J.M.J.
Author's note: Thank you for reading and reviewing! The next chapter will be out August 11. The most common question I've been getting on this story is definitely "When are they going to get rescued?" The problem is that that's asking for some big spoilers. After all, who says they're going to get rescued? On the other hand, if this was a printed book or even an ebook, you'd be able to at least see how much more of the story there is and get some idea of how long it's going to take to get answers, so it's only fair that I answer the question that far. The story will end in mid- or late October. I'm not entirely done writing, so I can't say more precisely than that. Once again, thanks so much for coming along on this ride! God bless!
August 9 – Wednesday
Chet was leaning against the windowsill from the outside so that he could talk to Phil. He and Tony had been cooped up in the cabin for nearly four days now, and they were undoubtedly getting tired of it. Phil definitely was. His fever had dissipated and now he was left with an ordinary head cold. Tony, on the other hand, had developed a fever the night before and was too miserable to talk. It was now early evening, and the sun was beginning to go down.
"It's a good thing Frank thought of it to take over keeping track of the days while Tony's sick," Chet was saying. "Otherwise, we might have lost track, which would be kind of disappointing."
"You still think that it matters?" Phil asked.
"Sure it does." Chet paused. "I don't know if I can explain exactly why. I mean, obviously we'd want to have some idea of how long we've been here. But even though we don't have to go anywhere, it seems important to know what day it is."
"That's good." Phil chuckled dryly. "If it was up to me by myself, we probably would have lost track by now."
"Well, yeah. I mean, you've been sick."
"I meant even before that. After all, suppose we never get back to civilization, and all we do for the rest of our lives is try to survive here. What would it matter what day it is? For that matter, since eventually, one way or another, we'd fail at surviving, what would anything matter?"
Chet shifted his position. "Huh. That's kind of deep."
"No, it's not. It's depressing."
"Then why think about it?"
"I don't know," Phil admitted. "It's weird. I know that things do matter, but I've had a hard time believing it lately."
"That's why it's a good thing we're not like Eli, then. If any of us were alone like he was, it would practically be impossible to get past it when you start getting depressed. With six of us here, we'll probably not all get down at the same time. That way whoever's doing okay can help the others out."
"I hope it works that way," Phil replied.
Chet turned away thoughtfully, looking out toward the sunset. The palm trees were obscuring the horizon itself, but the brilliant colors were still visible in the sky. Probably once both Phil and Tony were better, Phil would go back to being more positive, Chet thought. At the same time, he didn't quite believe it. Phil had been taking all this the hardest of any of them. Cheering him up again might not be so easy.
HBNDHBNDHB
"You know, I think we can call this project a wrap," Joe said, surveying the area in front of the cabin. They had cleared it off, including the garden off to the side, which was looking much more like a garden than a patch of wild plants. There would be maintenance to keep it up, but the main work of cutting the overgrowth back was finished.
"Yeah," Frank said. "Now what are we going to do?"
Joe shrugged. "Maybe actually have some fun for once?"
Frank sat down next to the fire they had built. As long as he and Joe, Chet, and Biff were sleeping outside, they were keeping a fire burning all night to help ward off the snakes. "That's going to get old quickly."
"Maybe for you," Joe muttered.
Frank sighed and shook his head. This situation with Joe was getting old. It felt like now they were just disagreeing with each other for the sake of disagreeing. The sigh that Joe heaved indicated that he felt the same way. It might be best to just overlook it this time.
The silence that followed was broken when Biff came in along the path down to the beach. The Hardys stared at him incredulously.
"What were you doing out there by yourself?" Joe asked.
Biff ducked his head slightly. "I was hoping no one would catch me. I guess it doesn't matter. I'd have to 'fess up anyway. See, I left one of the fishing poles down on the beach. I thought maybe I had dropped it on the path, so I thought I'd look just in case and maybe I wouldn't have to tell anybody about it, but I didn't find it."
"Great," Frank grumbled, but then he added, "I mean, it's not that big a deal. We can find it tomorrow."
"Unless I did leave it on the beach, and the tide comes in and washes it away," Biff said.
Frank and Joe glanced at each other.
"Okay, we probably better go get it," Joe said. "Let's go before it gets dark."
He and Biff hurried down the path to the beach. Darkness was beginning to settle before they reached it, and under the trees, it was already hard to see where they were going. If there were any snakes in the trees, the boys wouldn't be able to see them.
