Escaping the Lost Island (working title)

Chapter 9

"Rise and shine!" Isaac shouted in my ear.

I rose, limbs flailing. "Seriously?! I'm going to kill you!"

"Good morning to you too, sunshine," he cackled, prancing out of reach as I took a swing at him.

Grumbling to myself, I grabbed two bananas from the freshly stocked pile and stalked out of the clearing. Irritated as I was with my wake up call, I should have been up earlier.

Sure enough when I reached the cave, the others were already immersed in raft plans.

"Nice of you to join us," Joe teased as he walked past balancing a log on his shoulder.

 "I hate mornings."

"Mornings are the best time of the day!" Chris refuted, coming to stand beside me. "You're on the lead raft team," he added, pointing.

I followed his finger to where Anna, Toby, and Rita were drawing their plan out in the sand. I was relieved to see I would not be sharing a raft with Alex or Jessie. Looking around, I spotted them about a hundred feet to my left, already busy in their work. A twinge of irritation shot through me as I thought of what Kate had said yesterday.

"You don't have time to worry about that," I reminded myself. With a deep breath, I turned away from them and walked towards my work area.

"We'll need at least fifteen logs for the outer rim," Toby was saying as I approached. "The last raft we made would be way too small for five of us."

I was tempted to remark on Toby's excess of knowledge about the raft, but I held my tongue since, for the time being, I didn't hate him.

"So how do make the logs stay together?" Isaac came up behind me.

"Manihot esculenta," Rita said.

We all stared blankly at her until Toby translated. "It's a type of root adhesive, generally used for infection, but very thick and sticky. When left to dry, it hardens into a durable and waterproof substance that can easily hold our logs together."

"That sounds too good to be true," Anna said, frowning. "How do you know it will work?"

"It is an old housewife's trick passed down through generations by my ancestors," Rita answered. "At first it was only used to patch up small household items, such as bowls. Then the people discovered that it was useful for larger projects as well. Now it is a common remedy for a hole in the roof or in a boat. We used it on the raft Toby and I took to come to the island."

"But do we even know if it grows on the island?" Isaiah wanted to know.

Rita nodded. "It does. I spotted some when we first arrived here, and there should be plenty of it."

I pondered this information. Part of me agreed with Anna that it seemed too good to be true, but at the same time, I thought about how long Rita and Toby had lasted at sea in their own raft. Even if it only lasted a few weeks, that should be enough time for us to find land. We would probably have run out of food and water by then anyways.

How had Rita and Toby done it? Both had described weeks at sea, but time, I suppose, was hard to keep track of after a while. Maybe they had counted the days by marking the raft or something.

Thoughtfully, I pulled my pocket knife out of my ragged shorts and brought the blade to the surface of a log. The wood was harder to carve than I had expected and I pushed harder. All of a sudden, the knife slid rapidly across the log's smooth surface and into my opposite hand which was bracing the whole frame. Blood began to flow from the knuckle of ring finger.