ISLAND

It was the last day of 5th grade for me and the last day of 4th grade

for Jenny, my sister. Our final school day was a half day. After school,

we would be heading home to begin packing for our summer trip to an island

that is part of the Central American country of Costa Rica.

"Come on Johnny!" my sister yelled to me, "We have to meet mom!"

"Coming!" I answered, as I ran to catch up to her.

My sister has never been a fan of being late. She has brown hair and

blue eyes. Although we have the same color hair and eyes, we do not share

the same attitude toward being late. Honestly, I could care less if I am

late to anything.

The only thing that got me through the last three and days of school

was the thought of getting away from home and sitting on an exotic, white,

sandy beach on the coast of a Costa Rican island.

When the final school bell of the final class rang, my mom took my

sister and I to buy us new suit cases. After an hour of looking at suit

cases, my mom was getting annoyed with me and I ended up getting a navy

blue and black one, though I later regretted that decision because there

was a royal blue and red one I really wanted that was too expensive. My
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sister, of course, got a pink and purple one. Pink and purple are her

favorite colors. My mom just grabbed a plain black one.

My dad told us not to get him another suit case because there was

nothing wrong with the ones we had and that he would just used one of

those. He never buys new suit cases for himself and hates when my mom buys

anything new. He thinks it's stupid to spend money on things that you

don't really need. Though I agree with him, I pick a suit case anyway

because if I didn't, my mom would have told my sister to pick one out for

me. If that were to happen, I would be packing my "man" clothes in a pink

and purple girl bag. I don't want my "man" clothes having the essence of a

pink and purple Dora suit case on them.

When we got home, I packed my favorite shorts and shirts. I then

tried my best to fall asleep since the flight was at 2:00 in the morning.

But I just couldn't fall asleep, I was way too excited. I was so excited

that I decided to do something that would kill some time. The funny thing

is, I fell asleep thinking about what to do to kill some time.

The next thing I remember is my dad came in my room at 1:00 in the

morning spraying me with water from a spray bottle. He told me to hurry

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and get ready so the taxi cab that was coming to pick us up wouldn't have

to wait.

I got up, brushed my teeth, and put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

I packed my carry on. I made sure to pack my phone, a charger, a couple

bags of snacks, and some water bottles. Little did I know these items

would save my life in a couple of days. When I was ready to hobble my half

asleep self down the stairs, I slipped on my vans, which were torn and

tattered beyond repair. I headed down stairs to eat my breakfast. I

poured myself a small bowl of Kellogg's corn flakes.

After I finished my breakfast, I turned on the T.V. One of those

late night talk shows that make you want to jump out of the nearest window

was on. I never really liked those shows. As an eleven year old boy I

don't really care about Kim Kardashian's latest hair style. I didn't watch

long. I shut the T.V. off because the show annoyed me.

Right after that, the worst part of waiting to drive to the airport

set in. It was that 45 minutes of anticipation before you get into the

taxi. You see, this is the time frame in between when you're ready to go

and the taxi is scheduled to show up. It's that time when you're sitting

down waiting and watching your mom going back up and down the stairs to

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grab that "one last thing" she forgot and then coming back down with

basically everything else she owns except that one last thing, which she

then goes back upstairs to get. The "one last thing" for this trip was her

phone charger.

Finally, after her 15th try, she came back with the charger cord.

But this "one last thing" ordeal was far from over. She had to run back

upstairs fifteen more times to get the little plug-y in-y thingy for the

wall outlet.

We finally loaded our things and ourselves into the taxi and drove to

the airport. After we got to the airport and checked in, we experienced

that other 45 minute period of anticipation, which is the most evil of them

all. You're at the airport sitting and waiting for your flight at your

gate for 15 to 20 minutes when you think, "Hey, I'm kind of hungry." But

you then realize that you waited too long and, guess what, you don't have

time. Boarding starts in 30 minutes and you have absolutely no time to

wait in line at a Starbucks.

