Everyone, thanks so much for all your lovely reviews, I am truly happy beyond words that you're enjoying this story. I'm not used to writing Mrs. Howell. But what I try to do is picture it happening onscreen, as if I were watching it on TV, and if it seems that something she (or any of the characters) would do or say, then that is how I write it. Sometimes my 'Britishness' gets in the way, but I always trust that someone will point out to me where I'm going wrong, as well as what I'm doing right.

My dog broke out in hives on Christmas Eve (great timing, as usual... honestly, dogs and kids, who'd have them.) So I have not been online much as we have both been sleep deprived and stressed. But she seems to be getting better now. The number 1 suspect is the conifer in the garden, you can smell the sap before you even get to the tree, and she is always rummaging under it.

These are the times when you wish you had Gilligan to tell you what was wrong with the animal. (Any excuse to have Gilligan).

For those wondering where Proffy was in this story... here he is!


The Professor had turned up while the girls were sorting and admiring the tree decorations. He examined a couple of his decorated test tubes and dryly remarked on how they had managed to survive another year under the weight of Mr. Howell's money. Ginger began teasing him about test tubes, making innocent yet ever-so-slightly suggestive comments that brought a flush to his neck and a wide eyed, giggling gasp from Mary Ann. The Kansan farm girl knew what it was like to live around farmers and she had heard plenty of salty language in her lifetime. But to hear these naughty-but-nice things coming out of Ginger's rosy painted lips was very different, and rather tantalizing.

In the midst of this playful banter, Gilligan arrived. The frenetic whirlwind of red, white and blue that they had all come to love came barreling into the hut without a word of warning. He raced over to the corner, picked up a shovel, then sped over to the table and grabbed the Professor's hand. But the startled Professor stood firm, and instead of racing out through the door with the Professor in tow as he had intended, Gilligan sprang back like a recoiling rubber band, bumped into the Professor, and sent him straight into Ginger's arms.

"I- I'm sorry, Ginger," Roy murmured, blushing with embarrassment.

"I'm not," teased Ginger, tracing a fingertip delicately along his eyebrow.

Politely ignoring the display of affection happening before her eyes, Mary Ann turned her attentions to the flustered First Mate. "What's going on, Gilligan?" she asked, curiously.

"Mrs. Howell found a tree she liked and Skipper was about to chop it down but then she said she doesn't want to kill it so she asked me to shovel the Professor," Gilligan babbled in a long stream of words all joined together.

Mary Ann's huge eyes widened still further. "She asked you to shovel the Professor?"

Gilligan pulled a face. "No. She asked me to get a shovel and dig the Professor."

Ginger smiled seductively at the man of science held warmly in her arms. "You're not the only one who digs the Professor," she purred.

Mary Ann pulled Gilligan gently to one side, smiling up into the First Mate's eyes. "Take a deep breath, Gilligan," she laughed. "And tell us what's really going on."

Gilligan did as he was told, calmed himself down, and was eventually able to convince the Professor and the girls that he was on a legitimate Christmas mission and wasn't just being a Gilligan.

"You're telling us that Mrs. Howell wants us to dig up the tree?" asked the Professor, a weary look already beginning to emerge on his handsome face.

"Oh! How manly," said Ginger, her lips just a breath away from his ear.

"Yeah. And it's a really big one," nodded Gilligan.

"I'll bet it is," cooed Ginger.

The Professor fell into a fit of coughing. Gilligan slapped him between the shoulder blades as he carried on talking.

"That's why I have to steal the Professor. Because if Skipper has to wait any longer out there in the jungle, there's no telling what might happen. We might end up decorating Mrs. Howell and using her for a Christmas tree!"

Mary Ann suddenly thought of something. "That reminds me," she declared. "The time! We really must get started on lunch!"

"Yeah," said Gilligan. "Skipper's gonna be starving by the time me and the Professor have finished digging up the tree."

The Professor disengaged himself from Ginger's arms as the penny dropped. "Wait a minute!" he blustered. "By the time who and who have finished digging up the tree?"

