“It’s too soon to crow yet,” Sally warned. “While it looks as if this breeze will hold for the entire race, no one can tell. Anything might happen.”
Penny glanced back at Jack’s boat a good six to eight lengths behind. The boy deliberately turned his head, acting as if he did not see her.
The Cat’s Paw hugged the marker as it made the turn at Hat Island. Rounding the body of land, the girls were annoyed to see a canoe with three children paddling directly across their course.
“Now how did they get out here?” Sally murmured with a worried frown. “They should know better!”
At first the children did not seem to realize that they were directly in the path of the racing boats. But as they saw the fleet rounding Hat Island in the wake of the Cat’s Paw and the Spindrift, they suddenly became panic-stricken.
With frantic haste, they tried to get out of the way. In her confusion, one of the girls dropped a paddle, and as it floated away, she made a desperate lunge to recover it. Another of the occupants, heavy-set and awkward, leaned far over the same side in an attempt to help her.
“They’ll upset if they aren’t careful!” Penny groaned. “Yes, there they go!”
Even as she spoke, the canoe flipped over, tossing the three girls into the water. Two of them grasped the overturned craft and held on. The third, unable to swim, was too far away to reach the extended hand of her terrified companions.
Making inarticulate, strangled sounds in her throat, she frantically thrashed the water, trying desperately to save herself.