MANUSCRIPT 5/23
THE ISLAND
The Island – 1st draft******
June 1, 2000
My name is Anna Elliott. I was thirty years old when Tom and Sharon Callahan hired me to tutor their son T.J. for the summer. He was fifteen and one month into remission from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
When they had told me they were looking for someone to accompany them on an extended vacation at a resort in the Indian Ocean, I didn’t have to think it over for very long before I agreed to go with them. I had my own reasons for getting out of Chicago.
T.J. and I were traveling to the resort together. His parents and younger sisters had flown down a week earlier but I had to attend an end of the year meeting at the high school where I teach. T.J. wanted to go to a party at his friend Ben’s and convinced his parents to let him stay behind and fly down with me instead.
My sister Sarah drove me to the airport. She pulled up to the curb and helped me take my suitcases out of the trunk. “Are you sure you don’t want me to park and go in with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. You and David can meet me at the gate when I get back. Bring the kids. Have them make a welcome home sign.”
“They’ll love that.”
“I know.”
Sarah put her hand on my arm. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“It’s too late now, I’ve accepted the job. I’m going,” I said.
“I meant leaving Chicago. Leaving John. Sarah hesitated. “Ultimatums seldom end well.”
“It wasn’t an ultimatum. Why does everyone think that? I just need a break.”
“Never mind, just forget it. Call me when you get there.” Sarah gave me a hug. “Wear sunscreen.” I hugged her back and smiled.
“Okay. Thanks for taking me to the airport.”
“You’re welcome.” I watched Sarah drive away and then I picked up my suitcases and walked into the airport.
T.J. and his friend Ben were waiting for me at the gate. “Hi T.J.,” I said. It’s good to see you again. Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, sure”.
“You must be Ben,” I said to the boy sitting next to T.J. How was your party?” I asked
“Uh, it was okay,” he said.
“I’m going to check on our flight,” I said to T.J. I’ll be right back.”
As I walked away Ben said, “Dude, you were right. Your tutor’s hot.”
“Thanks, asshole. She probably heard you.”
When I returned T.J. was alone. He was looking down at the ground. “Did Ben leave?” I asked.
“Yeah, his mom got tired of circling the airport. He wouldn’t let her come in with us.”
“Did you have a good time at the party?”
“It was okay.”
“Do you want to get something to eat?” I asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
When we boarded the plane, T.J. put his ear buds in and ignored me. He always answered me when I asked him a question – he was too polite not to – but he wasn’t interested in having a conversation. I didn’t take it personally.
We stayed on schedule until Frankfurt and then we were delayed for twelve hours while the airline attempted to untangle the mechanical problems and weather delays that rendered our original itinerary obsolete; T.J. slept on a row of hard plastic chairs while we waited to be re-routed. There were more delays in Sri Lanka – this time a shortage of flight crew – and by the time we arrived at Mal’e International Airport, our final destination an hour away by air taxi, I had been awake for thirty-three hours. When they said they had no reservation for us, I blinked back tears.
“But I have the confirmation number,” I said to the ticket agent as I slid the scrap of paper across the counter. “I updated our reservation before we left Sri Lanka. Two seats. T.J. Callahan and Anna Elliott. Will you please look again?”
The ticket agent checked the computer. “I am sorry; your names are not on the list. The air taxi is full. I have no more seats,” he said.
“What about the next flight. “
“There are no other flights tonight. Seaplanes do not fly after sunset.” He looked at me. The tears I had been trying to hold back threatened to run down my face. “I’ll see if the other carrier has any seats but I can’t promise anything,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, wiping my eyes.
I bought two large bottles of water. “Do you want one?” I asked T.J.
“No thanks.”
“Well here, put it in your backpack,” I said, handing him a bottle. “You might want it later.”
We sat down on a bench and I called T.J.’s mom and told her not to expect us until morning. “There’s a chance they’ll find us a flight but I don’t think we’ll get out tonight. The seaplanes don’t fly after dark so we may have to spend the night at the airport.”
“I’m sorry Anna. You must be exhausted,” Sharon said. I should have stayed behind with you and T.J. and let Tom fly ahead with the girls.”
“It’s okay, really. We’ll be there tomorrow for sure.”
