The dolphins swam alongside me in the lagoon. They dove under my body and surfaced on the other side. They made the funniest squeaking noises, and when I talked to them, they acted like they understood me. Jiho and I liked to grab their fins, laughing as they let us ride them. I could play with them for hours.

Jiho ran down to the lagoon. 

“Jennie, guess what I found.”

Jiho’s other tennis shoe had washed up, and since he didn’t have to worry about injuring his feet anymore, he spent hours in the woods, searching for something interesting. So far, he’d found nothing but mosquito bites, but he kept looking anyway. It gave him something to do.
 

“What did you find?” I asked, petting one of the dolphins. “Put your tennis shoes on and come see.”

I said good-bye to the dolphins, followed him back to the lean-to, and put on my shoes and socks.

“Okay, now I’m curious. What is it?”

“A cave. I went to grab a pile of sticks, and when I pulled them away, I saw the opening. I want to see what’s in it.”

It only took a few minutes to get to the cave. Jiho knelt at the entrance and crawled through on his hands and knees.

“It’s narrower than I thought,” he yelled. “Lie on the ground and army crawl on your stomach. It’s tight, but there’s room. Come on in.”

“No way,” I yelled back. “I am never going in that cave.”

My heart beat faster, and I started sweating just thinking about it. “I’m feeling around. I can’t see anything.”

“Why would you do that? What if there are rats, or a big scary spider?” 

“What? You think there might be spiders?”

“No, never mind.”
 
“I don’t think there’s anything in here but rocks and sticks. I can’t tell though.”

“If the sticks are dry bring them out. We can add them to the woodpile.”

“Okay.”

Jiho crawled out of the cave and stood up with something that looked like a shinbone in one hand and something that was definitely a skull in the other. He dropped them and said, “Holy !”

“Oh my God,” I said. “I don’t know who that is, but it did not end well for them.”

“Do you think it’s the person who built the shack?” Jiho asked. We stared down at the skull.
I nodded. “That would be my guess.”

We walked back to the lean-to and grabbed a burning log from the fire to use for a torch. We hurried back to the cave and Jiho got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside, holding the torch in front of him.

“Don’t burn yourself,” I called after him. 

“I won’t.”

“Are you in?” 

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

“It’s definitely a skeleton. But there’s nothing else in here.” Jiho came out and handed me the torch. “I’m going to put the bones back in the cave with the rest of it.”
 

“Good idea.”

Jiho and I walked back to the lean-to. 

“Well that was horrifying,” I said 

“How long does it take a body to become a skeleton?” Jiho asked.
 

“In this heat and humidity? Probably not long.” 

“I definitely think it’s the guy from the shack.”

“You’re probably right. And if it is him, there goes one of our chances for rescue.” I shook my head. “He’s not coming back because he never left. But what killed him?”

“I don’t know.” Jiho threw some wood on the fire and sat down beside me. “Why wouldn’t you go in the cave? Before we knew about the skeleton, I mean.”

“I can’t stand small, enclosed spaces. They freak me out. You know that lake house I told you about? The one where my dad and I went fishing?” 

“Yeah.”

“Once Chaeyoung joined the trip and we played with the other kids who vacationed there with their families. There was a road that went around the whole lake, and it had a long drainage pipe under it. Kids were always daring each other to crawl through it to the other side. One time, Chaeyoung and I decided to do it, and we convinced everyone else to come along. We got halfway in, and I panicked. I couldn’t breathe and the person in front of me wouldn’t move forward. I couldn’t back up because there were kids behind me, too. I was probably seven, and not very big, but the pipe was tiny. We finally made it out the other side, and Chaeyoung had to go find my mom because I wouldn’t stop crying. I remember it l