Stranded Chapter 4

 

Day 2

          THUNK! Lauren opened her eyes. What was that? She sat up in the sand, her brothers still sleeping in a clump. She noticed a few boys going in the jungle and bringing out logs to make stands for their small houses. And then-she couldn’t believe it, there was that boy putting a tarp over his propped up logs to serve as a roof. She scrambled to her feet and walked over. She watched him in astonishment before speaking. “Uh…..hi”. He turned and smiled a charming, flashing smile.

          “Hi.” He replied. Her mind froze. She searched for something to say. If I say something dumb, I’ll look like a complete idiot. She thought. And if I just stand here, I’ll still look like an idiot.

          “I’m Lauren.” was all she managed to say.

          “I’m Austin. Nice to meet you, Lauren.” He smiled his angel-like smile again.

          “C-Can I help you with that?” she stuttered.

          “Oh sure.” He replied. “I need lots of help.” He pointed to the jungle. “How bout you just find some good sized logs in there and bring them to me.”

          “Okay.” She ran into the jungle. As she went about finding logs, she daydreamed. “Austin…what a beautiful name. Austin……”

And then, Lauren broke into singing, to the tune of Daisy, Daisy:

                             “Austin, Austin,

                             Tell me your girlfriend do

                             I’m half crazy

                             All 'cause I love you….”

          As she was singing, she heard a rustle. And a deep, low growl. She stopped her singing and ran. She ran, so fast she tripped every five seconds, until almost half her logs had fallen. She eventually got to the beach, out of breath. Austin saw her wide eye look. “You okay?”

          “Yeah. I’m….I’m fine.” She handed him the logs. Austin knew something was wrong. “What-“he was interrupted by a sharp blast of a whistle.

          “Everyone over here!” a girl cried out. A bunch of kids crowded over to where the girl was standing. Austin and Lauren followed. The girl began. “Everyone! Now I’m sure were all confused, and no one knows what’s going on. Well, when I was looking through some of the rubble that is scattered on the beach, I found this.” She held up a small booklet.

          “What’s that?” a kid shouted.

          “Plane Attendance of Flight 549 of Unaccompanied Minors.” She answered, reading the cover. “A.K.A., all of us.”

          “Oh, so now that we’ve found our passport, we can get back on the plane.” The same kid retorted sarcastically. “What’s your point?”

          “Well, this may not be the answers to all our questions, but it shows who was on the flight. If we can do a simple role call, we can figure out who is here on the island and okay, and who’s…..not. That’ll be one less question in our head.”

          “She does present a point.” Preston objected.

          “Thank you. Now let me call out names.” She went down the list checking and Xing names off. When no one would answer, it gave out a cold, chilly feeling that these people had been with them just yesterday were now sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Lauren was just glad that it finally ended. “Well, we’ve lost 16 people in the plane crash, including the pilot. That means there are……”She counted to herself. “19 of us left.” There were gasps. “I know this is scary guys, but we have to stay calm. We still have another issue to discuss.” Everyone quieted. “Now, when I was in the jungle, I came upon a clearing where a lot of the bags had fallen. I brought the ones I saw out here.” She pointed a few feet to her right, where a pile of suitcases and bags sat. “Now, if you find your suitcase, it’s all yours. Suitcases that belonged to someone that died, they can go to anyone. Just don’t take suitcases that belong to alive people.” She paused. “And one more matter. Food and water. If you find food or water in your suitcase, please give them to me. I’ll figure out how to ration our water supply until rain comes or we find a natural source of water. And if you happen to find a coconut and you find a way to open one, give that to me too. Those will be our rain catchers. Our real food will be scarce, so we’ll only be eating this food on special occasions. Other days we’ll eat stuff we find on the island, like bananas.”

          “What occasions would we have?” the same kid that kept interrupting shouted. “Bugs the size of my head day? Or maybe My Favorite Palm Tree Day?”

          The girl shot him a look. “What is your name anyway?”

          “Josh Ford.” He answered defiantly. “And what makes you so important as to tell us what to do?

          “’Cause no one else has the brains or skills to do it.” That quieted him. “Okay, everyone go find their suitcases.” Everyone made a dash to grab their own belongings. “Oh, and be resourceful. I mean even something like an empty suitcase could be transformed into a small kids bed.” Lauren looked around. Where is mine? She wondered. She didn’t see it. So she grabbed someone else’s. Dragging it over to her plane bed, she sat down and unzipped the suitcase. In a way it felt like Christmas. Well, looking at the ID card, she had a girl who was a year older than her. The happiness sunk inside her. This girl, whose name was Virginia Blackstrom, had actually died. She couldn’t do this. Before getting anything else, Lauren got up and ran over to the girl that had just been talking to them. “Excuse me.” She said. The girl looked over at her.

“Yes?”

“Well…… I was wondering something…With so many people dead, well; we haven’t really done anything about it.”

“What can we do? Half of them are somewhere in the ocean. We can’t have a scavenger hunt to get them.”

“No, I was meaning like, just a memorial service or something. We don’t have to really find them.” The girl raised her eyebrows, and then shrugged.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it.” She replied disinterestedly and walked away.

How rude, Lauren thought, frowning. She looked around at all the people grabbing suitcases and opening them. There was a small pile of food that had come from the suitcases, mostly plane peanuts, cereal boxes, and other snack bags. Nothing that a person could live off of. Her stomach growled. Well, no wonder. She had gone a day and a half without food. It might be a good idea to look in the jungle, she decided to herself. Quickly looking around to see if anyone was watching, she bolted off towards the jungle. Dodging the maze of vines that covered the jungle floor, she went as fast as she could without tripping. There’s no food in here, she thought. Where are the fruit trees? It was true. All she saw was big, leafy trees all around her. “Well, what did I expect?” she grumbled to herself. “This isn’t some cheesy movie or story where there’s food on every tree.” She felt mad. It was partly from not eating for almost two day, but she got a little upset. She kicked at the ground with all her might. And hit a hard object. She froze like one does before the pain sinks in, and then let out an, “OWWW!” She clutched her foot and started madly hopping around. Then after a moment she looked down to see what she had kicked. A very circular, large, brown rock. No wait. It was a coconut. She smiled despite the pain she had just suffered. At least now she wouldn’t be going back to camp empty handed. She grabbed the coconut and hopped back toward the beach. When she got there, she exclaimed, “Hey everybody. I got a COCONUT!” No one seemed to care but Preston and Austin. Preston, because he thought he was smart enough to get it open, and Austin, because he was just nice. Preston grabbed it. “Maybe I can maneuver a way to open this.” Austin stood there and looked at him.

          “How do you open a coconut?”  Preston gave him a look.

          “Gormless boy. It’s a simple task. You just….well…” He looked uncomfortable. “How bout you figure that out on your own?” He dropped the coconut and stormed away. Lauren picked it up and observed it. “Do you know how?” Austin asked her.

          “No.” she said, carefully looking for a way to open it. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. “Can I help?” Lauren smiled.

          “Sure.” They went over to some logs and worked and hacked at it, together. They talked and laughed, and Lauren almost felt sad when she heard a quiet crack from the coconut. Austin drew the pocket knife out, now covered with white milk. He looked up at her, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “Congratulations.” He said. “Your first coconut.”