Joining Together
I realised that I couldn’t survive alone, I should try and find the other children, we had to work together if we wanted to survive, I headed to the beach to try and see if anyone was there. The beach was about half a mile long and it was a long stretch of golden sand which was warm and I took off my shoes and socks and allowed the sand to squirm between them. Further up the beach, there was small lagoons which had rocks and shells in it. I was walking along by one of the lagoons and saw a hint of gleaming white. I rolled my jeans so that they wouldn’t get wet and I nervously dipped one toe into the pool, it was warm, I risked putting my leg in, and gingerly stepped it, rolling up my sleeves so I could reach for whatever it was, I tried to dislodge it, it was stuck in-between two rocks. I managed to lift one up and heave it out. I lifted it up, admiring it. I recognised it as a conch shell, I had seen one last year in a museum.
I knew this was the only way to summon as many people as possible to have a meeting and discuss what we would do. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to work out how to blow the conch. Eventually I realised you have to sort of spit air into it. A loud booming noise, like a really loud trumpet echoed all over the island. The sound seemed to ricochet off the trees and the hills, I bet it could be heard miles away. I heard a rustling in the trees, I also realised that there could also be dangerous animals on this island, and I’d just given my location away. My insides turned to jelly and the ground seemed to slip to one side, I thought I would faint. I saw a few small children, no older than 7 could out of the trees and I managed to regain control over myself.
It took about an hour for everyone to gather round and sit on some fallen palm branches. They used them as branches, my eyes swept over them all. I cleared my throat and announced; “Hi everyone, as you all know our plane crashed, so we are stuck here until someone comes for us, does anyone have any ideas on what we should do?” I looked round at them, feeling hopeful. My hopes where crushed as I looked round the assembly, my face fell. I looked up at the younger children, they looked terrified; I knew I had to make them feel safer. “So guys, I think we need a leader, otherwise we’ll end up descending into chaos, and we don’t want to turn into a pack of savages do we?” I heard murmurs of agreement a young child stood up and said: “I think you should be the leader, you did bring us all together after all…” he sat down.
I told them that the only fair way to do this was a vote, so if anyone wanted to put themselves forward for leader then we would vote. A mean looking girl stood up, “I’m Jenna I want to be the leader. Look at the difference between us; I'm big and strong, you're small and weak.” Scowling I motioned for her to sit down, I said; “Raise your hand if you vote for me” everyone’s hand rose then I said “raise your hand for Jenna…” nobody put their hand up. Jenna looked huffy and she was about to stalk off until I said; “how about you work with a group of people, you can choose them, and you can be hunters” she looked considerably happier, and nodded confidently. We spent the next hour deciding what to do now, and if being rescued was a possibility.
That night, as we hadn’t any shelters we slept under the stars, on the beach. I tried to sleep, but the wind howled and the sand started to get into my t-shirt which was irritating. I used my backpack as a pillow, I couldn’t bear the thought of my hair getting all sandy and getting a dry scalp, especially as I wouldn’t be able to wash it properly perhaps for the rest of my life. I was tossing and turning all night and after what seemed like a month, the sun started to rise. I sat up in the watery sunlight and surveyed the area around me. I opened my backpack and got out my notebook and pen. I decided to write a list of all the people on the island so we could keep track of them.
Finally everyone else started to sit up, blinking as the sun went in their eyes. I got round to asking everybody’s names. There was one boy who had dark hair and shadowy eyes, a serious expression on his face. He had been one of the few people that had not spoken last night. All he had done was sit there, seemingly taking everything in, listening carefully to everything anyone said. His name was Zack. He seemed quiet, but had something about him which made him seem like an outsider. I announced to everyone that shelter was the most important thing to have first of all. So we set about working on shelters.
