106: "Character Study"
Something very strange happened as morning broke.
One minute, they had been stewing in silence, hating each other, hating themselves… and then Mary Ann turned and brushed one hand across Gilligan's cheek.
"You're hurt," she said, tracing the gouge a murder-parrot had left in his jaw. And then she stood. "Where's the first aid kit?"
Skipper stared for a second, a bit taken aback by this change in mood. "It's the hut," he said. And then, "I'll get it for you."
It was almost jarring how quickly the mood changed. Mary Ann went to work sanitizing and patching up Gilligan's wounds, and as she did, Gilligan pointed out that she was torn up, too, as were Skipper and the Professor.
And then, under the early morning sky splattered with pink clouds, they were all cleaning each other up, making sure they were okay, caring for each other. The Professor showed the Howells and Ginger how to dress the wounds. The Skipper cross about being used as their medical mannequin, but his scratches were getting cleaned and patched, however slowly.
"There," Mary Ann said when she'd finished with Gilligan. Without hesitation, he went to work on her.
When they were all patched up, the exhaustion hit. With the pain gone and the tension and anger diminished, everyone suddenly realized how miserably bone-tired they had been all night.
"It's time to turn in," the Skipper said. "We've all had a long and disappointing day, but we'll be talk about a new rescue plan after some rest."
The cots felt stiff and unfriendly now that they were no longer promised to be temporary. Everyone tossed and turned, panicked in their own heads, for just a while before sleep. Still, they were tired enough to sleep like the dead, and so the dread didn't last long.
The Skipper woke first, in the early afternoon. He hadn't nearly gotten enough sleep since last night, but that was nothing new to him. He sat at the beach, next to the burnt out firepit, and hoped he would be struck by an inspiration before the rest of the castaways woke up.
But when the Howells came down and demanded to know what the new plan was, the Skipper had nothing to offer them.
Fortunately, Gilligan came down shortly afterward and announced that he'd be catching everyone some fish so they could have a proper meal again, and his optimism stopped the Howells from getting too worked up. And when Gilligan returned later with a decent catch for the day, Marry Ann offered to help him prepare the meal.
It didn't taste as good as a couple of days ago, when their spirits had been high, but Gilligan and Mary Ann had tried their best, and that seemed to keep everyone else from falling into a despair.
The Skipper's plan was not especially helpful. He had to make something up, just to have something to tell the castaways. For now, all he could think to do was keep the rescue fire lit and keep eyes on the ocean at all times.
"And Professor, if you could keep working on the radio, maybe we can—"
"Irving!" Gilligan exclaimed suddenly, jumping off of the log where he'd been sitting.
"What" The Skipper looked behind him and sure enough, there was the big black dog.
"Hi, buddy!" Gilligan reached out toward the dog, who allowed him to give him a scratch behind the ears.
"Oh, what a good boy!" Mary Ann gave the dog an affectionate pat, and then Ginger did the same.
The Professor furrowed his eyebrows. "I wonder how a domestic dog made it all the way out here. I've been perusing Corrigan Feldman's journal entries, and I didn't see any mention of dogs, companion or worker. But it's possible that it was his expedition that introduced the species to the island."
"Give him a pet, Professor," Gilligan encouraged.
The Professor rolled his eyes a bit, but obliged, and Irving wagged his tail. "That's strange," he said, bending down to examine Irving.
"Oh, no it's not, Professor," Gilligan said. "Dogs love getting pet. And they wag their tails when they're happy."
"What?" Professor wrinkled his eyebrows. "No, I know that. I meant this." He pointed, and everyone could see the black blotches tattooed to the pink skin on the inside of Irving's ears.
"H/CM," the Skipper read on one ear.
"092624E?" Gilligan finished on the other side.
"What the heck does that mean?" Mary Ann asked.
"Well," the Professor said, "if these tattoos are anything like racing dog tattoos—which I happen to know a little something about—the number preceding the E would be indicative of a birth date, and the E would indicate that this dog—"
"Irving."
"—Irving was the fifth dog in his litter."
"Ooh, maybe when it's September we can throw him a birthday party!" Gilligan exclaimed.
"I'm hoping we won't still be on the island then," Mr. Howell remarked.
