On the Island Read online

  The next morning, Anna brought back several small green coconuts blown off the tree by the storm. We split them open. The meat tasted sweet, and the water wasn’t bitter like the brown coconuts.

  “These are so good,” Anna said.

  The lean-to had fallen apart and our fire had gone out so I made another one, this time using my shoelace. I tied it to the opposite ends of a curved stick. Making a loop in the string, I threaded another stick through so that it stood perpendicular to the chunk of wood I rested it on.

  “What are you doing?” Anna asked.

  “I’m going to use this to spin the stick. That’s what the guy on T.V. did.”

  I adjusted the tension on the string and held the stick at different angles. It took a while before I could get the stick to spin fast enough, but once it did, I got smoke in about fifteen minutes, and flames pretty soon after that.

  “Hey,” Anna said. “That was a great idea.”

  “Thanks.” I piled on tinder and watched the fire grow. Anna and I put the lean-to back together.

  I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and said, “I hope that’s the worst storm we ever have.” I leaned the last stick up against the lean-to. “Because I don’t know what we’re going to do for shelter if it’s not.”

  ***

  Anna left to take a bath. I looked through her suitcase, trying to find her REO Speedwagon T-shirt. She told me I could wear it – and the Nike one too – since they both fit me. I didn’t see the shirt, so I dug a little deeper.

  There were two boxes of tampons shoved under some shorts.

  What’s she going to do when those run out?

  I moved some things around and noticed her bras, folded and tucked into a neat pile. The black one was on top. I picked up a bottle of vanilla lotion, flipped open the cap, and sniffed.

  That’s why she sometimes smells like cupcakes.

  I opened a round plastic container. It had tiny pills inside, in a circle marked with days of the week. Five pills remained. It took me a while to figure out they were birth control pills. I found two more unopened packages.

  Anna wouldn’t mind that I was looking through her suitcase – I kept my clothes in there too because we used my backpack to carry firewood – but she probably wouldn’t want me touching all her stuff. I started to shut the lid but then I spotted her underwear. They were at the bottom of the suitcase, next to her tennis shoes. I looked over my shoulder, then grabbed a pink pair and held them up.

  I wonder if you can see through these when she’s wearing them.

  I put them back and picked up a black thong.

  Very sexy. But I bet it’s totally uncomfortable.

  I touched a red pair, and looked closer at the little black bow in the center of the waistband.

  Wow. Now that would be a hot present.

  Then I scooped up five or six pairs at once, buried my face in them, and inhaled.

  “What are you doing?” Anna asked.

  I whipped around. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!” My heart pounded and my face burned.

  How long has she been standing there?

  “I’m looking for your REO Speedwagon T-shirt.” I still held a pair of her underwear in my hand, and I dropped them back in her suitcase.

  “Really?” she asked. “Because it kind of looks like you’re playing with my underwear.” She put the soap and shampoo away in her suitcase.

  She didn’t seem mad though, so I pulled out the thong, held it up, and said, “This looks totally uncomfortable.”

  “Give me that.” She snatched it out of my hand and shoved it back in her suitcase, pressing her lips together and trying not to laugh.

  When I realized she wasn’t pissed at me, I smiled and said, “You know what, Anna? You’re all right.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “I really was looking for your REO Speedwagon T-shirt, but I can’t find it.”

  “It’s hanging on the line. It should be dry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure. Just don’t smell my underwear anymore, okay?”

  “You saw that, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter 15 – Anna

  The dolphins swam alongside me in the lagoon. They dove under my body and surfaced on the other side. They made the funniest squeaking noises, and when I talked to them, they acted like they understood me. T.J. and I liked to grab their fins, laughing as they let us ride them. I could play with them for hours.

  T.J. ran down to the lagoon. “Anna, guess what I found.”

  T.J.’s other tennis shoe had washed up, and since he didn’t have to worry about injuring his feet anymore, he spent hours in the woods, searching for something interesting. So far, he’d found nothing but mosquito bites, but he kept looking anyway. It gave him something to do.

  “What did you find?” I asked, petting one of the dolphins.

  “Put your tennis shoes on and come see.”

  I said good-bye to the dolphins, followed him back to the lean-to, and put on my shoes and socks.

  “Okay, now I’m curious. What is it?”

  “A cave. I went to grab a pile of sticks, and when I pulled them away, I saw the opening. I want to see what’s in it.”

  It only took a few minutes to get to the cave. T.J. knelt at the entrance and crawled through on his hands and knees.

  “It’s narrower than I thought,” he yelled. “Lie on the ground and army crawl on your stomach. It’s tight, but there’s room. Come on in.”

  “No way,” I yelled back. “I am never going in that cave.”

  My heart beat faster, and I started sweating just thinking about it.

  “I’m feeling around. I can’t see anything.”

  “Why would you do that? What if there are rats, or a big scary spider?”

  “What? You think there might be spiders?”

  “No, never mind.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything in here but rocks and sticks. I can’t tell though.”

  “If the sticks are dry bring them out. We can add them to the woodpile.”

  “Okay.”

