We paddle until we reach the island. I jump out into the shallow water and pull the others safely to shore.
‘Thanks, Terry,’ I say. ‘You saved our lives!’
‘Don’t thank me,’ says Terry. ‘Thank my underpants.’
‘Thanks, Terry’s underpants,’ I say.
‘You’re welcome,’ says Terry in a high-pitched voice, which I think is supposed to be his underpants.
‘What are we going to do now?’ says Alice.
‘Be marooned,’ I say. ‘That’s what!’
‘How do you do that?’ says Albert.
‘Easy!’ I say. ‘You sit around on a desert island with no food, no water, no map and no way of ever getting back to the treehouse.’
‘That sounds kind of boring,’ says Albert. ‘Why don’t we get rescued by that ship instead?’
‘What ship?’ I say.
‘That one!’ says Albert, pointing to the horizon.
Albert is right. There is a ship. A big ship.
We all jump up and down and yell and wave our arms like a bunch of wacky waving arm-flailing inflatable tube men at a wacky waving arm-flailing inflatable tube men festival.
‘It’s not stopping!’ says Terry.
‘Maybe they can’t see us,’ says Jill. ‘We need to start a fire and make some smoke signals!’
We collect a bunch of driftwood and use a packet of driftmatches to start a driftfire.
I rip one of the biggest leaves off a palm tree and hold it over the fire to smother the flames. Then I pull the leaf away and a big puff of smoke puffs up into the sky. But the ship doesn’t stop.
‘It’s not working,’ says Jill. ‘They probably just think we’re having a barbecue. Let me try making a message!’
I give Jill the leaf and she makes three small puffs of smoke that spell out ‘SOS’.
‘Let me have a turn,’ says Terry, reaching for the leaf.
He waves the leaf over the fire and the sky fills with puffy smoke pictures.
‘Terry,’ I say, ‘how exactly are these pictures going to make the ship come and rescue us?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says, shrugging. ‘I just like drawing smoke pictures! You’ve got to admit they’re pretty good.’
‘Give me that!’ I say, snatching the leaf from him. There’s no time to lose. I start fanning out a new message that will leave no doubt about what we want.
It’s a pretty clear message, but by the time I’ve finished there is so much smoke that none of us can see anything.
By the time the smoke has cleared, the ship is nowhere to be seen.
‘Well, that’s just great,’ I say. ‘You think they would have seen all that smoke—or at the very least smelled it.’
‘Hey,’ says Terry, ‘look at this old teapot I just found in the sand.’
‘That’s not a teapot,’ says Jill. ‘I think it’s one of those mysterious magical lamps that you rub and a genie comes out and grants you three wishes.’
‘Cool!’ says Terry. ‘I’m going to try it.’
He rubs at the lamp and smoke starts billowing out of the spout.
‘Oh, no, not more smoke!’ says Alice.
‘Relax,’ I say. ‘This is good smoke. This is magic genie smoke!’
Sure enough, the smoke gets thicker and thicker and then it forms into a … GENIE!
‘Thank you for releasing me from my prison,’ says the genie. ‘As a reward, I grant you three wishes.’
‘Fabulous!’ I say. ‘Let’s all wish to get off the island!’
‘No!’ says Albert. ‘I want a lollipop. I wish I had a lollipop!’
‘Your wish is my command,’ says the genie.
‘No, stop!’ I say, but it’s too late.
‘One lollipop!’ says the genie, handing Albert a large lollipop.
‘Hey,’ says Alice. ‘How come Albert got a lollipop and I didn’t? I WISH—’
‘Don’t do it!’ I say. ‘Don’t wish for any more lollipops!’
‘—FOR A LOLLIPOP, TOO!’ says Alice.
‘Your wish is my command,’ says the genie. It produces an enormous rainbow-swirl lollipop and gives it to Alice.
‘OKAY, THAT’S IT!’ I yell. ‘NOBODY WISH FOR ANY MORE LOLLIPOPS!!!’
‘But that’s not fair!’ says Terry. ‘They got lollipops! I wish I had a lollipop, too!’
The genie shrugs. ‘Your wish is my final command,’ it says, placing a lollipop the size of a dinner plate in Terry’s hand. ‘So long, suckers!’
‘WAIT!’ I yell. ‘Could we please have one more wish?’
‘No way,’ says the genie. ‘I’m all out of wishes and I’m definitely out of here.’
‘I WISH you wouldn’t go,’ I say.
But it’s no use—the genie disappears.
‘You crazy lollipop-lickers,’ I say. ‘You wasted all our wishes on lollipops and we’re still stuck on the island!’
‘Look on the bright side, Andy,’ says Terry. ‘We might be stuck on an island but at least we’ve all got lollipops.’
‘I haven’t got a lollipop,’ I say.
‘Me neither,’ says Jill.
‘Never mind,’ says Terry, holding his lollipop out towards us, ‘you can have a turn of mine.’
‘Hey, is that another genie lamp?’ says Albert, pointing to something in the water.
‘No,’ I say, as it floats closer. ‘That’s just a bottle.’
‘That’s so sad,’ sighs Jill. ‘Here we are in the middle of nowhere and yet we still can’t get away from litter.’
‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘That’s no ordinary litter. That’s our way off this island.’
‘It is?’ says Jill.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We can put a message in a bottle! It’s what everybody who’s marooned on a desert island does!’
‘Did you say message in a bottle?’ says Terry. ‘I love message-in-a-bottle bottles!’
‘Me too,’ says Alice.