"Besides, that can't possibly be right," the Professor realized. "If that number was indicative of his birth date, it would mean he was born in 1924, almost 100 years ago."
"Or maybe he's from the future!" Gilligan suggested.
"The only thing I know for certain the tattoos mean is that the dog has been in contact with humans in his lifetime," the Professor said thoughtfully. "Dogs his size only have a lifespan of about twelve, so it means someone's been here recently. Much more recently than Corrigan Feldman's expedition crew."
"Well, why would someone just leave a dog here?" Ginger asked.
"Who knows," Professor said. "He could be a hunting dog that got lost. Or perhaps a biological research subject that was placed here to adapt. But this is good news!"
"Not for Irving." Gilligan frowned. "He lost his humans."
"I mean, if hunters or researchers have visited this island in the past, they might come back!" Professor exclaimed. "They could be our rescue!"
The confirmation that the island was not completely abandoned was good news for everyone. The Skipper relaxed a bit, and Gilligan tossed Irving the rest of his meal. The big black dog lapped it up gratefully before curling up next to the fire beside the happy humans.
/
It became their routine: Gilligan rose with the sun to fish, and Mary Ann joined him later, prepped the first for eating, mixing them with the canned goods. Irving appeared during mealtimes, but never stayed long, much to Gilligan's dismay. Dinner and breakfast gave everyone something to look froward to, but fish was quickly getting old.
Mr. Howell was used to a rotating array of gourmet meals, but he was trying not to complain. A week ago, he'd resolved to do something with his life, his influence. That would have been easy back on the mainland. Invest in a charity or the arts or create his own business that would stand the test of time… But it was all harder on the island. He had been too scared to watch the fire, too thoughtless to consider that the vodka might burn it out too quickly… And now he was stuck out here, where being good and helpful meant doing manual labor or risking his life, neither of which he was in any shape to do.
He still tried to make a point to monitor the radio whenever the Captain was unable to, though. He could easily listen for updates on their rescue. He'd even learned their approximate coordinates from the Captain so he could recognize if anyone was coming close, but the rescue party didn't seem to be coming this far west anymore.
They had to just keep hoping that their rescuers would come.
There was a lot of puttering around aimlessly. For the most part, everyone but the Skipper and Gilligan were too afraid of the jungle to do much exploring, and Ginger was surprised at how easy it was to keep themselves alive.
In survival movies, being shipwrecked on a desert island was a full-time job. There were scenes of rugged men foraging for food and making themselves sick, running from bloodthirsty bears, and of course, the makeup crew always had to grime the lead actors up real good.
But this was nothing like that. They didn't look anything like they were wearing the gritty survival makeup; daily bathing in the lagoon made sure of that. Gilligan and Mary Ann were keeping them well-fed with food that was always edible, and if they didn't venture into the jungle at night, the wildlife mostly left them alone.
Here she was in a real-life movie situation, and Ginger was bored.
It would have been a lot less boring if the SS Minnow had had a better supply of alcohol. She'd started pacing herself more slowly, which was already a pain, tapering off more and more every day, and now she was stone-cold sober.
It didn't feel real.
The sun was so bright and she felt so numb and useless. She felt the way she used to when she was on set, standing under the floodlights and waiting for the crew to finish setting up or for some other mundane delay. When she wasn't being her character or being adored by someone else.
She was just… there.
Mary Ann softened the blow at night. She was so chatty and friendly, always had stories to tell and always wanted Ginger to tell hers. But she spent most of the daytime with Gilligan and the Skipper, leaving Ginger alone.
Just there.
One muggy afternoon, she spotted the Professor staring intently at a tree at the edge of the jungle. She knew from past, seemingly eternal conversations that the Professor found the most droll things interesting, but there was nothing better to do, no one better to talk to.
She approached quietly, not wanting to break his concentration. But when she was directly behind her, he still hadn't noticed her presence and she couldn't for the life of her figure out what he found so fascinating about the tree.
"Whatcha doing?"
The Professor leapt a foot in the air, and Ginger laughed once, ha.
"W-What are you doing here?"
"Watching you watching something. Whatcha watching?" Ginger asked.
