Story summary- The Professor and Gilligan go out into the deepest jungle to look for new ferns. But it looks like ferns aren't the only things on the Professor's mind...

Story is told from Gilligan's and the Professor's points of view respectively. (Crosses fingers, hopes it works).

My sincere thanks to WikiFern for all the fern info. I'm kind of a fern nerd myself, now.

The Secret Life Of Ferns

"I'm not a seething volcano- at least as far as a married woman is concerned!" -The Professor, Lovey's Secret Admirer

Gilligan

I know I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I know one thing about people who are smart. They need peace and quiet when they're working, because it helps them think. I guess that's because their brains are nearly full up already. Unlike mine, which is pretty empty, which means I can fit more stuff in when I'm thinking. (For instance, I can listen to The Mosquitoes when I'm thinking and it doesn't bother me. Even at top volume.)

So when the Professor told me he was planning an expedition and wanted me to stand guard outside the Supply Hut to make sure no-one came in while he was getting prepared, I made it my mission. Let anybody try to get past me! Just let 'em try!

Two minutes later, Ginger arrived. I should have known she'd show up sooner or later. As soon as she saw me standing outside the hut she put on that walk, and that got that look on her face. What could I do? I couldn't run away. I was on guard duty.

She took two times as long to get across the clearing because of that walk. If the place was on fire she'd burn up already while the rest of us were running to the lagoon. She was making me burn up pretty much right then. It was impossible not to stare at her- you know, out of curiosity. I never saw anything like it. It was pretty stupid of me to look, really. I think that she thought it meant I liked it. But I also used to stare at the midget clown with the club foot at the circus. Because it was hard not to.

She wiggled her hips all the way over, and fair play to her, she never once got bored with it. She finally got right up close, about six inches in front of my face. "Hello, Gilligan," she smiled, half closing her eyes and doing that thing with her nose. She lifted her arms up and draped them around my neck like two snakes getting ready to strangle me. Straight away I could smell her perfume. Now, I don't hate perfume. Like any guy I kinda like it when it catches you unawares, like sometimes Mary Ann will walk past me and then a minute later I get this little whiff of perfume, like it's following her, trying to catch up with her. I find that cute. But Ginger wears it strong. It hit me hard, like someone pushed a wet rag full of perfume right in my face. I could feel my eyes start to water.

"Why are you standing outside the Supply Hut?" she asked. See? She goes right in for the kill. Trying to get information out of me already.

"None of your beeswax," I replied, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

"Gilligan!" she said, pretending to be shocked. "That wasn't very nice!"

"It's good enough for you," I told her. Yeah- I remember.

She began stroking my face. "Don't be like that, Gilligan," she said, making her voice go all babyish. "Tell Ginger why you're standing outside the Supply Hut. Don't you want me to go in?"

"The Professor's doing something," I said, trying not to sneeze while she tickled my nose. "He doesn't want anyone disturbing him." Whoops- guess Ginger's interrogation tactics are just too good.

"Well, I wouldn't disturb him, Gilligan," she whispered, getting even closer. Yeah, I didn't think it was possible, either. "I'd just sit quietly and watch."

"No," I said, firmly. "I have my instructions. Not to let anybody past this point."

"Come now, Gilligan, surely that silly rule doesn't apply to me, too?" Now Ginger's lips were starting to pucker. I know what that meant. Either I found something to hit my head on or I was gonna get it right in the mouth with three layers of sticky lipstick. I screwed up my eyes, waiting for her to land that smacker on me, when suddenly the door to the Supply Hut opened and the Professor came out.

Ginger took her arms from around my neck and stepped away from me immediately. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, let me tell you. Then we both turned and stared at the Professor. Boy, did we stare! Ginger started laughing, putting her hand up in front of her face, I guess to make it look more ladylike. I gotta admit, when I saw the Professor, I kinda felt like laughing too. Instead, I felt my jaw drop open. I know I must have looked like the world's biggest dimbulb, but I couldn't help it. It was the way he was dressed.

