"Sorry," Tina said. "I just don't have anything."

And then, without warning, the lizard jumped up onto her outstretched hand. Tina could feel its little toes pinching the skin of her palm, and she felt the surprising weight of the animal's body pressing her arm down.

And then the lizard scrambled up her arm, toward her face.

"I just wish I could see her," Ellen Bowman said, squinting in the sunlight. "That's all. Just see her."

"I'm sure she's fine," Mike said, picking through the box lunch packed by the hotel. There was unappetizing grilled chicken, and some kind of a meat-filled pastry. Not that Ellen would cat any of it.

"You don't think she'd leave the beach?" Ellen said.

"No, hon, I don't."

"I feel so isolated here," Ellen said.

"I thought that's what you wanted," Mike Bowman said.

"I did."

"Well, then, what's the problem?"

"I just wish I could see her, is all," Ellen said.

Then, from down the beach, carried by the wind, they heard their daughter's voice. She was screaming.

Puntarenas

"I think she is quite comfortable now," Dr. Cruz said, lowering the plastic flap of the oxygen tent around Tina as she slept. Mike Bowman sat beside the bed, close to his daughter. Mike thought Dr. Cruz was probably pretty capable; he spoke excellent English, the result of training at medical centers In London and Baltimore. Dr. Cruz radiated competence, and the Clinica Santa Maria, the modern hospital in Puntarenas, was spotless and efficient.

But, even so, Mike Bowman felt nervous. There was no getting around the fact that his only daughter was desperately ill, and they were far from home.

When Mike had first reached Tina, she was screaming hysterically. Her whole left arm was bloody, covered with a profusion of small bites, each the size of a thumbprint. And there were flecks of sticky foam on her arm, like a foamy saliva.