KOH TABU, DAY 10
Hungry all the time.
Think Natalie’s dying. I hate LC.
Why didn’t Mom come with us?
Natalie doesn’t whimper or anything. Jas and I have stopped trying to do anything about her leg. We just sit with her when we can, telling her stories, hoping she can hear. Perhaps we should try to amputate. If she’s going to die anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to try, would it? Except she might die in excruciating pain. I feel guilty all the time.
We have a good supply of coconuts, and some mangoes, but it’s not enough to cure the hunger pangs. My stomach makes the most awful noises. We can’t catch shrimp due to the Man o’ War invasion of our fishing pool. What I wouldn’t give for a half-pound cheeseburger with fries. I thought Mrs. Campbell was supposed to be a survival expert. She hasn’t even bothered to look at Natalie’s leg for two days.
The juniors are listless. They were playing skipping games with a long piece of liana as rope, but now they’ve no energy and they are sitting in the banyan tree, swinging their legs, staring out to sea. Clouds race across the sky and the wind is very strong again. There’s an orange tinge to everything, including the waves, except where they break on the reef. There they fragment into tall sprays of peach and luminous green.
Mrs. Campbell, May, and Arlene Spider-eyes have become inseparable, and all they do is smoke, do one another’s hair, and lie around half naked, giggling and stupid. When we’re not sitting with Nat, Jas, Hope, and I spend all our time gathering firewood and looking for food. Hope is good at reaching figs on high branches and dragging heavy logs to the beach.
We spotted a helicopter yesterday, but it came nowhere near our island. It was a very long way away. There are so many little islands, and they all look alike, densely wooded like small mountains in the sea. There must be at least thirty between us and the one we were supposed to camp on.
“If they k-keep on looking they are sure to f-f-find us eventually, aren’t they?” said Hope. “M-maybe we should be more proactive about g-getting help,” she added.
“How do you mean?” I ask.
“B-build a r-raft or something.”
“How on earth can we do that? Anyway, it’s too rough; it would sink, and we’d drown.”
“We built a c-camp. We could use the same m-materials for a raft.”
“It wouldn’t float.”
“Light m-more fires, all along the b-beach?”
“We can barely keep one fire going, let alone more. No, that’s stupid.”
“W-w-well, w-what do you suggest, then?”
“I don’t know. Write SOS in the sand.”
“The sand gets c-covered every high tide.”
“We’ve got no other means of signaling.”
“Okay. We’ll g-get the juniors to help c-collect as m-many stones and big shells as they can. We’ve already got quite a f-few.”
Hope has a point, and it would give them something to do, and help take their minds off Sandy’s death and Natalie’s leg. That’s the idea, anyway. We work the beach, heads down, looking for rocks and shells.
The red sleeping bag has been dragged from its original burial place and torn apart. Sandy’s body is gone. Carly has Sandy’s bloody teddy bear in her arms.
I pick her up and run to Mrs. Campbell.
“Mrs. Campbell. Sandy’s body—it’s gone.”
Her eyes roll in her head, not focusing on anything. May giggles.
“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.