First mate's log:
January 20, 1967
Wow, it was crazy enough when Mr. Howell's lookalike showed up on the island, but now I have a lookalike! He's a Russian spy and I think Igor told him about our island. Not Dr. Balinkoff's assistant Igor but Igor the cosmonaut. Him or Ivan. And this guy, I don't know his name, probably Boris or something like that, is going around pretending to be me, and he's got the whole island fooled. No one believes me. They think it's a story I made up because Mary Ann caught me with an empty pie plate and I do love her coconut cream pies. I've got to capture the spy and show everyone I'm not lying.
Carol Martin's diary:
January 21, 1967
Gilligan has gone crazy. He insists that he has a lookalike who's a Russian spy! Unlike when Mr. Howell had a genuine lookalike, no one has seen the two of them together. Mr. Howell's lookalike did his best to act like the real Mr. Howell, but Gilligan's "twin" has been doing some un-Gilligan-like things, like blaming the Skipper for the shipwreck and flirting with Ginger! The Professor thinks Gilligan is experiencing a form of "alienated schizophrenia," where one self is acting on his subconscious desires. I hate to think that Gilligan really believes the children are "brats," as he called them today, making Bobby and Cindy cry.
I hope he snaps out of this soon, because it's almost as bad as when everyone could read each other's mind.
February 5, 1967
In the end, the Russian spy left in his little boat and no one believed me but the Skipper, and that was only because the Professor found the gold pocket knife that I'd told the Skipper the spy had. I had to go around apologizing to everyone else for things that the spy did and said. They've all forgiven me by now.
And today I went fishing in the lagoon and I caught a box of vegetable seeds! Everyone is really happy about that. Well, not the kids, since like most kids they hate vegetables, but the adults are happy. I'm looking forward to the spinach, because I want to be strong like Popeye. We already have some vegetables on the island of course, but we can always use more. And, yeah, it's too bad that I didn't catch citrus fruit seeds back when we were worried about scurvy.
Mary Ann will be in charge of the vegetable garden because she grew up on a farm. She and Alice are already thinking about recipes.
February 8, 1967
Gilligan did go back to normal a couple weeks ago, his mental illness going as quickly as it came. Then he found a crate of vegetable seeds, which I hoped would bring a welcome addition to our diet. I don't know much about gardening, and I thought that it would take weeks or even months for "Mary Ann's crop" to come up, but already the vegetables are emerging in the strangest forms: spiral spinach, rings of corn, string-bean pretzels, forked carrots, sugar beets shaped like pyramids, and very curvy ginger.
Mike and I have agreed that, for once, the kids don't have to eat their veggies. We're dubious about eating them ourselves, although we don't want to hurt Alice and Mary Ann's feelings at dinner tonight. The Professor, with another of his crackpot theories, says that the plants are just developing strangely because the seeds were submerged in salt water. If need be, I'll say that my doctor back home put me on a low-sodium diet three years ago.
February 9, 1967
The vegetables grew really fast and weird, but I didn't care because I wanted to eat spinach. The Bradys and Martins didn't want the veggies, but that meant more for the rest of us. I had the spinach, the Skipper had some corn, the Professor string beans, Mary Ann carrots, Alice sugar beets, and Ginger of course ate the ginger. The Howells had a little bit of everything.
We listened to the radio and there was a report about a crate of radioactive seeds that fell off a boat in the South Pacific.
Jan asked, "What's radioactivity?" and I was really impressed that she pronounced a big word like that when she's only in the first grade.
The Professor explained it and I didn't understand everything about it but I remembered from my Navy training that radioactivity is bad.
Marcia said, "Greg, you said it had something to do with using a radio."
"Well, they just said it on the radio, right?"
"Where did you kids hear about radioactivity?" Mr. Brady asked. "I mean before just now."
"Greg read it on that crate that Gilligan took to the playground," Peter said.
I'd figured they could use it to build a fort or something, and I didn't notice any words when I lugged it over there. But the Professor now thinks that the seeds might be dangerous. He's told us to keep an eye out for symptoms. I just hope my hair doesn't fall out or something.
February 10, 1967
The seeds are radioactive! Mike, the kids, and I didn't eat the vegetables, but everyone else did, although the Howells in moderation, so they don't seem affected as yet. But Gilligan is very strong, the Professor uncharacteristically cheerful, and Alice extremely energetic. Mary Ann has great eyesight and Ginger has such a good memory that she says that if she can't go back to her Hollywood career when we're eventually rescued, she can do a memory act in nightclubs. As for the Skipper, well, he's understandably embarrassed, but the corn has made him very regular.
The children are impressed with the "superheroes" on the island, just like in Greg's tattered comic books, but I've warned them that we don't know the negative side effects of radioactivity. The Professor is optimistically trying to come up with an antidote. Since I'm more of a pessimist (at least since I got marooned), I wouldn't want to try the cure and would probably stay with the radioactivity, if I had to choose.
February 12, 1967
Well, I was super-strong for a couple days, because of the radioactive seeds, and the others had superpowers, too. The Skipper's is too embarrassing to say, but I had to wash my mouth out with soap anyway, because the Professor, who was smiling all the time, said that soap would counteract the radioactivity. So now we're back to normal and planning a Valentine's dance. I don't think I'll ask anyone. I'm not even sure if I'll go. I might just stay home and say I'm tired from all that heavy-lifting I did.
February 15, 1967
We had a Valentine's dance last night. No one took a "date," except of course the Howells. But I did get to dance with Mike more than with the other men.
Interestingly, Gilligan offered to help Alice babysit, since he said he was tired from being radioactive. And then Mary Ann offered to sit, so that Alice could go to the dance. I don't think anything happened, not with six sharp-eyed little chaperones (as I well know from trying to have moments alone with Mike), but I did think it was cute, like we were back home and Mary Ann was the coed babysitter with a boyfriend helping out. (We've all of course forgiven Gilligan for the "brats" remark. He wasn't himself that day.)