  T.J. crawled out of the cave and stood up with something that looked like a shinbone in one hand and something that was definitely a skull in the other. He dropped them and said, “Holy shit!”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “I don’t know who that is, but it did not end well for them.”

  “Do you think it’s the person who built the shack?” T.J. asked. We stared down at the skull.

  I nodded. “That would be my guess.”

  We walked back to the lean-to and grabbed a burning log from the fire to use for a torch. We hurried back to the cave and T.J. got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside, holding the torch in front of him.

  “Don’t burn yourself,” I called after him.

  “I won’t.”

  “Are you in?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s definitely a skeleton. But there’s nothing else in here.” T.J. came out and handed me the torch. “I’m going to put the bones back in the cave with the rest of it.”

  “Good idea.”

  T.J. and I walked back to the lean-to. “Well that was horrifying,” I said

  “How long does it take a body to become a skeleton?” T.J. asked.

  “In this heat and humidity? Probably not long.”

  “I definitely think it’s the guy from the shack.”

  “You’re probably right. And if it is him, there goes one of our chances for rescue.” I shook my head. “He’s not coming back because he never left. But what killed him?”

  “I don’t know.” T.J. threw some wood on the fire and sat down beside me. “Why wouldn’t you go in the cave? Before we knew about the skeleton, I mean.”

  “I can’t stand small, enclosed spaces. They freak me out. You know that lake house I told you about? The one where my dad and I went fishing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sa
rah and I always played with the other kids who vacationed there with their families. There was a road that went around the whole lake, and it had a long drainage pipe under it. Kids were always daring each other to crawl through it to the other side. One time, Sarah and I decided to do it, and we convinced everyone else to come along. We got halfway in, and I panicked. I couldn’t breathe and the person in front of me wouldn’t move forward. I couldn’t back up because there were kids behind me, too. I was probably seven, and not very big, but the pipe was tiny. We finally made it out the other side, and Sarah had to go find our mom because I wouldn’t stop crying. I remember it like it was yesterday.

  “No wonder you wouldn’t go in.”

  “What I can’t understand is why Bones would crawl in there to die.”

  “Bones?”

  “I feel like he should have a name. Bones sounds better than ‘guy from the shack.’”

  “Works for me.” T.J. said.

  ***

  I sat by the lean-to playing Solitaire. When T.J. walked up, I knew instantly that something was wrong because he held his arm close to his body, and supported it with his other hand. His shoulder slumped downward.

  I stood up. “What happened?”

  “I fell out of the coconut tree.”

  “Come on.” I put my arm around his waist and led him slowly to the life raft. He winced at the slightest movement, and he tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a moan when I helped him lay down. The strong, sudden urge to take care of him, to ease his pain, surprised me.

  “I’ll be right back; I’m going to get the Tylenol.”

  I shook two Tylenol into my palm and grabbed the water bottle, filling it at the water collector. I put the pills in T.J.’s mouth and lifted his head so he could take a drink. He swallowed and breathed slowly in and out.

  “Why were you climbing the tree?”

  “So I could reach those little green coconuts you like.”

  I smiled. “That was very sweet of you, but I think your collarbone is broken. I’m going to wait for the Tylenol to kick in, and then I’ll try to rig some kind of sling.”

  “Okay,” he said, closing his eyes.

  I looked in my suitcase and found a long white tank top. After twenty minutes, I helped him sit up.

  “I’m sorry, I know it hurts.”

  I bent his arm at the elbow and tucked the sling underneath, tying it gently at his shoulder. Easing him back down, I brushed the hair out of his face and kissed his forehead. “Try not to move around.”

  “Okay, Anna.”

  Maybe it didn’t hurt that bad though, because when I glanced back at him before leaving the life raft, he had a smile on his face.

  I woke up that night to put wood on the fire.

  “Anna?”

  T.J.’s voice startled me. “Yes?”

  “Can you help me out of here? I have to pee.”

  “Sure.”

  I helped him through the doorway of the life raft and then built up the fire. When he returned, I gave him more Tylenol.

  “Have you been able to sleep at all?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  The next morning, a lump and purple bruise showed where the bone had snapped. He grimaced when I tightened the sling, and I gave him a third dose of Tylenol.

  He wouldn’t let me give him any more pills after that. “I don’t want to take too much, Anna. We might need it again.”

  He felt better after three days, and he followed me around like a puppy. He came down to the beach when I was fishing, he tagged along when I went to get breadfruit, and he wanted to help empty the water collector. When he tried to go with me to gather firewood, I sent him back to the blanket under the coconut tree.

  “You aren’t going to heal if you don’t stop moving around, T.J.”

  “I’m bored. And I really need a bath. Will you help me when you get back?”

  “What? No, I’m not giving you a bath.”

  Awkward.

  ”Anna, you can help me, or you can smell me.”

  I sniffed him. “You’ve smelled better. Okay, I’ll help you, but I’m only washing certain areas and only because you stink.”

  He grinned. “Thanks.”

  We went down to the lagoon as soon as I got back with the firewood. T.J. left his shorts on and sat down in water that covered his lower body. I knelt beside him and rubbed the bar of soap in my hands.

  “Hold this for me,” I said, handing it to him.