I noticed the ticket agent waving at me. He was smiling. “Sharon, listen I think we might –,” and then my cell phone dropped the call.
The ticket agent told us one of the charter pilots was able to fly us to the resort. “The passengers he was supposed to take are delayed in Sri Lanka and won’t get here until tomorrow morning.”
“That’s great,” I told him. “Thank you for finding us a flight, I really appreciate it.” I tried to call T.J.’s parents again but I couldn’t get a signal and my cell phone roamed without connecting. I put it back in my purse.
“Can I borrow your phone T.J.?” I asked.
“Sorry, it’s dead.”
“That’s okay, it probably wouldn’t get a signal either. Are you ready?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, and grabbed his backpack.
T.J. and I boarded a mini-bus which dropped us off at the air taxi terminal. We checked in at the counter and walked outside to a seaplane bobbing on the water’s surface.
The heat was oppressive and I started sweating immediately. The airport in Germany had been freezing and I’d changed into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Now I wished I was wearing something cooler.
The pilot was sitting in the cockpit when we walked through the door. He smiled at us around a mouthful of cheeseburger. “Hi, I’m Mick.” He finished chewing and swallowed. “Hope you don’t mind if I finish my dinner.” He looked like he was in his late fifties and he was so big I wondered how he fit in the pilot’s seat. He was wearing cargo shorts and the largest tie dye t-shirt I had ever seen. His feet were bare. Beads of sweat dotted his upper lip and forehead. He ate the last bite of his cheeseburger and wiped his face with a napkin.
“I’m Anna and this is T.J.,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Of course we don’t mind.
The plane seated ten. T.J. buckled himself into a seat and fell asleep immediately. I buckled in next to him and rubbed my eyes. Mick started the engines. I couldn’t hear him over the noise but when he turned his head to the side I saw his lips moving as he communicated with someone on the radio.
I looked over at T.J. as the seaplane lifted off. He was using his backpack for a pillow. He had braces on his teeth and a small scar on his chin. When I met him he was bald and thin and pale. He was still thin but his color was better and I smiled because his hair had grown into a dark brown crew cut.
Exhausted, I closed my eyes and dozed but my body clock was off and I had never been able to sleep well on an airplane. I wanted to get to the resort, take a shower, and crawl into bed.
I hoped I’d be able to get a cell signal when we landed so I could call T.J.’s parents to pick us up. I unbuckled my seat belt and went to ask Mick how long it would be until we landed.
“Not too much longer,” he said. He motioned toward the co-pilot’s seat. “Sit down if you want.”
I sat down, buckled my seat belt, and looked out the windshield. The view was incredible. The sun was blinding but the huge expanse of water below was a swirl of mint and dark green and turquoise blue.
Mick rubbed the center of his chest with his fist and reached for a roll of antacids. He put one in his mouth. “Heartburn. That’s what I get for eating cheeseburgers. But they just taste so much better than a damn salad, you know?” He laughed and I nodded my head in agreement.
“So, where are you two from?”
“Chicago.”
“What do you do there in Chicago?” He popped another antacid into his mouth.
“I teach ninth grade English.”
“Ah, summers off.”
“Sometimes.” I motioned toward T.J. “I’m tutoring him this summer. He’s in remission from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He missed a lot of school so I’m going to try to get him caught up.
“I thought you looked too young to be his mom.”
“His parents are already at the resort. They flew down a few days ago with his younger sisters.”
We sat in silence for a while. “How many islands are down there?” I asked. I looked over at Mick. He didn’t seem to have heard me. “Mick?”
“What? Oh, about twelve hundred. Only two hundred of them are inhabited though.” Mick took his left arm off the wheel and stretched it out in front of him.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No. My arm just aches,” he said. He was sweating and it also looked like he couldn’t get a deep breath. He rubbed his chest again.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“My chest hurts. I’ve never had heartburn this bad before.”
Mick was wearing a radio headset. “Do you want to call someone? The airport, or the resort, or somebody? If you show me how to use the radio I can call for you.”
“No, I’ll be fine once these antacids start working. Thank you though.”
For a while he seemed better. His breathing was steady but then I saw him take his right hand off the wheel and rub his left shoulder. I didn’t think it was heartburn.