Flustered, the Professor looked from her to the tree, to her, and then finally back to the tree. And then he pointed between the ridges of the bark. "You see that?"
There was a bright yellow spider nestled in the wood that she hadn't seen before. "That's a morning orb weaver!"
The Professor sounded very excited about this, but it just looked like a spider to Ginger. "Okay. Is it dangerous or something?"
"No, no, it's not medically significant. But more importantly, it's currently believed to be extinct!" the Professor told her. "I've seen quite a few since we got here, but they're easily confused with similar subspecies, and you can really only tell the difference in females, which this one undoubtably is!"
Ginger frowned. "Great." She wasn't used to men ignoring her in favor of other females, especially not for female spiders. It wasn't even that she was interested in him, really, she was just bored.
"I'm hoping before we leave, I'll get the chance to capture one," the Professor said, "but it's really only useful to the arachnid community alive, so I'll have to wait until just before we leave."
"Best of luck to you, then," Ginger said, but she didn't turn to leave. Instead, she asked, "What else do you find interesting here on the island?"
"Well, the flora, of course." Professor gestured to the trees around them. "Even in Hawai'i, I've never seen so many different types of Arecaceae in one place. And I'd love to get the chance to study those territorial Psittacidae."
"The what?"
"Uh, what I believe you call the murder-parrots."
"Oh."
"This island is wildly unique, being cut off from every observed evolutionary chain, I'm finding new discoveries around every corner. Secretly, I'm hoping that that dog Gilligan found wasn't introduced by anyone from the scientific community, because I'm looking forward to sharing my discoveries when we get back."
"Right," Ginger said, disappointed. She couldn't even figure out how to kill an afternoon without the aid of sex or alcohol, but here the Professor was finding wonders on every inch of the island.
But the Professor wasn't done. "To say nothing of the contents of Captain Feldman's journal! He led his expedition in the mid-1910s and ended up shipwrecked here, not unlike us. What's interesting is—"
"How they got off the island?" Ginger suggested hopefully. That was about the only thing she was interested in. "No offense, but I don't really care about the social etiquette or scientific advancements he wrote about."
The Professor faltered and apologized. "I'm sorry. Sorry. It, uh, it really is interesting," the Professor promised, "at least to me. But if you're not interested, I'll let you go."
Ginger realized that she may have actually hurt his feelings, which was both sad and funny at the same time. But now she felt bad, and it seemed like the thing to do would be to ask him about what was so interesting in the old sea captain's journals.
Which was how she ended up sitting on the beach, listening to the Professor read some of the most exciting of Corrigan Feldman's journal entries.
What surprised her was that they were interesting.
Captain Feldman's expedition had been a rough one. From the first week, his ship, The Spirit of the Bronx, had been rife with bad luck. Wicked open-ocean storms, crew members falling ill, the Captain losing his bearings. One particularly thrilling entry even detailed how Captain Feldman had rescued two of his men after they fell overboard and were swarmed by sharks.
The Spirit of the Bronx had just found its first uncharted island when Gilligan hollered that dinner was ready. Irving was already on his heels, Ginger realized. He still disappeared at nighttime, but he was hanging around more and more during the day, which at least made Gilligan happy.
She was actually disappointed when the Professor closed the book and stood.
"Oh," Ginger reached out to him, standing as well. "Professor, can we pick this up after dinner?"
"So you, too, find Captain Corrigan Feldman's records fascinating?"
"Well, sure." Ginger smiled a bit. "Why wouldn't I? I think it'd make a wonderful movie. With a marvelous director, it could go far. Assuming they find a terrific treasure at the end."
"Oh, I hate to disappoint you, but—"
"Hush, Professor!" Ginger snickered. "Spoilers. Ah, well, I suppose it could still make a decent indie film."
The Professor handed her the book. "If you like, you can read it yourself."
Ginger frowned and eyed the thick leather-bound journal. She doubted she would be able to get through it as fast as the Professor undoubtedly had, plus she liked being able to read it with someone. "Well…" she said slowly, letting her hands reach out to grab the journal but instead running her fingers over his, "I was actually kind of hoping we could keep reading it together."
"Oh," the Professor's hands fumbled, and he left Ginger holding the book alone. "I, uh, I, too find literature far more, uh, stimulating when I have another mind to bounce ideas off of. It encourages critical thinking and new perspectives and helps me notice things I never would have alone."
