by Ann Kelley
“Shut up, you stupid ditz, shut up! Don’t you realize the danger we’re in?” I’m shouting. “We’re trapped on this island with something dangerous. Wild boar, maybe, or a big cat, and you’re, you’re…” I put Carly down and she runs off to Jody and carries on looking for shells as if nothing has happened. But something has changed. Not only are we not being rescued, we’re sharing an island with an animal that eats human flesh. Probably more than one. There’s no point in wasting any more time on Mrs. Campbell.
We need weapons: We could use them to hunt for food as well as for protection. I should have thought of it before. We’ll make spears. Jas and I find more bamboo stalks of the right length and thickness. I make several spears, whittling their tips with my penknife to make sharp points. Then I have a brilliant idea—I split the end of a long cane, position the Swiss Army knife in it, open to a vicious serrated blade, and tie it on with some fishing line. On the beach I throw it as far as I can. It flies in an arc and lands blade-down in the sand. It works!
But that only works for one spear; we need more. I’m desperate to keep going, to keep busy. We should have one each at least. And if my knife is stuck on the end of a pole, I can’t use any of its many useful blades and implements.
I find one of the baked bean tins, flatten it with a stone, and then bend and cut it into a sharp cone shape, which I flatten. I fit it into the split end of the spear and bind it onto the shaft with a piece of fishing line. It looks good. I throw it several times, aiming at a fallen tree trunk. It works. I craft two more spearheads with the tins. One for Hope, one for Jas, and one for me.
“We have to keep the fire going,” I tell everybody, “and all sleep nearby.” For once nobody complains that I’m being too bossy. We’ve moved Natalie back to our camp and know that, in spite of the stench, we have to have her close to us at night.
Mrs. Campbell seems to have sobered up. Or at least she’s not as spaced out as she was. I have given up on May and Arlene, who have spent all day asleep in the sun. I don’t care; let them fry. They don’t deserve to be looked after.
But then I discover that the matches are finished. That explains why Mrs. Campbell’s able to sit up and speak. Now surely she has to pay attention.
eleven
DAY 11
I keep thinking it can’t get any worse, and then it does. The nightmare is never-ending.
A terrifying night. Wild boars attacked. Camp destroyed.
We were woken by loud squeals and snuffling, and then the barrier was down and at least three smelly creatures rampaged through the camp, even trampling the fire. It was chaos—all of us screaming and running around like headless chickens. The bamboo platform was smashed and the walls of branches and canvas and bamboo roof collapsed. We couldn’t find the spears. No one was hurt, except for Hope, who went over on her ankle. We huddled together in the darkness for the rest of the night, one flashlight on at all times, terrified that they would come back and attack us. We had thought our camp was so strong, but they just ran through it and broke it up as if it were made of matchsticks.
Then, to cap it all, it rained—hard. We sat under the banyan tree and held the canvas over us like a tent, but we still got drenched.
“What about Natalie?” I said belatedly. “She’ll be getting soaked.”
“Come on.” Jas grabbed my arm. “We’ll get her.”
We picked her up as carefully as we could and carried her up to the tree line. The fire had no chance. If we’d kept the barbecue going there would be charcoal embers we could use. I could have wrapped the glowing embers in banana leaves and carried them with me to the top of the island and made a fire. I could have carried the hot parcel in a coconut shell. We could have banana fritters, grilled fish….
I’m hungry, and so cold.
Another day in paradise. Must turn off the flashlight now to save batteries. Jas and I are on watch, though I don’t think anyone can sleep.
“Bonnie, listen!” Jas is leaning over Natalie.
“What is it?”
“Do you think her breathing’s changed?”
“She’s too hot. I’ll cool her pulse points.”
“No, Bonnie, it’s too late, I think she’s…”
I press my fingers to her throat to feel for a pulse. It’s very faint.
“I don’t think she’s in pain,” I say.
We sit and hold her hands, warm sticky hands, still as stones. She fades away quietly, without a murmur, her skin turning gray and pallid as dawn breaks. She doesn’t look like Natalie anymore. I hear Jas’s quiet crying in the gloom.