The airline finally started boarding, but we had to wait forever to

board because they have all of the ridiculous boarding groups.

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"Would the ruby emerald diamond all inclusive members please board

now," the flight attendant would say.

"Would all of the sapphire gold one world alliance members please

board," she would then announce.

Eventually she got to zone 4ZZZZZ, which was our zone. We boarded

the plane and took our seats in the back by the bathrooms. Needless to

say, it was a terrible flight. To make things worse, I sat next to a

crying baby. At least I was with my dad. We watched movies on his

computer, he plugged in his multi-headphone extension jack, and we put on

our noise canceling headphones. So we barley heard the baby cry, or

anything else for that matter.

My mom barley even knows how to turn on a computer and neither does

my sister, so I felt bad for them.

We landed to a sunny Costa Rican morning on a Saturday. We figured

we would settle in for three or four hours and then maybe explore the area

around our hotel. We heard that Costa Rica has a lot of good fishing

spots, so we went to the front desk and asked if they knew anything about

that.

"Excuse me," my dad said.

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"How may I help you?" the front desk lady asked.

"I was wondering if you know of any fishing trips in the area," my

dad replied.

"Yes, there are a couple of pamphlets on the front of the desk to the

left," the front desk lady answered.

"Thank you very much," my dad said as he grabbed four different

pamphlets.

We went back to the room to check them out. We decided on a 15

person boat that left at 7:30 a.m. then next morning. My dad had packed

the spray bottle in his luggage and woke me up with it once again.

"Come on Johnny we're going to be late," my dad said.

"Alright, I'm getting up. Please stop spraying me," I said. "I'll

get ready to go, just let me get my bag."

I got up, got dressed, and grabbed my carry on. Grabbing my carry on

would be one of the very acts that would eventually save my life.

My whole family went fishing. The first fishing spot was fun, but

the second one was really bad. The Captain told us to reel in our lines at

the first spot and then motored off toward the second spot. He told us the

second spot we were headed to was brand new to the boat and that we were

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going to be the first group to fish there. He said "This should be good

too because it is out in the middle of nowhere and that is especially good

because other boats rarely pass through those waters so the fish shouldn't

be scared away." Just as the Captain was finishing, we heard a very loud

grinding noise. Then, we heard it again. The Captain then told us

everything was fine. Just after that announcement, our boat split in half.

Half of the boat sank to the bottom of a trench like drop off. The

other half rested safely on top of a shallow reef. We figured out that the

reason the boat had split was that it had been scraping against the bottom

of the reef. The scraping withered down the middle of the boat's bottom to

just a thin piece of metal. Then, when the other half didn't have the reef

to support its weight, it broke off and sank.

When it broke off, it flooded very fast since the sides were no

longer there. I looked around. I was reassured when I saw my mom, my dad,

and my sister alive. My sister and my mom weren't really much help though.

They were both breaking down. They were alternating between crying, and

screaming hysterically on the deck. My mom eventually gathered herself

enough to pull herself together. But my sister, that was another story.

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She pretty much just cried and screamed hysterically throughout the whole

ordeal.

As soon as we finished deducting the reason, we quickly realized that

the Captain's the radio and most of the bait were on the side of the boat

that sank. We realized we were in deep trouble if we didn't construct a

make-shift side for our side of the boat, which was the half resting on the

reef.

As if our situation weren't bad enough, we saw a storm drifting in

from the south. We knew the storm would blow us off the reef to the same

watery death that the other half of the boat suffered. The good thing

about this was we had the life jackets on our side in the downstairs level

of the boat. We also realized the downstairs level had floor boards. We

figured we could pull them up to make our wall. Since we would be here a

while, my dad decided to just kind of elect himself the leader of our

little ten person group and he started assigning everyone jobs.