"Um, right. So…?"
"But I must confess, I really don't have the time to devote to rereading and fully dissecting the journal right now."
"Professor, we're stranded on a deserted island. We've really got nothing but time here."
"Oh, certainly. But it's a deserted island that's also a veritable cornucopia of unprecedented scientific discovery. It's just teeming with biological wonders. For instance, if the morning orb weaver thrives here, there might also be the banded fisher's mite."
"The what?" Ginger asked, then immediately regretted speaking.
"The morning orb weaver's symbiotic partner. Not extinct on the mainland, but all evidence suggests that they're rapidly dwindling without the presence of the morning orb weaver."
"Okay."
"You know," the Professor said thoughtfully, "the rest of the castaways aren't nearly as fascinated by the scientific wonders of this island as you are. I have a proposal for you."
Ginger smirked playfully. "Professor, we should at least go on a couple of dates before you—"
"No, no!" The Professor waved his hands, flustered, evidently not understanding that she was just teasing him. "I was merely going to propose—er, suggest—that you read the next few entries tonight and then we can discuss them tomorrow while I search for the mites. I'm suggesting a sort of book club, become, uh, study buddies."
Ginger blinked. No one had ever thought that the bimbo from Bimbofication would make a good study buddy. Even casting directors thought of her as more of an action girl. Still, she agreed. Maybe she'd adapt the journal into a movie when they got back.
That night, she read about the first expedition on an uncharted island. Captain Feldman had been following the route that he suspected a band of pirates had taken centuries ago, and though he crew seemed to have their doubts about him, he was a thorough searcher. He documented every inch of the island, but found no trace of the pirates.
As he moved from island to island, the sea captain seemed to be haunted by bad luck. A breakout of jungle fever on one island, a food shortage on another, consistently rough seas between each one.
Perhaps in the movie, they'd be suffering so because of the pirates, Ginger mused. Maybe they had put a curse on it and anyone who searched for it. The Professor had other ideas. He suspected that Captain Feldman had had no worse luck than any other sailor—but considerably worse skills. Unreliable narrator, he'd said, especially given the passage where Captain Feldman mentioned the gall of a group of his men that had nicknamed him "Wrongway," presumably for his incompetence. No one was met with this many catastrophes just by will of the world, the Professor had said. It was just a matter of competence.
But Ginger preferred her version of the story.
And as the Captain's luck continually got worse, so did theirs. The Captain's bad luck made her feel a bit better about the castaways' own bad luck, like they could both be movies, like the castaways were holding out for some fabulous treasure as well.
The night she read about Captain Feldman's crew being struck down by jungle fever, the dog found his way into Gilligan and Mary Ann's fishing crate and at their dinner.
When Captain Feldman nearly died, lost in a labyrinthine array of islands, a torrential rainstorm nearly flooded their hunts, and Gilligan and the Skipper had to dig a drainage ditch, which meant that Ginger was to fish with Mary Ann that week.
And the next week, when Captain Feldman had to rescue his crewhand from the crocodile, they discovered that Gilligan had dug the ditch wrong and they had to fill it in and start over half of it. This time, the Professor helped Gilligan and the Skipper, exhausted, to plan the sluices.
She actually liked helping, she realized, tossing a line into the lagoon with Mary Ann. Learning to fish had actually been fun, and Mary Ann was a patient teacher. Now that she'd gotten the hang of it, she imagined herself as one of Captain Feldman's crewhands, taking the hardships, enduring, waiting until the end of the movie.
It didn't stop Gilligan from breaking the radio or Irving tangling himself in the fishing lines, but it made the aftermath a bit more bearable. The Professor would eventually fix the radio and, even though they lost a lot of line, Ginger and Mary Ann got the dog free from the line with minimal scratches and bites.
All this as in the journal, The Spirit of the Bronx ran aground on the island they were on now, never to sail again.
She realized as she got closer to the end of the journal that there would need to be a love interest when she adapted it into a movie, so that she would have a part. She didn't see how a romance could fit between so much action, but big-name writers could do incredible things. Maybe they could even recast Captain Feldman as a woman. But then, she would miss the romance aspect.
