Page 10 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Liv’s hand shot into the air. “Will there be a tutorial?”

“Wear your PFD—your life jacket. Never take it off when you’re on the water, no matter how calm it seems. Follow the instructions your guide gives you. When they say paddle forward, paddle forward. When they say stop, stop. Rafting’s easy. Until it’s not.”

Mandy grabbed her sister’s hand to keep her from raising it again.

“I know you’ve had a long hike down,” Pete continued. “And there’s more work ahead. I promise we’ll take good care of you. But more importantly, you ten will take care of each other.”

He gave them what Mandy imagined was his best football-coach-before-the-big-game face. Then he frowned.

“I count nine. We missing someone?”

PK swooped in next to him. His faux-hawk was somehow refreshed despite the brutal heat.

“We’re not missing someone,” he said grandly. He gave a thumbs-up to Imogen. Then PK dropped to one knee on the rocky beach and aimed his phone in her direction. “We’re waiting for someone.”

Imogen looked up at the sky reverently.

“She’s coming,” she said.

The girl kept gazing up into the sunshine, not blinking, waging a staring contest with the empty sky.

Liv nudged Mandy. “This is seeming more and more like a cult.”

Big Pete frowned and turned to Thor. “I told you to stay with the slowest hiker.”

“Dude, I did.”

“Shh,” PK said. “Look.”

Mandy squinted. Way in the distance, a black speck was approaching them.

PK nodded at Imogen, and the young woman lifted her arms in the air, her fingers moving in soft gyrations, commanding the attention of the rest of the group.

“We are waiting . . .” Imogen was practically vibrating. “For that special feeling to arrive. That feeling when your worries just melt away. When the weight of your pack slides off your back. When you feel—” She started spinning in a slow circle in the sand. “You feel—”

“Nope.” PK stood up. “Sorry. This isn’t working.”

“But we practiced!”

“Yeah, we did. You aren’t supposed to start talking until the helicopter is above us, and then you throw the biodegradable glitter and—”

“No, I’m supposed to do the speech, then the glitter, and then the helicopter arrives, and then we all kneel down, and then she descends on a long silk rope . . .”

“Cult to the cult degree,” Liv whispered.

Imogen’s grandmother pulled a pair of binoculars from her pack. “That helicopter doesn’t seem to be moving toward us.”

“Maybe they’re going to swing around,” Imogen said. “So we can get better light for the video.”

Mandy stared up. It looked to her like the black speck—which sported a white nose and a yellow stripe—was shooting up the far side of the canyon.

“That’s not a commercial flight,” Katy said. “That’s 368, the Park Service search and rescue helicopter. There was a radio call for a hiker off the North Rim with a broken leg an hour ago.”

“But . . .” PK looked at his phone. “She should be here.”

“When?” Imogen asked.

“Two hours ago.”