He had Mr. Howell's safari helmet on his head. That was funny enough, but then he also had two or three of Mrs. Howell's chiffon scarves wrapped around his face and neck and some kind of vest made out of coconut matting hanging down the front of his shirt. He had big gloves on his hands, too, the gloves Skipper used to wear when he worked on the Minnow's engine. But the thing that made me want to laugh the most was that he'd pulled his socks right the way up almost to his knees and carefully tucked both his pants legs right down inside them.

"Professor," I said, trying to keep my face steady. "It's not Halloween yet!"

That made Ginger laugh even more, but the Professor just stood there in that get-up, looking at us like we were naughty children.

"Gilligan," he said, sternly, "I am not dressed for Halloween. I have not the slightest interest in frivolous pagan rituals. I'm dressed this way because I'm going deep into the jungle and I need protection from insects and wild animals." Then he stared hard at Ginger. He looked like he wanted to send her to the back of the class, although he had to tilt his head right back and peek out from under the brim of that crazy hat to see her. "This really is no laughing matter, Ginger!"

Poor Ginger. She really wasn't keeping her face as straight as I was keeping mine. (See? She calls herself an actress, but I'm a better actress than she is!)

"I'm sorry, Professor, it's just that you look so...so..." she was stuttering now. She looked like she had a mouthful of eggshells. I thought about going and getting her a shovel to help her dig that hole she was about to fall into.

"Like an explorer!" I said, quickly. Ginger could thank me later for saving her bacon.

"Yes, an explorer," Ginger agreed, nodding. "A brave, intrepid explorer."

She should have stopped right there, but then of course she had to go and ruin it. "Wearing chiffon."

The Professor sighed. I sighed. In fact, I sighed twice- I figured it'd make me look good. But Ginger, she just carried on laughing.

Women!

The Professor

I failed to see the humour. Where was the joke in wearing a practical wardrobe? Even the Howells had tittered and guffawed when I'd asked to borrow some of their clothes. Mr. Howell had even held up a couple of his wife's evening gowns. "Will either of these do?" Yes, Mr. Howell, I'll take the blue one, thank you very much, and perhaps a string of pearls to go with it.

But I have to allow them their self-indulgent giggling. They know no better. They'd still laugh, even if I told them of the perils to be found in the deepest jungle. Why, we already had that scare with the Mantis Khani bug when everyone thought Gilligan was going to die. And yet there was Ginger, giggling behind her hand as if she thought I couldn't see it, and Gilligan, wearing a look of supreme idiocy with his mouth hanging open like a Venus fly trap.

"Laugh all you want," I said, lifting my chin so that I could see them better.

"Oh, we're not laughing at you, Professor," Ginger said. Whilst laughing at me, I might add.

"I realise I look a little odd," I conceded. "But I'm going to need all the protection I can get out there."

"Then let me come with you, Professor!" Gilligan said, immediately. "I'll protect you!"

Me and my big mouth! I felt like burying my face in my hands and giving up my expedition on the spot. I should have known Gilligan would offer to help. Gilligan always offers to help- especially at times when I really don't need any help. It's as if he knows. I looked at him forlornly. He was already starting to get worked up with enthusiasm, squinting his eyes and doing karate chopping movements with his hands.

"Gilligan," I began, knowing I had already lost. "I'm only going out there to look for ferns. It's an exercise that I'm quite capable of doing on my own. In fact, I would appreciate a little solitude, if nobody minds." I glanced from Gilligan to Ginger, who, despite her ongoing amusement, appeared to comprehend what I was saying.

"That's fine by me, Professor!" Gilligan grinned.

For a moment my heart lifted. I really thought that Gilligan had understood. But then he proved me wrong, yet again, with his next words.

"I'll make sure no-one bothers us. And I can hold your books and stuff. I'll be real quiet, Professor! I promise!"