T.J. woke up then. “Anna,” he said, loud enough so I could hear him over the noise of the engines. I turned around. “Are we almost there?”
I unbuckled and went back to sit beside T.J. “I don’t know how much farther it is but listen; I think Mick’s having a heart attack. He’s got chest pains and he looks awful. He’s blaming it on heartburn.
“Shit, are you serious?”
“Well, my dad survived a major heart attack last year. I know what to watch for. He said he didn’t want me to call for help. I think he’s scared to admit it’s not heartburn.”
“What about flying the plane?”
“I don’t know.”
T.J. and I went up front. Mick was rubbing his chest again and his eyes were closed. “Mick? Is the pain worse?” I asked. “Just tell us if it is so we can help you.”
“I’m going to land on the water and radio for help.” His voice was barely a whisper and we had to strain to hear him. He was gasping as he spoke each word. “Put on life jackets. They’re in the overhead compartment. Then go back to your seats and buckle in. Hurry up.” T.J. and I looked at each other in alarm. My heart started beating faster as adrenaline flowed through my body. I was scared that Mick would die and even more scared he might die while we were up in the air. Telling us to put on life jackets meant he was scared about that too.
We rifled quickly through the overhead compartment. “Why do we have to put on life jackets?” T.J. asked. “The plane has floats, right?”
I didn’t tell T.J. my theory about the life jackets. “I don’t know, maybe it’s standard operating procedure. We’re landing in the middle of the ocean.” I saw a cylinder shaped container that said LIFE RAFT and several blankets. Next to them were the life jackets. “Here.” I handed a life jacket to T.J. and then put mine on. “Maybe he’s just being cautious. I’m going to try to put a life jacket on him too.” T.J. and I hurried back to Mick. He was moaning and his breath was coming in gasps again.
“Mick, here’s a life jacket.” His hands were gripped tightly on the wheel so I draped it over his head, reached around him, and fastened it. He was sweating profusely and his skin was grey. “It’s going to be okay Mick. I know CPR and T.J. can figure out the radio. We’ll get help.” I couldn’t tell if he heard me or not. We went back to our seats.
I sat down next to T.J. and we fastened our seatbelts. I gripped the armrests of my seat and looked out the window to see how low we were. Landing was imminent. When I looked up toward the cockpit I saw Mick slumped forward over the wheel. He wasn’t moving. I unbuckled my seat belt and rushed forward.
“Anna!” T.J. yelled.
When I was halfway there, Mick jerked backward in his seat, his hands still on the wheel as a massive spasm wracked his chest. It was too late. We hit the water tail first and skipped across the waves. The tip of one of the wings caught the surface and the plane cartwheeled out of control and broke apart.
I was knocked off my feet. I heard the sound of shattering glass and felt searing pain and then I was underwater.
Seawater poured down my throat. Completely disoriented, it was only the buoyancy of my life jacket that lifted me slowly toward the surface. When my head was finally above water I took huge, gasping breaths.
T.J! Oh God, where was T.J.? I pictured him trapped in his seat, unable to get his seatbelt unbuckled.
The water was filled with debris. I looked frantically for him and screamed his name over and over and just when I thought he had most certainly drowned, he surfaced, coughing and choking.
I swam toward him even though every movement caused severe pain. I tasted blood in my mouth and my head was throbbing so hard it felt like it might explode, as if there was pressure building inside that needed to be released. When I reached T.J., I grabbed his hand and tried to tell him how happy I was that he was alive but my words wouldn’t come out right. Blood was pouring from a cut on my head faster than I could wipe it out of my eyes. Everything was hazy as I drifted in and out. T.J. looped his arm through the straps of my life jacket and yelled at me to wake up. I remembered high waves and swallowing more water and the sun going down and then I remembered nothing at all until we got to the shore of the island.
Chapter two
Day 1
“Anna can you hear me?” I was lying on my back on the sand and when I opened my eyes I was looking up at the sun. I turned my head toward the voice and saw two images of T.J. He was leaning over me and I blinked until the two images merged into one. His face was cut in several places and his left eye was swollen shut. He had taken off his life jacket.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Some island. We’ve been here since the sun came up.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“You wouldn’t wake up. I was afraid you were dead.”
“My head hurts.” I touched my forehead and winced when I felt a large bump.
