***

Anna left to take a bath. I looked through her suitcase, trying to find her REO Speedwagon T-shirt. She told me I could wear it – and the Nike one too – since they both fit me. I didn’t see the shirt, so I dug a little deeper.

There were two boxes of tampons shoved under some shorts.

What’s she going to do when those run out?

I moved some things around and noticed her bras, folded and tucked into a neat pile. The black one was on top. I picked up a bottle of vanilla lotion, flipped open the cap, and sniffed.

That’s why she sometimes smells like cupcakes.

I opened a round plastic container. It had tiny pills inside, in a circle marked with days of the week. Five pills remained. It took me a while to figure out they were birth control pills. I found two more unopened packages.

Anna wouldn’t mind that I was looking through her suitcase – I kept my clothes in there too because we used my backpack to carry firewood – but she probably wouldn’t want me touching all her stuff. I started to shut the lid but then I spotted her underwear. They were at the bottom of the suitcase, next to her tennis shoes. I looked over my shoulder, then grabbed a pink pair and held them up.

I wonder if you can see through these when she’s wearing them.

I put them back and picked up a black thong.

Very sexy. But I bet it’s totally uncomfortable.

I touched a red pair, and looked closer at the little black bow in the center of the waistband.

Wow. Now that would be a hot present.

Then I scooped up five or six pairs at once, buried my face in them, and inhaled.

“What are you doing?” Anna asked.

I whipped around. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!” My heart pounded and my face burned.

How long has she been standing there?

“I’m looking for your REO Speedwagon T-shirt.” I still held a pair of her underwear in my hand, and I dropped them back in her suitcase.

“Really?” she asked. “Because it kind of looks like you’re playing with my underwear.” She put the soap and shampoo away in her suitcase.

She didn’t seem mad though, so I pulled out the thong, held it up, and said, “This looks totally uncomfortable.”

“Give me that.” She snatched it out of my hand and shoved it back in her suitcase, pressing her lips together and trying not to laugh.

When I realized she wasn’t pissed at me, I smiled and said, “You know what, Anna? You’re all right.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I really was looking for your REO Speedwagon T-shirt, but I can’t find it.”

“It’s hanging on the line. It should be dry.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure. Just don’t smell my underwear anymore, okay?”

“You saw that, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Chapter 15 – Anna

The dolphins swam alongside me in the lagoon. They dove under my body and surfaced on the other side. They made the funniest squeaking noises, and when I talked to them, they acted like they understood me. T.J. and I liked to grab their fins, laughing as they let us ride them. I could play with them for hours.

T.J. ran down to the lagoon. “Anna, guess what I found.”

T.J.’s other tennis shoe had washed up, and since he didn’t have to worry about injuring his feet anymore, he spent hours in the woods, searching for something interesting. So far, he’d found nothing but mosquito bites, but he kept looking anyway. It gave him something to do.

“What did you find?” I asked, petting one of the dolphins.

“Put your tennis shoes on and come see.”

I said good-bye to the dolphins, followed him back to the lean-to, and put on my shoes and socks.

“Okay, now I’m curious. What is it?”

“A cave. I went to grab a pile of sticks, and when I pulled them away, I saw the opening. I want to see what’s in it.”

It only took a few minutes to get to the cave. T.J. knelt at the entrance and crawled through on his hands and knees.

“It’s narrower than I thought,” he yelled. “Lie on the ground and army crawl on your stomach. It’s tight, but there’s room. Come on in.”

“No way,” I yelled back. “I am never going in that cave.”

My heart beat faster, and I started sweating just thinking about it.

“I’m feeling around. I can’t see anything.”

“Why would you do that? What if there are rats, or a big scary spider?”

“What? You think there might be spiders?”

“No, never mind.”

“I don’t think there’s anything in here but rocks and sticks. I can’t tell though.”

“If the sticks are dry bring them out. We can add them to the woodpile.”

“Okay.”

T.J. crawled out of the cave and stood up with something that looked like a shinbone in one hand and something that was definitely a skull in the other. He dropped them and said, “Holy shit!”

“Oh my God,” I said. “I don’t know who that is, but it did not end well for them.”

“Do you think it’s the person who built the shack?” T.J. asked. We stared down at the skull.

I nodded. “That would be my guess.”

We walked back to the lean-to and grabbed a burning log from the fire to use for a torch. We hurried back to the cave and T.J. got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside, holding the torch in front of him.

“Don’t burn yourself,” I called after him.

“I won’t.”

“Are you in?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

“It’s definitely a skeleton. But there’s nothing else in here.” T.J. came out and handed me the torch. “I’m going to put the bones back in the cave with the rest of it.”

“Good idea.”

T.J. and I walked back to the lean-to. “Well that was horrifying,” I said

“How long does it take a body to become a skeleton?” T.J. asked.

“In this heat and humidity? Probably not long.”

“I definitely think it’s the guy from the shack.”

“You’re probably right. And if it is him, there goes one of our chances for rescue.” I shook my head. “He’s not coming back because he never left. But what killed him?”

“I don’t know.” T.J. threw some wood on the fire and sat down beside me. “Why wouldn’t you go in the cave? Before we knew about the skeleton, I mean.”

“I can’t stand small, enclosed spaces. They freak me out. You know that lake house I told you about? The one where my dad and I went fishing?”

“Yeah.”

“Sarah and I always played with the other kids who vacationed there with their families. There was a road that went around the whole lake, and it had a long drainage pipe under it. Kids were always daring each other to crawl through it to the other side. One time, Sarah and I decided to do it, and we convinced everyone else to come along. We got halfway in, and I panicked. I couldn’t breathe and the person in front of me wouldn’t move forward. I couldn’t back up because there were kids behind me, too. I was probably seven, and not very big, but the pipe was tiny. We finally made it out the other side, and Sarah had to go find our mom because I wouldn’t stop crying. I remember it like it was yesterday.

“No wonder you wouldn’t go in.”

“What I can’t understand is why Bones would crawl in there to die.”

“Bones?”

“I feel like he should have a name. Bones sounds better than ‘guy from the shack.’”

“Works for me.” T.J. said.

***

I sat by the lean-to playing Solitaire. When T.J. walked up, I knew instantly that something was wrong because he held his arm close to his body, and supported it with his other hand. His shoulder slumped downward.

I stood up. “What happened?”