I feel nothing, no feeling at all. All we can do is wait for morning.
Dawn announces itself with a pea-soup sky and a purple heaving sea. Large black birds circle.
Mrs. Campbell became hysterical when we told her about Natalie. I really think she’s gone totally out of her mind. She wailed like a baby and took off up the beach. She’s definitely nuts, in my opinion. Jas thinks Natalie’s death is the last straw, and Mrs. Campbell has simply given up hope. She’s fallen apart.
Jody is inconsolable. Hope tries to cuddle her, but she runs away and sits on a rock, her head on her knees.
Before the day gathers heat we bury Natalie’s body as deep as we can, the remains of her cuddly blanket wrapped around her, and place rocks on top of the mound. No matter how much I wash my hands I can still smell the putrefaction.
Now we have three wandering spirits.
Jas, Hope, and I build a small shrine on a shelf at the back of Black Cave. Jas has made a sort of wreath from leaves, and I have filled a tin can with orchids.
“We have to put food out to mollify the spirits.”
“Okay. A coconut.”
Shame we haven’t any jasmine. Lan Kua once told me that jasmine symbolizes the beauty of the Buddha’s teachings and, as it perishes, the impermanence of life.
Hope has washed Sandy’s teddy bear in freshwater to get the stink and bloodstains out. Carly whispers in its ear, kisses it, and places it on the shelf with the other treasures—the peacock feather, the conch, and a little pile of cowrie shells.
“I think w-w-w-we ought to have a c-c-crucifix,” says Hope.
She takes off her own silver cross and chain and places them on the rock. Jas is trying to soothe Jody, but the poor kid is exhausted with loud grief and just sits by the grave and wails.
“I’m sick of funerals. I want to live,” I say. I feel like something is strangling my heart.
Jas goes back to Jody and tries to cuddle her, but Jody pushes her away.
After the funeral I sit and write in my journal:
Natalie is dead.
I don’t know where Mrs. Campbell is and I don’t care.
We—Jas and I, Hope, the Glossies, Jody and Carly—have removed our sleeping bags from the smashed platform back to Black Cave. Mrs. Campbell isn’t back yet.
“Do you think we should go and look for her?” asks Jas.
“I don’t care if I never see her again,” I say. And I mean it.
Mattresses of leaves and branches help keep the damp from our sleeping bags, but the discomfort is wearing me down. There is a black mold growing inside my bag and I have grit in creases I didn’t know I had. But the shallow cave feels safer, somehow, from the wild boars. Mrs. Campbell turns up eventually, and squeezes in between May and Arlene, who grumble in their sleep.
The night is long and very scary. Above the noise of the waves my ears pick up the sounds of the jungle: crashing, screeching, howling. Hope snores through the horrors of darkness. I have given up trying to read my book after dark. We have to preserve our flashlight batteries.
This rash is driving me mad. I can’t stop scratching. As I lie here, it occurs to me that we need meat. Protein.
Perhaps we could build a trap. Dig a pit on one of the tracks the boars use regularly and cover it with branches, or make a trap with wire. But how would we bait it? Unless we dig up the body of Natalie or the boatman and use some of their rotti
ng flesh. Boars eat carrion.
Listen to me! I can’t believe I’m considering such awful things. But it would kill two birds with one stone: rid us of a dangerous beast and provide us with much-needed protein.
Birds. That’s it. We could kill a bird. But we haven’t a gun.
How long does it take before starving survivors think seriously about cannibalism? Who would I want to eat? Ugh! No one.
I might try those little ghost crabs, except that it might be like having a large spider in my mouth. I could eat live shrimp. I would even eat raw eggs, if only we could find any.
I go over our list in my head. We have two knives, fishing line and hooks, spears, a net. We haven’t yet used the coil of net that was washed up.
The sea is high and noisy and the strong wind whines as I finally fall asleep.
Dad has his arms open to me. He is wearing ordinary clothes, not his uniform. He’s smiling and I am little again and run to him and leap into his arms, throwing my legs around his waist. But then suddenly I am alone and he is walking away from me, his arms around a woman with long auburn hair—not Mommy.