“I think you went through the windshield. Your face is really cut up. When we hit the water you just disappeared.”
“How did we get here?”
“We drifted all night. We finally floated into calmer water and I saw the shore. I dragged you up on the sand.”
“Thank you for not letting go of me. I probably would have died if we’d gotten separated.” I hugged him and he awkwardly hugged me back. I knew I had embarrassed him a little.
I didn’t say anything for a minute as I looked out at the water. I thought about what could have happened to us if there hadn’t been an island. I had to force myself not to dwell on it.
“What about Mick?”
T.J. shook his head. “What was left of the plane sank fast.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay. I think I hit my head on the seat in front of me.”
I sat up and took off my life jacket. Moving made the pain in my head worse and I moaned. I closed my eyes and breathed in and out slowly until the worst of it had passed.
I tried to stand up but I was so dizzy I fell down. T.J. helped me up and this time I stayed on my feet. My head throbbed and my vision was blurry.
I turned away from the shore and looked inland. The island was beautiful. It was just like the pictures I’d seen when I’d pulled up the resort on the computer, except there wasn’t a luxury hotel sitting on it. The beach was white, pristine. I was barefoot – I had no idea where my shoes were – and the sand felt like sugar under my feet. It wasn’t a very large island and I thought we could cover the distance across in less than ten minutes. The beach gave way to shrubs and tropical vegetation and then finally a forest where trees grew close together, their leaves forming a green canopy. The sun was high in the sky and I thought it must be close to noon. Small pieces of the wreckage had washed up on shore.
I sat down again. My head was pounding and I was dizzy and my whole body hurt. T.J. sat next to me. “I’m thirsty,” I said.”
“Me too.”
I looked at him. “Don’t worry. They’ll be searching for us,” I said. “They have to know we didn’t make it to the resort and they’ll send a plane to find us.”
“I hope so.”
“Did you see any other land when we were in the water?”
“No.”
“Was the current fast or slow?”
“It was moving pretty fast. Do you know where we are?”
“I know where we’re supposed to be.” I took my finger and drew a diagram in the sand. “The islands are grouped in a chain running north to south. They’re atolls which is a coral island that surrounds a lagoon.” I pointed at one of the marks I’d made in the sand. “This is where we were headed. I don’t know how close we were when we went down and I have no idea what direction we drifted. I don’t know if we’re beyond the chain or on the outer edge of it. All the islands are small and they’re separated by a lot of water. Lots of them are uninhabited.”
“My mom and dad have got to be freaking out.”
“Yes.” T.J.’s parents had probably tried to call our cell phones but T.J.’s was dead and mine was at the bottom of the ocean. I could barely comprehend what his parents must be feeling. I prayed that we would be found before anyone thought to contact my parents and sister. And John. I wasn’t willing to process what that kind of news would do to them.
We waited all day. My face burned in the sun and T.J.’s arms and legs were turning red so we moved away from the shore and sat underneath a coconut tree. I didn’t like being off the beach, in case a plane came, but T.J. and I had no protection from the sun. I had never been so hot in life. Sweat ran down my face and my hair was plastered to the back of my neck. Late in the afternoon, with little warning, the sky opened up and rain poured down on us. We opened our mouths but the raindrops did little to satisfy our growing thirst. The rain ended as abruptly as it had begun. It was monsoon season and I knew it would rain several times a day.
There were coconuts on the ground under the trees. We tried to crack them open but there wasn’t a hard enough surface to hit them against. We tried the trunk of a tree but what we really needed was a large rock. T.J. found a baseball sized stone and he hit the coconut repeatedly but it didn’t work.
“I wish we had something to collect the water in when it rains,” I said. “If we could get these coconuts open we could eat the meat and use the empty shells to collect water.” We gave up and sat there, not saying much.
“Where are they?” T.J. asked when it was fully dark.
“I don’t know.”
We stretched out on the sand, using our life jackets as pillows. “Are those bats?” T.J. asked, pointing at the shapes flying in the air above us.
“I think so.” I hated bats. I hoped they stayed away from us.
T.J. fell asleep but I couldn’t. I looked up at the sky although I knew no plane would be looking for us in the dark. My mouth was dry and my stomach was empty and my head hurt.
