Read Online Refuge Cove by Lesley Choyce - Free Book Online Page A

banging on the sleek fiberglass hull. “You wouldn’t be able to catch up with me. I’ll be flying.”
    Trying not to smile, Harold gave me an icy stare. He picked up my floater jacket. “You forgot this,” he said.
    I shoved it back to him. “I don’t need it,” I said. “I push the limits but I never go down.”
    â€œWhere are you from anyway?” he asked as I pushed off.
    â€œToronto,” I answered, not turning around to look at him.
    â€œFigures,” I heard him say as I picked up a quick little puff of air and tacked for the entrance of the cove.
    As soon as I was past the final cliff of the headland, I felt the wind fill my sail and we keeled far over. I held hard onto the rope and leaned way out over the water. The speed was amazing. It was like we had just been injected with rocket fuel. I let out a howl and jumped up to stand on the edge of the sailboat and lean even further out over the water. It was all I could do to keep the centerboard and rudder in the water. Man, we were flying! I had so much salt spray in my eyes I could hardly see. But what the hell, it was a big ocean. I had lots of room to maneuver.
    And then, through the tears from the wind and the salt spray, I saw something that really freaked me out. It was dead ahead. It was blue and white and was the size of a large building. It took a couple of seconds to register. I was staring at a freaking iceberg.
    I came about hard and let the sail rattle a bit in the wind. “I love this place,” I said out loud. The morning sun made the blue ice look electric. I slid in so close that I was in the shadow of this monster. Looking back atwhere I’d come from, I saw that I was already a long way from land.
    But no way was I just going to sit there and gawk. I needed action and I needed speed. I pulled around so the wind tightened the sail with a hard slap. I slipped over to the other side of the boat, grabbed onto the rope and let the wind send me flying.
    I could just barely keep us from going over, but I’d been around Lasers for a long time. I knew how to control things in any wind. My instincts were sharp as a razor.
    But I guess the rest of my brain was fast asleep. What I should have realized was that where there are monster-size icebergs, there’s bound to be baby icebergs as well.
    And I learned that fact the second I heard a large
whump
and went hurtling through the air, directly into the sail and over into the freezing cold water. I came up spouting seawater and shocked at the cold. The boat was on its side in the water. I had run into an ice cube the size of a Toyota. I swore at myself but wasted no time. I hopped on thecenterboard and jumped up and down until the boat came upright.
    I was soaking wet and freezing when I crawled back in. A quick look at the sail told me I was in deep trouble. It had a long gash where I had been thrown into it. I took a quick look behind me and saw the coastline was far away.

Chapter Two
    You can’t sink a Laser, but you sure can freeze your butt in one. I tried jury-rigging the sail, but it only ripped further. So I wrapped myself in it and watched the shoreline. I tossed in the swells, waiting for a miracle.
    My fingers and toes were numb, and my head was throbbing by the time I saw a dark dot appear in the distance. After a few minutes, it was clear that it was a boat and it was Choycezigzagging in my direction.
    I yelled and screamed until I was hoarse. When I could see it was truly a boat heading towards me, I let the ripped yellow-and-blue sail out to flap in the wind so I might be seen.
    It seemed like a year went by, but finally the boat pulled alongside. It was Harold. He threw me a rope. I could barely grab on, my hands were so stiff with cold.
    When the boats bumped, Harold reached over and helped me on board. “You dead or alive?” he asked. “I can’t tell “cause you look like a ghost.”
    â€œIt was an