"You and me," Gilligan replied. "We're the subordinates, Professor. Chain of command, remember? First Mrs. Howell, then Skipper, then me, then..."

"Then you?" said Ginger, in disbelief.

"Yeah," said Gilligan, pulling his shoulders back. "After the Skipper comes me. I'm the First Mate."

"No wonder we're in this mess," Ginger retorted.

The Professor sighed. One of those overly dramatic 'from-the-diaphragm' sighs that suggested he would rather be stranded on the outer edges of a black hole than on this uncharted desert isle. A sigh that suggested he may have been taking acting lessons from Ginger on the sly.

"All right, Gilligan. Since there's no way of arguing with Mrs. Howell once she's made up her mind, we'd better get this over with as quickly and as painlessly as possible."

The Professor made a gentlemanly gesture of farewell to Ginger and Mary Ann. Gilligan did the same, flashing a dimpled grin while bending over in a stilted and rather clumsy bow. Then the two men left the hut, and the two girls looked at each other and burst into another fit of giggles.

"There they go, our brave and handsome men, off to save the world," giggled Ginger.

"A world run by Mrs. Howell," laughed Mary Ann.

Ginger smiled at her friend, then looked thoughtfully at all the Christmas decorations that lay spread all over the table. "We've become quite a family, haven't we, Mary Ann?" she said, rather unexpectedly. "A box of decorations that gets bigger every year, two men who are like everything to us- brothers, friends... " her voice trailed off, ending in an almost choked whisper.

"We have," agreed Mary Ann, softly. "In spite of all of our differences, we have truly become a family."

Ginger dabbed the corner of her eye with the knuckle of her forefinger. "I never in my wildest dreams imagined being shipwrecked with the man of my wildest dreams," she garbled.

"That's as straightforward as something Gilligan might say," said Mary Ann, trying to boost her friend's sudden introspective mood.

"But he's so wonderful," Ginger sniffed, smiling through her happy tears. "He's smart and intelligent, and he's never judged me for any of the decisions I've made. I can talk to him, Mary Ann. I can talk to him as though I've known him all my life."

Mary Ann gazed at the little Gilligan angel and the fluffy haired, cross-eyed angel standing next to him. "I feel the same way about Gilligan," she confessed. "I can talk to him about anything. Even if he doesn't always listen!"

Ginger laughed her beautiful, musical laugh, a laugh that always made Mary Ann feel better. "Come on, Mary Ann. Let's go and prepare a lunch fit for a King. Our three heroes are going to need it!"

Mary Ann tore her eyes away from the little angels and threaded her arm through Ginger's. With the two little angels silently watching, the girls left the hut, joking about the situations that their menfolk got themselves into.

oOoOo

The Professor dragged his forearm across his glistening brow. "I will never get used to perspiring in winter," he said, mournfully.

"Oh, come now, Professor! A big, strong man like you!" Mrs. Howell spun her parasol in the shade of a giant mahogany as she watched the men work feverishly at the tree. "You're almost there, you simply cannot give up now!"

"Gee, I wonder who picked the tree with the deepest roots in the whole history of this island," muttered the Skipper, taking the shovel from the Professor's shaking hands and plunging it once more into the earth.

"Mrs. Howell did," said Gilligan, helpfully. The First Mate was down to his undershirt, having wrapped his rugby shirt bandanna style around his head.

The Skipper smiled sweetly at Gilligan. "Thank you, Gilligan. I was afraid I was going crazy."

The three men continued hacking at the roots of the tree, taking it in turns to break their backs and poke fun at each other. All the while, Mrs. Howell observed with growing delight the efforts of her hardworking teamsters.

"All the girls love a man who works hard," she said by way of encouragement, twirling her parasol.

"Do they love a man who dies of exhaustion while doing so?" the Skipper teased back, throwing the socialite a big beaming, ruddy grin.

"Yes, they do," trilled Mrs. Howell. "They love a man who dies of exhaustion more than anything!"

