"I was thinking about figuring out the fishing thing," said Candi causally.
"You? Fishing?"
"Yes. Me. Fishing. I can do it."
"Oh, yeah, sure you can." Jonathan wisely kept his mouth shut. He was thinking back to the fishing misadventures they had taken with their father when they were younger, where she would cry whenever a worm got put on the hook.
"You"ll see," said Candi casually.
"No, I think it"s a good idea. I wonder what I could do."
"Jonathan, you"re a brown belt in karate. Why don"t you teach us that?"
"Whaaaat? You"re a brown belt? How come I didn"t know that about you?" asked a suddenly interested Sarah.
Jonathan shrugged his shoulders. "I don"t know, I guess it never came up."
"I"ll bet Kevin would be interested in that."
"In what?" asked Kevin as he came jogging up to the group, sweating like crazy and breathing heavily.
"Did you know Jonathan has a brown belt in karate? He could teach us to kick some b.u.t.t."
"Seriously? Jonathan, that"s cool, I"d like to learn some moves."
"Sure, if you guys want, I guess I could teach you some things."
"Awesome. I"m down. I"m in. When do our lessons start?"
"In the evening, when the sun is just about to set. That"s a good, peaceful time."
"And Sugar Lump is going to teach us how to fish," offered Sarah.
"All riiiight. I"m looking forward to seeing her in action." Kevin gave her a knowing look while he jogged in place and did some boxing moves in the air in front of him.
"Mock me if you will, guys. You"ll be sorry when I"m eating delicious steamed fish, and you"re still eating bananas for every meal."
"Aw, come on Gumdrop, you"re not going to leave us out to starve, now are ya?"
"Only if you don"t respect my skills; if you want to eat my catch, you have to respect the skills."
"Okay, I solemnly swear to respect you in the morning," said Kevin with feigned soberness, stopping his manic exercising to put his hand on his heart in a mock pledge.
Candi threw the banana peel she"d been in the process of burying at him. "Pig."
Kevin looked around at what the girls were doing. "So, what"s going on here?"
Sarah responded, "We"re packing up and moving out. Start helping. We want to get to the new site and clear a spot for a temporary house before it gets dark tonight. I want you guys to see the view it"s really cool."
Within thirty minutes they had collected all their things and secured them in backpacks and slings made out of the sheet and tarp. They discussed moving the lifeboat, but it had already started to sink into the sand; it would be impossible to move without either a crane or a lot more people to help. They decided to just leave it there. They had removed anything that could be of use that wasn"t permanently fixed to the inside of it.
Jonathan began erasing any sign of their campfire.
Sarah shook her head at what she was seeing. "Jonathan, why are you being so a.n.a.l about hiding the fire stuff? It"s not like the fire marshal is going to come along and give us a ticket."
"I"m worried about pirates."
Sarah snorted. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I"m feeling fine, and I"m serious. There are pirates out in these waters around islands like these; they kidnap people and steal from them and sometimes worse. I don"t want to attract any unwanted attention, that"s all."
The group exchanged uneasy looks. They had forgotten some of Jonathan"s earlier cautionary statements. They moved to help him cover the evidence of their existence. After they were finished, they started hiking through the trees, following Jonathan"s lead.
Forty-five minutes later they arrived at the elephant leg tree. Kevin and Candi immediately understood why Sarah had described it that way.
"Wow, that"s a big friggin" tree," was all Kevin could think to say.
"Amazing," added Candi.
"Wait, you haven"t even seen the best part yet." Sarah led the way to the water.
They oohed and aahed, watching it pour off the rock to the ground below. Candi held her hand out, stepping towards the water as if in a trance.
Jonathan grabbed her shoulder to get her attention, but Sarah told him to let her go. She knew exactly what Candi was feeling at that moment. Sarah had already had her "shower" and knew that this was what Candi wanted right now, more than anything.
While Candi let the water drip over her body, the rest of them started surveying the immediate area.
"So, what do you guys think?" asked Jonathan.
Kevin nodded his head in appreciation. "It"s great. We can set up our temporary house under the roots of the tree, in the elephant legs or whatever, and then we can start work right away on the treehouse. I think there"s plenty of support here. I mean, I"m no engineer or anything, but it looks solid to me."
"That"s what I was thinking, too. Did you notice the stand of bamboo? We can use that for the floors, walls, and roof structure. We can use palm fronds for the filling in between the poles, the tarp can be our waterproofing for the top. I"m not sure we"ll even need it though, with enough layers of palm fronds."
Sarah was slowly walking around, envisioning how to arrange their things in the tree roots so that they could maximize the s.p.a.ce and be comfortable.
"Put my and Candi"s things over there. You guys will be over there." Sarah was gesturing to two separate areas of the root system.
"Oh, so you"re in charge of the house now?" asked Kevin.
"Yes, I"ve decided that this will be my activity. I will be the house decorator and arranger; I will be in charge of making our house a home." She fixed Kevin with a challenging look. "You got a problem with that?"
Kevin held his hands up in mock surrender. "No, not at all, you"re good at that stuff, go for it. Just don"t expect me to do any of it."
"Well, then, don"t expect me to join your workout group," Sarah challenged.
Kevin looked at her with a fake hurt expression on his face. "So it"s gonna be like that then, huh?"
"Yep. It"s a tough world out here on Peanut Island, deal with it."