Gilligan

Remind me never to open my dumb mouth ever again. How was I supposed to know the Professor would make me dress as stupid as him? He dragged me to the Howell's hut and stood there smiling at me while they draped me in fur coats and scarves and then stuck Mrs. Howell's safari hat on top of my own hat. By the time they'd finished with me I looked like the abonamil...the abonimal...the abomanil...Bigfoot. And I itched like crazy. I think Mrs. Howell's fur coat has fleas.

The Professor crept along the jungle path, clutching the machete as if something was gonna jump out at him any minute. I looked back. You could still see the huts. I shook my head, which made Mrs. Howell's hat spin- I had to hold onto it to keep it from falling off.

"How far exactly are we going?" I asked.

"As far as we need to go," he replied. "I intend to leave no stone unturned in the search for new flora."

"New Flora?" I had to think about that. "Is that a place? Like New York?"

"No, Gilligan. Flora means plant life."

I wish the Professor would say what he meant.

We pushed further and further into the jungle. Soon it was clear to me that we were headed right off the beaten track. Even I don't go that far into the jungle. I like to explore, don't get me wrong. It's just that I don't like to make things difficult for myself. If the path's already there, I'll take it. After all, that's why it's there, right? But not the Professor. Now I saw why he brought the machete. He wanted to get right in there. What I couldn't understand was, if he was so keen to find new 'flora' why was he so happy to chop down the old 'flora'? Wasn't the old flora good enough? I decided to ask him, although it was kind of hard to talk with a mouthful of sable.

"Be quiet, Gilligan," he said, hacking his way through a tangle of vines.

I wasn't too happy with that answer but I decided not to press it further. After all, sometimes a man shows more wisdom by keeping quiet. At least, that's what the Skipper told me once, when he was trying to get to sleep and I wouldn't stop talking.

While the Professor wrestled with the old flora, I wrestled with all the supplies and equipment he'd made me carry. "If you're going to accompany me, you may as well make yourself useful," he'd said, before loading me down with enough junk for a trip to the South Pole. Water bottles. Field glasses. A coil of rope. Another coil of rope. A duffel bag (my duffel bag, as it happens) full of heavy hard-backed books and other journals that I'm pretty sure he didn't need to have with him right this minute. Then there was our lunch- a home-made lei of bananas, pineapples and mangoes slung around my neck which kept catching on things and half-strangling me. It was driving me crazy. We were losing bananas at a rate of one every fifteen feet. Never mind we had already passed several hundred banana trees which we could have picked off of as we went along.

As you can tell, I was starting to regret that I'd ever volunteered for this. But as I watched the Professor swinging wildly with the machete, the back of his shirt already soaked with sweat, I figured he wouldn't have been able to do this on his own. For a start, Mr. Howell's hat kept falling over his eyes and he couldn't see where he was going or what he was chopping at. Twice I had to duck and remind him that he wasn't descended from headhunters.

I wasn't about to go through all that again.

Of course, I just got asked (very politely, I have to say) to shut up and let him get on with it.

The Professor

Gilligan's infernal babbling was going to be the death of me. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? Why did we have to bring all this stuff? Can't we sit down for a minute? I burdened him down in the hopes that it would keep him occupied. Instead it just made him talk all the more. Far from protecting me from danger, Gilligan was putting himself in danger from me!

Of course, I didn't really mean all of that. Truth be known, I rather enjoy Gilligan's company at times. He's curious, there's no doubt about that. And he does listen, only he's like a sponge full of holes. The knowledge goes in, gets held for a minute or two, then slowly drains away. If you watch his face you can see the process as it happens. It's quite fascinating. (I've often thought about writing a paper on Gilligan himself. Getting right inside his tiny mind and finding out what makes him tick. I doubt it would take long. The only thing that stops me is that I'd have to spend more time with Gilligan than I already do. And when I think of that, it brings me out in hives and I have to sit in a darkened room until I've recovered.)