"Well, in that case they're gonna love the heck outta me!" the Skipper declared, playing to his delighted female audience of one.

Meanwhile, Gilligan and the Professor passed the shovel to and fro, their faces pale with exertion.

"I wasn't made for this kind of manual labor," the Professor gasped.

"How about me? I weight 130 pounds wringing wet," said Gilligan.

"But you're a sailor," the Professor countered. "You're used to heaving-to and hoisting the yardarm."

"I sailed in the US Navy, not on the Hesperus," Gilligan grinned. "All our ships had engines."

The Professor stood on the shovel and gave it an extra hard thrust into the hardened earth. "As a biologist, I never thought I'd say this, but Skipper should have chopped this thing down while he had the chance."

"He didn't get the chance," said Gilligan, bending down to whisper sympathetically. "Mrs. Howell's been calling the shots all morning."

Both the Professor and Gilligan turned to watch the flirtatious teasing going on between the red faced Skipper, standing proud in the sunshine, and Mrs. Howell, perched ladylike on a boulder underneath the spreading mahogany.

"'All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by', "the Professor quoted, quietly. "Isn't it funny, Gilligan? how the chain of command alters day by day."

"I guess so," Gilligan mused. "Except I don't get my turn too often. And when I do, no one takes me seriously."

The Professor turned and fixed Gilligan with a wry smile. "Don't talk to me about being taken seriously," he chuckled. "I worked and studied hard all of my life, only for a man with more money than sense to call me an 'Egghead' every time I come up with a new idea. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother!"

Gilligan grinned at the Professor from under the folds of his rugby shirt. He looked so funny with the sleeves of the shirt dangling around his ears, like a poor man's Lawrence of Arabia, that the Professor couldn't help but grin back just as widely.

"You're the smartest man on the island, Professor," said the sunny faced boy. "You keep the whole group of us together."

The Professor shook his head, modestly. "You're the one who keeps us all together, Gilligan. You're the one who's shown us love, understanding, and tolerance. Especially tolerance," he added with a deep chuckle.

"You're like the big brother I never had," said Gilligan. "Or should I say the bigger brother, since I already have a big brother."

"Gilligan, I'd be honored to be your bigger brother," the Professor laughed.

The companionable moment between the two men was suddenly broken by the foghorn yell of the Skipper.

"Who told you to stop digging?" he boomed, his fists on his hips and his massive chest thrust out.

"Sorry, sir," said Gilligan, squinting into the sunlight as he snapped to attention.

"Aye, Captain," said the Professor, saluting crisply.

The Skipper turned and winked at Mrs. Howell as the younger men resumed digging, hacking and slicing their way around the lowest roots of the tree.

"Not long now, Mrs. Howell," he said, updating the happy socialite on the men's progress.

"I'm delighted to hear it, Captain," Mrs. Howell trilled, gaily. "And don't pull that face. I know you think this is all very unnecessary, but when the girls see the three of you arriving back at camp with this marvelous and magnificent tree, you will soon realize how worthwhile your endeavors have been."

The Skipper wiped his brow. There was something about what Mrs. Howell had just said, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. And then he began to hear the rhythmic chopping of the shovel, the way it thwacked into the dirt and hefted the soil. A slow and steady, 'thwack... swoosh... thwack... swoosh'. And the lyrics of a famous Christmas carol popped automatically into his head.

We three kings of Orient are. Bearing gifts we traverse afar. Field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star.

Three men. A gift. And a yonder star. Whether the star be Ginger, a real star up in the sky, or a sign of rescue, a star was a promise always worth following.

The Skipper creased his eyes against the sun and thrust out his huge hand. "Give me the shovel," he instructed, taking the proffered implement from the more-than-grateful Professor. "I'm the Captain, and I'll do the rest."


We Three Kings of Orient Are was written in 1857 by Rev. John Henry Hopkins. The minister is reputed to have written the carol We three Kings of Orient Are for the General Theological Seminary in New York City as part of their Christmas pageant.

'All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by' - from 'Sea Fever' by John Masefield (1878 – 1967)