Two guys, Jason and Dan, were supposed to rip up the floor boards and

put them in a pile. Two other guys, James and Ethan, were supposed to find

a hammer and take the nails out of the boards and put the nails in one of

the unused fishing sacks. The boards would go in another sack.

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Some kid named Jack and I were supposed to look for food, water, and

supplies in general, but food and water mainly. We took two of the unused

fishing bags to put whatever we found in. I remembered my carry on and that

I had stocked it with some food and water for the flight, which I didn't

eat or drink because I ordered in-flight drinks and snacks.

Jack and I took the food and water from my carry on first and then

went to the downstairs part where there was a little food place. We split

up and looked. I searched for drinks and the cups, and Jack searched for

food.

I saw some tables. I thought it would be a good idea to start

putting cups on the tables and filling them with water. When the water ran

out, I would start filling the cups with ice, which would eventually melt

into water. When the ice ran out, I would resort to the bottles of Doctor

Pepper and other soda I had found. I told Jack my plan and that planned to

then take the cups of drinks up to my dad in a cooler every 30 minutes or

so.

After we had a respectable stock pile of drinks, I went to help Jack

look for food. We found some Baked Lay's potato chips, some Doritos, some

Skittles, some M&M'S, some Chex Mix, some Goldfish, some Twix, and a bunch

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more stuff. It seemed like we were set for a pretty long time. The next

order of business was see if we could catch any fish. We couldn't ration

any food until we knew if we could catch any fish.

Since we had more important things to do then sit and fish for nine

hours, we put a one hour limit on the fishing idea with the understanding

that if we caught something during that hour we would bump it up to two.

If the two hours were successful then we would make it three. But three

hours was the max time we were giving it, no more than three hours.

Turns out we caught one hundred fish within those three hours. We

had a lot of fish. In fact, a lot of the fish went to the bait bucket to

be used as bait in case we needed to go fishing in the future.

Once everything was in order, we went down to the downstairs part of

the boat and waited out the storm. The storm wasn't actually that bad. It

just rained a little bit and there was some thunder. It wasn't exactly

what you would call a class five hurricane. The details of the storm

didn't really matter though. The important thing was that our little half

boat survived.

We needed to get the boat, or what was left of it, to land. We could

saw a little piece of land that was about six miles away. So we put life

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jackets on the bottom of the boat, found some emergency paddles, and did

some final maintenance checks on the boat. We pushed the boat off from the

reef into the deep water once my dad determined it was, under the

circumstances, "okay."

The boat began to take on water about two minutes into our journey.

It didn't really matter though. We had extra bait buckets which the other

people used bail out the water. We made all the way to the island in about

thirty minutes. It shocked all of us because, when you think about it, how

does half of a boat that is taking on water, which weighs it down, that is

paddling its way across a six mile stretch of ocean make it to its

destination in thirty minutes.

Everybody just decided not to overcomplicate it and to just be

thankful we were at the island and not at the bottom of the ocean. The

first thing we needed to do was get a head count, which we probably should

have done when we started to ration out food. so my dad told everybody to

line up shoulder to shoulder. Then he asked each person to tell him their

name. He also asked if they could tell him any specific skills they had.

Those with more preferable skills could help us in the situation.

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There were ten people lined up. We already knew all of them except

one. We knew the other nine because they had helped us when the boat first

broke in half. Dan and Jason ripped up the boards. James and Ethan took

nails out of the boards. and then there was me, my mom, my sister, my dad,

Jack and me.

But there was also one other guy who was really old. He said his

name was Charles and he was 96. This whole thing was getting way to hard.

Now we had a 96 year old man to take care of. You have to give him his

pills and bathe him.

Also, I'm pretty sure a 96 year old man probably has the immune

system of an newborn. So we couldn't let him get a scratch or that's would

be it. My dad called everyone, except Charles, into a huddle. Charles was

too old to even know what was happening.

"Alright," my dad said.

"We are going to have to assign someone to watch this here old

feller."