The deepest jungle was thick with vines that blocked our every move. I seemed to be hacking away and hacking away and getting absolutely nowhere. It did occur to me, as Gilligan had said, that I was destroying old, established flora in the search for new, undiscovered flora. But I didn't feel like getting into a discussion with him right at that moment. Besides, it would have meant admitting that he had a point. These vines had been here for many, many years, and here I was bringing them crashing to the ground.

Sweat pooled in my hair and trickled down the back of my neck. Goodness only knew how Gilligan was faring in Mrs. Howell's fur coat. He was somewhere behind me- I could hear him talking either to himself or to one of his many animal friends. That was one good thing about having Gilligan with you in the jungle. He distracted anything that might want to kill you. I pushed deeper into the vegetation. I spared a thought for the vines as I chopped them down, but all I wanted was to find my ferns. Why should my progress be stopped because of something that was already growing prolifically? This island was covered in vines. A few dozen less vines was not going to affect the already dense vine population of this island in any way whatsoever.

Ferns, on the other hand...

People will tell you that ferns are boring. They look nice in a garden, when complementing other, more decorative plants. But to me, ferns are wonderful things. They can remediate contaminated soils and remove chemical pollutants from the air. And they're old, so old. They first appeared in the fossil record 360 million years ago. They live in a wide variety of habitats, from remote mountain elevations, to dry desert rock faces, to bodies of water or in open fields. There is not a single location where you will not find a fern. And here, in the jungles of this remote, uncharted desert isle, I knew there must be ferns galore. Besides the ones we saw every day. New ferns. Ferns as yet untouched by human hand or eye.

I knew they were in there somewhere. I could smell them.

With that thought in mind, I began hacking extra hard.

Gilligan

The Professor kept sniffing. He was either getting a cold or he was allergic to chiffon. Sniff, sniff, sniff, every five minutes. I know I've got some bad habits but sniffing tops them all. Now I can see why Mrs. Howell fell out with Mr. Howell over sniffing. It was even making me want to sniff, too.

"Gilligan, stop sniffing," said the Professor.

I thought that was unfair, so I said so. "You're sniffing!" I said, giving him my best glare.

"I'm not 'sniffing', I'm scenting the air," he replied. "Ferns have a distinctive, earthy smell. Or at least, some of their habitats do. I believe I can locate a fern by distinguishing the different airborne microbes with the olfactory nerve endings located in my nasal passages."

"And sniffing," I agreed, pushing Mrs. Howell's hat away from my eyes for the ten millionth time.

"No, Gilligan. Not 'sniffing'. Sniffing is something you do when you just want to annoy someone."

I could tell the Professor was getting sore. He also looked very hot and tired. There were streaks of dirt on his face. I unhooked one of the water bottles from my belt and handed it over. He took it without saying a word, uncorked it and drank almost half the contents in one go. See? I knew it. He was getting overheated. I know all the signs of someone getting overheated. It happens around me a lot.

When he handed back the water bottle, he thanked me. It was what he needed, he said. I told him it was no problem- that was why I was there, to keep him out of trouble, make sure he didn't get eaten by a wild animal or die of thirst. He didn't have to worry- he was safe with me!

"Aren't you glad I came with you, Professor?" I said as we carried on.

Unfortunately, the string on my duffel bag chose that exact moment to get caught up on a branch. I stopped to try and free myself, but when I pulled on the bag the branch snapped off and I went flying into the Professor, almost knocking him over. We staggered around for a bit while the Professor got more and more tangled up in the water bottles, ropes and everything else that was hanging around my neck or over my shoulders, until there was nothing left of the food lei and most of Mrs. Howell's chiffon scarves were lying in a tangle on the ground with mud all over them.

We looked at each other from under the brims of those hats we were still wearing, even though there wasn't a Howell in sight.

"I'm thrilled, Gilligan," he said. "I am absolutely thrilled."

See? I knew the Professor was a good guy!

