“Er, Grandad, we’re taking on water!”

Grandad snapped out of his reverie.

“What?!”

He looked down.

“Oh no!”

Marty nudged Gracie, nodded to his wet feet. She looked up in worry.

“Bucket at the ready!” said Grandad.

There was barely an inch of water in the bottom of the pumpkin, but it was swishing back and forth already. Grandad set about trying to find where it was coming from.

“It’s the expanding foam!” he cried. “The engine has moved. There’s a gap!”

The spray from the waves was splashing over them as they SWISH SWISH SWISHED from side to side. Marty was feeling sick now too. Weak and sick. He set about trying to scrape up as much of the water as he could while Grandad tried to steer the boat home as quickly as possible. Gracie concentrated hard on not vomiting violently over everyone.

“We can’t be that far out!” cried Grandad.

At first Marty thought he was keeping on top of it, but after a while, he felt the water come up to his ankles.

“Grandad! It’s no good, Grandad!”

The lady from allotment 7 had lent them her binoculars. Grandad had hung them around his neck, and every now and again he’d point them in the direction of what should be shore and study to see if he could see land. There was nothing.

Gracie had started to help with the water now too, sick or not. This was fast becoming a crisis. She was shoveling water out as fast as she could with the enamel mugs.

Marty was being pushed back and forth now, being knocked from one side of the boat to the other. He and Gracie started a highly complex dance of trying not to knock each other out.

“Can you see land, Grandad? Grandad!”

Grandad was looking, but he couldn’t see a thing.

“Just keep trying!” he said.

Marty was sure that the boat was sitting much, much lower in the water. The sea seemed to be getting higher around them. He worked faster until the muscles in his arms ached and his stomach was burning. Gracie was white as a sheet by now.

“Marty, are we going to be okay?”

Marty didn’t want to lie to her. This was serious.

“I reckon we should fire off that firework, Grandad!”

“I agree!” he shouted over the wind.

Marty couldn’t keep himself still long enough to light the match. Every time he got one lit, the wind would blow it out. Every time he got a new one from the box, a spray of water would dampen it.

“Why didn’t we bring a lighter?” he shouted in frustration.