Maybe Captain Feldman's lover would chase him across the seven seas to warn him about the curse and rescue him from his fate. And maybe she would end up shipwrecked with him at the end, and they'd live on the island forever, unbothered by the outside world…
Ginger stared out at the sea. She was making a lot of changes in her head for the sake of cinema, but if Captain Feldman had really lived and died on this island, then she was, really, at the end of someone's movie. She imagined credits rolling over the waves.
"Alright, that should be enough," Mary Ann said, standing and packing up their fish and their poles. "You coming?"
"Of course," Ginger pulled in her line and stood, excited. Tonight, she was sure, she was going to finish the journal.
They were running out of their supply of canned goods, a daunting prospect, but just another of the obstacles they would get through like Feldman did, Ginger thought. In fact, she barely heard the Skipper and Gilligan bickering about how much Gilligan had been feeding the dog, or Mary Ann fretting about whether they'd only be able to eat fish when the cans ran out.
But the ending of the journal did not live up to Ginger's expectations.
August 3rd, 1920:
After so many quiet days here on the island with no prospect of rescue, I have found that we are not alone on the
She flipped the page, but the next few pages had been torn out. Beyond them, only empty pages.
That ending she never could have made into a movie. Maybe it would make a good sequel hook, but that was getting ahead of herself.
She had to know what became of Captain Feldman. Had he ever been rescued? Who was on the island? And why had the rest of the entry been torn out?
/
The next day, the Professor offered few answers. "I had the same questions myself. Right now, my best guess is that Corrigan Feldman was referring to the strange wildlife on this island."
"The murder-parrots?"
"If that's what you insist on calling them." They were making their way to breakfast, but for some reason Ginger couldn't remember, Professor was kneeling down and examining each leaf in the underbrush one by one. It had been important to him, so she waited as he looked. "Since there is no mention of the hostile wildlife in the book, I suspect it must have come as a shock to him when they found out, and they could have lost men to wildlife attacks."
"But what about—"
"The pages being torn out?" When Ginger nodded, he continued. "I believe Captain Feldman fell to a mutiny. They must have grown weary of the good Captain's poor survival skills and, perhaps a bit powered by island madness, ended his life. They may have torn out the last few pages of the book detailing their crimes."
That wasn't a fantastic ending, either, and she said so.
"Well, it's also possible that a tribe of indigenous people from a neighboring island arrived and either massacred or took in Captain Feldman's crew. But that doesn't explain the missing pages—very few speak English, and I doubt they would have needed to cover their tracks either way."
Ginger was about to ask if the Professor thought the book could have ended any other way—perhaps a more cinematic way—when they spotted the Skipper at the campfire, looking frantic.
"Have you seen Gilligan?" he asked without any introduction.
"What?"
"My little buddy, have you seen him around this morning?"
Ginger and the Professor both shook their heads and asked what happened. Skipper showed them a note, hastily written by the SS Minnow's guilt-ridden first mate, detailing that he and Irving had gone off to live in isolation on the other side of the island so that he and the dog wouldn't bother anyone again.
"This is all my fault," the Skipper said miserably. "I was so focused on keeping you passengers safe and comfortable that I was way too hard on Gilligan."
"What do you mean?" Ginger asked.
"I blamed him for every mishap that's happened since we got here. I know he's trying his best, but… dammit, we can't afford to make mistakes. He has to stop screwing up."
"What did you say?"
The Skipper hesitated guiltily, though still clearly cross. "I told him he has to straighten up and to stop letting that troublemaking dog hang around camp."
"This could be serious," the Professor said. "Gilligan is without shelter, community, or food. I doubt he has the survival skills to endure a wild animal attack or a tropical storm. We have to find him at once!"
"I know," the Skipper said. "The jungle seems to be safe enough during the day, so I've already told the Howells to go on ahead and search for him on the west side of the island. Professor, you and I can head north."
The Professor nodded. "We'll leave at once."
"Ginger, go find Mary Ann and the two of you can search the east side of the island. Just make sure you come back to camp by sundown."
