Read Online My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock - Free Book Online Page A

and tied it shut with the bungee cord. I could feel the cage lowering around me, but I wasn’t going with it. Instead I was hovering in the middle of the cage, halfway between the ceiling and the floor. The weight belt. It must not have been the same one from yesterday, which had been heavy enough to keep me firmly on the floor. The ocean was more turbulent today. Suddenly, an enthusiastic wave pushed me upward. I bonked lightly against the rapidly descending ceiling. I shook my head to get my bearings and realized my matted hair was caught in the rubber bungee cord that held the roof shut. I was hanging from the top of the cage by my ponytail. My legs kicked out like a condemned prisoner on the gallows, fighting to the end. The weight belt was pulling me downward and the force of my hair being yanked upward lifted my mask and seawater trickled in. Trying to get leverage, I stepped on two of the cage’s horizontal bars to hold myself up while I untangled my hair. As my feet stuck out over the edge, I remembered Gus telling us not to stick our hands or feet outside the cage because “sharks will take a test bite out of anything.” I tore at my hair frantically. This would probably have been a good time to signal for help by opening the cage door if my hair hadn’t been tied to it. After about five minutes, I ripped my ponytail free and joined Bill at the bottom of the cage, an inch of water lolling around the bottom of my mask. I tried the trick that Gus taught me to get the water out—looking up while gently pulling open the bottom of the mask—but instead more water rushed in. (Later I would find out I forgot to exhale though my nose at the same time that I’d lifted the mask.) I looked at Bill with pleading eyes. “I have water in my mask and I can’t get it out! What should I do?” I wanted to shout. I pointed to my mask and he shook his head, not comprehending.
    I tightened my mask, but when I pulled the strap, even more water poured in. I tried to isolate my breathing and just inhale through my mouth, but every time I automatically breathed in through my nose, too. I was sniffing seawater at a fast clip and wondering if there was enough room on a death certificate for “died of complications from unmanageable hair.” By this point, the water in my mask had crept up past my nostrils. My eyes stared down the bridge of my nose like two flood victims on the roof of a house, wondering if the water was going to overtake them. If that happened, I was fucked. Not only would I be trapped in a cage, inhaling seawater, I’d be blind and trapped in a cage inhaling seawater. Instinct told me to swim to the surface as fast as possible, but there were sharks in the water. The question was: Did I want to drown or be eaten alive? Choose your own adventure!
    I gave Bill the double thumbs-down, the international sign for “I am displeased” and motioned that I wanted to get out. I unfastened the bungee cord and opened the top of the cage, but the current was so strong that I couldn’t close it again. The cage door was swinging wildly when Gus pulled us up and he couldn’t grab hold of the roof. The cage slipped horizontally underneath the boat, thudding dully against the hull. It was on its side with the roof wide open so any shark could swim inside. I glanced over at Bill, who gestured helplessly. He hadn’t heard Gus’s speech from yesterday about needing to close the top of the cage. He had no idea what had gone wrong. I scrambled for the cage door and yanked it down but a strong wave ripped it free again, almost pulling me out of the cage. I braced the tops of my feet against the cage’s horizontal bars for leverage and pulled with all my strength. As the cage jerked around, the metal tore easily into the thin skin on the tops of my feet. Then we were moving, being slowly towed forward; Gus was reeling us in. When we reached the surface, he locked the