Pirate Islands.

This is a Fanfiction story based on an Australian TV show called Pirate Islands.
There were no other stories for Pirate Islands or anything that tells of what happened to the Redding siblings who got trapped in a computer-generated world their dad created.
So I wrote this as a tribute to a fantastic Aussie tv programme.
Disclaimer; I don't own the story of Pirate Islands, It belongs to Jonathan M Shiff.

Chapter one.

Kate's room: The Redding house.

After saying a tearful goodbye to the Game character Mars, Kate programmed the scanner back to its original state. When the scanner activated in a flash, it teleported Kate Redding and her siblings out of the game world but the scanner and controls stayed inside the game.
Once they were out of the game, Kate and her siblings Nicholas and Sarah appeared in Kate's room.
On arriving back home, they found that Kate's room was as it was before the freak accident occurred with the scanner.
The bed was in its place, the computer was left untouched and all of Kate's things were exactly how she left them.
"We're home." Nicholas spoke, feeling relieved and happy to be standing in Kate's room again after what seemed to be a long time being inside the game world. Kate and Sarah looked around the whole room.
When Sarah found her words, she spoke. "It worked. We're back."
"And it's… like we just left. Everything's exactly the same. Like it never happened." Nicholas said, suddenly feeling a hint of disappointment as he had such an experience of an adventure in the game world.

"Like we imagined it all," Sarah added suddenly feeling disappointed as well.
Some sadness was growing around the three siblings Sarah heard the sound of a bell coming from Sarah's bag.
Kate and Nicholas heard the bell sound as well. They turned their heads to Sarah in surprise as they heard the sound as well.
Sarah lowered her head and opened the bag, she looked into it to discover they had taken Sarah's talking plant home. To her surprise, she found the little stowaway inside the bag.
Sarah's virtual talking flower known as Bell wriggled about in the bag when Sarah found it.
"Bell?" she said, her voice growing excited. The talking flower responded with its bell ringing sound, raising its plant head up from the bag. Sarah smiled at her talking plant, lifting her head up to look at Kate and Nicholas. "It's Bell."

The flower responded with three rings saying yes. Delighted to see Bell the talking flower, Sarah looked at her brother who stood speechless at the realisation he was sharing with his two sisters.
Kate looked at Bell now knowing that their adventures inside the computer game world Pirate Islands did happen.
She nodded her head when she spoke excitedly. "We didn't imagine it, Sarah."

Raising her head up, Kate brought her gaze to her little sister drawing a smile on her face.
"Pirate Islands is real," Kate said. Sarah drew a smile at her older sister's answer.

