The tangle thinned right before we reached them. Trees and snarled vines gave way to slim palm saplings, stalks of bamboo, and banks of dark moss littered with coconut shells. Though Rittika’s words still echoed through my brain, filling me with dread, I was awed by what lay ahead—a huge turquoise lake. An oasis in the middle of the jungle.
Ming, Betty, Anne Marie, and Avery were standing on the shore, oblivious to our presence. They were gazing at something on the far side of the lake. A waterfall.
“What’s happening?” Mel yelled.
“Mel, Sam! She jumped! Rittika …” Betty’s voice began to sputter.
It became instantly clear that Rittika had leapt from the high rock outcrop over which the water flowed. Mel began sprinting toward the waterfall. I followed with the others. We scanned the water as we went, anxious for Rittika to surface, knowing that every second counted. My relief at seeing my friends was quickly fading into fear.
When we’d made it three-quarters of the way, she bobbed up, finally. My heart stopped racing a million miles a minute. I was almost as grateful to see her as I’d been to see Mel.
“Why did you do that?” Avery screamed in her nasal voice. Kicking off her shoes, she jumped into the lake and swam toward Rittika. She was a good swimmer; we all were. Everyone enrolled at Drake Rosemont took swimming lessons in the Olympic-size pool named after some rich alum. Mastery of the breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly were required for graduation. You always knew who had been in the pool by the chlorine stink of their hair.
“I wish I’d drowned,” Rittika exclaimed petulantly. Her long black hair was a shiny oil slick down her back.
“Don’t say that!” Ming called from the pebbly shore.
“I mean it.”
Avery reached Rittika, grabbed her hand, and began to tow her back to shore. She’d learned the technique in swim rescue class, which was also mandatory at Drake Rosemont. Rittika allowed herself to be pulled. She made minimal effort to move, kicking her feet casually.
When the girls reached the shore, we pulled them up. Rittika wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, despite the heat. She was wearing nothing but her underwear: a pink bra and panties. On some nearby rocks I caught sight of her school uniform: Drake Rosemont’s official gray-and-maroon plaid, a white blouse, and knee socks. Her oxfords—the ones we all wore grudgingly—lay on the ground. For the first time since starting private school, I was grateful for those shoes, for their thick soles and sturdy steel shanks. I doubted sneakers would have gotten me through the muddy jungle.
“You scared the hell out of us,” Avery said, still trying to catch her breath. She was a square-shaped girl whose sorry looks were more obvious because she always hung around Rittika, who was beautiful.
“I told you—if we don’t find Rish, that’s it for me. I’m done,” Rittika replied. Rish was her twin brother, and the two of them were inseparable at Drake Rosemont.
Avery sighed and began to wring water from her skirt. I could tell she didn’t know what to say, that she was as scared and uncertain as everyone else.
In silence, we stared at the waterfall, at the foamy white splash and the churning water below it. If I squinted, I could see water funneling like a miniature tornado underneath the surface. Around the perimeter of the plunge pool, the water was darker. Navy rather than aqua, dark and dim with silt. I wondered how deep it was.
Suddenly, I felt someone hug me from behind. Betty. Now that Rittika’s emergency was over, the other girls told Mel and me how happy they were to see us. Even Anne Marie, easily the shyest of the group, squeezed my hand. There was an outpouring of affection and concern. Wringing hands touched various injuries. Ming had a huge lump on her skull, above her right ear. Avery said she felt like she’d eaten glass. Betty’s wound was the worst of the bunch. She had a deep, blood-soaked laceration near her elbow—easily cause for a trip to the emergency room. But I doubted we were anywhere near a hospital.
Mel ripped off the hem of her skirt. She took Betty’s arm and began to bandage her oozing wound. As she did so, Rittika noticed Mel’s chin, which had finally stopped bleeding.
