“He’s—” She coughs, her cheeks morphing from pink to a blazing red. “He’s you. Or, um … you’re him.”
“I’m Harry?” I lean closer to her, not understanding.
“Well, not exactly you … it’s … uh … it’s your mole.” She points to an invisible spot above her left eyebrow, which I take to mean the small mole abovemyleft eyebrow.
I blink. “Why on earth does my mole have a name?”
Missy’s cheeks bloom even brighter. Abruptly she turns toward the clock where it shows we have twelve minutes left. “We better keep working.”
She stands up and dusts sand off her legs before moving to hold down the crossbeam we were previously working on. But when I don’t take up tying again, she starts tying the knot herself, finding it just as hard to tie as I did.
I pull the length of rope from her hands. “No, no, no.” She’s not getting out of this one. “Why is my mole named Harry?”
“It’s just a spot to focus on.” She throws her hands up. “You know, while talking.”
“And why would you need to have a talking spot? Is there something wrong with my face?”
“It’s just … you know.” She holds her hand out for the rope.
I start to smile, hoping that I’m understanding her correctly. I lean in, my face just inches from hers. “No, I don’t think I do, Missy Jean. Why don’t you tell me?”
Missy sighs, flustered. “Your face, your face is handsome, okay? And sometimes I just need someplace other than your face to look at when I want to hate you.”
“So you’re saying I’m too handsome for you to look at?”
Suddenly, Missy puts both hands on my biceps and shoves me away from the raft before heading off to refill her water bottle at a nearby water jug. “You’re a pain in the derriere is what you are.”
I laugh, suddenly filled with a new lightness in my chest. “Harry. Handsome Harry. I could get used to that.”
Wait, Harry? Does she mean Harry or Hairy?I reach up to feel my mole, wondering if it’s growing hairs I didn’t know about.
“Hey, wait,” I call after her. “Which spelling, Harry orHairy?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She turns back to me with a satisfied smirk.
The minx.
It takes until the three-minute mark for me and Missy to finalize a raft we feel will sufficiently float us from one island to the other. When the timer on the clock runs out, each of the teams is shown to the starting point for our impending raft race. Benji hands us our specialized lapel cameras and mics, and we all put them on.
Each team stands parallel to one another with our three rafts placed several feet in front of us, just inches away from the crystal-blue ocean that forms foamy outlines in the sand. On top of each raft lies the paddles we collected from the first leg of the final Mayday Challenge. With the end of the game so close, the heaviness of what’s at stake seems to pull everyone’s focus to the challenge ahead.
Using our rafts and paddles, each team must row from Sabotage Island to the big island, separated from us by a quarter mile of ocean. Along the way, all three teams need to stop at two distinct buoys, each of which will have a team-colored bag tied to it with a needed tool inside. Once we retrieve the bags and make it to the big island, we’ll have to run onto shore, make a fire with our tools, use that fire to open a locked metal box with a fuse,grab the flare gun inside, then shoot a flare into the sky. The first team to shoot off a flare in their team color wins.
“Got our lucky star?” Missy asks with a smirk.
“Got it.” I pat the bag that’s strapped to my back, motioning that it’s inside, still between the pages of our coloring book where I left it last. That’s when I remember I never gave the book back to her with my final message.
A moment later, Niall has his hand raised. “On your mark.”
My train of thought derails and I bend my knees, ready to sprint as the drones circle above us, eager to capture our race across the waves.
“Get set.”
I think of Missy and her nonprofit and my dad and our deal. We will win this.
“Go!”
Missy and I make a run for it, grabbing the edges of our raft and hauling it and our paddles over the breaking waves. Once past the break, I steady the raft while Missy pushes off the sea floor and climbs onto it, and then I do the same. With backpacks on and paddles in hand, we start paddling in rapid succession.
