Lost Girls

by Ann Kelley

  We are cheered tremendously by the sugar rush and set off again with high hopes of finding more good things to eat. But before long we come to an enormous gulch, completely hidden by thorny bamboo. Jas scouts around but can’t find a way through.

  “We’ll have to go back—the light’s fading,” says Mrs. Campbell. I am so disappointed. All we have to show, apart from cuts and scratches and sore legs, are bean pods, the feather, and some dry sticks and hairy lichens that will make good tinder, according to Mrs. Campbell. We follow our trail back the way we came. The Glossies don’t even ask how we got on. Hope is scratching at her legs and has long red marks on her arms where she has scratched too hard. She looks miserable. I wonder if the Glossies have been giving her a hard time while we’ve been away. I wouldn’t put it past them. The juniors are listless, too, not playing or talking, just curled up together by the cooling fire. I get my journal out and go and sit away from the others.

  DAY 6 CONTINUED:

  I have thought of a name for the forest—Nitnoi Forest. Nitnoi means “very small.” The Prince of Thailand has a poodle called Nitnoi. He came to the yacht club at Pattaya once with his poodle, and I met him. I quite liked the poodle.

  While we’ve been gone Hope has somehow dragged the outboard motor up the beach by herself and placed it close to the fire: to dry it out, she explains.

  “You don’t think we could get it to work, do you?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “M-m-maybe. Who knows?” She looks disappointed at my lack of enthusiasm.

  “Hope, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “Are those stupid girls being horrible to you?”

  “M-m-may and Arl-l-l-lene? No, no m-m-more than usual.” She tries to smile.

  “You should stand up to them,” I say. I mean to sound sympathetic, but it sounds like an accusation. Jas does these things so much better than I do.

  The fire is useless as a signal—no flames, only a thin wispy smoke trail, which is immediately dispersed by the strong wind. Hope points to the juniors. They’re making their way back along the beach, their arms full of coconut husks and, more important, coconuts. I still can’t summon the energy to respond as brightly as I know Hope wishes I would, but Mrs. Campbell saves the moment.

  “That’s great, girls,” she calls to them. “With coconuts we won’t go hungry or thirsty.” And she sets about opening one of the shells, hitting it with the boatman’s blade. Eventually it cracks open and we all have a sip of the milk, a thin white liquid that tastes sweet and refreshing. The flesh is half set, a jelly-like substance like yogurt, rather disgusting, but we eat it ravenously. What I wouldn’t do for a glass of iced star-fruit juice.

  I reopen my journal and write:

  If we ever leave here I am never going to eat another coconut as long as I live.

  And then I tuck it away.

  Mrs. Campbell opens another coconut shell and takes it to give to Natalie. She is back in a moment.

  “Where’s Natalie?”

  “We put her over there. We couldn’t stand the smell.” Arlene shrugs her pink shoulders and makes a face. She points to a blue sleeping bag farther along the top of the beach.

  “You did what?” Mrs. Campbell runs to where they’ve left the little girl, under the wispy shade of the casuarina trees. I follow. The smell is pretty unbearable. Mrs. Campbell is leaning over the child, holding her head up to give her the liquid. Natalie splutters and the milk trickles out the side of her mouth. She looks awful, flushed and dry-mouthed. Mrs. Campbell presses more milk to her lips, and this time she takes a little.

  “I’ll have to change her dressing.”

  “I’ll help, Mrs. Campbell. Should I heat some water?”

  “And just what will you heat it in?” The sarcasm in her voice is hurtful.

  “Coconut shells? They’ll hold more than Jas’s clam-shell.”

  “Good idea, Bonnie—brilliant!” One moment she’s being horrid and the next she’s trying to be nice. I don’t get her.

  I stand the shells, jammed between rocks, over the embers of the fire, and the water soon warms up. The difficult thing is carrying the hot shells up to the patient. In the end I use my T-shirt as an oven mitt and push the shell into the sand near Natalie.

