It took about thirty to forty minutes to cross through the jungle. Lola was not fond of the forest environment that can potentially dirty her dress more which it did as a few green smudges are visible on her lower gown. She had tripped on small sticks a few times and landed on some grass, smudging her gown. The hygiene-conscious princess always grumbled in frustration every time that happened. Lana, on the other hand, liked traveling through the forest because she hoped she will find some animals which she did as she spotted some wild frogs and pigs. Lola would always scold Lana for trying to catch a frog and forced her to release it which the tomboy angrily complied. Because of this, the tomboy would sometimes sneak off to try to catch the amphibian. When she does, she would hide it in her pocket so Lola cannot catch her; however, Lana would always get caught because the darn frog always had to croak so loud. After so many attempts to catch the frog and Lola's angry scoldings, Lana finally gives up and began focusing on the travel to the mountain. Lisa, like Lana, was fascinated by the beautiful greenery of the jungle and the animals and insects that inhabit it. Lisa would stop walking a few times to analyze a plant, animal, or insect. She would call the plant or creature by its scientific name and state a few interesting and amazing facts about each species to her older twin sisters, which Lola didn't really care, but Lana did.
After crossing the jungle, the three Louds finally reached the pink mountain. The mountain was really tall, its peak seemingly touching the clear blue sky. The young Louds took notice of the mountain's tall height and were amazed by it. Lola, though her idea was to climb the mountain to start the fire, was no longer up for mountain climbing as it was taller than she thought. Lana and Lisa, however, are up for it. Lana wanted to practice her rock climbing skills taught by Ranger Marshall back when they were at camp last summer, and Lisa, well, she just wanted to analyze some rocks and determine the age of the mountain to confirm the age of the island knowing that islands are formed from underwater volcanoes.
"Okay…" Lola uttered. "On second thought, how about we walk back to the beach and build a fire with our class?" Lola was desperate to avoid climbing the mountain as she knew it would involve getting her princess gown dirty even more, which she does not want considering she likes being clean, and it would involve a lot of work, which she does not want to do considering she sees herself as a princess and on the top of the hierarchy, not in the working class.
"Come on, Lola!" Lana protested. "This was your idea to climb the mountain, and we just traveled through the jungle! No backing down now!"
"Lana has a point," Lisa agreed. "If you want to increase our chances of being rescued from this might-be island, the only way is building a fire on high altitudes. Then again, we can still build a fire on the beach with our school companions, but our chances of being rescued will decrease by 3.0089765125908765 percent, or approximately 3.009 percent."
Lola is faced with a decision. She does not want to risk dirtying her dress even more by climbing the mountain, but she also wants to get of this island, if it is an island, as soon as possible, and the chances of a distant ship spotting their smoke signal will greatly increase if they make a fire on the peak of the mountain. After being conflicted by her choices for a few minutes, she finally makes a decision.
"Ugh! Fine! We'll climb this stupid mountain! But it better be worth getting my precious gown even more dirty if we finally get off this island!" Lola points angrily at her two siblings. She really hoped it was worth ruining her pretty gown.
And with that the mountain climbing began. Lola began climbing first followed by Lana and Lisa. It was a very difficult process. The three young Louds would always get scratches from their legs and knees by accidentally cutting themselves from pointy pink rocks. Their clothes also dirtied even more from the dust and dirt of the rocks and ripped even more from more pointy rocks, but Lola's gown suffered the most. Sometimes Lola had to use her knees to climb, and when she did her gown ripped. The ripping sound would echo throughout the island due to sound waves bouncing through the rocks; the sound would even startle Lana and Lisa. Lola's face, of course, would turn red every time this happened, but she held her anger in and kept on climbing. A few times the children grew tired from climbing so many rocks as their limb muscles began hurting, so halfway up the mountain they sat on a few boulders and rested for ten minutes before resuming.
After about twenty minutes of climbing, they finally reached the peak. As they made it, they did not hesitate to look around the island from the mountain's view. The mountain is surrounded by the greenery of the forest almost inhabiting the entire island if it weren't for the mountain getting in the way. The island is also surrounded by the coast as well as the sea by all sides. Lana does a three hundred sixty-degree turn and saw the glistening waters on all sides, indicating that the island is indeed an island.
"Welp, this confirms that were stranded on the island," stated Lana.
Meanwhile, Lola is setting up the fireplace. She places the rocks that she found on the peak in the shape of a circle. Then, she grabs the wood she collected from the jungle and placed them inside the circle. Next, she builds the wood in the form of a miniature Native American hut, and she is finally finished. She had successfully built the fireplace; now all she needs is to start the fire.
