A/N: JWood201, thanks for the heads up in your review. You're right about the lie detector. I've changed it now!

Down To Earth

You can see for miles from the top of a coconut tree.

Gilligan sits there, looking out over the ocean. The whitecaps and the breakers, endlessly rushing in and kissing the shore. Ugh. Kissing. Not one of Gilligan's favourite things, but still. That's what waves do. They kiss the shore. Sometimes briefly, like a shy girl, sometimes hungrily, like they've been starved of love for a long time. The flat sand glistens, tiny crabs scuttling hither and thither. Their work is never done.

Gilligan learned to climb a coconut tree very quickly. He didn't like heights but he hadn't had much of a choice. Skipper was ordering him, and he couldn't disobey an order. He had watched the beach guys climbing the trees back in Hawaii. The way they shot up those branchless, skinny trunks using only their hands and feet. Sometimes he'd been so mesmerised he'd be walking along not looking where he was going and end up in the water, or tripping over someone sitting on the beach just minding their own business. Hey! Watch where you're going, they'd shout, and he'd scuttle away backwards, tipping his hat, apologising profusely, and trip over someone else.

When he'd finally attempted to climb a tree himself, he'd been amazed at how easy he found it. Okay so the first time had been a big deal, and scary as heck. But he'd done it. Skipper's orders. His hands held on and his feet gripped tight, even through the soles of his sneakers. After the ordeal of the first time, he began to climb more and more trees. Because he wanted to. He'd begun to enjoy it. His agility once he was off the ground surprised him. I can do this, I can really do this! He pushed off with his feet, bounced himself up the trees. He didn't even look down. Looking down was for losers. He reached the top and climbed in through the fringe of thick bony stalks and hacked off coconuts with his machete. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Look at me! I'm like one of those jungle guys. I'm like Tarzan, or Robinson Crusoe. If I had a beard, and it was blue, I'd be Bluebeard!

Up here, Gilligan could think. About himself, about his friends. About the situation they were in. About fate, about the poor Minnow, her spine broken on the shore and then finally the indignity of being utterly destroyed by a stupid tree sap glue that didn't last. Poor Minnow. Poor faithful friend. Gone but not forgotten. There were bits of her all over camp. The life preserver. The binnacle. The port and starboard lights, utilized in the Professor's lie detector machine. Have you ever been in love? Yes. With a turtle. But turtles were great. Who couldn't love a turtle? Turtles had that sad look on their faces. Like, gee, it's a good thing I'm gonna live to be two hundred years old. It takes me that long just to get to a tasty flower.

Mr. Howell's always making me do stuff. He thinks I'm his houseboy. What is a houseboy, anyway? We never had a houseboy. Mom would sometimes yell, get in the house, boy! But she never had me bring her drinks and stuff while she sat out in the garden. Mom never had time to sit out in the garden. (Not that it was much of a garden, either.) Mom worked too hard. Mom and Dad and the Howells are like, three worlds away from each other. But the Howells are nice, too.

Mr. Howell sometimes gets up on his 'high horse', as Skipper calls it. But his horse isn't even all that high, and it's only made out of bamboo, and he looks kinda silly perched on it swinging his stick and shouting like he's at a polo match. He's a funny old guy. Sometimes I wish he could meet my Dad. My Dad might think Mr. Howell is too rich for his own good, but I think they'd get along. They both hate inc...incom...pet...I can't remember the word, but it means when people can't do stuff right, especially 'folks who should know better'.

Funnily enough, I can't do stuff right, but Mr. Howell doesn't seem to mind that. He says it's just how I am. He says it's 'cause I don't know better. Sometimes he even says things like he hopes I never breed. (Well, he mutters it really, but I know I'm meant to hear.)

Don't worry about that, Mr. Howell! I'm never breeding! Yuck!

Mrs. Howell's like my Grandma. She's so funny. But she's a lady, a real lady. I feel like a klutz around Mrs. Howell. She has those little spectacle things on a stick. They crack me up. She looks through them like, oh, I don't approve of that, but you know she does.

Gilligan accidentally dislodges a coconut with his foot. There are two seconds in which he waits expectantly, his head cocked to one side. Then he smiles at the satisfying muffled thump of the hard fruit hitting the sand. Good thing the Skipper isn't standing below. Skipper's head is a coconut magnet.