As they all smile at each other, Kate started to grow such hope in her heart that she would get the chance to maybe go back and see Mars, the computer games virtual hero boy again. After a few seconds, the three siblings went into a group hug, relieved that their adventures in pirate islands were real but most of all they were back home.
When the three siblings withdrew from their short group hug, Nicholas went to the clock to check the time.
He found that they had been gone for at least three minutes since that storm cause an accident that brought them to Pirate islands.
It was about thirty seconds as the three siblings breathed a sigh of relief as its not been too long since they were zapped into the game.
Nicholas went to his room to check if everything is there when they heard the front door open and some footsteps walking through the doorway.
An adult voice followed after it. "I'm home, anybody here? Nicholas? Sarah, Hello?" said a voice that they knew well.
Sarah turned her head to the hallway outside the room, Kate looked out the hallway before Nicholas walked back into the room to approach Kate. "That's dad, he must have come home early." he said.
Realizing he might see the talking plant if he came up the stairs to the room, Sarah pushed the talking plant back into the bag, telling it to shush.
Sarah looked up to Kate and Nicholas. "I better head to my room, I need to hide Bell before Dad finds her here." She said, Bell made her bell sound in agreement whilst Sarah went out the doorway heading out of the room.
She walked across the hallway when she responded. "Hi Dad, I'm heading to my room."
"Okay Sarah, Kate are you there too?" Mr Redding asked aloud to the top floor. Kate and Nicholas looked at each other realising that they still had Pirate Islands on the computer. "Yeah, yes I'm in my room dad." Kate shouted from the doorway whilst Nicholas went over to the computer.
Sitting down on the chair in front of the computer screen, he started his work typing on the computer's keyboard to save the data from the Pirate Islands game. As Nicholas was busy saving the events into a file within the computer game, Kate stepped outside the doorway of her room and walked along the hallway to the stairway. She went down the steps to see her dad appear at the bottom of the stairs.
Her dad was a middle-aged man dressed in smart casual attire and he was clean-shaven as he stood near the stairs, his hair was the same colour as his son's and daughter's only his hair had a few streaks of grey along the side of his head and on the roots of his scalp.
Seeing her dad standing there, Kate was halfway down the steps before she ran down to the bottom floor.
Once on the ground floor, she ran towards him raising her arms up to him.
When she got close to her father, Kate jumped into his arms, wrapping her arms around her dad's neck as she folded in his embrace much to her father's surprise. He stood with his daughter in his arms surprised.
He was left confused with his daughter and wondered what's gotten into her.
"I'm so glad to see you again Dad!" Kate spoke to him.
What his daughter said left Mr Redding surprised but confused with what his daughter said.
Withdrawing from their embrace, Mr Redding looked at Kate's face to see her eyes drawing tears. "Kate, honey. I've only been gone for over an hour. Is everything okay dear?" he asked.
Kate nodded to him in reply. "Yeah, everything is fine. It just felt like long months had passed since you left home."
"Okay, and where's Nicholas, is he still in his room? Or is he out with friends" Kate was about to answer him when Sarah appeared walking to the top bannister of the stairway to see Kate and her dad talking. "Dad!" she said aloud before she raced down the stairs.
Mr Redding looked up to see her coming down before he went past Kate to walk to the bottom of the stairway.
By the time Sarah came to the bottom of the stairway, she jumped forward.
Folding in her dad's embrace, Sarah wrapped her arms around her dad who was left even more puzzled. Just as Sarah laid her head upon her dad's shoulder, Mr Redding spoke. "You two Sarah? Man, I should be away at work more often to get this kind of affection from you." he said in a sarcastic tone.
"No dad, please don't go away. I missed you too much to let you go." Sarah said, holding her father tightly as he kept her head on his shoulder. Nicholas then appeared coming out from the doorway of Kate's room to approach the stairway top when he saw his dad speaking to his sister Sarah as he hugged her, he felt so glad to finally be back home to see his dad again.

Kate turned her head and tilted it to look up at her brother Nicholas.
Thinking the same thing she was thinking, Nicholas raised his left hand to make an okay hand sign to Kate as if saying the game is in good hands.
Finding that Nicholas had saved the data for the Pirate Islands game, Kate raised her head to look at him with tears in her eyes and she mouthed a 'Thank you' to Nicholas who smiled back at her and raised his hand to make an okay sign.
When their dad withdrew from Sarah to look at her, Mr Redding suddenly grew concerned as he saw her crying. "Aww, Sarah I was only being sarcastic. I'm here now and I promise that I'll be around for you and your siblings." Mr Redding said assuring her daughter.
He then turned his head over to Kate, his confusion was still hanging because of the behaviour they were showing; it was as if they had been gone for months or something.
"So Kate and Sarah, I know that you two are glad to see me. But can one of you please tell me what's going on here? You're both acting as if you two have been gone from the country for a long time. And I'm still to talk to Nicholas and ask if anything happened whilst I was away."

