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that I had to stop for a minute and let my head clear. After about a hundred breaths, the air mattress was full enough. Finally. Five green tubes that looked like giant hot dogs.
    I put the mattress in the water next to Tanner and went to work. It took me a long time to slide him onto that mattress. He was dead weight, and the mattress kept slipping away.
    Once Tanner was on the mattress, I grabbed hold of the front and pulled. The mattress slid forward about three inches. I almost laughed. I couldmake it now. That slick mattress made the difference. It would be hard and slow, but I could make it.
    It took forever. I pulled on the front. Then I moved to one side and scooted the mattress forward. Then to the other side. Then I pulled on the front again. And I kept shoving Tanner back to the middle of the mattress.
    I didn’t stop until Tanner’s feet were out of the water. Then I unrolled a sleeping bag and covered him with it. His face was ghost white, but his breathing was steady.
    “All right, Tanner,” I said. “Soft bed. Nice and warm. You gotta love it.”
    And I loved it too. I had done it. The whole thing had seemed impossible, but I had done it.
    By then I was exhausted. My knees were shaking, and my head seemed too heavy for my neck. I hauled out the other sleeping bag and spread it on the ground next to Tanner. I flopped down on it and didn’t move.
    I wasn’t as comfortable as I expected. I could still feel the rocks underneath me. I’d seen another green air mattress in the dry bag, and I thought about getting it. But right then it was too much trouble.
    The warm sun felt good on my back. I closed my eyes and let myself drift.
    Before long, one of my stupid songs started bouncing around in my brain:
    Kenny’s lazy, William’s worse,
But I’m the laziest guy in the universe .
    Always before, that song had been a joke. But it wasn’t funny now.
    I tried not to listen. That song wasn’t fair. I’d been working hard. Harder than I had in my whole life. And I’d gotten Tanner safely out of the water.
    But the song wouldn’t go away. I kept hearing it over and over. In some part of my brain, I knewthe song was right: I
was
lazy. Tanner needed help, and I was loafing in the warm sun.
    I rolled onto my side and looked at Tanner. I couldn’t just lie there. I had to do something.
    But what? That was the question. What could Ido?

T anner hadn’t moved. His forehead had stopped bleeding, and he had a little more color in his face. But he still looked bad.
    I didn’t know what to do. I knew boxers and football players got knocked out sometimes. But how did you get them to wake up?
    I wondered if we’d studied this in Cub Scouts. If we had, I couldn’t remember it now. I moved over and put my mouth close toTanner’s ear. “Tanner,” I whispered. “Tanner?” His face didn’t change.
    Then I tried speaking louder. “Tanner. Can you hear me?”
    Nothing.
    “Tanner!” I yelled. “Tanner! Smiley! Tanner Harrison!”
    No change.
    I sat back and watched him. Here was my big brother. He looked terrible. I wanted to help him. More than anything in the world. But I couldn’t think of anything to do.
    If I’d been the one lying there, things would have been different. Tanner would have known what to do. But all I could do was sit there and look at him.
    Now and then he snorted, and he groaned once. Whenever he made a sound, I yelled at him again.
    It didn’t help.
    All we could do now was wait. Sooner or later we’d be rescued.
    But it wouldn’t be sooner. Dad wasn’t supposedto meet us until tomorrow. Two o’clock at some bridge.
    I knew that when we didn’t show up, he’d get somebody to look for us. But that was tomorrow. Late afternoon. If we were lucky. If Dad got worried soon enough. Otherwise, it would be dark, and they wouldn’t be able to start looking until Monday.
    So we were stuck. We might as well have been on a desert island.
    Suddenly I realized how much this was like some of the