  “Don’t you think the stream must come out on the beach somewhere, Mrs. Campbell? We can’t climb to the Gorge of Gloom for water all the time.”

  “Oh, Bonnie, stop nagging!” Mrs. Campbell shouts at me, and I cringe at her sudden change of mood. She carries on tending to the sick child, and I hide my red face under my hair.

  Mrs. Campbell tests the warm water with her elbow, like seeing if the bath is too hot for a baby. It is, and her jerking arm knocks the coconut shell over, and all the water spills onto the sand.

  I start again from scratch, but don’t leave it to heat for so long. This time it is the right temperature and Mrs. Campbell bathes Natalie’s leg. She hardly makes a sound.

  “Why does it smell so bad, Mrs. Campbell?” I ask.

  “It’s the infection, Bonnie. It’s not looking good. I think it’s gangrene.”

  The leg is swollen all the way up. I hold my nose. I can’t help it.

  “You don’t have to stay. I can manage now.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure.”

  The sun has come out at last and the bigger girls are swimming in the fishing pool, the juniors splashing in the shallows. I run back to the edge of the sea and stare out at the laughing girls. There’s a huge black cloud on the horizon.

  I look back and see Mrs. Campbell sitting and smoking, six feet of sand between her and Natalie.

  eight

  DAY 7

  Cried myself to sleep last night. Mrs. Campbell’s useless as a cadet leader, useless as a caretaker, useless as a friend. I hate her.

  Rain all night, and we didn’t get much sleep, what with the hooting of the gibbons and the unidentified screams and coughs.

  This morning the rain’s stopped and the wind has dropped, thank goodness. Little spots of silver dance on the sea and it almost makes me forget the awfulness of the past few days, though I’m worn out from crying.

  “You okay, Bonz?” Jas looks worriedly at me. “You don’t look so good this morning.”

  “Think you’re a better sight, do you?” I snap. Don’t know what’s the matter with me. I never yell at Jas. She wanders off to wash. I ought to run after her. Apologize. But I’m too tired and sore and miserable. I sit on a tall rock at the water’s edge. On my own.

  The lagoon has all the colors of a peacock’s feather. Pink coral heads are visible, and red and purple seaweed swirls, lifts, and falls on the gentle waves. The palms’ feathery heads quiver in the breeze, and huge butterflies flutter on the suddenly brilliant flowers at the top of the beach. It is paradise, I tell myself. Or it would be, if it weren’t for the dead birds rotting on the tide line, hundreds of them. Fat flies swarm over the broken gulls, parakeets, bush turkeys, even peacocks. I catch sight of a rat moving among the carcasses. That’ll freak out the Glossies.

  Hope and Jas come down the beach armed with plastic bags.

  “We can’t let anyone swim until we’ve cleared the birds,” Jas calls over to me, a kind of Can we be friends again? tone to her voice, and I’m glad. I swing down from my rock and make enough of a commotion to send the marauding rats back to where they came from.

  Hope, Jas, and I spend the whole morning gathering the corpses in a stinking heap, intending to bury them at the other end of the beach, but it’s a disgusting job. We bind the plastic bags around our hands and wrap T-shirts over our mouths and noses.

  Once the beach is mostly clear of rotting creatures, Carly and Jody paddle around. They have taken off all their clothes and seem happy enough, though Carly still hasn’t spoken as far as I know. Hope and I are washing their things in a freshwater spring that Jas and I found on the way back from the burial site. It was only a matter of searching along the top of the beach. It bubbles up by rocks
just inside the bordering trees, and then disappears again under the sand.

  “It’s a happy coincidence that the stream is well away from the latrine,” I told Mrs. Campbell, but she didn’t respond.

  “Do you think w-we are going to get r-r-r-r-rescued, Bonnie?” Hope looks vulnerable without her glasses, like a blind owl.

  “Yeah, sure we are, Hope. Now that the wind has dropped they’ll send a boat.”

