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pushed off, set the oars in the oarlocks, and began to row through the choppy water.

    Flat Island shrank behind us. Funny, I thought. I’d seen that island for years and had never been out to it. Never even thought much about it. But I loved it now. It had saved me and Willy … and Streak!
    “What you going do when we get back?” Clarence asked over his shoulder.
    “Get killed by Mom.”
    “Killed!” He laughed. “For what?”
    “Scaring her.”
    Clarence rowed. The muscles in his back rippled. His tattooed shoulders spanned from one side of the skiff to the other. “Maybe you scared her,” he said, “but she won’t be angry.”
    “How do you know?”
    “No mama going be angry at a son with courage.”
    “Courage? What if it was just stupid?”
    “You call saving your friend stupid?”
    “No, I meant—”
    “You know what I going do?” Clarence said.
    “What?”
    “Go home. Take a hot shower. Eat.”
    I hugged Streak close. She’d stopped trembling.
    Yep. Mom was going to kill me.

C larence maneuvered the skiff like an expert.
    I looked over my shoulder at the beach. A small crowd was waiting: Mom, Stella, Darci, Clarence’s cousin Rudy the cop, the rescue truck crew, the boys who’d watched me sail out to sea, and some other people.
    “Hang on,” Clarence said.
    I turned back just as he dug the oars into the water and pulled hard, one, two, three times. Then, using the oars like rudders, we caught a wave and sailed in, all the way to the beach.
    The bow thunked sand.
    The crowd clapped and cheered.
    The three boys ran up to grab the skiff.
    Streak jumped out and ran up the beach. Clarence stowed the oars, and the two of us stepped out into the water.
    Stella ran down and flung her arms around Clarence. “Whoa,” he said. “I not going anywhere.”
    “I can’t believe you did that!” Stella said.
    “What? Catch a wave with the boat?”
    “No, silly, swim out to get Calvin and Willy!”

    Clarence waved that off. “Pfff. Anybody do that.”
    Mom and Darci crushed me with hugs as everyone crowded in around us.
    Clarence put his big hand on my head. “This boy one hero.”
    I looked down. I sure didn’t feel like a hero. I just felt tired.
    Mom looked at me, her eyes shiny with tears.
    What? Did I have blood on me or something? I rubbed my face and looked at my fingers. No blood.
    “Mom?”
    “Thank heaven you’re safe,” she whispered. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
    “I’m fine, Mom, I—”
    “Shhh,” she said. “Not now, Calvin. Just come home.”
    She pushed me away and looked at me. “How’s Willy?”
    “Fine, Mom. They took him in the helicopter. He swallowed a lot of water.”
    “Oh, no … not that filthy river water.”
    “Yeah.”
    She winced.
    I turned toward my skiff. Clarence already had it figured out. “We carry um,” he said. “You and me. Easy.”
    I looked back at Mom. She didn’t want to leave me.
    But she nodded, took Darci’s hand, and walked back up the sand. “Come home right now.”
    “I will.”
    Rudy the cop came down and shook with Clarence, local style. “Howzit, cousin?”
    Clarence flicked his eyebrows. “I wasn’t speeding, Officer, promise.”
    Rudy humphed, then turned to me. “I thought I told you to stay home … or was I just talking to myself?”
    I looked down.
    Rudy said, “I let you off this time, kid, but next—”
    “I didn’t mean to. Really, I just—”
    Rudy and Clarence laughed. “He onlyjoking,” Clarence said, shoving me gently with his big hand. “Ne’mind him. We got a boat to carry.”
    Rudy smiled. “You two did good.”
    Stella looked at me. “Were you scared?”
    Had I been?
    “No,” I said. “I didn’t think about it.”
    But I prob’ly should have been, I thought. If you live near the ocean the first thing you’d better know is how to get out of trouble in the water. I was pretty good at it, but Willy sure wasn’t.
    “What you did was brave.”
    I couldn’t believe it.