The Professor

Finding five different mutations of ragweed within the first week of my arrival on the island was quite an accomplishment, and took some of the edge off finding myself shipwrecked with the most disparate group of people I'd ever encountered in my entire life.

But nothing will ever compare to the beauty and the wonder of ferns.

Fern leaves (often referred to as fronds) are divided into three types. Trophophyll. A leaf that does not produce spores, instead producing sugars by photosynthesis. Sporophyll. A leaf that produces spores. Brophophyll. A leaf that produces abnormally large amounts of spores. Brophophyll leaves are also larger than the other leaves but bear a resemblance to trophophylls. Not many people know that.

Ferns reproduce via spores. They have neither seeds nor flowers. This is probably why some people find them boring. No attractive flowers to look at.

Why is Ginger always kissing Gilligan?

The thought almost stopped me in my tracks, coming as it did out of nowhere. Luckily I didn't actually come to a halt because Gilligan was literally right behind me, having heard an unfamiliar noise from the jungle that had turned him clingy.

I couldn't help but wonder.

What had they been doing as I stepped out of my hut? Ginger had jumped back almost guiltily. Had they been kissing? It was hard to tell with the safari hat falling down over my eyes, but it didn't look as though they had been shaking hands.

It bothered me.

It also bothered me that I was thinking about it. Was nothing going to allow me to look for my beloved ferns today?

Three years we had been stranded on this island. Every day was taken up with this outlandish rescue plan or that outlandish rescue plan. I spent more time constructing things out of bamboo and then watching Gilligan systematically wreck them, than on my own projects. My research.

My book.

Fun With Ferns might well have been published by now if I hadn't taken that fateful trip. One last holiday, I'd decided. One last chance to let my hair down before knuckling down to a few years of serious study. Fun With Ferns would have sat proudly on bookshelves in every home, alongside other weighty tomes (and personal favourites of mine) such as A World Of Facts and Volcanoes: Their Destructive Powers.

Professor Roy Hinkley, Ba, BSc, MA, PhD (et cetera) could well have been a household name by now, respected by laymen and scientists alike. Instead here I was, sweating under a ridiculous safari hat and itching inside a protective vest made of coconut hair, chopping my way through an impenetrable jungle whilst wondering why a glamorous Hollywood movie star would want to kiss a gangly young man who could not be more unsuited to her if he tried.

Life certainly did seem unfair at times.

Gilligan

I was kind of getting a little bored by then. We'd chopped our way across half the island and the Professor still hadn't found any of those ferns he was looking for. Oh, sure- there were ferns, but he'd already seen those.To me, one fern looks pretty much like another, but he could tell.

"Look! A fern!" I shouted, grabbing him by one of his trailing chiffon scarves.

"Gilligan, that's just a Bird's Nest fern, they're everywhere. I have numerous samples of them already in the Supply Hut."

"Well, what about...that one, over there?" I pulled on the scarf again. He made a choking noise, overdoing it a bit, in my opinion.

"Gilligan! That's a spikemoss fern. I have several of those, too."

I let go of the scarf, folded my arms across my chest, as far as I could with the big fur coat on and all the stuff that was still hanging round my neck. "How am I supposed to know what ferns you're looking for?" I grumbled.

"Gilligan, I did tell you I could do this on my own, didn't I? I did say I wanted a bit of solitude. But no, you insisted on accompanying me!"

I must admit, I was more than a little surprised by his outburst. "I didn't insist!" I argued. "I just...suggested it a few times until you agreed." I tried a sheepish grin, but it didn't work.

"Which is near enough the same thing as insisting, Gilligan," the Professor muttered. "You made it almost impossible for me to say no."

Was he saying he never wanted me along in the first place? After I'd carried all this stuff all this way for him? I didn't know what to think. Was he being ungrateful, or had I really insisted, just like he said? I was starting to feel really unwanted now.

"If I didn't know you, Professor, I'd say you just gave me a dirty look," I told him.