  Hope doesn’t look convinced. “I wish I hadn’t b-broken m-my glasses,” she says. “I can’t see a thing. It’s like living in a thick m-mist.”

  “Have you always worn them?”

  “Since I was very little. M-m-mom says she’s going to get m-me contact lenses soon. And she’s going to get m-my t-t-t-t-teeth fixed. But Dad says why b-b-b-b-bother? It w-w-w-w-won’t make me look any m-m-m-more human. Is this shirt clean enough, do you think?”

  We hang the clothes across a fallen palm trunk and turn when we hear happy shrieking.

  I can’t believe my eyes. May, Arlene, and Mrs. Campbell are skinny-dipping in the fishing pool. They’ve done nothing to help all morning. And then I realize there’s no fire—they’ve allowed it to go out. They come up the beach, naked. I’m embarrassed but also very angry.

  “Mrs. Campbell, shouldn’t we keep the fire burning as a marker for anyone coming to rescue us?”

  She throws herself down on the sand, ignoring me once again. I march over to her and stand with my hands on my hips, looking down at her.

  “Shut up, Bonnie MacDonald. You’re so bossy,” May says, stretching out close to Mrs. Campbell.

  “Oh, they’ll find us now that the weather’s improved,” Mrs. Campbell mumbles and rolls a cigarette. I can’t remember ever feeling this angry before: She’s wasting matches now.

  “Your cigarette smells funny, Mrs. Campbell.”

  “Herbal,” she says, sucking in deeply.

  Oh yeah, right, herbal. Pull the other one. I don’t trust myself to speak and walk away. Jas looks at me, her eyes asking me what’s happened, but I shake my head and drop cross-legged onto the sand, my head in my hands.

  The day crawls on. No one comes. We don’t see any boats, planes, or helicopters. When I suggest a hunt for more provisions, only Jas says yes. No one else wants to come. All the others do is swim and muck about. It’s as if they are on holiday. It’s as if Sandy hasn’t died, or the boatman. As if Natalie isn’t seriously sick. As if we aren’t stuck here until someone finds us.

  Hope mopes on her own, the only girl with all her clothes on, though she looks far too hot.

  “Coming?” I ask, but she shakes her head.

  “Then keep an eye on Natalie, will you?”

  Hope nods and moves closer to where Natalie is lying.

  “It’s one thing the juniors acting as if nothing’s happened, but you’d expect Mrs. Campbell and the others to act responsibly,” I grumble.

  “In denial,” says Jas. “All in denial.” (Her mother’s a psychologist.)

  “But think about it, Jas. Who knows we’re here? No one. If the boatman had made it home it would be different, but there are hundreds, well, dozens of islands. How will they know where to find us?”

  “We haven’t seen any boats or planes today.” For once Jas can’t look on the bright side. “Why? Why aren’t they even looking for us? Something awful must have happened at the base.”

  We look at each other. Has there been an air strike?

  Or was the storm so bad the base was flooded or destroyed?

  “What’s that tree? Is it a mango?” I ask.

  “Yes, look, fresh fruit!” Jas responds.

  We gather the fallen fruit, braving the wasps and flies, and eat. Sweetness explodes in my mouth. I suddenly start crying; I don’t know why. Jas puts her arm around me and we sob together.

  I’ve found out why Mrs. Campbell has given up any pretense of being responsible. For a start, she had two bottles of whiskey with her, not one, and she’s nearly finished the second one. I add this information to the list in my journal. I don’t know what made me look in her backpack. Well, that’s not true. I was suspicious because she’s been acting so strangely—staggering around and laughing too much, and then skinny-dipping with the Glossies as if she’s one of us instead of an adult who is supposed to be looking after us. It’s not right. Not natural. There’s something wrapped in silver foil—marijuana, I think.

  I have poured most of the remains of the whiskey into the peanut tin and hidden it near Natalie’s sleeping bag. I’ve diluted the rest with water. I should have peed in it.

  “Why don’t we send a message in a bottle?” Jas knows that I need to keep busy.