"Lisa, can I borrow your glasses for a bit?" Lola asked politely.
"Sure, dear sibling."
Lisa hands her glasses to Lola. The princess hold up the nerd's glasses to make one of the sun's rays to go through the lens. As a peck of sunlight shone through the lens, she slowly and carefully moves the glasses downward to aim the sunlight towards the small pile of wood. As the sunlight made contact with the wood, a small wave of smoke is admitted indicating that the wood is beginning to burn. Immediately, the wood burst into flames. Lola makes a small, but warm smile (no pun intended) as she feels the warmth of the fire.
"Fascinating," said Lisa. "How do you have the knowledge of aiming the sun's rays towards the wood at an obtuse angle to ignite the wood?"
"Ranger Marshall taught me and my former first grade class," replied Lola. "She taught us the basics of camping."
"Intriguing…" Lisa placed her fingers on her chin.
"Okay. Now we got the fire started like you wanted," Lana giggled at her unintentional rhyming, "I just made a rhyme," she then returns to seriousness and impatience, "now can we return to the beach and let the others know now?"
"Yes we may," replied the princess.
~~~
Lisa and the twins found themselves traveling through the jungle again after climbing down the mountain. Lana tried so hard to hesitate from catching any more frogs, Lisa analyzed more species of plants, animals, and insects, and Lola is very cautious when she walked worrying she might fall and dirty her dress again, which now was very torn and had lots of holes on the bottom part of the gown.
About halfway through the jungle, the three children stopped in their tracks as they began hearing squealing sounds coming from nearby. The squealing sounded like an animal in distress.
"Ugh, what is that horrible noise?!" Lola complained.
"It sounds like an animal in pain," said Lisa in her usual monotone voice.
Lana places her hand next to her right ear to listen carefully to the squealing, "Whatever it is, it's coming from the right. Let's check it out."
The group began sneaking through the bushes and plants, following the noise. The squealing increased in decibels as the group got closer to the sound. As Lana moved two branches of a plant from her face, they saw what was making that horrible, distressful squealing. A piglet was running and shaking in distress, but it was not moving. The poor piglet's left hind leg is stuck between two stones and is struggling to set itself free.
"Oh no!" Lola covered her mouth in shock. "Poor little piggy! We must help it!"
Suddenly, to Lola and Lisa's surprise, Lana begins sneaking up to the pig. At first Lola thought she was going to catch the pig and keep it as a pet, so she tried to stop her, but Lisa stopped her first, reassuring that Lana is going to help the pig, calming the angered princess down. At least that was what the intellectual Loud thought when Lana finally reached the struggling piglet. She goes through her pocket and pulls out an object Lola and Lisa would never think Lana would pull out: a shiny kitchen knife. The tomboy raises the knife high into the air as she prepares to strike it down at the poor animal; however, she hesitates as she looks for a place to stab the pig. Should she stab the pig in the back, or should she turn over the pig and stab its stomach? Lana even began quivering as nervousness took control of her body. Then, she noticed that the stones holding the piglet's leg in place is beginning to crack. The stones cannot support the force of the pig's struggles for long. Then, it happened. The stones break into pieces, and the piglet bolted into the plants of the jungle. Lana had missed her chance to kill her prey.
"Aw! Dang it! It got away!" Lana complained, clenching her knife in frustration.
Suddenly, Lana felt a sharp pain on the back of her head. Turns out it was Lola who smacked her in the head.
"What are you? CRAZY?!" Lola shouted in anger. "Why would you try to kill that pig?!"
"What else, Lola?! We need it for food!" Lana shot back. "We ate all of our snacks on the plane! We have nothing left! So we need to hunt for food as well as eat the fruit growing on the trees!"
"Oh, right," Lola calmed herself down.
"And speaking of hunting, why did you hesitate?" Lisa questioned. "You had your chance, but you hesitated for too long and the source of food escaped."
"Well, I wasn't sure where to stab the piglet. I also became nervous and I quivered as if I was scared to hurt the poor animal. Maybe I was. I just couldn't do it!" Lana explained as she sighs. "I guess I have to work on my hunting skills."
"I also have a question. Where did you get the knife?" Lola questioned.
Lana looks at her knife in hand as her twin sister asked that question. She grew nervous, "Well...umm...I found it on the plane. I was gonna use it to scrape butter on my toast, but I guess it's also useful for hunting." The tomboy smiled nervously at her twin.
"Sure you did," Lola squints her eyes at Lana in suspicion. "Anyway, we gotta get back at the beach. The others are waiting for us."
"Right."
"Come on! Let's go!" Lola ordered.