Alexander Roman
"Hey Alex, wanna play football outside with us?" Ronny asked me after I finished eating a bowl of cut-up mango.
"Who's all playing?" I asked, thinking to myself, hopefully, I won't get put in the same team as him.
"Uh, there's me, I, and mine," Ronny said.
"Don't you mean, 'me, I, and myself'?" I asked. Ronny rolled his eyes. "Doesn't matter, I'm busy. So, go find anther buddy." I was definitely not going to play till it was a guarantee I wouldn't be stuck with Ronny. He wasn't a bad guy or anything, just annoying.
"Ugh," Ronny said, "Why is everyone so busy? Hasn't anyone noticed there are NO adults around?! We don't have to work all the time."
"Of course we've noticed," I said. Actually, I hadn't really thought about it till he mentioned it. "Why don't you go ask Ludwig? Or Menelik? They might join you."
"I already asked, and they said they had to go 'search for wood'."
"But they already gathered up wood yesterday."
"Oh...than why did they say that?"
Cuz they didn't want to play football with you. "I guess they forget," I said.
"Well...I guess I'll play alone...all by my lonesome self...alone with just me and this fake football...alone out in the cold, harsh world..."
"Ronny, it's like ninety degrees out here and we're on a tropical island."
"Oh just shut it! I'm going out." Ronny left the house and headed down the cliff side toward the beach. I watched him for a while, before thinking back on what he had said earlier.
There are no adults, I realized. I was suddenly filled with a sense of freedom and ran out the door. I wasn't planning on joining Ronny, but instead I started to look for Peter.
"Peter!" I said. Izzy and Mahal were nearby and I went over to them. "Have you seen Peter around?"
"I think he was at the house of Rose," Mahal said.
"Rose's house," Izzy said, "Which is also my house."
"Oh, thanks," I said as I headed toward the house. As it started to get late last night, Peter had given one of the houses to Rose and Izzy to share together. It was known as the Girl's Room. Another house, named New York, was occupied by Ludwig and Menelik. The third house, call Boyz Apartment, belonged to Enkidu and Mahal. The large house with the kitchen and living room was named the Brown House, because of its brown siding. That's where Peter, Ronny, and I lived.
I opened the door to Rose and Izzy's house, and found Peter and Rose sitting on the couch together, about to kiss. Oh yeah, I probably should've knock.
"Hey!" Rose said. "Ever heard of knocking?"
"Sorry," I said and look over at a sheepish Peter, "Peter, I want to talk to you."
"Sure, 'bout what?"
"Well, Ronny thought about it first but," I said, "have you noticed there no adults here, at least none that we know of? Do ya know what that means?"
"That there's no one to clean my clothes?" Peter said. I saw Rose roll her eyes.
"Well yeah I guess, but it also means we can do whatever we want!" I said.
Peter smiled his large, somewhat dorky smile at my news.
"Party time!" Peter said happily. We both raced out the door, leaving Rose by herself. I thought I heard her say something, but I didn't bother to check.
As Peter and I went down to the bottom of the hill, on top of which laid our houses and the cliff drop-off, we saw Enkidu, Ludwig, and Menelik laughing hard.
"What's so funny?" Peter asked. Ludwig, still laughing, pointed at Ronny. Half of his face was covered in the remains of some fruit. It looked as though someone had thrown a fruit at him. That was enough to cause me and Peter to start laughing.
"Ha-ha so funny," Ronny said sarcastically, "Throwing fruit at the white guy, I see how it is."
"What you mean? He's white too," I said, pointing at Ludwig.
"No, I converted," Ludwig said.
"'No I converted'," Ronny said in a mimic. He looked down in disgust at the fruit stain on the shoulder of his white shirt.
"That's gonna leave a mark," Menelik said to Ronny.
"Well great, where am I gonna get another shirt? I guess I'll have to wear my pajama shirt 24/7 now," Ronny said, throwing his hands up in the air.
"Maybe The People will give us some more," I said. That was what we call the people, whoever they were, who had taken us to the island. The People, officially coined by Ronny Monroe. Along with that, Peter and the rest of us had voted on the name Carthage for our "city".
"I'd love for that to happen," Ronny said. He left and headed back to the Brown House to change.
Ronny was only gone for a short half-hour, and than a new game of "toss the fruit till it splatters" was started.
YOU ARE READING
The Island's Captives
General FictionA boy wakes up to find that he, along with a band of others, is no longer home but on an island. Elsewhere a girl wakes up to the same predicament. As confusion leads to chaos between the two groups, the stage is set for a tragic confrontation. I w...
