The Ship of Dreams

Chapter 2: Uncomfortable

Chapter two: Uncomfortable

A pale, knobbly, flat piece of driftwood floated past us as we were gliding towards the island. Seth pulled it up and started steering us with it towards the shore. I tried to help, but I was no use. I kept making us go round in circles, so I let Seth do it and just sat in the back of the boat waiting. We were still quite a way from the island, so it took a while to get to the shore.

Seth hopped out of the boat eagerly; I could tell that he wanted to explore. I was however more uneasy; I held on to Seth when I got out of the boat and fell over when I got onto dry land. Seth had to pull me up of the floor. We dragged the little rowing boat on to the island, next to a palm tree and decided that we would visit The Ship of Dreams to see what had or had not survived and to see if there was any food left.

We managed to scramble up onto the deck easily enough, but the mast had fallen over onto the trap door that went downstairs. We tried to lift it, but it was tightly wedged and very heavy. There was no way we could get it away, let alone fix it. There was no chance of getting off this island now. We clambered back off the boat and looked around us. “We should look around to see if there is any food or fresh water on the island.” Seth said, taking my hand.

“Ok,” I replied, “Do you think anyone lives here?”

“I didn’t think of that” Seth admitted. We set off together; still holding hands towards the rainforest. We decided to walk around the island first to see if there were any inhabitants. We also wanted to see how big the island was. It was incredible. The rainforest was teeming with colourful birds, and around the back of the island were sharp white cliffs with the bottoms swallowed by the sea. Under the cliffs we saw some dolphins playing together in the surf. The sun touched our skin and warmed us through; we were not cold anymore. We marvelled at the blue sky and how the weather could change at the blink of an eye. As soon as we saw the sun and the rich blue, it was pouring down with thick warm rain. Our clothes were soon soaked through and we stood together under a palm tree.

I loved it when it rained. Seth cradled my face in his soft hands and he kissed me softly. Every time he touched me it felt like an electric wave was powering through me.

It was very windy that day, so windy that it knocked us both over onto the wet, sodden floor. Seth fell on top of me and we lay on the floor laughing for several minutes.

When we had walked round the island and had discovered that it was actually very small. We found a collection of palm trees, got lots of leaves and made our bed with them. We camped out every night gazing at the dazzling array of stars in the sky. It was always so clear at night. There was never a time when we couldn’t see all of the stars.

The following day we explored the rainforest, searching for food and water. We found food easily enough, there were monkeys living in the forest, so we followed them to their food source. There were all sorts of different fruits: bananas, guavas and other tropical fruits, so food was not the problem. Water was the problem, we could not find any, but we knew that there was some, because the monkeys lived there. We camped out in the forest for a couple of days, following and observing the monkeys, and discovering what sorts of other animals lived there. There were not many mammals, mostly just monkeys and wild pigs, but there were so many insects. I hated insects so I naturally freaked out as soon as one buzzed past my ear. Seth just laughed at me. I decided not to deck him there and then; I might need him for something. We traipsed up a small hill and collapsed at the top. We ran down the other side, laughing. At one point we got to a small gorge. Although small, it was still big enough to be too big to jump over. We were in the woods, so Seth searched around nearby and found a tree with long rope-like stems hanging off it. He pulled two down and brought them over to where I was standing. He then nimbly clambered up a tree near the gorge and tied the stems to a branch.

“I’ll go first” Seth said, “Just in case”

“No!” he took my hand;

“We have to, do you want to survive?”

“Yes”

“Okay then.” With that Seth took a hold on the rope and stepped back. He sprinted forwards and then leaped his legs were flailing about. I knew he wouldn’t let go, he was very strong. I was just worried about the rope snapping. The moment his feet touched down on the other side I let out a sigh of relief. At least Seth was across. It only dawned on me that I had to jump too when the rope swung back and almost hit me in the face. Oh My God! My brain was panicking. Calm down Alanna, you can do this. I took in a long breath, ran back two steps and then charged forwards. I felt the rope go taut as I jumped and was surprised that the rope didn’t snap. I hit the ground with a thump and scrambled up again, embarrassed that my jump had not been nearly as elegant as Seth’s. We spotted some furry brown monkeys howling through the trees and decided to follow them, but they moved quickly so we had to run to keep up. I felt a sharp pain in my stomach and stopped, gasping for air. Somehow fitness lessons at school hadn’t seemed important to me. “Alanna!” Seth shouted, “Come On!”

“Go on without me. I’ll catch you up” I replied

“Are you sure?”

“Go, they’re getting away!” I stood there for several seconds, catching my breath, and then slowly started to follow Seth’s trail. My throat was parched and there was sweat dripping down the back of my neck. Insects kept buzzing in my ears and around my face, and branches tore at my ragged clothes.

I finally saw Seth the other side of a group of very large trees. He had stopped dead and was staring at something.

The monkeys had taken us to a blue, shimmering lagoon filled with clean, fresh water. We knelt down by the water’s edge and drank for a long time. We now knew our way around the small island and where everything was, so we relaxed a bit. Seth jogged off and came back with a coconut. He broke it and drank the milk from one half and gave me the other. It was warm, but tasted so good I didn’t care. We then filled up the coconut shells with water, and headed back to the beach.

We spent the next day trying to shift the mast of the boat and to try and create a signal for passing boats or planes. We did not know whether there would be any, because we had no idea where we were. This was not an island that we had heard of before, and when we found the map on the boat, by reaching in through a broken port hole, we discovered that there was in fact no island where we thought we might have been.

Seth and I gathered lots of dry pieces of dead palm and wood from the forest, and created a beacon. It took us ages to set it alight, we eventually did it by rubbing flints together. The flames spread fast, sucking up everything within their reach, so we constantly had to keep it stocked. We spent all day doing it and took shifts in the night. I would cry often, missing my friends and family, but at least we had each other.

At night I had terrible nightmares; I would dream Seth and I were on the Titanic with my grandfather, and that we were trapped in a corridor that was filling with water. I would wake up panting and with sweat all over my body. Seth would always comfort me, but the thoughts kept creeping back into my head.