In the normal world, I’d never share a spoon. But this is so far from normal that nobody complains, we’re too busy wolfing down the food. Which tastes delicious, by the way, even if there’s not really enough to make us feel full.

“Break out another package,” Deke says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m just getting warmed up.”

“No,” says Mia, hugging the zipped-up backpack. “We need to ration.”

“Are you insane? Give me that pack, you little jerk. Or else.”

“No!”

No. One word. That’s all it took to start a war.

9. Freeze-Dried Maggots

In case I forgot to mention, Deke towers over Mia. She’s on the small side, and he’s taller than any of us. And anger seems to make him even bigger.

“You know what you are?” he says, jabbing his finger in her direction. “A bossy little know-it-all. Every class has a loser like you. But this isn’t school! You can’t run to the teacher, or complain to the principal. You’re not in charge of anything! You’re not in charge of me, and for sure you’re not in charge of the food.”

If Mia is scared, she doesn’t show it. “Why is it that when boys are in charge they’re heroes, but when a girl steps up she’s bossy?”

“Because you are?” Tony says, taunting.

If Mia had laser beams for eyes, he’d be a puff of smoke. “Whatever,” she says. “Here’s the deal. There are only twelve freeze-dried packets, okay? Eleven now that we’ve eaten one. We don’t know how long it will take them to find us. We have to ration. One meal a day.”

Deke waves angrily at the cloud-blackened sky. “Soon as this blows over, they’ll send up helicopters. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be heading home.”

“I hope so, I really do. But we can’t be sure about that. They don’t even know what river we were rafting, remember? This one is a hundred miles from where they thought we were going.”

“Not that far. No way.”

“When we found the first river was dry, we drove for almost two hours, remember?”

“Just shut up. They’ll find us! Now hand it over!”

“Coach Sky gave me the backpack. It was the last thing he did. He could have given it to you, but he gave it to me. So I’m responsible.”

Deke clenches his fists. Is he going to hit Mia? If he does, I’ll have to stop him. Or try my best. But a moment later, he starts chuckling, like everything he just said was meant to be a joke. “You know what? I think I lost my appetite. You can keep your stupid freeze-dried food. What flavor was it? Garbage pail? Toilet bowl?”

“That’s disgusting,” Imani says. “How come boys always have to be disgusting?”