Chapter One

A week had passed since we landed on the island. While we still hoped to one day be rescued, we were quickly becoming adapted to fending for ourselves since most of us were already pretty into our hobbies. Leif’s fishing was the biggest help to us since my plants were still barely beginning to sprout. Leif knew we needed him to eat, so he fished all day long, everyday. Ahhh, I swear this boy needs to stop turning me down already!

But Leif had other plans I guess, he was always talking to Calamine, even though he knew my brother Anthony liked her. Oh well, Anthony was too into his paintings to even notice. I noticed though, and I’m not gonna lie, I hated it!

The villagers that lived next to us occasionally came to check up on us, but I guess they decided we were ok on our own after a day or two because the elder never really came by anymore. Billy, the youngest of the tribe loved to come over and play with Cory and Neo everyday though, which must have been nice for him since he was the ony one his age on the island before we came along.


Eventually, we started to feel bad that Leif was doing all the work just to feed us, so I asked him to teach me how to fish. Of course Calamine decided it would be the perfect oppurtunity to interfere. (did I mention I strongly dislike this girl?) Luckily Leif had brought his collection of fishing rods with him, meaning he had plenty of rods for every one. As we got into the actual fishing though, I couldn’t help but giggle at how stupid Calamine looked. She was standing next to Leif, but she faced away from him; I guess she didn’t want him to see her face. it was obvious she hated it.

I, for one, was actually enjoying myself. I liked actually being able to fish for my own dinner, and it was pretty relaxing. Now I see how Leif could do all the fishing so voluntarily. Even Anthony decided to join in! Within a matter of seconds, he had already caught his first fish and it was bigger than any fish I had ever seen in my life! Show off much?

As the sun set, the fish started to bite less and less. Even Leif was only able to catch some piles of sludge every now and then. We gave up and decided to get ready for dinner.

The next morning, I woke up to find Leah-Michelle standing outside of my tent.
“Leah, what’s wrong? Are you upset?”
“Sis, I don’t think we’re ever getting off this island.” I could tell she was trying to hold back her tears. “I miss Tori and John and mom and dad…”
“I miss them too Leah, but we have no way off. Even if we could fix the boat, we don’t know how to navagate home and I don’t want to risk us dying when we’re doing alright right now. I’m sure if we’re patient enough, someone will find us eventually.”
She didn’t look to convinced, but she picked up her fishing rod and just said ok as she headed towards the pond to fish. I felt bad, I knew this was hard on everyone, but we knew we were doing the best we could to get by until someone would finally come and rescue us.

One good thing happened that morning. Leif talked to me! On his own without me having to bother him! It wasn’t much, but at least it was a start.
“Hey Peaches.”
“Hey Leif!!”
“Hey, do you know when your plants will be ready? I’m kinda getting sick of eating nothing but fish. Haha”
“Oh they’ll be ready in a few days!!” I put on my ‘sexy voice’ and continued with “and you’ll be the first to try my sweet apples.”
He just looked at me. I wouldn’t say it was really a disgusted look. More like confused, but I know he knew what I meant. He was just pretending to not be interested because Calamine was sitting in in the background and was able to hear everything we were saying. Now who’s winning Calamine!?!?

Well apparently, I wasn’t ‘winning’ either. Georgia came to me later that day saying that Calamine told her what I had said to Leif. When she repeated it back to me, I realized how stupid I sounded. ‘You’ll be the first to try my sweet apples?’ How embarrassing.

Anthony was painting as usual. He was painting something really red, it was kind of scary actually. Then I saw Calamine pop out from behind the canvas and say something to him. He looked pretty excited about it and quickly took down what he was painting to start a new one. Calamine had a stupid satisfied look on her face. Or maybe that was just the way her face looked hahahaha. Anyway. I quickly got bored of watching them and went back to weeding my plants.

Once again, it was nighttime. Georgia lit the fire and called everyone to dinner. Tonight was important though. We decided it was time to make plans in case we were actually going to be stuck here for a while. Everyone quickly gathered around to start the discussions.

After a lot of debate, we decided to start building a house. Anthony and Leif were pretty good at building things and we figured the villagers next door would help us out. I even brought up the idea of fixing up the boat instead, but everyone said they were too afraid of going out into the water again, especially if we don’t even know where we are. But at least Leah looked a little happier that I at least suggested her idea. So it was decided, we would begin building our first home within the next few days. After we ate, everyone headed off to bed.

On my way to my tent, I decided to take a peek at what Anthony had spent all day painting.

I have to say, if it was of anything else I’d think it was a beautiful work of art, but this one, I just didn’t seem to like too much for some reason.

The Beginning

“OMG!” Calamine screamed in that high pitched voice that was characteristic of her. “What the heck happened and where are we!?!?”
All of us looked up to see the remains of the ship we were just sleeping so soundly on the night before.