  I started by gently washing his face with my soapy hands and then scooped up water in my palm to rinse it off, my fingers touching the stubble on his cheeks and jaw and above his lip.

  “That feels good,” he said.

  I filled up the plastic container I brought and dumped it on his head, then washed his hair. It had grown a lot, and he constantly flicked it out of his eyes. He preferred my straw cowboy hat for keeping it out of his way which suited me fine; I had long since claimed his baseball cap as my own.

  “I wish we had scissors,” I said. “I’d give you a haircut.”

  He handed me the soap, and I lathered up my hands again. I washed his neck and moved down to his chest, my fingers gliding over his hardened nipples. He watched me silently.

  I washed under his good arm, and his back. He couldn’t raise the other arm so I did the best I could, touching him gently near the bruise.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, when he winced.

  I made the mistake of looking down when I got ready to wash his legs. The water in the lagoon was clear enough to see that he had a hard-on sticking up in his shorts. “T.J.!”

  “Sorry.” He looked at me sheepishly. “I can’t hide this one.”

  Wait, how many have there been?

  I suddenly didn’t know where to look. It wasn’t his fault though; I had forgotten what would happen if you rubbed a seventeen-year-old all over with your hands.

  Or any man, actually.

  “No, it’s okay. It just caught me off guard, that’s all. I thought you were in pain.”

  Appearing genuinely confused, he said, “Well I didn’t break that.”

  Okay, moving on.

  I washed his legs, and when I got to his feet, I discovered he was ticklish. He jerked his foot away, and then said, “ow” when the movement jostled his upper body.

  “Sorry. Okay, you’re sorta clean.”

  “You’re not gonna dry me off?” He gave me a hopeful smile.

  “Ha. That’s funny. You must be confusing us with people who have towels.”

  “Thanks, Anna.”

  “Sure.”

  I helped him bathe for the next two weeks, until he healed enough to do it on his own. Each time, it got a bit less embarrassing for me. I never glanced down again, to see how it affected him.

  “This doesn’t totally suck for you, does it?” I asked one day while washing his hair.

  “Not at all,” he said, with a big smile on his face. “But don’t worry,” he added with mock seriousness. “I’ll pay you back someday. If you ever get hurt, I will definitely give you a bath.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  I made a mental note to be extra careful. Bathing him might have been awkward, but it was nothing compared to how I’d feel if it were his soapy hands moving over my skin.

  Chapter 16 – T.J.

  Anna was standing next to the life raft. I handed her the fish I caught and stored my pole in the lean-to. “Is there anything in the water collector?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe it’ll rain later.”

  She looked anxiously at the sky and began cleaning the fish. “I hope so.”

  It was November, and we’d been on the island for six months. Anna said the rainy season wouldn’t return until May. It still rained, about every other day, but not for very long. We had coconut water, but we were still thirsty a lot.

  “At least we know never to drink from the pond,” Anna said, shuddering. “That was awful.”

  “God, I know. I thought I
was gonna crap out my spleen.”

  We couldn’t control the rain, but the Maldives had plenty of marine life. The coconut and breadfruit barely took the edge off our hunger, but the brightly colored fish I pulled out of the lagoon kept us from starving.

  I stood in waist deep water and caught them one after the other. None measured longer than six inches – an earring and a guitar string wouldn’t hold much – and I worried about hooking something bigger and snapping the line. It was a good thing Anna packed a lot of earrings because I’d already lost one.

  Even though we had enough to eat, Anna said our diet didn’t have a bunch of important stuff.

  “I’m worried about you, T.J. You still have some growing to do.”

  “I’m growing just fine.” Our diet couldn’t have been that bad, because my shorts were down to my knees when we crashed, and now they were at least an inch higher.

  “The breadfruit must have Vitamin C, otherwise we’d probably have scurvy by now,” she muttered under her breath.

  “What the hell is scurvy?” I asked. “That sounds gross.”

  “It’s a disease caused by not getting enough Vitamin C,” she said. “Pirates and sailors came down with it on long voyages. It’s not pleasant.”

  Anna should have worried more about herself. Her swimsuit bagged in the ass, and her boobs didn’t fill out her top like before. Her collarbone stuck out and her ribcage showed. I tried to get her to eat more, and she made an effort, but half the time I ended up finishing her food. Unlike her, eating the same thing every day didn’t bother me, and I ate whenever I got hungry.

  One morning, a few weeks later, Anna said, “Today is Thanksgiving.”

  “It is?” I didn’t pay much attention to the date, but Anna kept track every day.

  “Yes.” She closed her datebook and put it down on the ground beside her. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten fish on Thanksgiving before.”

  “Or coconut and breadfruit,” I added.

  “It doesn’t matter what we eat. Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what we have.”

  She tried to be cheerful when she said it, but then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and put on her sunglasses.

  Neither of us mentioned the holiday for the rest of the day. I hadn’t thought about Thanksgiving; I’d assumed someone would find us before then. Anna and I hardly ever talked about rescue anymore though – it depressed us both. All we could do was wait and hope someone flew overhead. That was the hardest thing, not having any control over our situation unless we decided to leave on the life raft, and Anna would never agree to that. She was right. It probably would be suicide.