Author's Note: Hello, anyone who may be out there! This is my first Gilligan's Island fanfic (and it probably won't be my last). I hope you will read it and if you like it, please take the time to review. It is always good to know one's work is appreciated. Thank you.
Dress-up
Mary Ann still couldn't believe it. After everything they had done, after all the effort they had put into getting the story of their predicament on film – retrieving the cameras and other equipment from the lagoon, staging vignettes that depicted the wreck of the Minnow and showed what struggles they had to face on the island day by day –
After all that…
She had expected that if this attempt to get off the island proved a failure, it would have been because the movie the castaways made had gotten lost at sea. Mary Ann never even entertained the thought that the film could be found, seen, and still do them no good. That just added insult to injury. How could it be that people had seen the film and not recognized at least some of the people in it? Mary Ann herself was only a simple farm girl, but Ginger Grant was a movie star and Mr. Howell was among the richest men in the world!
It was as though Fate was playing a cruel joke at the castaways' expense. Were they all so expendable? Did the world not care? How could they all be so forgotten so soon?
Now she just wanted to cry.
"What's wrong, Mary Ann?"
Gilligan had spoken. He had come up behind her and was now looking at her with intense concern. Mary Ann realized that tears had indeed begun to well in her eyes.
"Oh, everything, Gilligan!" she snapped. Her bitter outburst seemed to startle the first mate, who had never seen Mary Ann so despairing. He shrank back from her slightly. Mary Ann, seeing this, remembered herself and tried to rein in her emotions.
"I'm sorry, Gilligan," she said, swallowing hard and beginning again. "It's just that… the news on the radio. I thought for sure that this time– but then– and– Ingmar Bergman and Vittorio De Sica, indeed! Oh!"
Gilligan nodded. "We're all sad about the way things turned out, Mary Ann. But we can't lose hope, that's what the Professor says. He says that, in the end, hope is all we have. Personally, I can't quite make that out, can you? I mean, on top of hope, we have all sorts of things, don't we? We have fish hooks and fishing line, we have the huts, we have food, we have clothes, we have…"
Gilligan went on absent-mindedly, smiling cheerfully as he did so. At last Mary Ann smiled too in spite of herself.
"There!" Gilligan cried triumphantly. "That's the Mary Ann I know!"
It was then that an idea seemed to strike him and he seized her by the hand. "Come on, Mary Ann," he urged quickly, and before she could protest he was tugging her along. "I know something that'll really cheer you up!"
There was an excitement in Gilligan's step that was almost infectious and briefly Mary Ann realized that, despite her sorrow, she was sharing in his jubilance. This giddy newfound sense of joy was short-lived, however, because all too soon the two of them had ducked into the supply hut and come to a halt in front of –
"The box of movie costumes, Gilligan? Oh, that's the last thing I want to see right now!"
Mary Ann's face fell. After the briefest of respites, this reminder of the castaways' recent failure gave her a relapse of melancholy. Nevertheless, Gilligan appeared undeterred.
"Don't be like that, Mary Ann," he said gently. "This'll be fun, I promise. Just wait."
He rummaged through the box of costumes as though it were a treasure chest or as though he were an eager child on Halloween. Within was all manner of attire. There were fezzes and pharaohs' headdresses. There were wizards' robes and black business suits. There was a clown costume, cowboy boots, a sombrero so huge a man's head would have disappeared under it, a pair of Harold Lloyd-style glasses, and more. Picking out a shining helmet that would not have looked out of place in the age of King Arthur, Gilligan promptly placed it on his head.
The helmet's visor slammed down in Gilligan's face just as promptly.
"I can't see!" exclaimed the poor first mate, stumbling and flailing his arms. Regaining his bearings, he moved to bring the visor up. The visor, of course, decided that this would be the best time not to cooperate and refused to budge. To make matters worse, the helmet itself now seemed to be stuck on Gilligan's head. Any of his efforts to pull it off did him no good.
"Uh, Mary Ann? Mary Ann? Could, you, uh, help me out of this thing? And, uh, could you please do it fast? There's a terrible echo in here whenever I speak and I'm starting to get a really bad headache."
Mary Ann automatically rushed to Gilligan's aid. "How do – things – like this – happen?" she grunted, pulling at the helmet with all her might. Finally, with a noise like a popgun, the helmet burst off. Mary Ann, who had not been expecting this to happen so suddenly, was sent tumbling backward. The helmet flew from her hands, sailed out of the supply hut, and crashed through the window of the Howells' hut. Luckily, no one was injured by the heavy object. Mr. Howell, at whose feet the helmet landed, could be heard to exclaim, "Egad! Has the Professor invented a time machine now?! Lovey, are we in the midst of some medieval battle? It seems I see Sir Bedivere's headgear before me!"
Gilligan and Mary Ann, in the meantime, got to their feet, disoriented by the whole ordeal.
"I just wanted to try on some of the costumes," Gilligan said awkwardly. "I didn't expect anything like this!"
"Try on some of the costumes, Gilligan?"
