By the time the boys had managed to get through the tunnel, the girls had found another yellow sign and had found a bunch of buoys.
“These are so confusing! So where do we go?” said Hailey, “I hope we didn’t lose the map! I heard there was a specific way you had to get through these.”
“It’s right here,” said Emily, “I will help.”
So the girls rowed through the buoys correctly and were on their way.
Soon when they were only a little distance away, here came the boys’ boat. Obviously, they’d been doing a good job catching up! Until…
“Oh, look! These are buoys, right?” said Nick.
“Of course they are!” said Tom.
“Maybe we could invent some games with buoys!” said James.
“Excellent idea! Let’s play buoy race!” suggested Henry.
“No, we’d be messing up the obstacle course, but we can sit on the buoys! What fun!” said Nick.
“Alright, we can try it.” said James, “I’ll be the first to sit on the buoys!”
James carefully tried to get on, but the buoy shot into the air on top of him and he was dunked into the water with all the boys laughing at him, and then with much struggling, he got on top and sat there, dripping wet. The other boys also got on a buoy, but they too got dunked, and this time it was James’ turn to laugh at them.
They sat there, the boat slowly drifting away…but they did not notice anything; they were enjoying themselves too much.
Thankfully, Ms. Feila accompanying some kids drove by and saved them from getting lost.
“Oh, boys, how can you race if you are sitting on a buoy? Well, I suppose you can’t race anyway—you don’t have a boat!” she commented, while the little kids laughed.
“We have a boat! It’s over…” asked Henry.
Henry looked around, and Ms. Feila was right! There was their boat, all the way out there!
“Oh, no! What do we do? I can’t radio anybody—the radio is in the boat!” said Henry, getting knocked off of his buoy, for he was no longer paying attention to his balance.
“Swim!” shouted James, and they all jumped into the water and swam towards their boat.
Somehow, they finally got in, dripping wet, though many people had gone by and laughed at the boys swimming towards their boat, and they rowed on.
The day went on. Eventually the girls approached something very weird. It was almost like a balloon, and technically it probably was. It had gotten blown up full of air, and it sat on top of the water. It was very brightly colored, and very attractive.
“What in the world is that thing?” said Emily.
“It looks like a toy rocket that you would air up.” said Anna.
“Why did they put it there?” asked Ellie, but before Ellie could continue,
“Girls, that is what you call a distraction! They put that there on purpose to distract us! Don’t spend any more time here but go on as if we hadn’t seen it. I think the boys are going to fall into temptation again!” said Hailey.
So they continued on, and Hailey was quite right, for much later, here came the boys.
“That thing is really weird! What do you suppose it is?” asked Nick.
“This is very fascinating! Let’s go see if it’s a toy we are supposed to shoot off, so it will help us win the race! It looks like a rocket after all, doesn’t it?” said James.
“It sure does!” replied Tom.
So they rowed over towards the distraction, and James touched it.
“It’s so full of air, it’s tight! Maybe if we tied our boat to it, it would carry us through the waves!” said James.
“Why isn’t it on the map?” asked Henry.
“Is it a punching bag?” asked Tom.
“You are a genius! That’s exactly what it is, see?” and James punched it to show them.
They saw another boat coming by with the Martinelle and Garfield parents.
“Hello, boys! What do you think that thing is?” said Mr. Garfield, busy with an oar.
“We’re not sure, but we think it’s a punching bag. See?” and Nick punched it to show them.
Mr. Martinelle laughed and said, “You boys are funny!” and on they went out of site.
“This thing is heavy, but it’s light enough so we can push it around! Let’s play catch!”
So they tossed it around for a while…
Now the girls were very tired. They were in some very heavy currents. Now, every single one of them had an oar, no one was talking, and they all continually rowed.
“Are you sure we didn’t pass the arrow?” said Hailey.
“I am sure, see? There is another yellow sign over there!” replied Emily, looking at the map.
When they finally saw the arrow, they were all so grateful, and they turned to the direction the arrow was pointing.
It took some more time, but they finally saw the other side of the dock and thankfully rowed to it.