I wake sobbing.
I feel Jas stirring beside me.
“Bonnie, we’re going to get rescued and go home. I can’t wait to see my baby brother. I really miss him. Now, close your eyes and let’s pretend we’re having a sleepover at your house.”
I can almost feel the ceiling fan whirring above me. If I reached up I could touch the mosquito net over my bed.
“Do you think your mom might want to take you and Francisco away from Thailand—go back to the States?”
“No, she’d never leave Dad here on his own.”
“Why, doesn’t she trust him?”
“God, no, it’s not that. Of course she trusts him. No, she wouldn’t want him to have no one to look after him when he’s on leave.”
I hold my tongue about who I think is looking after him while she is nursing her migraines. There’s no point in upsetting Jas, and anyway I might be totally wrong.
A few hours pass and the night gradually fades. We doze, fitfully. But we never really sleep.
“Come on, we need to get more food,” Jas says.
We find our shoes and stumble over the other girls. Mrs. Campbell has a bare arm flung over Arlene’s back. May still has curlers in her hair. Jas and I giggle at the ridiculous sight.
twelve
DAY 12, KOH TABU
They are looking for us, but in the wrong place.
We see a black spot in the sky, way over by the nearest island to the mainland. It keeps zigzagging across the island and the channel between that one and the next. A helicopter, but not heading in this direction. Jas and I stoke the fire, but the damp wood is reluctant to do much more than produce a thin veil of smoke.
“See, Mrs. Campbell? They are looking for us.” But they don’t appear again.
“You two help me with this net, will you? It’s torn.” I despise the Glossies, but for some reason I can’t give up on them. They are sitting on rocks by the sea. May is weaving Mrs. Campbell’s hair into thin braids.
“No way, hate sewing,” says May.
“Yeah, leave us alone, bossy Bonnie.” Arlene is applying red lipstick, sticky and dark as blood, the same color as Mrs. Campbell’s lips.
“Let Layla see what I’ve done with her hair,” says May, snatching at the small rectangular mirror Arlene is holding.
“Haven’t finished with it—gedoff.” Arlene goes to grab it back and the mirror falls and smashes on the rocks.
“You stupid bitch. You crazy stupid bitch.”
They hit out at each other, scratching and screeching. Mrs. Campbell sits, unmoving and unmoved, as if she were the statue of a goddess.
I retrieve the largest piece of broken mirror from between the rocks and leave them to it.
Great! Mrs. Campbell is now high on a hallucinogenic plant. That’s all we need.
Mrs. Campbell has found a new way to escape reality—chewing the seeds of a datura plant. At the forest edge are dozens of small trees covered in the creamy, trumpet-like, too-fragrant blooms.
“She was supposed to be looking for food, not drugs,” says Jas angrily. Now she’s lying in the shade of a palm, eyes glazed, red mouth open, a hibiscus blossom rotting in her hair, cheesecloth blouse loosely tied, one breast uncovered, red petticoat torn and grubby, red toenails chipped and jagged. May’s hairstyling, stiffened with salt and sand, remains intact, despite the wreckage below.
Hope, Jas, and I are wading into the sea at the far end of the beach to our camp. The Portuguese Men o’ War have gone. I try not to think about sharks.
We walk out as far as we can, Hope at one end of the boatman’s net, Jas and I at the other. But it keeps floating to the surface.
“We need more weights or something on the bottom edge, so it drags along the bottom,” I call to the others.
After an age of searching we find enough heavy shells with holes in them to tie to the bottom edge of the net. We survey our handiwork proudly.
“That’s better,” says Jas. “Who’d have thought we’d make such expert fishermen!” We wade out again, then gather the net into a smaller and smaller circle as we gradually move closer to the beach. It works. We’re all smiling and jumping up and down with joy. We have caught two beautiful parrotfish, with their large fluorescent scales of bright blue and emerald green. They flap around while the juniors hit them with sticks and rocks.
