Page 14 of Totally Shipped
I shake my head. “You go on. I’ll see you back at the fire in a few minutes.”
“If you're pregnant,” Leander says to Daisy when I walk back over to the fire, “we have to get off this island. We just have to.”
He’s completely correct.
“I get to go home?” squeals Key.
I sit next to her, and put a hand on her shoulder.
Poor kid.
I need to put everything out of my mind but survival. Every now and then, Keyara melts down, wanting her mom, her dad, her own bed, her friends. In general she has been remarkably resilient, seeing this whole thing as an adventure with her uncles—but that attitude is not going to last forever. Leander is right, we need to be more proactive in getting off here, for both Daisy and Keyara’s sakes.
I look around the fire, taking in their faces, one by one. All of us are very thin. No one looks well.
“I want us all to brainstorm. Come up with any and all ways we can increase the likelihood of our rescue. It doesn’t matter how far fetched it is—let’s spend the next couple of days thinking about rescue, and then start putting some of those ideas to work.”
Rescue.
Yep, it’s time to actually respond to our situation, not just be in the mode of passive survival.
“Tomorrow, after dinner. I want everyone—including you, Key—to come up with a rescue solution by tomorrow night.”
As I say that, the air cools dramatically, and within minutes a heavy rain shower begins. We run to throw firewood into the shelter, then huddle around it, out of the cool rain. The rain has been coming more and more frequently. Samoa’s rainy season is just around the corner. Another reason to get off this island.
All of us are damp and uncomfortable as we try to get to sleep.
The next day, we have our usual chores, and our usual meals, and as the sun starts heading down to the horizon line. We sit, finishing our bowls of fish and yam, and I bring the meeting to order.
“Every idea, no matter how preposterous, will be considered,” I tell the group. “We are in such a weird and extreme situation, maybe we need something weird and extreme to get us the help we need.”
“I got an idea,” says Key. “We could put a message in a bottle. Taylor Swift has a song like that.”
“Absolutely,” I tell Key. “We have a couple of bottles that still have lids, so maybe you can start thinking about how to make a message to put in there? Think you could do that?”
She nods, looking pleased that I’m taking her seriously.
“We can build a raft, and then I can set off on it and hope to find a shipping lane,” Gray suggests.
“No!” says Daisy in horror. “You are not doing something so reckless.”
“Daisy,” I say, a warning in my voice. “We are considering everything, so please don’t start laying down the law.”
She opens her mouth to say something else, then closes it again, probably seeing by the look on my face that any arguments will gonowhere.
I totally understand what Daisy is saying; the idea of Gray going off with only the slimmest chance of rescue is terrible. But so is the idea of Daisy giving birth on this island.
“OK Gray, maybe you can start planning out how to make a raft, and planning how to supply it.”
He nods.
“What did you come up with, Killian?”
“Well, I did wonder about setting a monstrous fire—like a massive entire island fire—on the other island. If the whole island was ablaze, surely that would get us some attention? But the drawbacks of that plan are how to set a fire to what is basically a rainforest, and also what to do about Harvey, since we can’t really set him on fire, too.”
I disagree that we can’t set Harvey on fire. It’s an idea that is worth thinking through.
“Let’s ignore the Harvey aspect and think about the practicalities; would the island burn? And if it does, would we be in danger over here? Would anyone pay attention to a large amount of smoke? Is there some kind of accelerant to be found or made that could help boost the burn?”