Ginger stood there in silence for a moment after the Professor and the Skipper trekked off into the underbrush. She hadn't been counting on this today. She'd made short excursions into the jungle with the Professor—everyone had had to go in at some point or another—and they could all probably now traverse into the jungle without getting hopelessly lost. Still, she was spooked by the murder parrots and the sheer, dark vastness of the jungle.
She didn't want to have to be the type of character to wander into danger to save somebody, but she wasn't left with much of a choice. The Professor was right: Gilligan could die in there on his own.
/
The rapport between the Howells had eased up a bit in the weeks since the rescue was botched.
Mr. Howell had apologized to his wife for letting the fire go out—a real, sincere apology—and Mrs. Howell had realized that island life would be a lot easier if she just got used to having her husband around. It was obvious that he wasn't going to disappear from her life any time soon, no matter how hard she might have wished. Instead, she accepted that he would be her companion when they sat on the beach in the afternoons and slept in in the mornings. At least they didn't have to go fishing or hunting or dig drainage ditches.
But they didn't appreciate having to comb the jungle for Gilligan in the heat of the day.
They bickered meaninglessly, trudging along slower than any other group, wondering why Gilligan would do such a thing to them.
"It's really quite a tacky move," Mr. Howell said. "Why would even try such a thing if he doesn't even have a PR team?"
"It's a cry for attention." Mrs. Howell shrugged, struggling to cut through the underbrush. She stumbled a bit when the brush stopped suddenly, leaving them in a lush clearing.
"Oh, look," Mrs. Howell said. "Isn't this so picturesque?"
"Perhaps when we get rescued, we can get photographed here," Mr. Howell said. "Or better yet, charge other people to get photographed here."
"Or we can commission a painter to capture it," Mrs. Howell suggested. "I always like the way fresh fruit looks in oil paintings."
They were silent for a moment as they realized what they were looking at.
After so many weeks of eating nothing but canned food and fish, they had stumbled upon a bounty of fresh fruit. Indeed, grapes grew up the sides of palm trees, where bushels of bananas hung overhead. Dark spots along the bushes turned out to be plump blueberries and blackberries that shined like jewels.
"Snack break?" Mr. Howell proposed.
/
Both of the girls were uneasy as they made their way east. Mary Ann jumped at every sound, but tried to put on a brave face for Gilligan's sake.
"He needs us," she had said when Ginger filled her in. "And we need him."
Based on how frequently Gilligan had screwed up in the past few weeks, Ginger wasn't sure if that was really true, but it couldn't hurt to have an extra hand fishing and helping with the manual labor.
"What was that?" The two girls were alone in the jungle now, unsure of whether to be afraid or excited when the leaves rustled.
"Oh, I hope it was Gilligan," Mary Ann said.
The worst scare was when a big spider dropped out of nowhere onto Mary Ann's face.
She cried out once, swatting it off of her, and then shuddered, unable to get the feeling of its tiny legs off of her skin.
"What was that?" she whimpered.
"The biggest spider I've ever seen," Ginger said, a little shaken herself.
"Oh, was it poisonous?"
Despite herself, Ginger bent over and looked for the spider that had ambushed Mary Ann. When she spotted it scuttling away, she realized immediately how familiar it was. "No," she said. "It's a morning spider. The Professor said it's not dangerous."
It was beyond strange. She could barely remember anything from her life back on the mainland, but here she could remember that silly little spider from so many days ago. In fact, now that she took a closer look, the whole world was familiar now. She had seen almost every bug on every leaf, and the leaves she knew, too. Not the names, necessarily, but she recognized them from the Professor's interest in them, as if he were their mutual friend.
/
The Howells' outlook was considerably more positive when their bellies were full of fresh fruit. They stared at the blue sky, laying on the ground, for a long time before they remembered the task at hand. Rested, recharged, and hydrated despite the heat, they didn't even bicker when Mrs. Howell suggested that they get a move on again.
"You're right, of course," Mr. Howell said, straightening up. "I suppose there's a possibility that he's really in trouble out there."
"Right."
"And it would be a shame if he died without tasting the best cuisine on the island."
"Right," Mrs. Howell said again, nodding. It took them a moment to stand up, but after Mr. Howell did, reached out and helped his wife to her feet.
