At this, the twins fell about laughing so hard I actually thought they might choke on water and die. Don’t judge me too harshly because I was content to watch. But their episode was interrupted by shouts from up the river calling back:
“Rocks! Shallow! Look out!”
“Okay, everybody.” Owen slipped easily into dad mode. “You know what to do. Looks like the shallow part is up on the left. Everybody paddle to the right.”
The landscape of the river is different every year, but a few shallow bits are generally preferable to quick-moving rapids in deep water, which can happen sometimes. Of course, you can also have quick-moving shallow bits…
After a minute or two it became apparent that all the grunting and paddling was happening up front, and that the twins, who were at the back, were still laughing and clutching each other silently. We were approaching the rocks and hadn’t moved nearly enough toward the other side of the river.
“What’s wrong with them?” Jane asked, an edge of panic growing in her voice.
“They… they may be a little drunk.” I paddled with all my might.
“Drunk?!”
“Jane!” Owen pointed at the boulders peeking out of the water ahead. “Focus.”
“Oh no.” Jane leaned halfway out of her tube to try to steer us. “Girls! Help us paddle away from the rocks.”
The twins finally snapped to attention and added their paddles to the water, but too late. Our tubes slowed, catching against the shallow river bottom in front of the big rocks. We laughed with relief: we hadn’t crashed violently against the boulders. We would just have to push ourselves free. Owen slipped off his tube and tugged at Jane’s.
“Everyone stay on your tube. The current is fast right here.” He struggled to keep his footing as he freed Jane’s tube.
“Careful, honey,” Jane said, and then we were both rocked by asudden disturbance. We looked around to see that the twins had jumped out to help Owen pull the tubes.
“No!”
“Get back in!”
The water barely covered their skinny ankles, but the rocks were slippery. They tried to heave themselves back into their floats, but their combined weight jolted the connected tubes into motion: the fast current caught us, sending the twins tumbling back into the water as our tubes were carried onward. Owen tried to pull the tubes back to the shallows, but the river was too fast and quickly becoming too deep. He jumped back into his tube while he still had the chance. Jane and I screamed. The twins were bobbing, saved by their life jackets, but I knew we would lose track of them if they got swept off in the current. I jumped into the water and Jane screamed louder.
The cold current caught at my legs; swimming upstream was impossible. I looked around, water pouring into my mouth, and saw that Jane had caught a low-hanging tree branch and had, for the moment, managed to stop the floats from being carried downstream. Every other second, the twins’ heads would pop up with a shriek and then be submerged under the water again. I trod water as hard as I could, trying simultaneously to gauge where the twins were headed and not get too far away from Jane. The current sent Ollie crashing into me, and I launched her with all my might toward Jane. I didn’t have time to see if she made it, because Abby was rushing away toward the middle of the river. I kicked after her and caught the handle of her life jacket. She thrashed as the life jacket tightened around her neck.
“Stop fighting me!” I yelled, the words garbled by water.
She was gasping, either with sobs or laughter, I wasn’t sure. Bysome good luck, we managed to splash our way over to the tubes. The branch Jane had been holding had snapped, but Owen had grabbed another, smaller one. Jane was holding Ollie by the arms.
“Grab on,” I told Abby. She clutched the handle of a tube with cold, white hands. “Stay there.”
I inched over to Jane and Ollie and tried to heave her up by the butt. Jane grabbed her under the armpits. We were all slippery and going numb with cold. I caught a bony butt cheek to the face and groaned, my arms shaking as I tried to hold her up.
“Use your upper-body strength!” Jane yelled at her.
“What upper-body strength?!” Ollie shrieked, folding her torso over the edge of Jane’s tube. Finally she slithered up and over and lay there in a shivering lump. Jane gingerly climbed over into one of the empty tubes.
“Help me!” Abby cried, her knuckles white around the tube handle.
Jane panted, clutching for her hands, as I slid from one float to the next to try to reach them.
“Jane…,” Owen called.
“Just hold on!” she shouted back.
“I can’t!” And with a sickening snap, Owen’s branch broke. The five tubes were whisked away, towing Abby and me behind them.
Abby wailed, her hands already tired from holding on for so long. I lost track of time as we moved swiftly down the river trying to heave Abby up, Jane reaching down from the tube, scrabbling to hold on to her life jacket, me in the water, holding on to the tube for dear life with one hand and pushing her up with the other hand.
At one point, when Abby’s butt was resting precariously atop my head as I squawked and tried not to swallow any more water, and Jane loomed above us screaming, “Rachel! Push!” I realizedhow utterly ridiculous this must look to our fellow river floaters. And as we drifted in this flattering formation, with the eye that wasn’t being flooded with a stream of water from my sister’s life jacket, I saw the gobsmacked face of Christopher Butkus. He and his family were floating in a civilized manner on the other side of the river.