The middle of nowhere.
It was a phrase I’d never fully comprehended until now. I curled up on my side, my head resting on my life jacket, and cried.
Day 2
I woke as soon as the sun came up the next morning. T.J. was already awake.
“Hey.” I said as I sat up.
How’s your head?” he asked.
“Better I think.” I still had a dull headache and my face stung with yesterday’s sunburn.
“Someone will come today,” I told T.J. “Your parents probably have the coast guard searching for us by now.”
“I hope so.”
We waited under the coconut trees again. I had never been so thirsty before. I didn’t want to go any farther inland but we needed to find something to collect water in. We decided to take a look around and started walking toward the center of the island.
I had to rest often. My whole body hurt, not just my head. T.J. moved faster and he stopped frequently so I could catch up with him. I was still barefoot so I had to walk carefully. The forest floor was covered in small sticks and larger branches.
We saw the pond when we came to a small clearing. It was more like a large puddle and it was filled with murky still water. We hadn’t had anything to drink for over two days and seeing the water was unbearable.
T.J. got excited. “Can we drink that?”
“I don’t know.”
We walked to the pond. I knelt at the water’s edge and scooped some into my hand. It was warm. I knew it was probably a bad idea but I raised my hand to my mouth and took a small drink anyway. It wasn’t saltwater and it didn’t taste very good but I immediately wanted more. T.J. knelt down beside me and scooped his own handful out of the pond. Once we started drinking neither of us could stop. We drank until our thirst was satisfied and then we rested by the edge of the pond. The mosquitoes swarmed and I slapped them away from my face.
“We should go back,” I said. Now that we knew where the pond was I felt a little better. I knew we could go without food for a while as long as we had water.
“Okay.”
We walked back to the coconut tree and sat down. “Do you think we should try to build a signal fire?” I asked T.J. I wondered if we should have done that first. I was so convinced they would find us right away, and that we’d be sitting on the sand when they flew over that I hadn’t even thought about it.
“I was thinking about that too,” he said.
“Do you have any idea how to start a fire?”
He shrugged. “I’ve watched people do it on T.V. I know you can’t just rub two sticks together. They always use a curved stick, kind of like a bow, to spin another stick really fast. We might as well try.”
T.J. went to find some sticks and I gathered anything I could find to make a nest for an ember. The air was so humid that everything I picked up felt wet but I finally found some leaves on a flowering bush that were dry. I added some grass to the pile but I needed something else. I pulled the pockets of my jeans inside out and found a bit of lint.
T.J. returned with two sticks but they were both straight. “I couldn’t find a curved one.” He also had two chunks of wood. He sat down and took off his tennis shoes, then pulled the laces out of them. He tied the laces together to make one long string and then tied each end onto opposite ends of the stick. It sort of looked like the kind of bow you’d use if you were shooting arrows
“Wow, I’m impressed,” I said.”
“Don’t be. I don’t know if it will work.”
“Do you have any lint in your pockets?” I asked him. He checked the pockets of his shorts and pulled some out. He handed it to me. “Thanks.” I added the lint to my nest.
T.J. made a loop in the string and threaded the other stick through it so that it was resting on a chunk of wood on the ground. He placed another chunk of wood on top of the stick with his hand, and then pulled back on the bow.
The whole thing fell apart.
He tried repeatedly to make it work. He adjusted the tension on the string, he held the sticks at different angles and he varied his speed. “Fuck! This is impossible?” He picked the whole thing up and threw it. He used the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat out of his eyes.
After he calmed down he gathered everything up, made more adjustments, and tried again. This time it worked and he found a rhythm quickly. After about thirty minutes, the notch T.J. had worn in the chunk of wood was filled with dark wood dust. Not long after that, a wisp of smoke could be seen and shortly after that, there was a lot more. Sweat was running into his eyes and I knew he was tired so I covered his left hand with mine, to hold the stick down harder, and I used my right hand to help him saw back and forth with the bow.
“Where’s the nest Anna?”
I set it down next to him and watched as he blew gently on the piece of wood that was glowing red. He used the stick to dig it out and transfer it into the nest. He picked up the nest and held it in front of his mouth and continued to blow, and suddenly, the nest burst into flames in his hands.