Mr. Howell lingered as he held his wife's hand, then very thoughtfully bent and gave her a kiss on her hand, like a gentleman.
It was such an un-Thurstonlike thing to do, so Mrs. Howell laughed a bit. She liked him here, when they were alone and comfortable and provided for.
In fact, they found combing the jungle to be surprisingly fun in each other's company. It was like a nature hike, Mrs. Howell had said. Such a quaint, plebian way to pass an afternoon.
Mr. Howell suggested that they pretend it was a scavenger hunt or one of those geocaching adventures that the working class enjoy so much, with Gilligan as the prize at the end. They resolved to beat the other castaways to the "prize," and were cutting through the jungle with surprising speed and jubilance as they left the colorful clearing.
/
It was the Professor who first noticed Gilligan's trail.
"Look," he said, "these reeds have been disfigured. He must have come through here."
"Good eye, Professor!" The Skipper practically ran ahead, calling out for his little buddy.
They were moving fast, both no stranger to the wilds, and quickly caught up to Gilligan. They spotted his bright red shirt immediately, and then the loyal dog perched next to him, ears in the air.
"Little buddy, you're okay!" The Skipper gave him a hug, then just as quickly smacked him on top of the head with his captain's hat. "What were you thinking, running away like that? You scared the living hell out of us!"
"Gilligan, it's dangerous out here," the Professor said. "I don't have to tell you that."
"I know," Gilligan said. "But Irving here can scare off all the spooks in the jungle. And I can't let him wander alone, he'll get so… lonely."
"Gilligan," the Skipper said, trying to sound calm, but audibly failing, "you are coming back to camp with us right this instant, and if the dog is lonely, it'll come back to camp. I just don't want you feeding it and encouraging it to hang around make a mess of our stuff."
"I make a mess of our stuff, too!" Gilligan pointed out. "So it only makes sense that we should stay away from the camp together, right Irving?"
Irving whimpered, somehow appreciating the gravity of the situation.
"You see," the Skipper said. "He wants you to come back to camp."
"No, he doesn't. And even if he did, I wouldn't leave him behind."
"Gilligan, he's a dog."
"He's a person, too!"
"Gilligan—"
"Oh, you found him!" That was when Mary Ann and Ginger emerged from the brush, beaming at the sight of Gilligan alive and well. They both gave him brief hugs, to which Gilligan turned red.
"Gee, I didn't mean to get everyone all worried about me."
"Oh, Gilligan, we were so frightened!" Mary Ann exclaimed. "Please come back to camp with us?"
"I don't know, Mary Ann. I just… I don't want to make life harder for anyone else."
"Gilligan, you haven't made our lives harder," Ginger said. In truth, unless he was shouting about seeing that magical deer or tripping over his own feet, he was almost impossible to notice, always out fishing or digging or somehow trying to help the castaways out.
"Gilligan, why would you say something like that?" Mary Ann asked, appalled.
"I messed up the rescue. I messed up our drainage ditch. I let Irving get all tangled up in the fishing line. And that's just off the top of my head. We shouldn't be eating your food and—"
"Gilligan," the Skipper growled. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Now shut up and get back to camp."
"Oh, don't be mean to him now," Mary Ann said.
"She's right," the Professor agreed. "That kind of talk is hardly constructive right now."
"We don't have time for this," the Skipper continued. "You're only making things worse, Gilligan."
"Skipper!" Mary Ann protested. Then, gently to Gilligan, "Oh, don't listen to him. He just doesn't know how to tell you how much we need you."
"Really?"
"Of course! Who am I supposed to go fishing with if you're all the way across the island?"
"Ginger can fish," Gilligan pointed up.
"Yes, but who's going to keep our spirits up?"
"What do you mean?"
"Gilligan, I don't just like fishing with you because it gets us food. I enjoy your company. And your unwavering devotion to help us."
"It's my job," Gilligan said simply. "That's why I have to do this. I'm a liability, just like Skipper said."
Mary Ann whirled backward and gave the Skipper a whack on the stomach. "Why would you say that to him?"
"I was trying to get him to straighten out!"
"Well, apologize and say it's not true!" Mary Ann demanded.
"I'm sorry, Gilligan."
"Say it's not true!" Mary Ann pushed.