Realising that the way they acted was raising their father's concern, Kate took a few seconds to come up with a cover story to hide the fact that they were trapped inside the game knowing that their dad wouldn't believe them. Sarah turned her head to Kate when Kate spoke to their father.
"Well, I'm just so glad to see you dad. We did miss you so much, it just felt like a whole month had gone by all of a sudden so to speak. And we've been dealing with grief as mom hasn't been around."
"Oh, I see. Listen I know that I've spent a lot of time at my workplace and less time with you three ever since your mom passed away." Mr Redding said bringing Sarah into his half embrace as he looked at her, he then at Kate.
"I'll tell you what; if I can finish the new levels for the game design in Pirate islands then I can sell the computer game off to any computer company that might want to buy my design. Once I get a good deal done, then we can plan for a family vacation in your mom's memory, just the four of us." Their dad said. Sarah smiled at the idea as she spoke.
"Cool dad. That would be great, mom would have loved us to be together."
Kate nodded drawing a crooked smile on her face.
It was then that Nicholas descended from the top of the stairway to join his dad and his sisters.
Approaching her brother, Kate brought Nicholas in for an embrace.
Curious about what his children have been doing whilst he was gone, Mr Redding looked at the faces of his kids. He raised the question as he looked at each of their faces curiously.
"So what did you three get up to while I was away at work?" The question their dad asked took the smiles away from his three children; they each started to look nervous as they couldn't tell their dad the truth.
But Nicholas was brave enough to create a cover story for Kate and Sarah.
"Uh, we've mostly been hanging about playing a couple of card games and the hide and seek game, not much else really." He said to their dad who looked at him. "Oh, I almost suspected that one of you might have been tampering with the computer game Pirate islands. I did specifically say that no one is to play this game until I finished completing the levels designs." said Mr Redding.
"Dad, I was only giving it a test run to check for any glitches in the game." Kate confessed that part but nothing else. Mr Redding turned to look at Kate. "So you did play with my game." Mr Redding said frowning in annoyance for his daughter disobeying his wishes.
"I was just testing it for you earlier. Otherwise, it might have malfunctioned later on. And you did say how much it means to you that it be at its best. I'm really sorry I didn't listen when you told me not to play with the computer game until it was finished." Kate said, trying to defuse her dad's suspicion. Mr Redding breathed a sigh, letting his suspicions die down.
"Okay it's good that you gave it a test run for me Kate, I appreciated it. But if anything bad has happened to the computer game, then you'd be banned from video game privileges for two years. Cause it's my year's work, my contract would be broken at the same time if you damaged the game itself. My client at this computer company is looking forward to seeing it complete so he can review it and see to its distribution.
Otherwise, that's my job gone into the ocean and I won't have enough to send you three to good colleges." said Mr Redding.

Nicholas looked at Kate who looked back at him.
Kate then turned to Sarah who looked back at her. As the three looked at one another, they shared the thought of their adventures in the game being lost if anything did happen to the game.
"Dad, it's okay. Everything about the game is fine now. If you'd like to see how the computer game is working, come up with me and I'll show you." said Kate.
Mr Redding nodded before Kate went up the stairs with her dad following after her.

When they came into Kate's bedroom, Kate went to the computer and turned it on, uploading Pirate Islands as soon as the application's icon appeared on the screen. Once she opened the Icon, she pressed the start button on the game which then opened up until the uploading process was complete.
After ten minutes of checking on the game's statistics and condition, Mr Redding became pleased that the game was still working in order as it was before the freak accident. But whilst Kate sat at the desk in front of the computer, Mr Redding noticed that something was missing.
What he noticed missing as he looked around the desk was the computer Scanner and the control for the computer.
Realising that it must have been misplaced somewhere, Mr Redding decided to leave the matter be.
"Well despite the scanner being missing Kate, I can see that the game is still in good condition." Kate's dad said to Kate with approval. "Thanks, dad. I'm happy that it's still good, I think it will be quite an adventure for anyone who decides to play this new computer game on their own computers at home." said Kate.

"Oh you think so, do you still want to play a game or two now that I'm home?" he asked her.

Kate drew a grin at first but then she answered. "Actually I think I'll pass for the day. Besides you still have a lot of work to do, adding in some new parts to the game levels as you mentioned earlier."

"Oh okay I just thought you'd want to challenge your old man since you've been bragging for days that you're the best player for this game." said Mr Redding looking at his daughter.
Kate looked at her dad before she turned her sight to the screen.
"And also I like to think that I've actually lived the game's adventure." Kate remarked as she looked at the image of one particular character, Mars the hero and leader of the castaways.

Mr Redding decided to accept the remark as he turned to the computer to keep checking on the game's systems. Remembering that the scanner and controls were still inside the game, Kate started to feel unsure if she might go back to Pirate Islands.
But then Kate grew an idea in which to set things on even terms.
"Hey Dad." she spoke.

