First mate's log:

April 8, 1967

Another visitor to the island! This one is Lord Beasley Waterford, an eccentric butterfly collector. He's hoping to find the pussycat swallowtail butterfly, which the Professor says could take weeks, months, or even years! Since for once a guest is staying in the Professor's hut, because they're both scientists, obviously the Professor hopes we can all discover it first and fast.


Carol Martin's diary:

April 9, 1967

Yet another visitor promising to rescue us, this time Lord Beasley Waterford, who's hoping to catch a rare butterfly. Mr. Howell tried to bribe him and Ginger flirted with him, but he refuses to go until he "gets his pussycat swallowtail." At least he's more pleasant than Mr. Hecuba, wanting to be left alone rather than waited on.


April 12, 1967

We've tried to trick Lord Beasley lots of ways but none of our plans have worked so far. Tonight we're going to try to get him drunk on a strong "fruit tea" that the Professor brewed in a still in the storage hut. Everyone will be there except Alice and the kids, since Mr. Brady and Mrs. Martin don't want their children exposed to drunkenness. Once we get Lord Beasley drunk, we'll borrow his flare gun so we can be rescued.


April 14, 1967

Oh my! Nothing like this ever happened to me before, even in college. I've spent the past two days passed out drunk! Not just me but every adult on the island except Lord Beasley and Alice. We'd hoped to get the butterfly enthusiast drunk and then use his flare gun, but he resisted the Professor's homebrew better than any of us did.

Alice was babysitting the kids. When he spotted the swallowtail, he told her that he was unable to wake us and he was going to leave on his own, unless she and the children wanted to go. She was tempted, not just because she wants to go home but because she and Lord Beasley had a little flirtation, based on the plump lepidopterist's love of her cooking. However, she felt that it was better to stay with the rest of us until we could all be rescued. He promised to come back for her and the rest of us after he finds another rare butterfly, in Antarctica!

The children were asleep, and she decided not to wake them. She was unable to wake us up either. That was difficult to explain to the kids the next morning, although they took being abandoned by a visitor yet again in stride. When I finally faced my girls after I was revived and Alice explained, Marcia shook her head and said, "Mother, really, you need to learn to control your liquor." Sometimes she's a very grown-up ten-year-old.


April 23, 1967

The tea backfired on us, and everybody but Alice and the kids drank it and passed out for two days, and Lord Beasley left us behind. I heard on the radio a couple days after we woke up that he was going to Antarctica to find another butterfly and he didn't have time to talk about his adventures in the tropics. And I didn't think I was stressing out about it more than the other times we've been left behind, but this morning I woke up and my hair had turned white!

The Professor said to just act normal, but Ginger and Mary Ann were so shocked that they fainted in my arms! I'd go hide in a cave but I've got laundry duty this week.


April 24, 1967

Still more dubious science from the Professor. Poor Gilligan's hair turned white overnight and the Professor thinks there's a very rare chance that Gilligan has deteriorated into a very old man. It reminds me of when he said we were all aging a decade a day or whatever it was. I think it's probably just something in the climate that affects Gilligan more for some reason. Or maybe he ate something we didn't, since he likes to wander off in the jungle by himself.

Now Gilligan is acting like he's elderly, even though the rest of his body, which he's leaving to the Professor to experiment on, still seems youthful. Yes, another castaway has written a will this spring. He's leaving the kids his comic books, me his spare rabbit's foot, even though I'm generally not superstitious.

Both Ginger and Mary Ann fainted when they first saw him, and I'll admit it was a shock to me as well. But today both girls flirted with him, one at a time, to make him feel young again. Mary Ann admitted to me that she even said, "It's love. I've known it from the first." And she gave him a passionate kiss. But I think he was too busy feeling sorry for himself to realize that she meant it.

The kids have suggested having Gilligan wear his Mosquitoes wig but I don't know if it will be any help psychologically if he thinks the rest of his body is in decline.


April 25, 1967

Now I've gone bald! I'm moving to a cave so no one has to see me anymore. They can divide up my stuff before I die. I don't care anymore.


April 26, 1967

Poor Gilligan moved into a cave yesterday, because of premature baldness, and now the Skipper is joining him for the same reason. On the one hand, this is ridiculous vanity, and on the other, I think of how I would feel if I lost my hair.


April 27, 1967

The Professor found me and the Skipper in the cave we'd moved into, because the Skipper lost his hair, too. The Professor brought us our Mosquito wigs and begged for us to come back to camp. So we did but I felt really embarrassed because everyone knew, and my wig hair kept getting in my food.

Then Mr. Howell got embarrassed because there was a really big hole in the seat of his pants. The Professor said it must've been the new bleach that I tried out for laundry, and that the Skipper used a couple days ago when I left camp and he got stuck with laundry duty. I ran and got a blanket just in time for Ginger to cover herself when her dress fell apart.

The bleach probably caused my hair problems, too. The Professor says my hair and the Skipper's will grow back soon. I sure hope so. And now I have to find a safer bleach, and it's not like there's a supermarket around here.

I was pretty distracted this week, but now I wonder, was I imagining it or did Mary Ann say she loves me? I mean before she gave me that big smooch. I can't exactly ask her in case I'm wrong. And I'm not sure how I'd feel about it if it were true. I like her a lot but I'm not ready for anything serious.


April 28, 1967

It turned out that the hair loss was due to the new laundry bleach that Gilligan, and then the Skipper when Gilligan ran away, were using. I remember having some issues with Help detergent, which, no, was not named after the Beatles song or movie, because they hadn't come out yet.

The Professor says the men's hair should grow back soon. Mary Ann admitted to me she misses Gilligan's brown mop. She's embarrassed about her confession of love, but I told her he probably doesn't even remember it.

I don't feel ready to make such a declaration to Mike, although I am of course very fond of him. When I was young, it was easy to say I was in love with Tank and then Tim, but I'm more cautious in my 30s, especially because I'm a mother. And it's not as if Mike and I get much time to ourselves. I'm just glad that he's not running off to Antarctica and we have plenty of time to see this develop, unlike poor Alice.