"I still need him to do better!" The Skipper said. "Watch what he's doing and listen carefully when I give him orders. I'm—"
"For heaven's sake, Skipper, just take it back," the Professor interrupted.
"He's not going to go easy on Gilligan because he feels guilty about us getting shipwrecked in the first place," Ginger said out of nowhere.
Everyone stared for a moment before the Skipper said, "That's not true at all."
"Well, sure," Ginger said with a shrug. It was pretty simple to her; Captain Feldman had felt the same way about his first mate. Any failures of his reflected poorly on the captain, and the captain's job was to make sure everyone—including the first mate—survived, so he couldn't afford for his first mate to make any mistakes. She explained this concept to Gilligan and the Skipper, the latter looking a bit flustered.
"So you see, he's just being so mean because he cares about us," Ginger finished.
"That's perhaps a bit of an oversimplification," the Professor said.
"But it's sweet!" Mary Ann said.
"Is it true?" Gilligan asked the Skipper.
The Skipper mumbled a bit, and then eventually answered. "A little bit. I, uh, I do want to keep you safe. I want to keep all of you safe."
"I know," Gilligan said. "But don't you think me staying out here, not causing problems, is the best way to keep everyone safe?"
The Skipper furrowed his brow. "No, Gilligan. I think it's a great way to put you in mortal danger and put us down a man."
"You're a credit to our little outfit, Gilligan," the Professor added. "Objectively speaking, our odds of survival are better together than apart."
"And we'd miss you!" Mary Ann added, most importantly.
"What about Irving?" Gilligan asked hesitantly.
"What about Irving?" the Skipper grumbled.
"Can't he come back to camp?" Gilligan begged. "Objectably speaking, our odds of survival are better with him than apart from him. And I'd miss him!"
"Gilligan…" the Skipper started.
"Perhaps I might offer a new perspective," the Professor cut in. "I believe Gilligan is actually right. There's no reason why the dog should have to wander the jungle on his own. He could be a real use to us, with his knack for scaring away wildlife. We might even be able to train him to keep watch."
"I'd like that," Gilligan said.
"As long he stays in line," the Skipper said. "And doesn't eat all of our precious food supply."
"That would mean only giving him food as positive reinforcement," the Professor said. "I agree that it's foolhardy to give so much of our scarce food supply to an animal that can clearly fend for himself."
Gilligan looked unsure. "What if I can't—"
"Oh, I can help!" Mary Ann stepped up. "I've trained plenty of dogs on the farm. We can do it together."
That made Gilligan smile.
Before they turned back to head for camp, they managed to get a slightly more genuine apology out of the Skipper, but not before he reminded Gilligan to be careful and feed Irving sparingly.
"Be careful," he said. "It's not as though we're just going to magically find a bounty of good food. At least, not again."
/
They all got a good laugh at his surprise, then, when they found the Howells, who promptly told them about the fruit grove they'd stumbled upon.
At first, they made trips up to the grove during the day, taking along Irving for protection and lugging back as many fruits as they could carry. That was only until Mary Ann got some seeds to grow closer to the huts, and they lived in their own bountiful garden.
Every night brought a roaring fire and freshly cooked meals by Gilligan and Mary Ann. There was an understanding now that they were a pack, together not because they had to be but because they wanted to be. Every night, they shared stories of survival, of the before times, and of what they would do when they got rescued.
Slowly—so slowly that they didn't realize what was happening—their reveries about the future began to taper off. The Skipper devoted less and less of his time trying to get them rescued, and focused on what was in front of them on the island. He fixed drafts and leaks in the huts and even helped Gilligan build a hammock for their hut; his little buddy claimed he had always wanted one.
Everyone took turns fishing, which gave Mary Ann the opportunity to try out new recipes and mix the fruit juices into heavenly drinks. And soon, too, the dog was trained so thoroughly and became so vigilant that all the noises that came from the jungle no longer scared them at night.
Perhaps they could have survived on that island forever, living off of the land and relying on nobody but each other… Until one misty morning when Gilligan came tearing up from the beach, yelling for everyone to wake up.
Because that morning, there was a boat docked in the lagoon.
A/N: Who is on the boat!? Take a guess, or find out in the next chapter…