"We've been stuck on this damn boat for three days with on and off rain, and that's all you can say? 'It's raining...'" They were all huddled together in the tiny cabin of the trawler yacht. It was dark outside despite the early hour, and the sky had just started to pour. Cairbre's patience was growing thin. Everyone knew that he could never handle a lack of food well. He shook his head and turned to face the side window.
"I... Well, it is raining," said Shona defensively. She stuck her hands deep into her pockets, attempting to keep warm. Moreen could tell that she was trying not to get upset.
"Great. I'll keep that in mind." The man's deep voice was heavy with sarcasm. He crossed his arms, and, unable to move any farther away from her, stared hard out the front window.
Moreen frowned at him, and chose her words, careful not to make him explode. "Cairbre, you should be a bit nicer to her." She knew that when Shona had spoken, she was only trying to break the nasty silence that had set in as soon as they had all woken up.
Cairbre didn't respond. Moreen couldn't see his face either, so she didn't know whether to follow up or leave it at that. She turned instead back to Shona. "How much food do we have left?"
"Not much." She searched through the black backpacks they had brought with them. "Oh, Cairbre has a sandwich left over from Monday. Someone should eat it before it goes bad." She tossed the brown Saran wrapped lump at Moreen before resuming her rummaging of the bags.
Moreen's pale green eyes bore hard into the back of Cairbre's head while he continued to have a staring contest with the grey clouds above. Interestingly, her stone gaze always managed to invoke a reaction in him even if he couldn't see her. On cue, he turned around in his seat and scanned the horizon before noticing Moreen. He frowned at her."What?"
She smiled in a smug way and pretended to interest herself in the cans and packages Shona was extracting. He knew that she knew him too well, and she loved how it annoyed him. Anything that drove Cairbre up the wall was well worth the hassle of doing. A few days ago at his place while Moreen was visiting, Cairbre had unsurprisingly been too lazy to take care of dinner, so he had gotten Moreen to order pizza for the trio. She had deliberately ordered mushrooms, peppers, and anchovies on a pizza, all three of which both she and he disliked to see how he would react. At first, Cairbre had refused point blank to even touch a slice, but after seeing that Moreen and Shona had eaten almost the whole thing, he had made a desperate attempt to save some for himself by telling them they'd gain too much weight if they ate any more. While washing their hands, Moreen had told Shona her scheme, and when they returned to the living room, both had burst out laughing to see the empty pizza box and Cairbre chewing furiously.
Shona's eyes widened. "What happened to the meal replacement bars?"
"What? They're not there?" Moreen quickly moved back a seat so that she was in the same row that Shona was sitting in, and together they dumped out the contents of all three bags into the isle. Packets of trail mix, cookies, candies, and tetra packs spilled onto the floor from the first two bags. The third held nothing but canned and dried fruit. "Cairbre!"
"Don't look at me." He continued to eye the clouds menacingly. "I only had the one you gave me yesterday."
Shona raised an eyebrow. "You mean the one you brutally wrestled out of my hands when I was trying to count them?"
"Hey, you were obviously trying to tempt me, the way you waved them around. And who knew we'd be here so long? Someone should have found us by now."
"Excuse me? Trying to tempt you? I'm not mean like some people."
"Whatever, little girl."
"Don't call me that!" Shona was completely indignant. "I'm way older than you are." She pouted and crossed her arms.
"If half a month is way older, then sure. And everyone thinks you look fifteen. Remember the bouncer who wouldn't let you into the bar?"
"Oh you be quiet. He was probably drunk or something. His judgement was definitely impaired."
Cairbre snickered. "Sure he was."
A silence filled the cabin, and everybody chose their own window to stare out of. Moreen was stiff from sitting for hours, but she couldn't stand on the deck without being drenched in icy rain. She hoped that the radio beacon was working, though like Cairbre, she hadn't expected them to be out this long. Maybe nobody cared about them. Maybe they didn't think that a random signal coming from the middle of nowhere was worth investigating. Maybe...
"Hey look! Is that land?" Shona's voice was quivering with excitement. Cairbre spun around in his seat, squinting into the distance.
"No, it's not. That would be impossible." He turned back and resumed his surveillance of the port side window.
"But... Look Moreen, doesn't that look like land?"
"Y-yeah, maybe. But think about it. We've gotten ourselves out to the middle of nowhere. What's the chance that there's an unmapped island close by? I don't think we should waste any fuel."
Shona's excitement deflated. She lay back against the seat and closed her eyes.
Minutes passed by, and all the while Moreen checked periodically in the direction of the suspected island. It did look quite terrestrial, but only if she thought it to be. If Shona hadn't pointed it out, she wouldn't have spared a second glance that way.
"Maybe that is land." Cairbre turned to Moreen doubtfully. "You're trying too hard to believe."
"But... Maybe we should try and believe, just this once? I'm sure it won't really make a difference if we're wrong. The radio beacon has its own power supply, anyways." Cairbre stayed silent, so she pressed on. "And besides, how will a minute's fuel supply help anyways? If we don't see anything after getting a bit closer, we'll just stop again and keep drifting."
"Yeah!" piped in Shona. The man rubbed his unshaven cheek.
"Fine." The rain had started to slow by now, and as Cairbre started up the boat, Moreen left the cabin and walked to the bow. The cold air rapidly blew away her body heat, but she was determined to see this through. They began to move forward, slowly at first. The boat turned in a wide arc as it oriented itself properly, and Moreen watched as the ripples spread from their curved path. She shifted her attention back to the suspected terrain, and as they drew closer, she became more and more certain that the yellowish green line on the horizon was indeed land.
Then, all of a sudden, Moreen's tension disintegrated. She breathed a huge sigh of relief as she was able to make out a tree in the distance. She looked at the other two in the cabin, and gestured frantically, beaming. They smiled and Shona jumped up, cheering.
None of them knew where they were, or what was about to happen, nor did they care in the slightest, for at last they would finally be able to walk on solid ground again. Nobody would ever have imagined that they'd have wished they'd stayed at sea...
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