“I hope that doesn’t scar,” Rittika remarked. I wasn’t sure if she was being sincere or sarcastic. But I did know the comment was the first thing she’d said to Mel in months. Usually, Rittika ignored Mel. Most of the girls at school did. There were many reasons for Mel’s lack of popularity. For one thing, she was socially awkward—physically, too. And for another, she was smarter than everyone else. That tended to put people off. Mel was first in our class in almost every subject. Our school could have dedicated a whole showcase to the trophies, plaques, and ribbons she’d won in Math League competitions, spelling bees, chess club championships, and quiz bowls. But the more recognition she got, the more the other girls mocked her. Behind her back, they laughed at her wide hips and loping stride. They laughed at the fact that Amelia Earhart was not only her namesake but also her idol.
Maybe Mel was destined to be obsessed with the lost flier. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re linked to someone from the second you’re born. From the time she could read, she’d devoured every piece of information she could get on Earhart. Mel even dressed like her sometimes, in a brown leather skullcap, white flying scarf, and knee-high boots. She got away with wearing these things, which were strictly against the dress code, because she’d written a book about Earhart: a seven-hundred-page biography published to great acclaim. It won literary prizes and was translated into five languages. Mel even got royalty checks for it. Not bad for a teenager. Not bad for Drake Rosemont’s reputation either.
But the downside to her success was that it set her apart. Far apart. The girls were jealous, the boys cowed. Even our teachers treated her differently. Only her family and I continued to talk to her like she was a regular person.
And yet, right now, I knew our classmates were relieved to see her. For if anyone could help us, it was Mel.
“How did you find this place?” I asked. “Where are the boys? Where are we?” The questions came out in a sputtering pile.
“Anne Marie and I crashed down over there,” Betty said, pointing somewhere beyond the outcrop of the waterfall. “The others found their way here when they heard our voices.”
“They carry,” Mel said. “The boulders around the lake form a natural echo chamber.”
Rittika looked at her askance.
“Where are the boys?” I repeated.
“Have you seen my brother?” Rittika asked, buttoning her blouse.
“No.”
“We have no clue about any of the boys except Jeremiah,” Betty said.
“Where is he?” I asked.
Betty put her hand on my arm. I trained my eyes on her wound—realizing that what she had to say might be just as dreadful.
“Avery saw him. She found him in the jungle. Dead.”
“Oh my god.”
Rittika exhaled and for about half a second her pissy-haughty veneer, the spoiled rich girl role she played so well, disintegrated. I was sure she was thinking about Rish, praying that his fate was different.
“Can you bring us to him?” Mel asked Avery.
“Why would you ask me to do that? You heard her—he’s dead!”
“He might have something on him we can use—a cell, some means of news or communication.”
“Is she serious?” Avery asked, looking at me.
People always wanted me to decode Mel. They thought I was her translator. In truth, I was—and not just hers. When my father invited his Indian relatives over—uncles, aunties, and cousins who stayed in the spare bedroom, attic, and even my room—my mother expected me to decipher their needs. She’d shove me in front of her when she asked them if they wanted tea.
“Chai?” I’d ask.
“Acha,” they’d respond, waggling their heads from side to side, which my mother knew meant “yes,” not “no,” but still she’d pull me into the kitchen with her, peppering me with questions. As if I should know the answers. As if by virtue of my half-Indianness, I could figure out their needs.
“She’s serious,” I confirmed.
“Okay, fine,” Avery said with a sigh.
Her hands in knots, Avery led the way. Jeremiah’s body wasn’t far from the lake, but it was still hard to find through the sea of green. A million mosquito bites later, we arrived at a patch of jungle that looked pretty much like everywhere else.
“He was here. I swear he was here,” Avery said.
“I see him,” Mel replied, pointing.
We gasped when we saw Jeremiah’s body, or what had been his body. Now it was more or less a mangled heap of flesh and bloodied clothing jammed between a tree trunk and a cluster of bushes. One by one, we looked away, queasy, repelled, more afraid than ever. I stared at the ground near my feet, but saw something just as disturbing: a trail of blood that had trickled from the dark red pool that surrounded his body all the way to my shoes. Marching on that trail were insects: many-legged centipede-like things that made my skin crawl. They seemed to be eating Jeremiah’s blood, feasting on it. By comparison, the mosquitoes now looked like saints.
