My Brother Zach

Floating Along

I breathed in sharply and squeezed my left eye shut. I'd stupidly sprayed the disgusting water beneath me into it by swinging round my tree branch of an oar.
"Great," I muttered, looking around for anything else I could use.

I figured it was almost dawn. After I had found the Minnie Mouse boat, I'd fallen asleep and drifted off to God knows where. When I woke up a while ago, I realised that if I didn't swerve to the right in seven seconds, I would smash into the lorry that was heading my way.

After that, I basically just waited until the boat bumped into a tree, wrestled with a stubborn branch and finally tore it off, then used it as an oar to make my way to land.

As you can see, I was so successful that I'd probably lead myself further away from even a blade of grass.
Hint hint, sarcasm.
"Zach!" I shouted again, then coughed.
Yuck!
Something dark and gooey and gross shot out of my mouth and landed on my knee. I screamed and stood up quickly, rocking the boat.
"Ew!" I shrieked, lapping water onto it. It was then when I noticed how cut up my hands and arms were. Angry welts covered my legs and my hair was probably a complete mess.
Oh. My. Gosh. I can't BELIEVE I'm being such a girl right now! I'm worrying about my hair when I'm stranded in a child's fun boat (hopefully still) somewhere in California?!
I'm an even worse Courtney than Courtney!
I gasped in shock, horrified at what I was becoming.
No! Tsunami, don't do this to me!
Give me anything - anything but a severe case of COURTNEY!

I heard a bird tweet somewhere. The watery sky looked almost beautiful, painted with a soft orange and yellow, and smudged in areas with pink. Everything in the distance had such a perfect silhouette and the scene itself was so amazing it could make a photographer cry.
But not this photographer!
Wait, what?

I think this tsunami has finally brought out the weirdness in me, even though Maddie would argue I was already weird before.
My heart throbbed and I cracked a whimper.
Maddie.
Was she still alive? Was anyone still alive?
Mum? Dad? Where were they? What were they doing while we were at the party? I hadn't bothered to ask or find out.
Zach? I never thought it would hurt not to know where he was. It was the twin-thing, I told myself. It's only because of the twin-thing. Otherwise I wouldn't care at all...would I?
For the first time in forever, I found myself questioning why Zach's absence affected me.
I mean, I didn't care...
I didn't care...
Dangit.
I did care about him.