Trapped in a Island with James Tullos

Chapter 3

I settled into bed with a copy of Elixir. Thankfully, though it was set into the wall, it was large enough to accommodate my frame. I was taller than average, and my swimmer's body was too bulky to fit most people's definition of "lean." As a result, I often found that I didn't quite fit in the allotted space in places such as airplanes or cars.

I had only begun to settle into the ridiculous story of Clea and Sage when I heard a noise just outside the room. I set the book aside and listened more closely. Sniffling?

I got up, walked the short distance across the room, and opened the door.

"Kyle?"

He was sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest, still wearing his red swim trunks. His face was blotchy and discolored, and his eyes were watery. He looked up at me, lower lip trembling.

I had no idea what to do. I looked at him for a moment, feeling lost.

Say something! Anything!

"Hey kiddo, what's up?" I said cheerfully.

What is wrong with you?!

His chest hitched as he began openly sobbing. He latched onto my leg, his tiny arms wrapped as tightly as if his life depended on it.

Well, at least now I could get him out of the hallway. I hobbled back into the room, half dragging Kyle across the floor. I sat on the edge of the bed, Kyle still firmly attached to my leg, and waited. Once the sobs had given way to shaky breaths interspersed with short bouts of crying, I spoke.

"Hey Kyle, I'm sorry if what I said upset you. You wanna talk?"

He wiped his nose with his arm.

"It's not you." He said. "It's other stuff! I hate being away from my friends! I hate being on a stupid boat that makes me sick! I hate being with Kaylee all the time!"

I blinked. I hadn't realized he was so unhappy. He'd always seemed like such a happy-go-lucky kid. But why had he come to me?

"Well bud, I can try to help you, but I think your parents might do a better job. They around?"

He sniffled.

"No. They're in the water." Probably scuba diving.

"And your nanny?"

"I don't like her, she's a tattletale!"

So it was my job to console this child, then.

Lord help me.

I paused for moment to collect my thoughts. The sickness was the easiest to address, so I started with that.

"When I was your age, I got sick on boats, too. It helps if you go on the deck and just breathe for a while without doing anything. If you look at something like a tablet, you'll feel worse. Same if you eat a lot at once." I smiled, trying to seem comforting. "It got better when I grew up, and now I like being on boats!"

Kyle's grip on my leg had loosened slightly. He looked up at me, cheek resting on my calf.

"Okay."

Not exactly the response I'd been expecting, but anything a step down from violent weeping was a win in my book. I patted the bed, inviting Kyle to sit next to me. He let go of my leg and crawled up, leaning against my side.

"As for missing your friends... maybe rather than looking at the situation negatively, you could try reframing it as an opportunity."

"What's an opportunity?"

Right. Child.

"An opportunity is when... when you get a chance to do something you don't normally do." Kyle's eyes lit up and he grabbed my arm excitedly.

"Like when we go to ride roller coasters?"

"Well, not exactly." Kyle released my arm and I leaned back slightly, resting on my hands.

"An opportunity is... usually something that's hard to do, but you learn a lot from it. Like, let's say you got a chance to skip a grade in school. It would be tough, but you'd learn a lot, and you'd be a year ahead of your classmates."

"I wouldn't want that. I'd miss my friends."

"It's just an example, Kyle."

We sat in silence for a moment. I hoped I wasn't confusing him too badly.

"So an opportunity is like..." Kyle paused. He frowned, and a tiny furrow formed on his brow. "If there were no more fruit snacks, but then I learned to make fruit snacks, and then I could have fruit snacks all the time!"

"I... wouldn't recommend you do that, but yes."

He smiled triumphantly for a moment before his confused frown returned. "But what about my friends?"

I stifled a sigh. He was just a kid, I couldn't blame him for not putting two and two together.

"Well Kyle, maybe you could try making better friends with Kaylee. I know you two don't agree on everything all the time, but if you could, say, find more games that you both like, you'd have someone to play with basically all the time. You wouldn't have to wait for your other friends to come over. Make sense?"

I could practically see the gears turning in his head as looked off into space, considering the possibility.

"I guess." He turned to me. "What sort of games do you play with your friends?"

"You wouldn't like them. Most of them involve drinking weird stuff and yelling at each other." 

Kyle laughed.

"You're so weird, Aunt Cass!" 

Weird? What had I said?

He threw his tiny arms around my waist and – oh. A hug. Well, I suppose my weirdness was in acceptable parameters, then. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed gently. He was a good kid, really. It wasn't his fault that I didn't know how to interact with tiny humans.

Kyle's grip around me loosened and he hopped down off the bed.

"I'm gonna go see Kaylee wants to play Mario. Bye!"

I felt bewildered as I watched him amble out of the room.

What just happened?

I laid down on the bed, thinking of Kyle and Kaylee, and of my own friends back on campus. I thought about games that I had played with them at the bar, and the games that I had played as a kid that I missed. My thoughts soon began to drift.

Would any of my friends play Mario with me, if I asked? How does co-op work in those games nowadays? Plumber versus Goomba?

I felt my breathing slow as my eyelids gradually became heavier.

What about Mario Kart? Everyone loves Mario Kart. Maybe... maybe...

I drifted into a shallow, restless sleep, and thought no more.