“What do we do now?” My little sister Leah-Michelle looked like she was going to cry; well, actually everyone had that same look on their face.
I guess I should explain what happened: Every year, my hometown Barnacle Bay, held a field trip for students who performed exceptionally well in school. Elementary through High School students were all eligible which brought the total count to about 100 students. My littler brother John and Leah-Michelle’s twin sister Tori (they were the youngest of out family) were spoiled little brats. They had anger issues and cared very little about school, or anyone for that matter. So they weren’t invited to join us on the trip. Well the trips are usually cross country and we were headed to Les Champ for a week of touring. The ship we rode was an old wooden one that the teachers planned to use for educational purposes. (They said it was like a history lesson?) Anyway last night a storm hit while we were all in bed. Next thing I know the ship is tilting and students are running for the emergency boats, but before we could get out the door, a large piece of wood fell, blocking out only exit. We screamed for help, but nothing. The last thing I remember is hitting my head after the ship flipped. I woke up this morning to find everyone standing over me. The ship wasn’t moving anymore. So we crawled out…and here we are now.

As we stood there in silence, tension began to rise. Finally Leah-Michelle spoke up.
“Peaches, I’m scared.”
I looked down at my poor, scared, littled sister. Even though I was terrified, it was my job to make her feel better. So I did my best to toughen up. But looking at her face just made me feel even worse.

Just then, my brother Anthony spotted some people in the distance.

“Hey guys! We aren’t alone!!” I’ve never seen so many people look so excited and relieved at the same time. We immediately took off as fast as we could. As we approached them, we noticed that the they wore very little clothes and had very similar tattoos on their arms; they also had multiple piercings. I wouldn’t say they were scary looking, but it was sure intimidating. The only one in full outfit was the older woman, so I decided to approach her first.

She actually seemed pretty nice. She took one look at us and the crashed ship and knew exactly what had happened.
“Aww, you poor dears, you’re more than welcome to spend the day with us.” Her smile reminded me of grandma, it made me feel comfortable. “Come on, we’ll lead you over to our village, and don’t worry, everyone here is very sweet.” Seeing as we had no other choice, we followed her over.

The village consisted of a bunch of little wooden houses. I honestly thought it was cute and it even looked kind of homey if that’s even a word.

It wasn’t long until Anthony was hitting on the girls. I don’t know how he does it though; he always gets turned down, but he still keeps trying. Usually his best friend Leif Macintire picks up the girls Anthony can’t get, and he usually succeeds, which doesn’t suprise me. (I’ve actually had a crush on him since I was little, but he’s 3 years older than me so he says it won’t work out) Anyway, back to Anthony, this girl was really pretty. Her voice was really soft when she told him her name was Pamona, but she seemed interested in him. Calamine rolled her eyes, but I know she was relieved, Anthony’s been trying to talk to her for years even though she made it clear she didn’t see him like that. Ahh my brother is crazy.

Speaking of Leif, I decided he might need someone to calm him down. Who better than a cute, young, girl, he’s known for about 10 years? He was an avid fisher so I knew that that’s where he’d be.
“Hey Leif.” I said with a smile hoping to cheer him up. But he didn’t respond. So I tried again.
“So…how are you? Ok that was stupid, obviously you aren’t feeling good right now ’cause we’re stranded who knows where but you know our parent’s will begin to worry and they’ll come for us so I think we can just treat this whole experience like a private getaway where we can just do whatever we…”
“OMG Peaches will you knock it off with your unnessacary rambling and take a breath between sentences!?”
That suprised me. To be honest, I knew I was rambling, but gosh, he didn’t need to be so rude. I tried to apologize but he cut me off.
“We’re never going to get off of this island, I talked to one of the guys, Andrew, and they got here the same way we did. They were even around our age. Plus he said that there’s actually another tribe on the other side of the beach that got here when they did. If they couldn’t get out of here and it’s been years, then why should we believe we’re getting out of here anytime soon!? I think we need to get our stuff from the ship and set up camp before nightfall.”
That kind of made me sad, but what he said made sense. Maybe because he was 17 and I was only 14. I decided it was best to just agree and go let everyone know what the plan was.

I had brought my chest of seeds, because I wanted to collect seeds in Les Champ when we got there. So I figured I might as well start planting my seeds here on the island just in case Leif was was right. We all spent the rest of the evening doing what we usually do to calm ourselves. My hobby was planting.

My twin sister Georgia (Who I look nothing like) played her bass just like she did all day at home,

Leif was once again fishing for tonight’s dinner,

and my brother Anthony set up his easel and painted.

As for Calamine, she kept busy by babysitting the three kids that were stranded with us. My little sister Leah, and her classmates, Neo and Cory were a lot more calm than they were earlier, but still needed to be watched just in case.

As the sun set, I couldn’t help but notice how pretty this island we were on actually was. I in NO way want to be stranded here, but I really loved the feel of this place. I sat there and just watched it until Leif called us for dinner.

Poor Leif was so upset. He pulled a stone grill off of the ship and filled it with wood and stuff too make a fire with as well as some cheap folding chairs and called us to eat. I don’t think he knows I saw his little melt down. He was so sweet and vulnerable. Sigh.

We all ate in silence. I know I was wishing to be at home eating my mama’s food. Nobody knew what to say, even when we saw some random guy running from the village to another village across the way. He passed right behind Georgia.

She swears she didn’t see him, and he didn’t say anything when he ran past. I did notice he had a large wolf tattoo on his back though instead of the bird that the others had on their shoulders earlier. Again, nobody said anything so we just kept chewing on our overly cooked fish.

That night, we set up our tents and went to bed. Hoping that maybe tomorrow we’d be saved even though in the back of our minds we knew that chances are, we’ll be stuck here forever.