First mate's log:
July 9, 1968
Well, we're back on the island. Not all of us, but me, the Skipper, Mary Ann, the Howells, and Mr. Brady. Mr. Brady flew out to Honolulu after he spent the Fourth of July with his family (including Alice of course) and the Martins, and then we took him and a new couple to our island in the brand new ferry that Mr. Howell bought for the Skipper. (We can take up to twenty-four passengers, less if they're sleeping.)
I guess Mr. Brady and Mrs. Martin talked things out and they're all going to live here on the island together, after the wedding in her parents' backyard Labor Day weekend. Yeah, the Skipper and I will go. We'll take Mr. Brady in the ferry to L.A. at the end of August and then take the combined family back to the island a week later.
Meanwhile, he's living in his old hut with Mr. Dittmeyer, the construction foreman. (Alice stayed in California to look after the Brady boys.) The Skipper and I are back in our hut, and the Howells are in theirs. The Litzers, the older couple who do laundry, live in the Martins' hut. Mr. Howells' valet, Hives, lives in the Professor's hut, since the Professor's working on an engineering project for Mrs. Smith on her island. Ginger is doing her movie and probably staying in Hollywood for good, so Mary Ann, who's cooking for everyone, shares her hut with Mrs. Howells' maid, Yvette. The Howells' island mansion is the first building under construction.
There are also forty unmarried men in the construction crew, living in tents this summer. Some of them flirt with Mary Ann, which makes me nervous, but I survived Duke Williams and his big muscles, so I can survive this.
Before the Skipper, our passengers, and I arrived, the others were all here getting set up. It was a shock to see how much land they'd cleared, and they'll do even more starting in the fall. The plan is for 160 people the first year, 500 the second, and 1600 the third! Even 51 feels like a lot for this island, and it's weird to not know everybody's names anymore. There's going to be three blocks of houses and one block for an apartment building for the construction crew, and then across the street (yeah, a real paved street!) there will be four blocks of businesses and services, like the school and the combined firehouse/police station/post office. Those three will be split up when there are more people on the island, but Mr. Howell is just going with the basics this first year. The Howell mansion will be outside of "downtown," where they can have "extensive grounds," like they're used to at their other mansions.
They might leave up our six original huts, at least as "historic buildings." I'd kind of like to stay in ours, but I don't know if that will be possible, and it would be nice to have plumbing and electricity and all that, which might not work in a bamboo hut. Maybe the Skipper and I can get a beach house down by the lagoon. Or we'll live on the ferry, which is really cool and has much more to it than The Minnow, like a full kitchen!
We're going to take the ferry to "the big island" twice a week this summer, for supplies and mail in the middle of the week, and then so the construction crew can "let off steam" on an island where there's already a bar and a pool hall and stuff. Only half of them can go each week, because there are so many of them.
The rest of the time, the Skipper and I will help out on the island, like gathering food for Mary Ann. Things have definitely changed, but luckily not everything. And I'll get used to these changes and more as time goes on. But I do feel sorry for the animals who had to move when their land was cleared. (Yeah, I've found Herman the turtle and Mickey the monkey and some other old friends.)
Carol Martin's diary:
July 16, 1968
The wedding is a month and a half away! Yes, I've decided to marry Mike early and then we'll move our blended family to the island, on a trial basis of two years. Mr. Howell plans to roughly triple the population bit by bit, so now Mike and fifty others are living there, but it'll be 160 by fall, then 500 next summer, and 1600 the summer of '70. Mr. Howell would've been happy having 1600 this fall, but Mike convinced him that that wasn't feasible, and a more gradual increase would work out better. As it is, even 1600 is just a small town, but it is a lot for our island.
Mike's first letter says that having so many strangers, after the same faces for four years, is odd but interesting. He's sharing his hut with Larry Dittmeyer, the head of construction, who's going to send for his family once their house is built, although apparently the Howells' mansion is getting top priority. Mike misses me and the children and Alice, and we all miss him. So, although a month and a half doesn't feel long enough to prepare for a wedding, even a backyard wedding, it's too long to be without him.
My parents have been wonderfully supportive about all this. They understand my mixed feelings but they think I should be with Mike because I love him, and he loves me. And another two years on the island, especially under more civilized circumstances, is something I can manage and might even end up loving.
The children are excited to go back and they have a lot of questions Alice and I can't really answer. One thing I know is that one-fourth of the first year's population, forty, will be schoolchildren, ten grades of four students each, which is tiny here but enough to split into two classes there. So Mr. Howell is hiring a teacher for the kindergartners through fourth-graders, which will include Peter, Jan, Bobby, and Cindy, and another for the fifth- through ninth-graders, i.e. Greg, Marcia, and students their age and a little older or younger.
The Howells are still doing their contest, going through entries on the island, looking for the right combination of professions and family sizes and I don't know what other criteria. Astrological signs? It'll definitely be amusing to see what we end up with, especially since we shipwreck survivors definitely were not a planned community.