"Oh really, Gilligan? How can you tell?" He peered at me from underneath his hat and all those chiffon scarves. And then suddenly he laughed. Boy! It sure was a relief to hear that laugh, let me tell you. Pretty soon we were both laughing, shaking our heads at the stupidity of it all. "Look at us, Gilligan," he chuckled. "What we must look like."

"Yeah," I said, looking down at myself. "Two beauties, huh."

"All dressed up and nowhere to go."

"Just us and the ferns," I said. "You take the Bird's Nest. I kinda like the spikemoss."

The Professor took the safari hat off. His hair was soaking wet. I swear his head was steaming from the heat. He pulled one of the scarves from around his neck and wiped his face with it. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Howell would have had something to say if she'd seen that, but I didn't blame him.

"Are we going to go on?" I chanced. Hoping the answer would be no.

Instead, he caught me completely off guard.

"Were you kissing Ginger?" he asked. Straight out, like that.

I was shocked. My eyes flickered sideways- I didn't know where to look, even though I knew I had nothing to hide. I suddenly realised I was standing out here, all by myself, with a man carrying a machete who suddenly wanted to know if I was kissing the girl he liked. I'm not ashamed to say that I began to panic. "Was I kissing Ginger?" I squeaked. "When?"

"When I came out of the Supply Hut, dressed like this. Just before you both started laughing at me. Ginger had her arms around you, that much was obvious."

My mouth began opening and closing. I couldn't take my eyes off the machete. It felt like there were hundreds of ants crawling through my hair- although out here, it was always a possibility they were real ants.

"I wasn't kissing Ginger," I stuttered. "I'm not interested in Ginger!"

"It didn't look that way to me," he said. Was it me, or was he starting to sound a little menacing?

"Professor, maybe you should put down the machete," I said, feeling the cheesiest grin slap itself onto my face. Honestly, sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.

"The machete?" He looked down at the big knife still clutched in his gloved hand. Then he laughed again, catching me by surprise. "Gilligan, I'm not going to do anything with the machete, don't worry. I was just curious. Ginger seems attracted to you, and I can't fathom the reason why. I'm a scientist, Gilligan. I just don't like mysteries!"

"You think it's a mystery why Ginger would like me?" For some reason I was starting to feel a little offended. Although it shouldn't have bothered me because I wasn't attracted to Ginger either. Not in that way. The boy/girl way, if you know what I mean. I went ahead, though, because I was curious to see what the Professor would say. "You don't think it's because I'm handsome? Or smart? Or funny? Or that I have a certain...jenny see pa?"

"I think the phrase you're looking for is 'je ne sais pas,' Gilligan," the Professor laughed. "It's French."

"Oh yeah," I shrugged. "What does it mean, anyway?"

"'I don't know'," he replied.

"Oh. Well, I guess if you don't know, I'll have to ask the Skipper." It surprised me though, that there was something the Professor didn't know. I guess you learn something every day. I figured I owed him an explanation though. Seeing as how he was being so kind as to not chop my head off and all.

"Professor," I said, pulling myself tall and squaring my shoulders, although you couldn't really tell seeing as I was still wearing twelve tons of junk, "Ginger only wanted to know why she couldn't go into the Supply Hut. She was just trying to get her own way. You shouldn't be too worried. Besides, she does it all the time, everybody knows that. Don't they?" I glanced at the machete again, just to make sure it hadn't moved.

"I suppose so," he agreed. "Just Ginger being Ginger, right?"

"Just Ginger being Ginger." I didn't tell him it would have been a whole different story if it had been Mary Ann. Nobody knew that. Even Mary Ann didn't know that. That was my secret, and it was staying that way, at least for the foreseeable future.

"Perhaps the heat is getting to me," the Professor sighed. "And I'm not entirely sure I'm in the mood to look for ferns anymore today. Bird's Nest, spikemoss, glade fern, maidenhair fern...what more can there be said about ferns that hasn't already been said, Gilligan?"

