I wince at the thought of my parents watching news stories about our plane. The stomach cramps are back with a vengeance. “He’ll know you’re alive soon.”
“I bet he posted something sad about me and a bunch of grief vampires are in his DMs, trying to hook up with him.”
“Levi would never.”
“Tom Hanks’s wife did, in that movie with the volleyball,” Naomi argues.
“Tom Hanks was on that island for years. Theo’s too important to be left presumed dead. Theywillfind us.”
She rubs her eyes with her hands. “At least your boyfriend knows you’re alive. Really, I love that for you.”
I roll my eyes. “Theo’s not my boyfriend.” I watch him pacing with Reggie at the edge of the cliff. Unlike yesterday, when his temper matched the weather, the gloomy clouds have been chased away by sparkling sunlight, which is glinting off the crystalline water that might as well stretch from here to the end of the world. A gentle breeze ruffles the trees behind us.
Naomi gasps and sits up tall, grabbing my forearm. “Forget about the boys. What if I’m dropped from my classes and Northwestern makes me enroll in Psych 101 or Intro to Acting?” She looks like she’s going to pass out. “I need a distraction.”
“Turn around. I’ll fix your hair. That way you’ll look hot in the rescue pictures.”
I extract two elastics from what are left of her bedraggled and lopsided space buns and finger-comb her hair into two Dutch braids while Naomi ponders what kinds of memorabilia will beleft outside the dorms in her memory, and whether it would be tacky to keep them when we get back to Chicago.
“We survived a plane crash. If you want to keep the teddy bears, you’re allowed to keep the teddy bears.”
“People left hundreds of teddy bears in front of the palace after my mum passed,” Victoria says, finally waking up and joining our conversation. “As if Mum was the teddy bear type.”
My eyes sweep over her face.Does she look clammier than yesterday?I squint and lean closer.Or am I imagining things?
She wrinkles her nose. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Sorry.” I straighten.
Naomi’s stomach growls loudly. “What’s the first thing you’re going to eat when we’re rescued?” she asks. “I want peanut butter.”
“Are we talking about food?” Henry asks, shaking the curls out of his eyes as he joins our little group. We spend the next several minutes daydreaming about all the food we’re going to eat when this is over. Henry wants shepherd’s pie, Naomi wants chocolate and peanut butter babka, I want deep-dish pizza, and Victoria wants us to shut up because we’re making her hunger worse.
“What was that?” the princess suddenly asks. She presses her hands to the ground on either side of her.
“What?”
“You didn’t feel that?”
I glance at Naomi, who shrugs. “Feel what? A raindrop?” I ask.
“With cirrus clouds in the sky? Be serious,” Naomi says, motioning to the wispy cotton candy strands.
“Brilliant. I’m losing my bloody mind out here,” Victoria mutters.
Reggie struts back toward our makeshift campsite and glances at us, clearly unimpressed. “When you’re done with your makeovers, we need more firewood.”
“Already taken care of,” Brooke says, dropping two handfuls of wood next to her fire, waking Winston up in the process. “I also refilled our water supplies.” She drops a full bottle next to the wood. “Do you think rescue will find us today?”
“These things take time,” Reggie says.
“That’s not what you said yesterday,” Winston points out.
Brooke crosses her arms. “It’s been what—eighteen, twenty hours? Shouldn’t they know where our plane went down?”
All eyes turn to Reggie. He doubles down. “The most important thing to remember is that we must stay together—”
“Where are they?” Brooke demands.