“Oh my God, you did it T.J., you really did it!” He was smiling and I knew he was proud of himself. He set the burning nest down and we carefully piled little pieces of tinder on top of it. It was growing fast and we quickly used up the firewood I’d collected. We ran to find more. We each had an armful, and were running as fast as we could back to the fire when the sky opened up and poured. In seconds, the fire turned into a soggy pile of charred wood.
We stared at what was left of it. I wanted to cry. T.J. sunk to his knees on the sand and hung his head. I sat down next to him and we both lifted our heads and tried to catch the raindrops in our mouth. When the rain ended I looked over at T.J. and said, “I guess we need a shelter.”
He nodded. “Yep.”
It was dark by then so we decided we would build the shelter and another fire in the morning. We stretched out next to each other on the sand.
Then my stomach cramped. I ignored it and rolled onto my side. Another cramp hit me, this one more intense. I sat up and sweat broke out on my forehead. T.J. sat up too. “What’s wrong?”
“My stomach hurts.” I sat there on the sand praying the cramping would stop but it only got worse. Suddenly, I knew what was going to happen. “Don’t follow me,” I said, and I prayed he wouldn’t. I stumbled away from the beach into the trees and barely got my jeans and underwear down before my body purged everything in it. I writhed on the ground after that as the cramps came in waves one after the other. I was drenched in sweat and the pain radiated from my stomach down each leg. For a long time I could do nothing but lay there, afraid the slightest movement would cause more misery. The constant pain in my head, which had been temporarily displaced by the cramping, also returned. The mosquitoes descended upon me.
Then I saw the rats.
Everywhere I looked there were pairs of glowing eyes. I thought I felt one run over my foot and I screamed. I staggered to my feet and pulled my jeans and underwear back up but the movement brought another round of cramps and I collapsed onto the ground. I was afraid to move again and I thought I might be dying, that whatever had contaminated the pond water wasn’t something I could survive. I stayed still after that. I had no idea whether T.J. was still on the beach or somewhere in the woods. Exhausted and weak, I fell asleep.
Day 3
The noise woke me. I thought it was the swarm of mosquitoes but the sun was up and most of the bugs, and the rats, were gone. I was lying on my side, with my knees pulled up to my chest. I struggled to lift my head so I could figure out where the noise was coming from.
It was the sound of a plane.
I pushed myself up on all fours and crawled toward the beach. I screamed for T.J. but my throat was dry and no sound came out. I got to my feet and stumbled toward the shore, trying with the last of my strength to raise my arms above my head and wave them back and forth. I couldn’t see the plane anymore although I could still hear it, the sound moving farther and farther away. They were looking for us. They were looking for us and they saw me. They saw me and they would turn around any minute. But they didn’t.
The sound of the plane grew fainter until I could no longer hear it. I collapsed onto the sand and cried until I hyperventilated. Exhausted, my sobs tapered off and I lay on my side, staring at the water in a daze. I fell asleep for a while and when I woke up, T.J. was beside me. “There was a plane,” I said.
“I heard it. I couldn’t move.”
“They’ll come back.”
But they didn’t. I cried again but I was so dehydrated I couldn’t produce tears. T.J. and I didn’t talk much. It rained in the late afternoon and I thought of all the water that was soaking into the sand. The rainwater was our only chance for survival now that the pond was no longer an option.
We were too weak to make another fire, or build a shelter. We lay under the coconut tree all day and moved back down to the beach when it got dark. I couldn’t sleep. I was scared they would never come back for us and I was scared that T.J. and I would die soon. I dozed fitfully throughout the night and when I finally fell asleep I dreamt of rats.
Day 4
When the sun came up I struggled to lift my head off the sand. We were close to the shore and I could see more debris littering the white sand. Two seat cushions from the plane had washed up overnight. I saw something that didn’t look like the rest. I rolled toward T.J. and shook his shoulder to wake him up. His eyes looked sunken and his lips were cracked and bleeding.
“What is that?” I pointed to the object but the effort required to hold my hand up was too much and I let my arm drop back onto the sand.
“Where?”
“Over there. That tan thing.”