"Alright, fine, I"ll weave a tablecloth or something."
Sarah smiled at him. "That"s the spirit."
"So, Jonathan, when do our karate lessons start?" asked Sarah.
He answered her from around the other side of the tree. "Tomorrow, an hour before sunset."
"Excellent," said Kevin, rubbing his hands together. "Morning calisthenics, housekeeping, then karate. What a schedule."
"Don"t forget fishing!" added Candi enthusiastically, now back from her mini shower.
"What do you plan to fish with?" asked Jonathan, coming over to join the group.
"I was thinking we could take some of these bamboo poles and sharpen the ends and make spears. Then we could try to find a shallow area of the water that has some rocks maybe and see if there are any fish to spear ... or whatever."
Kevin nodded his head appreciatively. "That might work; I"m willing to give it a shot."
"You guys can skip the fishing lessons until I"ve figured it all out. I"ll get started in the morning after our exercising is done."
"What kind of spear do you want?" asked Kevin.
"I was thinking I"d like to try two types one that"s just straight and sharpened at the tip, the other one with three forks at the end, like a trident. Can you guys help me make "em?"
Kevin looked over at Jonathan for confirmation. "Sure, we could probably give it a shot."
Candi gave him a winning smile. "Excellent. Maybe we"ll have fish for dinner one of these days."
They spent the next few hours setting up their temporary household. The tarp was used as a floor for the girl"s bedroom area, and the boys used the now very dirty sheet. Candi and Sarah got to work gathering fallen palm fronds from the beachfront and jungle areas and dragging them to the big tree. They worked on layering them across the tops of the large roots, trying to create a waterproof roof.
"I think if we have enough of these things on top of each other, maybe even tied together somehow, we"ll be able to keep out any water."
Candi looked out through the treetops to the darkening sky above. "I think we"re going to find out tonight whether your theory is true or not. It looks like a storm is coming in."
"Oh, great. I"m not sure if we have enough here; maybe we should hook up the tarp instead."
"I"ll do whatever you say," said Candi. This was Sarah"s territory, and she wasn"t going to step on her toes.
Sarah stood eyeing the structure that was slowly going up. "Let"s just keep putting these palm fronds together. Angle them all the same way so when the water hits them it will follow the path of the leaves and drip down in the same direction."
Candi did as she was told. When they were finally finished and stood back to admire their handiwork, they were impressed with what they saw.
"There. If any rain gets through this, then I"m just going to have to Google how to do this roof stuff."
Candi laughed. Oh, how she missed Google. What she wouldn"t give right now to Google "spear fishing". It"s funny how something that meant nothing to her before, like stabbing a poor fish with a stick, had now become one of the most important things in her life. She shook her head, thinking about how much her priorities had changed in just four days.
Jonathan and Kevin came back from the bamboo grove to see what the girls had done.
"Nice work!" said Jonathan enthusiastically. "It actually looks like some kind of island hut."
"Thanks," said Sarah, trying not to sound too proud of herself. The true test of her skills wouldn"t come until later when the rain fell.
"Kevin and I rigged up some temporary rain catchers. Looks like we"re going to get a storm later."
They all cast their eyes to the sky, noticing that the dark clouds had gotten thicker and were moving faster in their direction.
"Maybe we"d better eat early in case it"s a real downpour," said Candi, nervously.
"Good idea. And I have a treat." Jonathan pulled out a few cracked-open coconuts from the backpack he had over his shoulder.
"Hey! How did you get those d.a.m.n things open?" asked Sarah, moving forward to claim a half.
"I tried to use the hatchet but it wasn"t working so well, so I slammed the husk over and over again against the rock and eventually it started giving way; then I just tore it off ... "
"Ahem ... "
"Okay, so Kevin tore it off, and then we slammed the nut against the rock and presto it opened right up. We lost the water inside, but the coconut is really tasty and very moist."
Candi was having a hard time getting the coconut meat out to taste it. "How do you get the white stuff out?"
"Ah, well, since we don"t really have a knife we can afford to use and possibly break, we"ve been just breaking off pieces of the nut and then biting the white stuff off with our teeth."
Candi shrugged her shoulders. "That works, I guess." She thought for another second. "This is giving me ideas for dinner if I ever catch a fish, that is."
"Oh, yeah?" asked Kevin, "like what kind of ideas?"
"Well, we can take fish and cook it in the coconut over a fire. Maybe the flavor of the coconut will go up into the fish and make it taste more interesting."
"That sounds awesome, Candi, I can"t wait to try it." Sarah was in such a good mood from her success at hut building, she couldn"t help but be enthusiastic about Candi"s ideas.
Everyone looked at her funny. She didn"t sound like Sarah.
"What? ... What"d I say?"
No one answered. They just looked at each other. The island was working some strange voodoo magic on Sarah, making her actually act nice, even considerate.
Jonathan and Kevin starting walking over to the stand of bamboo.
"Hey, wait up!" said Candi.
Candi and Sarah joined them, walking through the bamboo until they reached the waterspout.
"Sarah, you mentioned you wanted to show everyone the view from the rock. Still interested?" asked Jonathan.
Sarah jumped at the chance to see the view again, her earlier confusion forgotten. "You guys are going to love this; but be careful. Failure to properly calculate your exponents and s.h.i.t could cause you to fall on your a.s.s."