‘Me three!’ says Albert.
‘Me four,’ I say. I grab a piece of driftpaper and a driftpencil and start writing a driftletter.
Andy, Terry, Jill, Alice, Albert & the baby
Desert Island
The Ocean
The Middle of Nowhere
Dear Whoever You Are,
If you are like most of the people who find a bottle with a message inside it, you’re probably wondering what the message is a bout. Well, it contains a long and tragic story. Which is this: unfortunately me (Andy) and my friends (Terry & Jill) and the kids we are babysitting (Albert & Alice & the baby) have accidentally become marooned on a desert island. Could you please organise a rescue mission to come and rescue us as soon as possible?
Thank you (in advance).
Your pals,
Andy, Terry, Jill, Alice, Albert & the baby
I roll up the message, slide it into the bottle and hand it to Terry. He plugs the end with a driftcork and throws it as far out into the water as he can, and then we all immediately start waiting for a reply.
We wait …
and we wait …
and we wait …
until finally, after what seems like millions of pages but is in fact only one-and-a-half, we see a bottle floating towards us.
‘Hey, look!’ says Terry. ‘A message in a bottle!’
‘YAY!’ says Albert.
Terry runs into the water to retrieve it.
‘How exciting!’ says Jill. ‘Who do you think it’s from?’
‘From whoever found our message in a bottle, of course!’ I say. ‘It’s probably got all the details of how they’re going to rescue us.’
Terry uncorks the bottle and shakes the message free.
‘It’s from some people just like us,’ he says, ‘same names and everything—and they’re marooned on a desert island too!’
‘Terry,’ I say.
‘Hang on, Andy,’ he says, ‘I haven’t finished reading the letter. It says here they need help.’
‘I know,’ I say.
‘How?’
‘Because it’s us!’ I say. ‘It’s our bottle and our letter! It just floated away and then floated back again.’
‘Hmmm,’ says Jill. ‘And maybe the bottle just floated away and then came back because this desert island is your desert island?’
‘What do you mean our desert island?’ I say.
‘The new desert island level in your treehouse,’ says Jill.
‘Oh yeah,’ I say. ‘I forgot we had one.’
‘Well, there’s an easy way to find out if that’s where we are,’ says Jill. ‘We can climb that tree and look.’
So we climb to the top of the tree, and guess what?
It is our desert island! We’ve been in the treehouse the whole time!
Terry reaches up for a vine that is hanging above us. ‘Grab on to this,’ he says, ‘and we can all swing up to the next level.’
‘Wheeeeee!’ says Alice, as we swing through the air.
‘I love swinging!’ says Albert.
‘Goo-goo ga-ga!’ says the baby.
We land in the kitchen.
‘I’m glad we’re all safe again,’ says Jill. ‘I’ve got to go home now and feed my animals, but I’ll come back as soon as I can to help you with the babysitting. In the meantime, keep a close eye on Alice, Albert and the baby. And, whatever you do, don’t let them out of your sight!’
‘Don’t worry about that, Jill,’ I say. ‘We’ve learned our lesson: I’m going to draw up a babysitting roster so that one of us is watching them at all times.’
‘Great idea,’ says Jill. ‘See you later.’
‘What are we going to do while you do the roster?’ says Alice.
‘Here’s a colour-by-numbers colouring-in sheet I prepared earlier,’ says Terry.
‘Yay!’ says Albert. ‘I love colouring in!’
The kids start colouring in and Terry and I get started on our roster. (You can colour in the picture, too, readers, if you would like.)
‘I think we should take turns looking after the kids,’ I say. ‘How about I do the first five minutes and then I take a ten-minute break and while I’m on my break you watch them for ten minutes and then you take a five-minute break and then we just repeat that pattern until we’re done.’
‘But that’s not fair,’ says Terry. ‘You’re only working five minutes at a time and taking ten-minute breaks, and I’m working ten minutes at a time and only getting five-minute breaks.’
‘Oops,’ I say. ‘My mistake. What about we each work for five minutes and each take ten-minute breaks?’
‘It’s better—and fairer—than the first roster,’ says Terry, ‘but it means we won’t get to spend much time together.’
‘Hmmm,’ I say. ‘Let me see. I know! Perhaps we could do our first five minutes at the same time and then we can take our breaks together.’
‘Perfect!’ says Terry. ‘You’re really good at rosters, Andy.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Let’s get started right away.’
‘Kids!’ says Terry. ‘Andy’s done a really good roster. We’re ready to start babysitting now … um … kids? Kids? Andy—they’re gone!’
‘Oh, no!’ I say. ‘Not again! If only they’d waited until we’d finished our roster this would never have happened! Let’s go straight to Madam Know-it-all and find out where they are before they get into trouble again.’
We climb the tree as fast as we can and burst into Madam Know-it-all’s tent.
‘Aha,’ she says, ‘I knew—’
‘There’s no time for that!’ I say. ‘Please tell us where the kids are—and if you could skip the cryptic rhyme we’d really appreciate it. We’re in kind of a hurry.’
‘I know,’ sighs Madam Know-it-all.
I know you don’t have time.
But I always do a rhyme.
So here’s your cryptic clue:
MARBAGE MUMP—pee-uw!
‘Barbage bump?’ I say.
‘Farbage frump?’ says Terry.
‘No,’ she says.
‘No,’ she says.
‘Zarbage zump?’ I say.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ says Madam Know-it-all. ‘It’s GARBAGE DUMP, you dumdums! The kids are at the garbage dump!’