Mel walked up to the body. She didn’t bat an eye as she untangled his limbs and searched his clothes. Coming up empty, she inspected the ground all around him, the bushes and saplings and vines.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Should we bury him?” Betty asked.
“Not now. Let’s concentrate on the ones who are alive.”
I watched Anne Marie take a couple of steps back and vomit. Mel threw a bunch of leaves and branches over Jeremiah as she’d done with the pilot’s leg. Then she looked up. I knew she was trying to find the position of the sun, although it was almost impossible to see through the leafy canopy.
“It’ll get dark soon,” she said. “We should go back to the lake. Find something to drink, get our strength up.”
“No way,” Rittika replied. “I’m going to keep looking for my brother.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What do you know?”
“I think she means that it’s better if we stay in one place,” I interjected. “Remember when you were little and your mother said, ‘If you get lost, stay put’? It’s the same situation here. Rish stands a better chance of finding you if you stop moving.”
“Unless he can’t walk,” Rittika pointed out. I caught a trace of a British accent. It came out from time to time. Prim and proper, it made her sound even more like a snob. I’d never admit it, but I’d tried to imitate it once or twice.
“No one will be able to find anyone once it’s dark,” Mel said.
Rittika glared at her, but finally agreed to return with us to the lake. When we got there, the water seemed different. More translucent. Or maybe it was just that I was taking the time to really look at it. Except for the churning water of the plunge pool, the lake was clear. I could make out a school of electric-blue fish swimming near the surface. Closer to the bottom, long needle-shaped fish darted to and fro. I saw the scuttle of a crab and the undulation of sea plants. Along the periphery of the lake, I admired pinkish boulders and graceful, bending palms. It was a beautiful place—too bad it had taken a disaster to find it.
I sat down on a slim crescent of beach. The pebbly sand warm against my bare legs, I tried to relax, taking deep breaths. But I was soon startled by more screaming.
“Avery, what are you doing?” Ming screeched. I saw that Avery was standing on the lip of the outcrop, thick arms flailing. She looked like a nervous tightrope walker.
“Getting something for Rittika,” she called out. She took a sloppy leap into the water, landing feetfirst. I jumped up, sure we’d lost another classmate. I scanned the whirlpool, but didn’t see her inside. The dark water seemed to have swallowed her whole.
Just as Mel was about to dive in and look for her, Avery came up, hands first. She was holding something large and pale and pointed. Relieved, the girls and I watched her swim ashore. We circled her as she clambered sloppily onto a mossy bank.
“I—I got it,” she said triumphantly, her cheeks ruddy from exertion. She was in her underwear, as Rittika had been. The elastic waistband of her panties cut into the pale bloat of her belly.
“What is that?” Betty asked. Avery held it up—a shell: radiant, pink white, dominated by a spiky spire. About eight inches in diameter, it was flawless, without a single chip or barnacle.
Avery handed it to Rittika and we gathered closer, the shell our gleaming nucleus. We watched her turn it over and run her fingers over the lip, which was thin and scalloped. Inside, the shell was pink, dark as our tongues. Dripping water, the mouth looked shiny and smooth, wide and deep. Rittika’s whole hand fit inside as she removed sand and bits of seagrass.
“It’s a conch,” Mel said.
“I thought I spotted something down there,” said Rittika.
“There are more, too,” added Avery.
“My father has one in his shell collection,” Mel said. She reached out to take the shell, but Rittika held it fast. “It’s much smaller than this one and not as nice. His is a queen conch. Maybe this is one, too. Or maybe it’s something else—something new.”
Her eyes sparkled at the possibility.
“Is it valuable?” Rittika asked.
I wasn’t surprised by the question. Rittika talked about money like other people discuss the weather. That is, often. She liked to brag that her family owned at least one mansion on every continent. While the rest of us slummed it in jeans and sweats on the weekends, she wore haute couture. Sometimes she took Avery and Ming on shopping sprees in Boston, armed with her father’s AmEx black card. She boasted that he was the richest man in India, and that she and Rish would inherit his company one day.