However, they reached the beach without incident. Biff located the pole leaning against a boulder, and they started back, walking quickly in the rapidly increasing darkness. There were dozens of nighttime sounds on the island, of birds and insects and wind, and the boys had learned to ignore most of them by now. One sound caught Joe unawares, and he froze to listen to it.
Biff also stopped. "What is it? Do you see a snake?" He was looking around him in the trees, although it was too dark to see anything.
"No, I thought I heard something. Shh!" Joe held his finger up as the sound was repeated.
It was distant, but once they had paused to listen, it wasn't hard to hear. It was human and feminine. The girl was somewhere not too far away, calling out a single word. The boys didn't know the word, but they recognized the tone.
"It sounds like she's in trouble," Joe said after the call was repeated.
"Do you think she ran into that snake?" Biff asked in a whisper, as if the snake might be summoned by simply mentioning it.
Joe doubted it, but then there wasn't much that a snake that size could eat on this island. Maybe it wasn't such an outlandish fear. "We'd better see what's going on. Come on!"
He started toward the sound, but Biff hung back for a few seconds. Traveling the path in the semi-darkness was frightening enough, but plunging into the jungle in the dark was much worse. Even if they didn't cross paths with any snakes, they could easily get lost. At the same time, he knew that attempting to persuade a Hardy to not help someone in trouble was an impossible task. Besides that, he didn't want to see anything happen to that girl himself. He followed Joe.
The girl would call out every few seconds, and when she heard someone coming toward her, she called more frequently, so it was no difficulty to find her. She was down on another part of the shore, where there was just enough light left to see her leaning against the trunk of a palm tree. She looked up at them, but then her head drooped back down against the tree. The boys paused a few feet away from her.
"Is something wrong?' Biff asked her.
"She's not going to understand what you're saying," Joe reminded him.
He crouched down and tried to make himself look as non-threatening as possible as he approached her. The girl was tense, but she didn't recoil. Joe already had a guess what the problem was, so he reached out and touched her forehead. She flinched, but that was her only reaction. Her forehead was hot.
"It feels like she's got a fever," Joe reported.
"Do you think she's got the same thing as Tony and Phil?"
"Maybe. It could be something else, too. We'd better get her back to the cabin."
"If she's willing to come," Biff pointed out.
They motioned for the girl to get up, but it took several minutes before she apparently understood. She got to her feet, looking very shaky and uncertain.
"I don't think she can walk all the way back," Biff said.
Joe agreed, and so they decided to see if she would let them carry her. She was tense at first, but after a few minutes, she began to relax and get drowsy. Biff and Joe took turns carrying her most of the way back to the cabin, detouring first to their fishing beach since they could be sure of finding the path from there. It was night now and they couldn't see anything once they were in the trees.
Finally, they saw the light of the fire in the clearing in front of the cabin and could make out Frank's and Chet's silhouettes as they sat next to it. They must have heard the other boys coming, because they stood up and hurried to the edge of the clearing.
"It's about time!" Chet shouted to them. "We were about to go and start looking for you."
"What took…" Frank started to ask, but he stopped when he saw that Biff was carrying the girl. He changed his question. "What happened?"
"She's sick," Joe told him. "She has a fever. We heard her calling for help."
The girl must have recognized that she was being spoken about. She raised her head and glanced about, blinking in confusion. Then her eyes fixed on the cabin. She gasped and began struggling against Biff, who instinctively held onto her.
"It's okay," he told her, trying to make himself sound comforting. "There's nothing to be scared of here."
The girl's struggle wore her out in her weakened condition, and so she stopped. Instead, she started to cry, and Biff was left holding her and looking very uncomfortable.
"What do you suppose she's so scared of?" Chet asked. "You don't think it's us, do you?"
Joe shook his head. "I don't think so. I mean, she seems a little afraid of us, but she was fine until we got here. It must be something here."
Frank glanced at the cabin. "That's not too hard to figure out. We didn't like finding Eli in there. She might have seen him before we came and might be worried he's still there."
"Hmm. Probably," Joe agreed. "In that case, we're not going to get her into the cabin. Maybe she would at least be willing to stay in the clearing."
He and Chet quickly found some palm branches to make her a bed and Biff laid her on it. She still stared distrustfully at the cabin, but she either was too weak to escape or decided that this arrangement was acceptable, because she didn't try to get up. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep.