“I don’t know,” he said. He struggled to lift his head up. He shielded his eyes from the sun and focused. “That’s my backpack. Anna that’s my backpack!” T.J. got up and walked to the water’s edge and grabbed it. He brought it back and I slowly sat up. And just when I remembered why he was so excited, T.J. reached in and pulled out the bottle of water I’d bought him at the Male airport.
He twisted the cap off the water bottle and we took turns drinking. It was a thirty-two ounce bottle and we finished it, being careful not to drink it too fast. It wasn’t nearly enough but it would keep us going until we could figure out how to find more.
Inside T.J.’s backpack was a Chicago Cubs baseball cap and a grey sweatshirt which he put on immediately, to protect his head and arms from the sun and the mosquitoes. There were two more t-shirts, a pair of shorts, underwear and socks, and his MP3 player. T.J.’s cell phone was at the bottom of the backpack. He pulled it out and flipped it open. We both knew it was dead but I still held my breath, hoping to see the lights come on. They didn’t.
Strangely, I felt hopeful. I smiled at T.J. and said, “They will be back. I don’t know when, but they will.”
But we can’t make any more mistakes. We need water we can drink, more food, fire, and shelter.”
“Do you think they’ve found the wreckage?” T.J. asked. “And if they have, what would they think happened to us?”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t know we were wearing life jackets when the plane went down.”
“I hope they don’t think we’re dead.”
He nodded. “I know. Because then they’ll stop searching.”
We had done everything wrong. We hadn’t made a signal fire and we hadn’t spelled out SOS on the beach because we assumed we’d be on it when a rescue plane flew over.
We spent another night on the beach.
CHAPTER THREE
T.J. and I looked up at the tree with the spiny grapefruit things. “If you stand on my shoulders you might be able to reach,” he said.
T.J. was about five foot nine which was taller than me by at least five inches but he was bone thin, and scrawny, and even though I was average weight for my height, I wasn’t sure he could hold me.
He seemed to know what I was thinking. “Just try.”
I climbed onto his shoulders and grabbed a branch before I tried to stand up. He might have been skinny but he was surprisingly steady, considering how little we had eaten and how sick he’d been. He held onto my ankles and I stood up slowly. My knees were shaking. I reached up as high as I could and just when I was about to grab the fruit, I lost my balance and had to jump off T.J.’s shoulders.
“Sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
I climbed up again and stretched toward the fruit slowly. My fingertips grazed it but I couldn’t get a good grip. I decided to hit it instead, hoping I could knock it loose. The first two times I tried, it didn’t budge. My knees were shaking and I was starting to wobble. I hit the fruit one last time, as hard as I could, and it went flying. I jumped off T.J.’s shoulders and we ran to it.
T.J. picked it up. “What is it?”
I looked closer. “I think it might be breadfruit.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a fruit that supposedly tastes a little like bread.”
We used our fingernails to peel the outer skin away. The raw breadfruit was fragrant and reminded me of guava. We put pieces in our mouth and chewed. The texture was rubbery and I didn’t think it was ripe enough but it wasn’t bad. “This doesn’t taste like bread to me,” T.J. said.
“I think it might if it was cooked.”
After we ate it I climbed back on T.J.’s shoulders again. I knocked down two more breadfruit, which we consumed immediately, and I also pulled a large leaf from the tree to use as a funnel so we could collect rainwater in the empty water bottle.
When we got back to the beach, T.J. rolled up the breadfruit leaf but it was too big to fit in the mouth of the bottle. He tore it until it was the right size and made sure there were no openings for water to escape. I hoped it would work. I was thirsty again.
We checked our leaf funnel after it had been raining a while. It worked perfectly. When the bottle had filled up all the way, T.J. drank half of it, handed it to me, and I drank the rest. We put the leaf back in and before the rain stopped, it filled up again. We drank that too.
Our thirst was satisfied, we had a little food in our stomachs, although not enough, and we had made fire. But without a shelter to protect the flame, the fire would never stay lit, especially during the rainy season.
We didn’t build the shelter in the forest. The mosquitoes were worse there and T.J. and I were already covered in bites. And the rats were something I could hardly think about without sending myself into a full blown panic attack.
