Surrounded by Sharks Read Free Page B

were sitting quietly on their luggage at the edge of a little dock, just off the walking path.
    “Out for a walk?” called a very tall man.
    Davey looked at him. The only thing louder than the man’s voice was his shirt. A Hawaiian shirt in Florida … Those were some weak geographical skills right there.
    “Yeah,” Davey called back. He tried to think of something else to say so he could walk away from them without seeming rude. “Waiting for a boat?”
    “Yeah,” called the man. “First one of the day. We’re not exactly sure when it’s supposed to get here, but we’ve got an early flight.”
    That hadn’t worked. Now he had to respond to that, too. He took another look at the little group. The lady was glancing over her shoulder and out to sea, as if mentioning the boat might’ve made it appear. There was a boy there, too, younger than Brando. The boy nodded at him, and Davey nodded back. He realized he still hadn’t responded.
    “Well, good luck with that!” he called. He gave a quick wave and started walking again before they could say anything else.
    Once he was a safe distance away, he looked back. There was a white boat tied to the end of the dock. He sort of wanted to check it out. He also wanted to walk to the end of the dock and look into the deeper water. He bet there’d be fish and stuff. But he couldn’t with all those people camped out at this end of it. What was it, rush hour all of a sudden? He kept walking, looking for a quiet spot to read his book.
    The pathway connected to another one leading to the back of the hotel. There was a pool, which made no sense to him. The whole place was surrounded by ocean. He kept going and was all the way at the other end of the little island when he found it. A little path split off from the main one. He followed it through a thick stand of scrubby bushes and salt-stunted trees and emerged onto the most beautiful little beach he’d ever seen. The most beautiful, and the most private. There was absolutely no one there, and looking back, he could no longer see the walkway or the hotel or really much of anything.
    In fact, the only evidence that anyone had ever been there before was a large sign, nearly falling over in the sand. The paint was sun-blasted and peeling, but he could still make out most of the letters: NO SW MM NG .
    He played a quick game of Wheel of Fortune in his head, bought a vowel: No Swimming .

Brando got up to go to the bathroom. He was so sleepy that he didn’t notice his brother was gone until he got back. For a few moments he just stood at the end of his bed looking at the empty cot. At first he thought that something exciting might’ve happened. Maybe his brother had been carried off by a gator or captured by drug smugglers. He’d watched enough TV to know that Florida had both.
    He walked over to the cot, knelt down, and looked underneath. Davey wasn’t camped out under there. He looked over at his own bed: comfortable and warm. He could just go back to sleep and forget about it, but now he was curious. He knew his older brother well — he’d lived with him his entire life — so he knew what to look for.
    He checked the floor on both sides of the cot, everywhere within an arm’s length or so. Sure enough, Davey’s glasses were gone. And where was that book he’d been carrying around all week, The Silma-something-or-other ? He found Davey’s little stack of books and checked each one. It was gone, too.
    So he took his glasses and his book , thought Brando. Probably his key card for the room, too . That pretty much ruled out gator attack or kidnapping. Brando shrugged it off. That had been a long shot, anyway. So that meant …
    Davey had snuck out of the room. It didn’t surprise Brando that much. His brother was always wandering off to hang out by himself these days. He’d become so boring. But this was different. This wasn’t heading straight up to his room after dinner. He could get in major trouble for