Welcome to Tiny Worlds!
We’re shifting our focus to explore Mexico's eastern coast with twelve-year-old George Perez in the serialized novel: ISLA.
For longer fiction visit Stories, and for flash fiction go to Sketchbook.
Exiting into daylight was like Dorothy stepping into Munchkin Land.
A once-sullen beach, with limping palms and faded colors, looked transformed, full of life dressed in technicolor hues.
Ahead, the sun scattered diamonds on the top of the water. It made a blinding path away from the shore, beckoning him to take a step. And that is exactly what he intended to do.
Had he seen anything so beautiful? Ever?
He felt buoyed—floating above himself as he stole away from the bar. Even his bulky shoes, clomping and filling with sand, weren’t heavy as he ran faster and faster. The morning fog, a near fight on the beach, the story of iguanas were becoming fuzzy memories.
His father had seen something. They weren’t just “really good stories.”
George caught sight of them on the shoreline. The brilliance of the water and dark skin made their shapes out to be something other than human. Squinting, he saw them more clearly: the two boys from the alley. Like the flashes of them he’d seen from inside the bar, they waved him to hurry. He smiled back, laughter at the mischief of it starting to burble in his chest, ready to erupt.
Ready for a leap, they posed next to a boat, waves already pulling at its belly. Without a word between them, George knew what to do. He tossed his backpack inside and put a shoulder against the bow. With all his strength, he dug his feet into the sand and heaved it into the surf.
The boat—and George—broke free from solid earth.
Unsteady, the boat rocked wildly as each clamored in. Whatever outline the boat left in the sand was slowly blinked away with each lazy wave.
“Isla?” George called out.
The boys returned a nod.
The one with the satchel stood, his arm pointing away, then curved it down like he was reaching around the edge of the world. Then he called back with a broad smile, “Ixchel.”
The island’s name. Finally!
The other looked at George—that same grin of mischief he’d seen in the alley—studying him for a moment. Then, the boy broke into a wide smile, never taking his eyes off George.
Was the boy mirroring something? Had George’s own smile appeared without him knowing it?
Yes.
All at once, a full chest of air came out of George as a laugh. A full-tilt, holy shit laugh that vibrated down to his toes and rippled through the water and the sea floor below.
The boys didn’t miss a beat. They howled alongside him, voices flung into the air, wild and weightless.
George found the pull cord for the engine and gave it a yank. Surprisingly, the motor sputtered to life. Unsteady at the helm, he held it with two clenched fists trying to control the tiller as he made wild zigzags in the water.
This might as well have been a trip to space, even to Rylos. Eat your heart out, Alex Rogan. Ahead there was no Kodan Armada but the old man, Otis, was right: “You’ll get your chance. But when it comes, you’ve got to grab it with both hands and hold on tight.”
George felt it now, watching the water shift—from the bright blue near the shore where rocks and fish shimmered below, to a deep nothing-blue. His map had shown the same: a sudden end to detail, where colored pencil lines stopped and the unknown began. A border made visible only when you were close enough to cross it.
His eyes blinked at the bright daylight, the sparkle of the water, the monumental shift of his body now literally and figuratively untethered from anything he knew. He felt possibilities in the wind, in the smell of salted water. His hair twisted on his head in a way it hadn’t since sitting in the jumpseat of the Triumph. It was exhilarating.
Had he—could he—have imagined it like this?
Not in a million years.
Getting in the boat felt like the first real choice he’d made. But that wasn’t true. He’d been choosing all along—maybe not where they’d end up, but always reaching for the wheel, trying to steer since Chicago. The result was a haphazard tumble to where he now sat: in a boat leaving the Yucatan coast with two strangers.
He watched them, their faces turned toward the horizon, eyes searching intently. Now and then they glanced at each other—not back at the shore, not where they came from, but at each other, as if to ask, Are you seeing this? Then forward, toward whatever waited beyond: la Caída Azul.