We built on the beach instead and found two Y-shaped branches that were tall enough to drive down into the sand. We placed a long branch between them and constructed a crude lean-to out of more branches. We lined the floor with palm fronds, except for a small circle where we could build our fire, and I collected stones to place in a ring around it. It would be smoky inside but we could handle that, especially if it helped keep the mosquitoes away. We were exhausted when we finished and decided to wait until the next morning to make another fire.
I stood on T.J.’s shoulders again and knocked down more breadfruit for us to eat. The amount of work it would take to keep us fed and hydrated was almost incomprehensible.
We put the seat cushions and the life jackets in the lean-to and then T.J. and I stretched out next to each other and fell asleep.
I had to go to the bathroom when I woke up the next morning. My urine smelled strong and I knew I wasn’t drinking enough but I was glad I was able to pee at all. I didn’t get any of it on my jeans this time.
We knocked down more breadfruit and I was aware of a pattern starting. Food, hopefully followed later today by water. Food. Water. At least our shelter was complete and wouldn’t require much more work.
T.J. repeated the steps he’d followed the day before and soon we were feeding another fire. It was smoky in the lean-to but at least the fire wouldn’t go out when it rained.
We smelled horrible and went down to the water to bathe. We took turns, both for privacy and so that one of us could watch the fire.
I went first and I stripped my clothes off and waded into the ocean. There were fish everywhere and they scattered when I got near them. The water was as warm as bathwater and didn’t cool me off but I felt a little cleaner when I came out. T.J. had given me a t-shirt from his backpack and I put that on, along with the rest of my stinky clothes when I got out of the water. I was much cooler in short sleeves.
When I returned to the lean-to I said, “I wish we had something to fish with. Now that we have a fire, we could cook them.” Just the thought of it made my mouth water and my stomach growl.
“We could try and spear them,” he said. “Let’s look for some long sticks when I get back? We might as well get more firewood too.” He glanced at the fire. “We’re going to need it.”
T.J. left to bathe and came back wearing clean clothes from his backpack. He was also carrying something. “What is that?” He set it down next to me and I realized immediately what it was, even before I read the words LIFE RAFT on the side. We opened the container and pulled out the life raft. There was a waterproof bag attached to the life raft. I ripped it open and pulled out a sheet of paper that listed the contents. Raft canopy, located inside accessories case, features two roll up doors and a rain water collector in the top of the roof panel. Custom packs available including radio beacons and emergency locators.
“Where is the accessories case?” T.J. looked in the container and pulled out a nylon bag. “This might have an emergency locator in it!” We opened it and dumped everything out on the sand.
There was no emergency locator.
No radio beacon, no satellite phone, no transmitter, nothing that would lead to rescue. “I guess they figured the custom pack wasn’t necessary,” I said. I was so used to being disappointed that I didn’t even cry this time.
T.J. and I sat in silence for a minute and then examined the rest of the contents. There was a Swiss army knife, a flashlight, a first aid kit, a tarp, a blanket, and two collapsible sixty-four ounce plastic containers. That raised my spirits a little.
We inflated the life raft and attached the canopy and rain water collector. The life raft was like a big tent, and the roll down doors on the canopy would keep the bugs out. We could put it next to the lean-to and sleep in it.
We put more wood on the fire and walked into the forest. The first thing we did was use the knife to cut the husk off a coconut and then split it open. We caught the water that spilled out of it in one of the plastic containers. We drank it and shared the meat. We opened three more and ate them too. I couldn’t believe how full I was. In the late afternoon, when it rained, T.J. and I were stunned at how much water we had. We had set out the two plastic containers and they were full. So were the water collector and water bottle, all the empty coconut shells, and the container that held the life raft. I was amazed by how much our situation had improved. We drank half of all the water we collected and within an hour we both had to pee. We celebrated by eating another coconut. “I like coconut better than breadfruit,” I said.
“Me too, although now that we have fire, maybe we can roast it and see if it tastes better.”
“Good idea.”
We gathered more firewood and found sturdy sticks that might work for spearing fish.
Next: sleeping in the life raft. Mention putting tarp over lean-to roof (or making the tarp be some kind of awning for the fire)
Then: pooping and getting her period. “Did you decide being cooler wasn’t worth the mosquito bites?” “Something like that.”
After that: bone’s shack and anna’s suitcase. Make sure there’s a saw in bone’s shack so t.j. can build muscle by sawing by hand all the time.