"Hmm?" Mr redding responded as he continued typing codes into the keyboard.
"I was thinking that maybe you can add a new character into your game." said Kate.
"A new character to the game?" Mr Redding asked, stopping his typing to turn and look at his daughter.
Kate simply shrugged her shoulders acting like it might not be a big deal.
"I mean if you don't mind. I have some good ideas." said Kate.

"Alright Kate, I'm listening." Mr Redding responded. Whilst Kate and her dad were talking about the game, Sarah went back up to her room to check on her talking plant Bell.

Sarah's room.

Entering her room through the doorway down the hall from her sister's room, she closed the door and went to the bed where the bag holding Bell was sitting. The talking plant resurfaced from the bag. It rang two times when it saw Sarah.
Sitting on the bed, Sarah reached into the bag and brought the talking flower out.
"Hey Bell; I'm sorry I had to hide you in the bag. I had to make sure Dad didn't suspect anything."
Bell replied with her bell sounds. "Can you understand me?" she asked.
Bell responded with three bell sounds saying yes to Sarah who then smiled.
Sarah gave a chuckle and she leaned forward, kissing the talking plant.

Afterwards, she spent the afternoon in her room, getting her shoes off and getting changed into a fresh t-shirt and trousers whilst talking with Bell who was a good listener as Sarah was changing her clothes.
She wanted to tell her friends about her talking plant but then she thought about how weird it would be to show them the talking plant in her room. So she decided to keep it to herself. She was about to make a call to one of her friends when she heard Kate call her down. Therefore, she had to leave her room to grab dinner with her dad and siblings, but she promised to bring up a pot with soil to plant Bell in.

It took at least a few minutes before Sarah came back with the pot full of soil.
Once she brought the pot to the window, Sarah planted Bell the talking plant in.

"This will be your new place to stretch your roots Bell." she said to bell which responded with her bell sounds.
Sarah kissed plant once more before she went to lie in her bed and relax after what felt like a long time away from home.

Nicholas' room.

After their conversation with their Dad downstairs, Nicholas entered his room feeling so glad to be back in his room after what looked to be months inside the Game but it was only like a minute or so in the real world.
His bed sat in the corner with a side draw next to it.
The Drawer with his change of clothes was on one side of the wall in his room whilst his desk was in the other corner of the room.
Nicholas went over to the drawers and checked if his clothes were still in there and they were, he then turned and went to his bed and lay down, feeling ecstatic about being home after those months in the game world.
He thought about calling one of his friends as he lay flat on his soft bed but then he reminisced about the series of adventures he participated in whilst inside the Pirate Islands game. Nicholas knew that he couldn't tell his friends as they wouldn't believe him and think that he might be crazy.
As he was getting used to being home, Nicholas couldn't help but feel like he was going to miss the game characters he made friends with, like Perry even though he had returned to his home in England or wherever he was from. But he knew that he wouldn't want to go back into the game. He started to look forward to hanging out with his friends at school, to hang out with them for a day or so on in the following week.

Nicholas felt bad for Kate as she had fallen for a digital boy that his dad created but then he wondered if there was another guy just like him, he hoped that Kate would be able to go back into Pirate Islands or maybe move on from all this.
But most of all he was looking forward to eating pizza for dinner tonight.
After a short while, Nicholas sat up on the bed and got out to head across to the drawer.
He started taking off his shoes before he took his green t-shirt off to get changed into something different as he had been wearing the same t-shirt and shorts since before he was inside the Pirate islands game.
Once he got himself dressed into some new clothes, he brought his green t-shirt and shorts downstairs to the laundry room to give them a good wash, cleaning out the months of staying in the treehouse and in the rainforest of the Island.
He figured that his dad was getting settled in for the day whilst his sister Kate went back into her room, probably to lie in her own bed thinking about Mars and what he must be up to.
He remembered that she said that she would come back to Pirate Island and he did say that he'll be waiting but then he remembered that the scanner and controls were left behind in Pirate Islands, so he wondered how was she going to go back to the Pirate Islands game without the scanner and controls.
But it didn't matter to him, he was just glad to get back to normal things even though he'll miss Pirate Islands.

