Chapter One
After three years on the island, Gilligan pretty much knew the topography like the back of his hand. His first forays into the jungle had been fraught with tension and the anticipation of danger, but he soon came to learn that the only things they needed to worry about were head hunters, secret underground ammunition dumps left over from the war, giant spiders, quicksand pits, the very occasional saltwater crocodile (only one in all these years, but one could never be too careful), the odd jungle boy, the unexpected hidden biplane, and of course, the volcano.
Gilligan was schlepping around the foothills of the volcano, looking for collectibles. The landscape around the base of a volcano was always ripe with treasures. The Professor had explained to him about all the different types of volcanic rock, but as soon as the language turned into Science (and even worse, Latin), Gilligan switched off. He did remember that there was something called magma which turned into lava, and for some reason he couldn't get the term 'igneous dykes' out of his head. But as the sun made its way across the sky and the birds sang and the breeze cooled the back of his neck, Gilligan was content just to mooch around looking for interesting new rocks.
It wasn't long before he stumbled upon a very interesting looking rock indeed. It glowed as if it had been expelled from the volcano just that morning- but as the angry mountain hadn't erupted since the Professor bombed it into submission, there was no way this rock ought to be glowing. Gilligan's interest was well and truly piqued, and when that happened, he tended to follow his curiosity without a second thought.
He bent down and picked up the rock.
He was surprised to find that although it glowed, it wasn't so hot that it burned his skin off. It was just comfortably warm, like a baked potato at just the right temperature for eating. In fact, it even resembled a baked potato somewhat, until an experimental nibble told him that it was definitely a rock. He pulled a face and cradled the rock in both hands, gazing into its beautiful reddish, yellowish, orangeish, greenish, blueish, magenta-ish, heliotrope-ish core. And as he did so, a feeling of pure warmth and joy seeped through his palms and into his bloodstream, travelling all the way around his body, eventually ending up in his heart.
Gilligan suddenly felt like the happiest man on the planet.
He knew he had to share this piece of treasure with Mary Ann.
He just knew.
Clutching the warm, glowing rock tightly in both hands, William Gilligan, First Mate of the SS Minnow, bounded through the jungle towards the huts, a broad grin on his face, thinking only of Mary Ann and how she would react when she saw what he had brought her.