“I’ve never killed anything before,” says Jody. She’s so happy, so pleased with herself. The others jump and scream with excitement. Our brief moment of happiness is ruined when Jas hits her forehead with the palm of her hand. “How could we be so stupid?” she hisses. “We don’t have any matches. We can’t cook the fish.”
Think! Think! Think!
I try to remember movies I’ve seen with natives making fire. I know Dad’s done it. You rub a stick into a split made in another stick, twisting it fast until smoke appears. He says it’s harder than it sounds. Much harder. But I’ve got to give it a go. I end up with aching wrists, blistered hands, and no smoke. We all try and fail, even Hope.
“Let’s ask Mrs. Campbell.”
“You’ve got to be joking. She’s totally out of it.”
Then Hope offers me her one-eye glasses. “M-m-maybe these will help?”
Yes, of course! In Lord of the Flies they used Piggy’s broken glasses to make fire.
“Brilliant, Hope! What a good idea!” Jas says. “Actually, William Golding got it wrong. Piggy was nearsighted, and they wouldn’t have been able to use his glasses to make fire. We can use yours, though.”
Hope smiles.
Jas is so clever.
But the sun’s gone again. Huge dark clouds sweep across the sky like battleships, sinking lower and lower.
“Oh, well, we’ll just have to salt them instead. There’s lots left,” says Jas. At least Mrs. Campbell had the foresight to carry more than enough salt to the island. It’s vital in the tropics. Mom says to take a teaspoonful when you feel like you’ve had too much sun and heat.
Jas sees the bright side of things, whereas I… well, I am just angry and fed up, and I feel as if I could murder someone. Every day I wake angry and go to sleep furious.
Hope and I cut the fish into thin strips. Jas rubs salt on them and then hangs them to dry over the net. Small red flies come from everywhere, attracted by the smell. Layla Campbell has introduced the Glossies to the datura plant now and they’re busy munching on its leaves. I have completely given up on them.
We can’t wait longer than half an hour—we’re all so hungry. So we eat the fish, sharing it with the juniors. It’s disgusting, but it’s protein. And now I can’t get rid of the smell of fish on my fingers, no matter how much I wash them. Oh, for a bar of soap! I’m sure Dad said there was a leaf you could use as a substitute, but I obviously wasn’t listening hard enough when he told me.
“Why are May and Arlene eating leaves?” asks Jody.
“Then why are they allowed to eat them?”
“They aren’t very poisonous to big people,” I lie.
“Oh.”
Mom once told me that datura gives you nightmares and that you lose control over bodily functions. So why anyone would want to try it is beyond me.
Later, while we are washing in the freshwater stream, downstream of where we gather drinking water, I suggest to Jas that the juniors see us as the adults now.
“Yes, and Hope, too.”
“What on earth is wrong with that woman?” I mutter, glaring in Mrs. Campbell’s direction.
“She’s just fallen apart. I mean, I think that’s what has happened. A breakdown,” Jas says, dipping her feet into the stream and cleaning between her toes.
“What’s the Glossies’ excuse, then?”
“Stupidity? Lack of imagination? They act like this is all a big joke. A laugh.”
Right on cue they come staggering toward us, obviously stoned.
“Layla’s sooo sick,” says May.
“So are you, by the look of you. Why do you take that stuff?” I sound like Mom.
“I only chewed a tiny bit of leaf; Layla ate seeds. I think I’m going to throw up.” May vomits onto the sand in front of us.
“Gross, ugh, gross!” Arlene says and follows suit.
thirteen
DAY 12—I THINK
I have given up all hope of anyone coming for us. They have no idea where we are, and they probably think we died the first night. But they would surely be looking for our bodies? If they are still alive.
I wish I had made notches in a palm trunk every morning, to help keep count of the days. I feel a real need for order in my life. Civilization seems to have broken down for us very quickly. No rituals like cereal for breakfast, no school, no homework, no lemonade time. No tea and biscuits. No cleaning of teeth or soap and showers. No clean clothes. We are simply existing—surviving. We are like a drifting, rudderless boat.