Back in Kate's room.

After Kate and her dad came into her room, Kate uploaded the Pirate Islands game on her computer.
Kate showed her father that the game was in good condition.
Changing places with her daughter, Mr Redding looked into the computer game and started checking out the coding of the game which lasted for a short while until the diagnostics were checked and found that the computer game itself was intact.
After her dad had finished checking the game files to make sure that Kate and Sarah were telling the truth, Kate spoke to him about her idea of creating a new character for the game. Mr Redding looked at her intrigued whilst his computer game was running its diagnostics.
"So the new character that I had in mind would be a person that looks just like me with my hair and eyes, but only a modern girl of the 18th Century." she explained to her dad who listened to her thoughts.
He replied as soon as she finished. "So you're suggesting adding a new game character into my Pirate Islands game as an additional player character?"

"Yeah, Dad if it was an additional player character or a non-player character, it would be interesting to have a sort of a love story. I mean would that maybe lead to a sequel game that we could make together?" Kate said, explaining her idea to her father.

Mr Redding thought it over curious about his daughter's idea of a love story before he spoke.
"Why would you want to add a love story into my game, it's strictly made to be an adventure game to challenge any players so they may beat the levels."

"Yes it is and in honesty, I had an idea that if you could add a love interest for the game character Mars." Kate answered.
At first, her father Mr Redding wasn't sure about his daughter's Idea. "I'm not sure if it's any good I mean I did add the other girl castaway Carmen."
Thinking of Carmen who was in the game, Kate insisted that Carmen was not a love interest for Mars which led to the discussion between her and her dad. He spoke about the fact that it was his game design whilst Kate expressed some sympathy that the game characters known as the castaways were only loyal to Mars the islander who was alone on the Island.
But suddenly growing a little sympathy when Kate mentioned how lonely Mars was, Mr Redding began to warm up about the idea of the love story.
He looked at Kate who was waiting for her father's approval.
"A character that looks just like you Kate?" he asked, Kate nodded
After a short discussion about creating a new character for the game, Kate was able to convince her dad to think about creating a character that looks just like her with her name and personality to add to the computer game as a love interest for the game hero Mars.
Turning back to look at his character's face on the screen, he thought about it.
"He does look handsome, doesn't he Kate?" he asked.
Kate looked at the character on the screen when she replied, expressing her thoughts. "Yes and the bravest."
Mr Redding frowned before he turned his head to her. "What makes you say that?"
"Well having played the game I wondered how strange it would be if he was real? Or to meet him in person" Kate replied.
Mr Redding giggled at the idea. "It would be strange to have Mars, my computer game character out here in the real world. But Kate you should know that it's just not possible. Right?" he said to Kate, making sure that her head isn't in the clouds over his digital creation. Kate was almost close to telling him what really happened whilst he was away but she chose to keep it a secret, so she instead played the dumb card. "Okay, Dad, whatever you say. But I'm still hoping that maybe you could create my character and maybe I can add in the personality traits for you." Kate replied with a crooked smile on her face.

"Well if I can get one of your photos, I can scan the photo with a new scanner and work my magic. I will see what I can do but I'm not making any promises Kate." Mr Redding remarked, which made Kate draw a smile on her face.
She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her dad's neck whilst he sat in his chair and patted her shoulder.
Once she withdrew from her dad, Kate stood beside him facing the screen whilst he sat in his chair at the computer doing his last-minute check up on the game.
Kate hoped that it would help to keep her promise to Mars that she would return to Pirate Islands even though she didn't have the scanner and therefore couldn't return. With the idea of the new character for the game agreed upon, Mr Redding and Kate shut the game down for the evening so they can start making arrangements for dinner.

Back in Pirate Islands.

