ISLAND FREE

Chapter 9: On An Island

I awoke at first light on a beach, only to find the four of us, our boat and whatever had fallen off it, and nature. This wasn't any ordinary beach. No one had been here before. No human had ever come here. No trash, no odors, and definitely no sign of any people...besides us.
I got up and found Joy, who had already waken up. That other girl had just waken up with me, but there was no sign of the girl from the plane.
"We're one short." I said.
"This is no ordinary....place...." She said almost simultaneously.
"Where are we?" Joy asked curiously. Then she started to explore.
"Where's Riley?" That girl asked.
"Riley? Who's Riley?"
"The girl who was with us on the boat. She's my cous. What's you name?"
"I'm Page, who are you?"
"I happen to be Emma Jackson D. Johns. But you can call me Emma. Anyways, as I was saying, we're at a place where no humans have ever reached. We discovered land!"
"Cool."
"I hereby name this place—wherever we are—IJD.J"
"What?"
"Island Jackson D. Johns. My name!"
"Hey! We all found this place. You can't name it!"
"Ok, then Page. What do you want to name it?"
"Uh....I'm not sure....I don't know! Naming takes time!"
"Whatever."
"Anyways, how do you know this place is an Island?" She ran off and stopped by a tree. She climbed it all the way and shouted back, "yea! It is an island! I can see the end from here!" She ran back and continued, "pretty small place."
"Yea. So did you find Riley?"
"Oh, yea." She ran back and climbed the tree again. I followed.
"Do you see her?"
  "No....yes! I see someone at least. All the way over there." She pointed forward. "In the middle of the island, where the trees are there the most.
Then Joy yelled. "Hey, guys! Look!"
"What?" I said.
"Bananas!"
"Bananas?"
"Yea, there are some here too." Emma said.
"That's great! At least we won't starve. But where are the monkeys?"
"Monkeys?"
"Yea. There are bananas here so there should be monkeys. Duh! And also coconuts too."
"Well, yea, I knew that......" She mumbled. "Anyways, let's go find Riley.
"Yea, ok."
"Sure."
We walked through the forest. Almost half the trees were coconuts and bananas. Although the coconuts were huge. At least 2 times bigger than my hand—don't worry, my hands are pretty small.—Along the way, we only spotted a group of monkeys, which was weird. There should've been a lot more.
"Are monkeys endangered?" I asked.
"Uhh...no. Well I'm not sure." Emma replied.
  "Dunno." Joy said.
"Hey, look! Bushes of berries." I said in excitement. There were sure a lot to eat here.
"Wow!" Joy said. We walked a little further and found even more—a lot more—; with different kinds of berries. This was great. The place was filled with food; and trees and vines were everywhere. Joy suddenly grabbed one of the vine and swung. That looked fun. As she swung, she grabbed another vine in the air and kept this up like a monkey. Emma and I joined in.
Emma was sure a unique person. When needed, she was serious and at times, she went easy. She was sarcastic and fun. She had two faces: being a leader and joining in the fun; like going with the flow. Joy was fun and optimistic all the time. And Riley stayed smart and serious, although I only knew her very little.
Very soon we reached a place. It was like a meadow, but a lot smaller. And there was so grass. The ground was hard and there were a lot of rocks; some even boulders. Here, we found Riley sitting by a campfire she had made.
"Hey cous! You never invited us to sit around your campfire!"
In a quiet voice, she answered, "you all were sleeping. I didn't want to disturb you. This place is very small, we can find each other easily."
"Well, if we were to play hide and seek, we wouldn't find each other very easily. It'd be a great game!" Joy shouted in enthusiasm. Then Riley stood up, and just as she was leaving elsewhere, Emma intercepted.
"Hold, it! Where do you think you're going?" But she just continued onto her distinction.
"What just happened?" I asked.
"Well, it looks like miss I wanna be by myself just abandoned us!" Emma said in anger, but mostly being annoyed.
"What do you mean? She just left to the woods. It's not like she left us here by ourselves. She can't leave the island." Joy said in confusion.
"No! I mean that she's decided to do things herself!"
"Hasn't she always?" I ask. "I don't know her that much, but during the time I did, she mostly preferred being alone."
"Well, she does prefer being alone. But can't you see we're stranded on an island here! That means we must work together to survive!"
"Uh...I don't think so Emma....I mean that this place looks safe to me....and there's plenty here to eat...." Joy said.
"Ughhh! No one gets it, do they?!" And with that, she left stomping off. Shortly after, Riley came with a bunch of veggies!
"Hey! Where'd ya get those?" I said eager to see what she would do next.
Again, in a low voice, she answered, "you haven't even been to half the island." She said pointing to the direction she came from. I was embarrassed. What a dumb question!
"Uh, guys, I'm gonna go exploring!" Joy said as she left to the direction Riley had just come from. I stayed to see what she was up to.
"Wachadoin?" I ask. She stays quiet and I watch as she hands me a coconut.
"What's this for?"
"Crack it." She says. So I look for a nearby boulder, which wasn't hard since this place was filled with them. Although the middle of this meadow-like pace looked clear of even a fragment of rock. Then it came to me, as the coconut cracked in half, and the milk in it spilled everywhere on my clothes. The thought that came to me should've been thought of earlier and was that obvious: build a shelter here! I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of this a lot earlier. I found myself blushing as Riley was making her way towards me. I drank the remainder of the milk and it tasted really good. It quenched my thirst, although it was awkward to be thirsty when all four sides of where you are is surrounded by water.
Riley took both halves when I was done and left the direction she had brought all the veggies. She had brought wild carrots, potatoes, small onions, and also some other green stuff. They all must've been organic since no one has ever been here to poison them with weird chemicals which make them grow larger.
Shortly after I had cleaned myself up, she returned with four sticks and 2 clean halves of a coconut; one which was filled with water. She also brought a couple of other sticks, only these were a lot thicker. She placed the thick sticks straight up around the fire, which made a circle around it. It was kind of protecting the fire in all directions, only that wasn't what she intended to do. Anyways she grabbed more sticks from the ground and places them all securely on the circle of sticks she had made. What was she doing? She was kind of like blocking the fire in all directions???
No, but yes. She had made a stove. Now all she had to do was put something over the fire— which sticks were already over it— and whatever was in the container would cook! Yup she was smart. She had also left some space when making the circle around the fire. So now, we could put a stick through the narrow space and it would cook somewhat like barbecue. Or at least it would work like an oven. Even smarter.
Riley definitely looked like she knew what she was doing. She lifted a rather large leaf from the ground, revealing a knife. The knife from the boat. Using that, she stared pealing the potatoes and carrots and other veggies and started chopping them to smaller pieces. She motioned for me to take over while she left to the woods again.
How had she gotten the knife? I thought everything had fallen off the boat when we were being pulled like crazy by the waves. So if the knife hadn't fallen out, then maybe the cans of seafood and the remainder of the rope hadn't fallen out either....