"I'll do it," Jack said.

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Jack was about my age and I had nothing better to do, so I

volunteered with him. We just kind of became friends over babysitting

Charles, friendship at its finest.

While Jack and I were having the time of our lives babysitting

Charles, all the other available men were helping build a shelter that

would be big enough for ten people. Jack and I knew this was going to take

a while, so we tried to have a conversation.

"So ... how's life?" I asked.

"Could be better," Jack replied.

"Ah I see," I said.

This wasn't going so well, so we stopped talking. We were feeling

pretty unproductive, so we each took turns doing something. Jack would stay

with Charles, while l would make a rain catch. Then I would trade places

with Jack and he would gather branches and leaves for our camp fire.

While I waited for Jack to return, I would think about what to I

would do when he returned. I decided to try to start as signal fire. I

was sure a signal fire could end this experience for all of us. Though,

when I stopped to think about it, aside from my mom and my sister, who were

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hysterical when our ordeal began, I had not seen anyone frown or complain

since our ship wrecked. No one seemed phased by it.

Jack returned from gathering branches and leaves. It was time for me

to build a signal fire. I collected some oily kelp that has washed up on

shore and been dried out by the sun and some weird type of clam that looked

oily and I put them all in a pile. I then took some of the branches and

leaves that Jack has collected and put them in the pile too.

But I needed a large signal fire. So I found some decent sized dead

trees that had fallen over and pullled them to the pile. I arranged them

like I was building a tepee. I used a fire starting method I had seen on

the Survivor Man T.V. show. To my amazement, it worked. Once the signal

fire was roaring, I went back to where Jack and Charles were to relieve

Jack of his duties.

"Welcome back," Jack said. "So what did you do?"

"You'll see," I replied.

I didn't think he could miss a gigantic signal fire. If Jack didn't

see it, I was going to be pretty disappointed.

"Whoa!" I heard Jack scream from the jungle.

"Pretty cool right!" I yelled to him.

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Then, while I was admiring the signal fire, out of nowhere a bear

attacked me. I didn't see or hear the bear coming. It knocked me to the

ground with its paw. The next thing I knew, Jack came running out of the

forest with a pointy stick. He threw it at the bear's leg. The bear

yelped and ran away into the forest.

"Ahhhhh!" I screamed.

"Are you alright?" Jack ask?

"Where did that bear come from?" I asked. "Can you believe that?"

Jack just shrugged his shoulders.

We didn't want a repeat of what just happened, so we decided to watch

Charles together instead of taking shifts. We figured there was safety in

numbers.

When the others got back from collecting materials to build our camp,

Dan volunteered to watch Charles for a while. It was a good change for all

of us. Dan wanted to rest and Jack and I wanted to do something productive

to feel like a part of the group. Gathering fire wood and building signal

fires didn't make Jack and I feel too productive.

We got to building. My dad decided we should build a camp with one

four person hut and two three person huts. My family would stay together

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in one hut and the six other people would divide in half and stay in the

other two huts.

It took us about an hour to build the two three person huts and

forty-five minutes to build the four person hut. After we finished

building our huts, we decided to have a snack. We each had a Twix and a

bottle of water. We talked and just generally lounged around for about

thirty minutes after we finished eating our Twix bars.

After the break, it was about 6:00 p.m. from what we could tell. We

had another bottle of water and a bag of potato chips to rehydrate and

replenish our salt levels. We had been sweating so much during the say.

Once we finished, we hit the hay. Little did we know, it was crucial we

went to bed early tonight so we could wake up early the next morning.

We all woke up at about the same time. From what we could tell, it

was 6:30 or 7:30 in the morning. The sun was up, but something seemed

weird. The birds weren't chirping. The tropical birds chirped all the

time. Jenny then heard a plane. She looked up and the next thing we

heard was Jenny screaming "Plane!" at the top of her lungs. We looked at

her. She was pointing towards the sky. We all looked up. We saw a big

Bowing 747 flying above us.

