Free Shipwreck by Gordon Korman

mounting on the bulkhead. He pulled the pin and sprayed foam at the blaze. J.J. picked up a bucket and began bailing water from the cabins and sloshing it into the firestorm. The heat was unbearable, and they stumbled on the ruined deck, which was a tangle of twisted planks and splinters.
    “It’s no use!” bawled JJ. “We might as well be throwing Dixie cups of Kool-Aid!”
    The blast had knocked Charla out of her post atop the foremast, landing her upside down in the ratlines. It took every ounce of her gymnastics training to right herself again. Through the waves of heat and smoke that billowed over her, she spotted JJ. and Ian. But when she looked aft, she saw only the boiling orange of the blaze.
    “Where are the others?” she called down.
    “In the stern!” shouted Ian.
    “Thereis no stern! It’s all fire back there!”
    With a terrible creaking sound, the flaming stump of the mainmast toppled over in a shower of sparks. It crushed the cabin top, cutting the younger boy off from JJ.
    “Ian!” JJ. cried.
    Ian jumped back, stumbling on an upended deck board. The extinguisher dropped from his hands, rolled into the fire, and exploded in a whoosh of compressed gas.
    The blazing mainmast ignited the foresail. JJ. sloshed water onto the smoldering sail, but flames quickly licked up the canvas, forcing Charla back atop the mast. The fire soon spread to the sheets and rigging.
    “Ian, can you hear me?” called J.J.
    “Get out of there!” came lan’s voice from the inferno.
    J.J. spun around. “To where?!”
    There were only two choices: Either stay on the burning boat or take his chances in the vast, inhospitable, and terrifying sea.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Monday, July 17, 1825 hours
    Luke paddled like a four-year-old at his first swimming test. Just keeping his upper lip above water seemed almost impossible. This was crazy! He had a bronze badge from the Red Cross — why was he so helpless?
    Panic and shock, he thought. And fear. He was trembling all over.
    Stay close to the boat. That was the first rule for a man overboard. But a widening pool of burning gasoline was spreading around thePhoenix , making it look like the waves themselves were on fire. Luke found himself drifting farther and farther from the ship. If he got separated from the others, only the fish would find him.
    “Luke!” It was a faint call from the gloom.
    Will. The voice seemed to be coming from miles away, although Luke was sure Will couldn’t be very far. “Will, are you okay?” he shouted.
    No answer.
    Luke looked around, fighting hysteria. The sun was down. Detail disappeared against the incandescent orange of the fire. He saw nothing. Except—
    There it was. A flash of color a few yards away. He made for it, splashing wildly.
    In the pool at the Y, it would have been a ten-second swim. But now, buthere — a distance marathon.
    “Will!” Luke’s voice was breathless, unsteady.
    Nothing.
    And then his flailing arm smacked right into it — a six-foot piece of the Phoenix’s cabin top, floating in the water. The corner glowed like hot coals. Luke used his weight to submerge the smoldering portion. With a puff of steam, the fire was out. He hauled himself on top and lay back, gasping.
    “Ow!” His head banged against something hard. He rolled over to find himself staring at a steel-gray smoke-head vent. This was the galley ceiling! It must have been broken off and thrown free when the explosion launched the stove overboard. That’s why it was still in one piece when most of the deck and cabin had been blown to toothpicks.
    “Will!” he called again with growing urgency.
    ThePhoenix was completely engulfed in flames now. As he watched, a large charred section of stern broke off and disappeared below the waves. The rest of the schooner resettled herself, rocking to and fro into a new balance. Could there be anybody alive on there? Surely he wasn’t the only one left?
    “Will!” he bellowed. “Lyssa! Ian! Charla!” A pause.