Gilligan leans back, arms folded behind his head. Like a tree dweller. I'm sure glad Ginger can't climb coconut trees. Gilligan giggles at a sudden mental picture of Ginger halfway up the trunk of a coconut tree in her long, gold evening gown, shrieking because she's stuck. And we'll leave you up there, too!

Ginger is the only person on this island who still acts like she's in Hawaii and someone is gonna see her. She puts on all her makeup and fixes her hair and puts on her best dress and wobbles across the sand on her crazy shoes and then she washes the dishes or something. And all that kissing she does. I'm scared of her lips. When you see those lips pouting at you, you know it's time to run. Oh, Gilligan, you have to tell me what I need to know, or I'll kiss you. Well, she should just ask normally, like everyone else does. You want to read one of my comic books? Sure! Have one. Super Atom Man is good. Just don't kiss me, okay? It's like having two squishy oysters stuck to my face. Go kiss the Professor. Go make his face wet for a change.

She's okay though, ol' Ginger. She keeps going.

The Professor is one far out guy. He's writing this book, see. Fun With Ferns. The Professor is the only person I know who could have fun with a fern. I know he talks to them. When he thinks no-one's listening. Okay, so I talk to animals but usually you get a reaction from an animal, even if it just steals your hat and laughs at you. I never saw a fern talk back to the Professor. But maybe he likes that. They don't talk back. Not like me. I talk back. I talk back, and front, and sideways. I talk top and bottom. I talk inside and out. I talk when I'm awake and Skipper says I talk when I'm asleep. And when I stop talking, he says the silence is like thunder.

Sometimes you can't win with the Skipper.

Mary Ann is just Mary Ann. She's like a stalk of Kansas wheat. Which is where she grew up. If the wind blows this way, she goes this way. If it blows that way, she goes that way. If it rains, she shivers and gets wet. If it's sunny, she opens like a flower. She's my best friend here, after the Skipper. I could sit with her for hours and we wouldn't even have to talk. And you know, it's funny. I talk all the time with the Skipper. But when I'm with Mary Ann, butterfly hunting or doing the laundry or just sitting next to her on a rock, I feel so calm that I don't have to talk. I think you really have to be good friends with someone to feel like you don't have to always talk.

If Skipper and I ever stopped being friends, I think the whole world would stop spinning. I can't remember ever not knowing the Skipper, although I didn't know him when I was a baby and I didn't know him when I was in grammar school and I didn't know him when I used to go to the movies with my cousin Rudolph and I didn't know him when I used to ride skateboards with Skinny Mulligan and I didn't know him when I was starting out in the Navy.

But then one day I did know him. And once I knew him, I couldn't un-know him. If someone makes a mark on you inside, on your heart, you can't heal it. You can't rub it off. It's there on you like a memory. Sometimes I feel like I've known the Skipper forever.

You know I saved his life, right? And I wasn't even sure how I did that. Something pushed me from behind and I knocked the depth charge out of the way as it rolled across the deck. I don't mean someone was standing behind me and pushed me. It just felt like someone did. Like my feet took off from the deck and launched me forward and I didn't even know what was happening. I still don't remember all of the details. But Skipper says I came out of nowhere. Like I'd just materialized. A spaceman from another dimension, like in my comic books. Sure, Skipper. You can think that, but other dimensions don't really exist.

But it would be good if they did. Because then I could get us all rescued. How cool would that be? I'd be a hero for sure.

Oh, well. I guess I'd better get moving before Skipper comes out here and yells at me and I drop a coconut on his head. He's my best friend, but sometimes he can be a real pain in the neck. And before you say anything, I know, I know. I can be a real pain in the neck, too. But that's what friends are for, right? If you can't be a pain in your friend's neck, whose neck can you be a pain in?

Okay. Where was I. Coconuts. Coconuts. Just let me get the machete...

...oops, nearly dropped it. Next time I'd better tie it on. Like Skipper told me to last time, only I forgot.

Okay, coconuts, here I come.

I sure hope Mary Ann's making one of her coconut creme pies for dessert. Coconut, banana and pineapple pie. I can taste it now, all warm and fresh from the oven. Mmmm-mmmm!

I guess it's not such a bad life really, is it?

END