Geri grabbed the binoculars and confirmed it. She removed a soggy piece of paper from her pocket and ripped off a small corner, then threw it in the water and leaned over to watch it.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Laghari asked.

“The currents,” Geri replied. “See how that paper comes back to the raft? Whatever’s out there will come our way if we hold our position.”

She had us paddle with our hands against the drift. I watched the red figure draw closer and closer. Finally, Yannis, who now had the binoculars, blurted out, “Oh my god . . . It’s a kid.”

We stopped paddling to look. There, in the coming sunlight, clinging to a deck chair, was a little girl, maybe eight years old. She wore a red dress, and her light brown hair was soaked against her head. Her eyes were open, but her expression was blank, as if she were waiting calmly for something to begin. I imagine she was in shock.

“Hey! Are you all right?” we yelled. “Hey!”

Then splash! Geri was in the water. She swam until she reached the deck chair, then swam back with the girl’s arms around her neck.

That’s how we discovered Alice.

Who has not said a word since.

* * *

When the sun set and the sky turned an amber shade, Geri rose and made an announcement. “Look, everybody. I know what happened to Mrs. Laghari is awful. But we gotta regroup. We need to focus to survive.”

I looked at the Lord. I did not tell anyone about his hand going in the water, or that strange look he gave me. Am I imagining things? Was he in some way responsible for that attack? What kind of God would do that?

Jean Philippe collected what was left of our supplies. We’d lost the binoculars, the sunglasses, and, worst of all, some of the food. The sea anchors are gone. The sharks cut a hole in the lower tubing, so the raft tilts downward and water splashes in repeatedly. One of us must constantly bail it out. Geri is trying to figure how to patch the hole closed, but it may mean going beneath the boat, and nobody wants to do that after what just happened.

“From now on, if those sharks get close, we’ve got to use these,” Geri said, holding up one of the paddles. “You bang them on the snout. Hard.”

“Won’t that make them mad?” Yannis asked.

“Sharks don’t get mad. They only attack when they smell or sense—”

“Stop this! Stop it!” Nina yelled. “We have to say something about Mrs. Laghari! We can’t talk about what happens next without saying goodbye to her! What’s the matter with us?”