“Valuable? It depends what you mean,” Mel replied. “It has practical value, sure. The shell is used to make tools and jewelry, and the animal that lives inside is edible. But this one’s hollow. Whoever lived there’s gone.”
I couldn’t explain why, but there was something mesmerizing about the conch—its spiral tip, especially. It seemed to wind on and on, infinitely. It reminded me of time and space, things that have no beginning or end. Judging by their expressions, I could see the other girls were just as riveted.
“How many more conchs are down there?” Mel asked Avery.
“Dozens and dozens.”
“Good. We can retrieve them—the ones with meat. That way we won’t have to live on coconuts.”
“What do you mean ‘live on’?” Rittika asked, her eyebrow raised.
“She just means it’s a good thing you found food,” I said hastily. “In case we get hungry.”
Still holding fast to the conch, Rittika laughed nervously. “So we’re to eat your cousins, eh?” she asked the shell, staring into its mouth. Her lips curved into a sly smile.
“What?” Ming demanded.
“I knew it reminded me of something! Here, look inside. See how it’s smooth and moist? Don’t you think there’s something feminine about it?”
Ming looked confusedly into the shell’s mouth.
“I’ll give you a hint,” Rittika said. “Think about how you spell ‘conch.’ Now change the ‘n’ to an ‘o’ …”
Avery chortled. Betty cracked a smile. But Ming just turned red.
“Don’t be disgusting,” she whined.
“Don’t be a prude,” Rittika retorted.
Ming cringed. In the hierarchy of Rittika’s friends, she was firmly in second place, lagging behind Avery. It was no wonder. She was like a wet dish towel—totally lacking in personality. In fact, whenever someone referred to her, it was always in relation to Rittika, as if she had no identity of her own. Ming was Rittika’s friend, Rittika’s sidekick, Rittika’s minion.
“Do you want to hold it?” Rittika asked me.
I was surprised when she passed the conch to me. She didn’t usually pay me much attention.
Gingerly, I examined the shell. The inside really did look like a girl’s privates, exposed. But I wasn’t embarrassed, not like Ming. Sex and bodies were topics of endless curiosity and discussion at Drake Rosemont. Some of us spoke from experience, like Rittika. Others—like myself or Betty—from a theoretical perspective. The witching hour was usually 11:00 p.m., when most of us couldn’t stand looking at our homework a second longer but didn’t want to sleep, either. We would wander toward the room with the most voices. We sought knowledge, and often got it, whether it be an impromptu talk on how to get a boy to like you, or directions on how to hook up. More often than not, it was Rittika who gave us tips.
Those late-night discussions were some of my favorite times at Drake Rosemont. I loved the secret sharing, the bonding. I loved that at any moment a juicy bit of gossip might be revealed, and that that gossip could touch any of our lives, even mine. The boys who so fascinated us were tantalizingly close. Their dormitory was only a five-minute stroll away. All of us—guys and girls—took the same classes, had the same professors, and ate in the same dining hall. We even, in some cases, played the same sports. There was a reason I had started fencing—I wanted to hang around with the boys’ team. And yet for all that overlap, boys were still a mystery to me. I never had the sense of familiarity, of easy intimacy, with them that I had with girls, especially Mel and her sisters.
Sometimes I wondered if the boys were as curious about us as we were about them. After curfew, did they gaze at our building, watching the lights in our windows and thinking that our brick dormitory was a fortress of secrets?
I suspected they did.
And now? Where were the boys? Were the survivors as confused and terrified as we were? Were there survivors? All the girls had made it through the crash, bruised, battered, and bloody, but luckily—miraculously—alive. But the boys had already lost one of their own, and maybe more.
After Rittika’s joke, a gloom set in. Despite wanting to cling to the conch, my first instinct was to pass it to Mel. She, in turn, gave it to Anne Marie. Hand to hand, the shell traveled in a silent circle. When it came back to me, I had a premonition. I sensed that new rules were being written, right then and there, rules much harsher than those at Drake Rosemont. But I couldn’t yet say what they were.