Their spirit was infectious—daring in a way George had never been. He’d always been in his head, headphones on, stepping heavily, begrudgingly, through changes he couldn’t control. But with them, it felt different—like being invited into an adventure already in motion. He didn’t speak their language, but they understood each other. The boys seemed to know what he needed and offered it freely. The choice, though, was still his. That was a foreign feeling.
After a few minutes of silence, lost in thought—the motor’s hum the only sound on the waves—he felt his stomach churn. Not hunger, though, there was still that. George winced at the impending shitstorm this would cause. Was he really doing this? Did he just leave without saying a word to Kathryn? This wasn’t skipping a class so he could read in the library or sketching in the stairwell to avoid the fights. This was something else entirely, wasn’t it?
Every movie, every story he’d read about a character setting off on an adventure had a sense of purpose, some greater destiny. Luke left Tatooine. Wendy went to Neverland. Frodo left the Shire. But as he thought about it more closely, “George Pérez left Chicago”—or wherever—didn’t feel legendary, just an incredulous stretch.
Whatever role he thought he might play in this story, he wasn’t the hero. At best, he was twelve-year-old Jorge—a kid with an overactive imagination and a head full of borrowed stories. It felt like being a stand-in for a film that wasn’t his. One that had always belonged to someone else. Someone like his father.
Doubt started to creep over the sides of the boat and splash at him. The motor slowed as his grip loosened on the throttle. The boys turned back, watching, seeing him wipe the water from his face. There was a look in their eyes—not concern, something else. Were they watching to see if he could hang onto the tiller, to keep the boat moving forward?
The motor gave a slight sputter, a cough.
George glanced back, frowning. Then, his stomach dropped when he saw that land was no longer visible. In its place was just a never-ending sky. And all around, in the growing wind, whitecaps of waves surrounded them. The sea was turning choppy, smacking the sides of the boat, rocking it.
George looked closer, blinking away the spray that stung his eyes.
Something didn’t look right. Were those waves around the boat?
George leaned over the side, pulling the tiller and curving the path of the boat.
Just inches below the surface of the water: grey bodies, lapping over and over each other.
A massive school of fish?
No… sharks!
A thousand dorsal fins pierced the surface, rising and sinking like the restless caps of waves.
They were not only following… but pushing on the boat. And rushing past. Circling.
A tap on the knee to get his attention. George met one boy’s look and watched a pleading finger point. George followed it as it motioned off to the side of where they were going.
The other, with his satchel slung across his chest, knelt at the bow, arm outstretched, palm flat, pointing toward the island.
I’m going the wrong way.
George pulled at the tiller, changing the boat’s direction. Below, the sharks shifted to follow.
What do you do when the water is full of sharks? And how could there be this many all of a sudden?
Wind at his back, the boy with the satchel stood, the boat shifting under his feet as he steadied himself. He looked out, the sharks continuing to bump against the boat.
They’re pushing us another direction.
They were now rocking it from both sides so hard that George was waiting for them all to be thrown overboard. In JAWS one shark was frightening but…
He could see their black eyes as they surfaced, tasting the air, maybe smelling the fresh meat of children that had escaped the shore, nowhere close to safety.
Pulling the satchel to the front of his chest, the boy made a fist, rocking it forward. George didn’t understand. Again, he made the same motion, clenching his fist tighter, this time rocking it back and forth like he was riding a motorcycle. The motion was clear: Go faster!
George did. Twisting his wrist, the engine revved higher. He kept turning until it wouldn’t go any further. The boat pitched up, its nose lifting, now just skimming at the front. The speed change threw them all into a lean toward the back of the boat. George corrected the tiller, trying to find the direction again. His hands gripped the throttle so tightly he was sure there would be grooves from his fingers.
The engine was now at full throttle but only a fraction faster than before.
“We’ll never outrun them…” George shouted into the wind.
Reaching deep into the satchel, the boy pulled out an egg. He held it up for George to see, winking. Leaning as far as he could, the boy held the egg over the side. He slowly lowered it, bobbing with the constant movement of the boat, letting the egg skim the surface of the water.