"Um...that they're boring?" I wanted to say, but of course, I didn't. One man's meat is another man's weird bushy plant type thing, right? If the Professor wanted to get excited over ferns, who was I to argue? I liked Yogi Bear bottle caps and baseball cards, he liked strange, spindly plants that looked like little trees. I liked skateboards and licorice, he liked bracken and sedge moss. I liked Mary Ann and he liked Ginger. I liked...

...wait...I liked Mary Ann and he liked Ginger?

Maybe the heat was getting to me, too. I never come out with stuff like that.

"You want to keep looking anyway?" I asked. "We're already like, three million miles from home. What's a little further? Who knows, you might even find that fern you never saw before. And I might find an undiscovered bottle cap."

And it might take your mind off of Ginger, and my mind off of that machete.

"All right, Gilligan," he sighed. "We may as well get the day out of it. I mean, look at us. We're standing in a veritable sea of ferns. I ought to be performing cartwheels!"

"Maybe you're just out of practise," I suggested. "Maybe we should just pick one fern, and then you can tell me all about it. I'll sit down quietly, and I promise I won't interrupt. I mean, you never know. I might end up finding ferns as exciting as you do!"

"Gilligan," he said, with a positive twinkle in his eye, "nobody could find ferns as exciting as I do."

I unslung my duffel bag from my shoulder and tipped out all of his books and journals onto the ground, ignoring his soft cry of dismay. Then I sat on the ground in amongst the pile of books and picked one up at random. There was a big, leafy fern on the front, and I have to admit, it really did look kind of, well...beautiful. For a plant.

"How many types of fern are there?" I asked, still peering at this fern with its big, feathery fingers pointing everywhere.

"Gilligan, you have no idea!"

"I know that," I grinned.

"Thousands," he replied. He was already getting some kind of dreamy look in his eye.

"Then you want to tell me about them?"

I opened the book and began to flick through it. There were more pictures of ferns on every page- feathery ferns, broad ferns, slender ferns, wispy ferns, delicate ferns, green ferns and brown ferns and purple ferns even. I had never seen so many different types of something I had always thought of as boring. But here were ferns in all their glory, beautiful pictures hidden away in a book I'd never opened until now.

I was amazed. How wrong could a person be?

The Professor crouched down next to me and began to point at all the different photos and illustrations, explaining about each fern as we went along. He was really having fun with those ferns now. You could tell he was talking about a subject he was good at. And boy, listening to the Professor talk about ferns, he made them actually sound interesting! Pretty soon I had forgotten I was supposed to be keeping quiet and I started asking questions. It was like being back in grammar school, only this time I was enjoying the lesson. We sat there for a long time talking about ferns and all the things that made them different to other plants. And I think I finally realised why the Professor liked them so much.

It was because they were so different to other plants. And because maybe they were a little misunderstood. Like him. Like me, like maybe even Ginger. And if I thought about it like that, I decided they really weren't boring at all, not when you got to know them. Because ferns were like people. Every one of them was different, and every one of them was unique, and you could learn to like them all, if only you tried.

"My aim is to find a completely new species of fern, Gilligan," the Professor said when we finally closed the book. "One that's never been seen before. I'd like to be the one who gives it its name and presents it to the world. That would be my life's ambition realised."

"Think it'll ever happen?" I asked as we got to our feet in preparation for the journey home.

He clapped me on the shoulder, and for a second or two I swear he stroked the sable. Maybe he was imagining Ginger wearing the fur instead of me. At least, I sure hoped so.

"Never give up hope, Gilligan. Never give up hope that one day the thing you want most of all will present itself to you."

I guessed we were talking about ferns. But even if we weren't just talking about ferns, even if we were talking about Ginger (and I was thinking about Mary Ann), I didn't say anything. I just smiled.

Because a man shows more wisdom by keeping quiet, right?

Especially when the other man's got a machete strapped to his waist!

The End