A million years go by. Several very long minutes for sure. Somehow, I’m still here, clinging to the ledge, and the roar is gradually subsiding. I sneak a peek over the edge.

The flood is at least ten feet below us now, and dropping. Cindi Beacon is nowhere to be seen. She’s gone.

They’re both gone, Sky and Cindi.

We’re alone.

5. What About Us?

Hard to tell when the sun comes up, because it never stops raining. Cool, constant rain, from clouds so low they seem just above the trees. In the pale gray light, I make out five of us perched on the ledge. Me, Deke, Tony, Mia, and Imani. All of us drenched and miserable.

“We shouldn’t even be on this freakin’ river,” Deke complains. “The coaches were idiots.”

Mia looks like she’d like to shove him off the ledge, even though he’s twice her size. “Shut up, Deke. They saved our lives! And now they’re dead!”

“It’s their own fault.” Deke folds his arms, defiant. He’s the only one not shivering, like he has his own furnace of anger keeping him warm. “They changed rivers and never let anybody know. That’s, like, super against the rules.”

“Be quiet and let me think,” Mia says fiercely. “We have to find a way off this ledge or we’ll be dead, too.”

“Maybe you,” Deke says. “I’ll be just fine.”

“Can we stop fighting?” I suggest. “I, um, think Mia’s right. We could die of exposure. We need to get out of the rain, warm up somehow.”

Mia stands up, leaning back against the sandstone cliff to keep her balance. “It’s not that.” She points down at the inside of the ledge. “It’s that! See that crack? An hour ago, it was barely wider than my thumb. I think the flood weakened the wall, and if that crack gets any wider, this ledge will fall off the cliff.”

Suddenly, Deke looks as scared as the rest of us. But not so scared he doesn’t have an idea. He cranes his head, studying the cliff above. “Only way off is up,” he says. “Tony, give me a boost.”

Goofy, funny Tony had been trying to make friends with Deke since we first met at the airport, so he’s eager to help, lacing his fingers together and giving Deke a boost up to a ledge so narrow he has to turn his feet sideways. Maybe five inches of sandstone, barely enough for a foothold.

Scary. But Deke makes it look easy, sliding along and gradually working his way upward until, ten feet above, he pulls himself up and over the cliff.

“Hey! What about us?”

His sneering face appears over the edge. “Better get climbing, you losers. Didn’t you hear what Miss Know-It-All said? Your little world is about to end.”