"Yeah, you know, like we were doing when we first got them out of the lagoon, before the Professor got the idea of making a movie and sending it to civilization. When that happened, we had to focus on using them in the film and the Professor and Skipper wanted everything to be all serious. Well, maybe seriousness was what we needed to get the job done then, but fun is what we need now, now that… you know… And I always said we could have a lot of fun with these crazy costumes!"
He returned to the crate of costumes and sifted through it once again. This time he produced a big, floppy musketeer hat with a great purple plume. "Here! Hopefully I'll be able to see when I put this on. And I bet it doesn't have an annoying echo!"
He donned the hat, and in an instant, was caught up in an elaborate pantomime. An imaginary sword flashed in his hand as he dueled with an invisible foe. Foe? Or was it foes? Gilligan waved his arm and twirled his hand this way and that, as though he were in combat with a swarm of nefarious scoundrels. His skill was remarkable, Mary Ann had to admit. It crossed her mind that if he had not decided to become a sailor, he might have made a fine mime.
"En garde!" Gilligan shouted in his most 'heroic-sounding' voice. "Stay back! Come no farther! For I am the mighty Porthole of the musketeers here to–" He broke off and looked askance at Mary Ann. "Say, Mary Ann, I've always wondered, what kind of name is Porthole anyway?"
"I believe the name was Porthos, Gilligan."
"Ohh."
The look of dawning realization on his face was adorable. Mary Ann couldn't help but giggle. It was the first genuine peal of laughter to come from her in a long while, a fact Gilligan seemed to take very seriously. For an instant the first mate's expression became almost grave, his eyes growing round with a kind of awe. In that moment he seemed to fully comprehend the extent of what he was attempting to do – and it humbled him. It was as though he felt that the laughter, the good cheer of Mary Ann was a precious, fragile thing – much too precious to be in his care – and he was marveling that a task as important as brightening his friend's spirit should fall to him of all people.
After this moment's pause, however, Gilligan resumed his efforts with added vigor. He rushed back to the costume box, and before Mary Ann knew it, she was being swathed in silks and satins of gold, purple, crimson, green... She could barely keep track of all the flurries and flashes of color now whirling before her eyes. Gilligan was a blur too, for he set about his work with such energy and speed.
At last Gilligan took Mary Ann by the hand and escorted her gently to a tall mirror on the other side of the supply hut.
Mary Ann stood speechless at the sight of her reflection.
She looked like a princess out of a fairy tale or the Arabian Nights, one of those exotic, fantastical beauties that had bedazzled her and that she had so sought to emulate in her girlhood on the dust-grey Kansas prairie. Gilligan was smiling behind her, and she saw twinkling in his hands a silvery diadem. It was only made of plastic painted over with glitter, but as Gilligan raised it aloft and placed it reverently upon her head, May Ann found more value in it than if it had been wrought of purest gold.
"Oh, Gilligan…" she finally whispered. "Oh, Gilligan…"
She wanted to say more, to thank him for this – for all that he had done – to praise his selfless devotion to her welfare. She felt a dreadful pang of guilt in her chest. She wanted to beg forgiveness for her irritation with him minutes before. No words Mary Ann might say, however, seemed an adequate response to Gilligan's actions. Gilligan, though, did not look like he felt slighted in any way. He had not done this for his own sake. He appeared contented enough just looking at the glimmer of joy and wonder now shining in Mary Ann's eyes.
"All honor to the fair Maid Mary Ann, princess of the island!" he exclaimed, kneeling before her. "I am the boldest of the musketeers. Gilligan is my name."
Here he shrugged his shoulders, temporarily breaking character. "Sorry, Mary Ann, but Porthos is as odd a name as Porthole. It didn't seem quite right. I tried combining my name and that name, but that just gave me Gilligorthos – blech! It sounds like the name of one of those monsters that ate Manhattan in one of those movies me and Skinny Mulligan went to see when we were kids. I hope plain Gilligan is okay."
Mary Ann chuckled. "Gilligan is fine, Gilligan," she assured him.
"Oh, good!" Gilligan's face brightened. He then continued to speak in that same elevated style, no doubt mimicking movies he had seen or storybooks he had read. "I, the noble Gilligan, am entirely at your disposal. Where you go, so shall I. When we go out unto the kingdom, folk shall know the one of us by the other, and stories of us shall ring from one side of the island to the other! I shall protect you from ogres, dragons and Jabberwocks – and I don't even know what a Jabberwock is! What say you, fair Mary Ann? Shall we sally forth, we two?"
He extended his arm and Mary Ann grasped it tightly. A smile stretched across her face from ear to ear.
"Let's," she said.
When the Skipper came across the two of them some hours later, they were capering about jubilantly, hollering gleefully to one another of trolls, magic, and castles. It had been the Skipper's intention to get Gilligan to perform some minor task or other, but something told him upon seeing this that he ought not to disturb them. He decided to do the task himself, and left them there, giddy and jovial as two innocent schoolchildren at play.