side and white sand beach on the ocean side, and a herd or two of cows and wildponies in between. The ponies are descendants of the ponies that swam ashore from wrecked Spanish ships years and years ago. With no one to take care of them, they all have patchy hair from chewing on flea bites and potbellies from worms.
    The only other thing I found, besides the telegraph poles that run the length of the island, was the ruins of the old Etheridge house. Mr. Bowser said Mr. Jesse Etheridge, one of the white Etheridges, used to live in it, but that nobody has tried to fix it up since a northeaster blew most of the roof off some years ago.
    When the surfmen came back to the station on August first after their summer break, I took to watching their drills from a sand hill nearby. They did them in the morning: drilling with the surfboat on Tuesday, practicing with the signal flags on Wednesday, breeches-buoy drill on Thursday, and resuscitation of the apparently drowned on Friday. Saturday was general cleaning, Sunday a day of rest except for keeping watch, and some days they had a fire drill. Mondays were used for different things, like having the mules practice pulling the surfboat, overhauling the beach apparatus equipment, or whitewashing the stables. Then, in the afternoons, the man on watch for the day stayed on the lookout deck atop the station, and the rest of the crew went hunting or fishing.
    One Friday, I was watching from my usual spot when they started motioning me to come on down from my sand hill. I about froze up, scared that they were mad at me for watching sooften. But then Mr. Etheridge called out, “William says he's tired of being victim”—he pointed at Mr. Irving, the lowest-ranking surfman—“and the men need practice with a child victim, anyway. Come on down here.”
    Mr. Etheridge is the kind of man who, if he tells you to do something, you do it. I walked slowly toward the surfmen.
    “All you've got to do is start out apparently drowned and end up alive,” said Mr. Wise, grinning. “We'll do the rest.”
    “And your ribs'll feel fine after a few days,” said Mr. Irving.
    I raised my eyebrows. My ribs? But I didn't have time to start worrying, because all of a sudden the men went into action, and instead of working on the surfboat or the breeches buoy, they started working on
me
.
    They pushed me down in the sand on my back. “He's not breathing,” someone cried. “Begin resuscitation! Wipe dry the mouth and nostrils!”
    I was about to yell that I was breathing just fine, but somebody stuck a dry rag in my mouth and then wiped my nose with it, and I was too surprised to yell anything. They about tore the buttons off my shirt to open it up and slapped me on the chest three times
hard
.
    “Ow!” I cried.
    “There's no response, proceed to step two!” someone shouted.
    Since when is “Ow” not a response? I wondered. They pried my mouth open and stuck a piece of cork between my teeth.
    “What's this for?” I tried to ask, but it came out sounding like “Huh-ih-haw?” and nobody answered me.
    They rolled me onto my stomach over top of a bundled-up blanket, and somebody shoved against my back so hard the blanket about squashed my stomach up flat against my backbone.
    “He's got a lot of seawater running out his mouth. Keep pushing!” they shouted.
    I could have told them that was drool, but I didn't want to try talking again with the cork between my teeth.
    After pushing on my back a few more times, somebody said the seawater was done running out, and they rolled me onto my back again. Three of them knelt around me—Mr. Pugh, Mr. Wise, and Mr. Bowser. “We've got to move to step three,” said Mr. Wise, looking worried, “or we'll lose him for sure.”
    I winced. Step three was probably even worse than steps one and two.
    Mr. Pugh took out the cork, then used