The game hero Mars was taking a walk across the sandy beach along the shoreline.
After seeing Kate, Nicholas and Sarah Redding vanish in front of the scanner's beam, he couldn't believe his eyes that they were gone but he knew that they were back home where their father must have been waiting for them to come home.
Placing the Scanner in a safe place in the treehouse just in case he gets any unwanted visitors or in case Kate does come back to Pirate Islands, he spent the day reflecting on the adventures he had with the castaways. Ever since Carmen and the castaways came to the Islands after they were shipwrecked, the years of living on the island started to get interesting because it brought in a whole series of new adventures. Although he couldn't understand why Carmen wanted him to come with her and the Castaways.
But when he kissed Kate before she departed, Mars finally started to see that Carmen bore some love for him as her hero.
Mars knew in his heart that he couldn't reciprocate her feelings for him, but it didn't mean that he missed her and the children who he had so much fun with. So if the scanner worked again, he thought maybe he could use it to go to Kate's world and see her.
But as he walked along, Mars raised his head to look up at the moon.
Seeing the moon that was full from where he stood on the beach, he began to think of Kate Redding, the fifteen-year-old girl who dropped from the sky and landed on his island before being captured by the pirates.
And the adventures that followed after meeting her and her siblings, Nicholas and Sarah.
"I hope that I'll see you again someday Kate, I'm still waiting for your return as I promised, Goodnight Kate Redding." he said to the sky.

Mars lingered for at least a short time before he went back to the treehouse where Kate and her siblings resided.
Once he had arrived at the treehouse a while later, he was greeted by Melvin the Parrot.
"Hello there." it said to Mars instead of calling him Imbecile. Mars looked up at the parrot and drew a grin at the Parrot learning two new words. "Hello Melvin," Mars replied to the talking parrot.
Walking past the Parrot, Mars took off his sword belt and hung it on one of the tree branches.
Opening the secret compartment he checked on the working scanner and the controls.
They were still intact since he took them from the table and placed them there.
Mars then reclosed the compartment before he went up the steps to a hammock hanging from two branches.
Once there he lay down on the hammock and went to sleep, dreaming of Kate Redding.

Later that night.

After they had pizza for dinner, Mr Redding asked his children about the scanner and the controls that he had in his computer workroom.
The three kids looked at one another acting dumbfounded but then Sarah stood up.
She was about to speak when Kate spoke to take the heat.
"I'm sorry dad but I think the controls got lost as well."

Kate braced herself for whatever punishment her father was going to give her, but instead, he simply said.
"Well you're lucky that I brought another scanner and two sets of game controls home with me. It was just in case one of you decided to play with it and cause some trouble and broke the scanner or lost it for some unexplained reason, so I'm hereby grounding you for a week starting tonight since I like the idea that you gave me about a new character lookalike of you, now you can help me clear the table."

"Thanks, dad." Kate replied before she stood up from her seat at the table and started clearing the table.

But Sarah and Nicholas stood up.
"Actually dad, we'll help out too as the three of us are responsible for the scanner and the controls getting lost." said Nicholas.
"Yeah, we are really sorry dad. So why don't you sit back and let us do the dishes." Sarah said before collecting her plate and her dad's plate, following Kate into the kitchen with the dishes in their hands. They disposed of any leftovers whilst Mr Redding sat back watching them getting to work, he wondered if some sort of miracle did happen to his children.
At first, he didn't believe it as there was no miracle that could have saved his wife from dying.
But then he paid no mind to the subject and decided to enjoy the effort that his kids were making in the household.

Once everyone was asleep in their separate rooms, they went to their beds.
But Kate couldn't get to sleep in her bed, so she slipped out of bed to head for the window.
There she saw the full moon shining from above and drew a grin.
"I hope that you'll be alright Mars. Where ever you may be, I will try to come back to the Island to see you again. And I did mean it when I said I'll be back, Goodnight Mars." Kate whispered silently to herself. She hoped that if she can, she could get back into the game to see Mars again.
Putting the matter to rest for the night, Kate went back to her bed and dosed off.

That's the end of chapter one. I've done an update on the story so that it can flow along to the second chapter. I'll be writing a second chapter and a third and final chapter on where life went for Kate Redding and her siblings and a new surprise in the middle soon enough.
Please comment on the chapter of my story and be sure to share it with your friends.