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"YES!" we all screamed at once.

At that moment I remembered, the signal fire! I ran as fast as I

could over to my signal fire. It has gone out. I began trying to relight

it with the same technique I use before. It worked! I got the signal fire

going. But I didn't think about the possibility that the smoke would block

the pilots vision or that the ash from the fire would rise and get into the

plane's engines. We watched the plane hit the water. The ash had sparked

a fire in the plane's engine and killed the plane's thrust. We all watched

in horror.

"All those poor people," I stuttered. "I brought down that plane."

I felt so guilty. I couldn't stand it. But every survival show I've

ever seen says to always, no matter what, keep a positive attitude. So I

acted cheerful on the outside and told some of my world class knock knock

jokes. No one laughed, so I stopped. I thought that maybe we should just

let this one take its course. I felt horrible inside, but I tried not to

let it show.

We all thought about the plane, which made us realize that we might

be here a while. So we all started to make our huts a little nicer and

better. Jack and I helped each other create our own rooms in our huts so

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we could each have some privacy. We helped the others too. We put more

sticks and branches on the top all the huts so they would be a little more

protected. We also gathered leaves and put them on the floor and used them

as a bed. There wasn't really much else we could do, so we all decided to

just sit in our huts and relax to stay out of the sun.

When I woke up in the middle of the night. Everybody else was still

sleeping. I grabbed a fishing pole to see if I could catch any fish for

breakfast the next morning. I guess laying in my room in my hut to stay

out of the sun turned out to be sleeping the day away.

I fished for a while, maybe two hours. I got a bite, but it got

away. As I reeled in my line, I also discovered whatever bit on my line

took my bait. I quit fishing because I didn't want to waste anymore bait.

I ended up just going back to sleep because I was tired and board, and I

didn't know what else to do in the middle of the night.

I woke up the next morning to the sun shining right in my eyes. I

heard the adults talking about something, but I was in the place between

being asleep and being awake so I didn't really care or listen. I figured

they were just talking about banks, money, schools, bake sales, or whatever

else adults talk, about I don't know. I'm a kid. I wouldn't expect to

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know about what grownups talk about and I'm not interested in those

matters, at least not yet.

I stayed in bed for about ten minutes so I could get adjusted to the

light. I didn't want to step straight out into the sunlight and burn my

retinas. After my eye adjusted, I stepped out of the hut and asked my mom

what was on the agenda for today.

Well, we don't know just yet, but we think we are going to fish all

day," she told me.

"Well in that case, I will get started" I said.

I grabbed the fishing pole I used the last night, I sat down and I

casted off. I felt a bite and hopped it didn't turn out like last night.

Not only did I hook it, but it was a massive fish. It looked like it could

weight 100 pound or more. I wanted to show my mom, but there were two

problems. First, I can't lift 100 pounds. Second, my mom was talking.

I reeled the fish in, tied it to some line and attached the line to a

nearby tree so the fish would be able to get away. I then kept fishing,

but I didn't catch anything else. It didn't matter though. The fish I did

catch looked like it could feed all of us until we got rescued. I saw my

mom was not talking, so I yelled over to her, "Hey mom!"

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"Yes," she said.

"Look at this big fish I caught, it looks like it could last us until

we get rescued."

"Nice going Johnny!" my mom said.

"Thanks, do we want to eat it now or save it for later?" I asked.

"Let's cook it up and eat it right now," she replied.

Just then, a rescue boat pulled up to the island. Before the plane

went down, it radioed for help. So when the Costa Rican Coast Guard came,

they went to the island because they thought they might find some survivors

there. They thought we were passengers from the plane. We told them we

weren't. They looked puzzled, but we just told them to sit down. We would

explain it all over a fish diner. They ate with us. After the diner we all

would board the boat and leave the awful island. I vowed to never step

foot on a boat again. ever.

THE END

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