THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

come after us,” Gabby pointed out, just as winded as Tony, with hair falling loose from her ponytails.
    Tony ignored Gabby, turning to me. “Now what, Touchy Feely?”
    “How should I know?” I was getting tired of him expecting me to have answers, because he blamed me for this problem, then complaining about the answers he got. “What’s your great idea?” 
    Tony’s face screwed up in pure disgust. “Drop me in a city and I’ll find my way, but out here? Not my thing. My idea would’ve been not comin’ here in the first place. What did you do to that computer to make this happen?”
    “I didn’t do anything,” I muttered, but not with any conviction.
    “You musta hit a combination of keys.” 
    “You think we’re here because of a typo, genius?” Gabby chided. “Oh, yeah, that’s scientific.”
    Tony started pacing a wide oval path between me and Gabby. Couldn’t he be still for a minute? He slapped orange-and-blue-striped palm fronds out of his way. “Everything in science has an explanation. We just have to figure out how we ended up here.”
    Lifting her hands to her colorful ponytails, Gabby started fixing the loose ones. She passed me one of her stretchy loops. “You need this.”
    “Thanks.” It took a few twists to pull my thick length of hair back. At least now it wasn’t swinging around, swatting me in the face any more.
    Gabby started in on Tony again. “That’s the thing about you science types. So locked into a narrow way of thinking. You just can’t wrap your mind around the possibility that all things do not have a tidy scientific answer.”
    I couldn’t accept everything that had happened today too easily myself, but we had bigger problems to worry about. My mind had been stingy with memories, but now wanted to make it up to me by raising one survival concern after another. “Since we have no idea how long we’ll be stuck here, we need a plan to find water and food. And to figure out what’s poisonous or not.”
    Gabby’s eyes lit up. “Since Tony clearly doesn’t trust our judgment, he can taste everything first.”
    “Very funny,” Tony grumbled, still beating a circular path.
    One look at where we’d just come tearing through the weeds and bushes introduced a new problem. The vegetation had already started growing back as I watched, which meant moving around would only get us lost when the path covered over, even if I left markers.
    When Tony passed a bush with yellow and orange flowers, he flipped his hand at one, scattering petals everywhere.
    Gabby shoved a disgusted look at him. “I don’t know what your problem is but I bet I can’t pronounce it.”
    The squinty glare he shot back at her said he hadn’t found that funny, but he did avoid touching the next vine he passed that supported a bright pink flower the size of his face. 
    I leaned my head back, searching above us for fruit in the trees, but saw nothing obvious. If we didn’t recognize something edible soon, what were we going to eat?
    When I brought my chin back down, Tony had paused, standing with his arms crossed next to another huge pink blossom. This one had brilliant green spots.
    And petals that moved in and out as if...breathing?
    I rubbed my eyes. That couldn’t be. Right?
    Had to be the wind causing the movement, but I didn’t feel a breeze stirring the thick air.
    I would have dismissed the flower, but I noticed Gabby studying one just like it next to Tony’s left knee.
    “We need a plan,” Tony said, unfolding his arms and slapping the phone against his thigh in a rhythmic tap.
    Hadn’t I just said that?
    That brought Gabby’s attention back up with a sharp chin lift. “How are we supposed to come up with a plan when we have no information to go on?”
    Tony swung his arms out. “I don’t know. Maybe we start with finding something we can use for weapons.”
    Strange as this seemed, I was about to say he had a valid point. Tony swung his hand that held his phone out and back toward his thigh at the moment I realized that flower really was drawing a breath.
    I yelled, “look out,” but the pink petals lunged up, sucking tight around Tony’s hand and arm before he had a chance to react.
    Everything happened in a burst of seconds.
    Fast as a coiled snake, a tendril of the vine lashed out from beneath the flower and raced around the wrist that Tony frantically tried to jerk free.
    Tony shouted, “ What the–”
    I dove for him, but landed in an empty space as the