All at once, the sharks seemed to whip around, bumping hard against the underside of the boat. George could feel them just inches below his feet.
This wasn’t Wild Kingdom, and George had never seen sharks behave like this. Their bodies—man-eating muscle—writhed and twisted, tails lashing as they shoved past one another to get ahead.
As if sending a message, the boy began tapping the water with the egg, creating a wake that looked like Morse code.
Is he teasing them?
Then, when the group—George couldn’t think of what a bunch of sharks was called for the life of him—tightened together into a wall of fins and teeth just below the surface. The boy dipped it a fraction further and let the egg go.
It barely dropped below the surface before the sharks exploded upward, piling over one another in a frenzy. Tails whipped, jaws snapped, bodies breached. A dozen leapt, mouths tearing at the air.
All three boys hung onto anything they could grab as the ocean roiled. George’s mouth opened further, his eyes as wide as they could manage.
A thrive of waves fell behind them as the engine continued pushing them forward. Pulling more eggs from his satchel, he tossed one to the other boy. A third was handed to George where he bobbled it in his free hand as he hung to the tiller. With a nod, the boys gestured a count… one, two, three… as the they lobbed their eggs into the churn.
George didn’t move.
The sound of the engine blurred. The boat, the boys, the sharks thrashing in the water—all distant. He stared at the egg. It sat neatly in his palm. Smooth. Whole. Strong in a way he didn’t feel.
He wanted to feel that way. But all he felt was fear.
Not nerves. Not jitters. Something deeper. Something unnamed.
The egg felt impossibly light, and yet too heavy to hold. A small, perfect thing that had no business in a place like this. And neither did he.
He heard Roberto’s gravelly voice, “I tried to open something I shouldn’t have.”
A local, with far more history here and he couldn’t figure it out.
What am I doing here?
The fear rose—through his chest, into his throat, behind his eyes. It burned as tears started streaming down his face. He didn’t even want to hide them.
He didn’t know how they’d get away from the sharks. Or find the island. Or find whatever waited there.
His body tensed. Every muscle shaking.
And it all had to break free.
George screamed.
Not a word. Not a cry for help. Just the sound of too much. The sound of being twelve and finally realizing you’re not in control of anything. That maybe you never were.
It tore out of him and into the air.
And with it, he threw the egg—eyes shut, heart pounding—as far as he could, into the boiling wake behind them.
When it landed, sharks erupted like balls of lithe fury. Their tails and teeth thrashed behind the boat in a great cacophony. Even while screaming George thought he could hear the hungry growl of the beasts as they snapped and dove at one another for the egg.
When George had rung out every register of his voice, everything was quiet.
Too quiet.
The motor was off and they were drifting.
For minutes the three of them watched the waves behind, then to the sides. Waiting for more of the dark shapes beneath the water.
But they never came.
Instead, the ocean around them trembled for a long moment. Each of them felt it on the floor of the boat. The boy with the satchel lifted his feet, listening.
George quickly turned and yanked at the cable to start the motor.
We’ve got to move.
Again and again he pulled without a sputter. Beads of sweat were building on his forehead, jostling each other for the chance to jump first.
Nearest to him, the boy touched his arm, stopping George mid-pull. But when he looked, their eyes didn’t meet. George followed his gaze to the water just a few feet away.
The sea had gone glass-smooth. And from beneath it, they rose.
Great domes, breaking the surface in silence. A phalanx of shields.
George blinked. The water didn’t ripple, it parted. Slow and reverent. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing.
The words came out as an exhausted breath, almost afraid.
“Turtles.”
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Music
The Great Shark Chase - John Williams (JAWS)
Correction. Steinbeck. A small fishing village makes me think Hemingway.
So many emotional moments. I especially loved the part where the boys laughed and howled together in the boat. It's a moment of pure elation in response to their friendship, freedom, and the adventure they embark upon.