  “Brilliant, Jas. Why didn’t we think of it before?”

  The sea’s still running like a tap—a bottle might be thrown onto the beach at home in a matter of hours.

  On a page from my journal I draw a map of the island and show the other islands we floated past, including Koh Chang, the inhabited one, and the mainland, and I write a short message:

  SOS. HELP. MAROONED ON THIS ISLAND. 1 DEAD 8 SURVIVORS. BOATMAN DEAD.

  I add our names, the dead and the survivors.

  Jas, Hope, and I sign it, roll it up in a plastic bag, and push it into an empty Mekong bottle. Hope thumps the stopper in with the palm of her hand, and as the tide is still on the ebb she throws it as far as she can out to sea from Dragon Point.

  nine

  DAY 8, I THINK.

  I am confused about what day it is. We seem to have been here forever.

  I want to be on my own. I have become simply part of a doomed tribe on a desert island, trying to survive. I’m frightened. What am I frightened of? Death, of course. Though I don’t think I will die, not just yet anyway. I’m fit and strong and we can’t die of thirst on an island with freshwater. I might lose a bit of weight, that’s all. Be more of a skinny malinkum (don’t know how to spell that but it’s what Dad calls me) than I am already. I am more scared of the fact that Mrs. Campbell has given up looking after us. Given up being responsible.

  In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Phaedrus says, “The act of writing sorts out the problem.” I’ll carry on writing, though I can’t see how it’s going to help. But writing and reading give me a sense of normality, help to keep me sane. And this journal may be the only way our parents find out what happened.

  Mrs. Campbell has let us down badly. I used to think she was wonderful—because she seemed to understand me.

  But she lied about the whiskey, when it might have helped Natalie. She’s a liar and a cheat. She tricked us all. I despise her.

  I’ve decided to name this island Koh Tabu. It’s the name the boatman shouted before he set off home again. It means Forbidden Island, I think.

  Jas and I are looking after Natalie now. When I offer to change the old dressings Mrs. Campbell looks really relieved.

  “Nurse Bonnie,” she says, but her smile isn’t kind. “Yes, you’ll make an excellent chief nurse.”

  The little girl is unconscious. She looks gray. I try to remember details from my first-aid badge that might help her. I have taken off her stained bandage—strips of Mrs. Campbell’s skirt—and poured some of the hidden whiskey over the injured leg, which is almost black. I’ve wet my T-shirt and placed it on her forehead and other pulse points in an attempt to cool her. She was far too hot so we took her out of the sleeping bag and moved her so she is in total shade. She’s so weak that she can’t even hold her cuddly blanket.

  I sit with her for a while and fan her with a large leaf, but I can’t take the stench for very long. I don’t know whether to cover the injury or leave it open to the air; the first-aid course didn’t cover gangrene. In the end I use strips of towels as a bandage, just to help keep the smell in and the flies away. I hate flies.

  “Jas, take over for a while, will you?”

  “Okay. How is she?”

  “Not good. We should take turns keeping her cool and giving her water.”

  �
�Sure. You better sort it. Mrs. Campbell has gone to sleep.”

  The juniors look hot and bothered, and have caught the sun.

  “Where are your hats?” I ask them. On our first day after the hurricane Jas wove us palm-leaf hats. They are a bit scratchy, but they work, when they stay on.

  Arlene looks daggers at me. “Who do you think you are, Bonnie MacDonald? You’re not in charge.”

  “We are all going to be sick or dead by the time we’re rescued if we don’t act sensibly. Don’t you understand? Heatstroke is not funny.” The juniors look dehydrated. “Get some salt and water into them, straightaway. And we should trade off looking after Natalie.” Someone’s got to be in charge.

  The Glossies stare hard at me. “If Layla didn’t tell us, we don’t have to do it.”

  “Layla? Don’t you mean Mrs. Campbell?”

  “She said to call her Layla. Do it yourself, bossy boots.” They flounce off together up the beach, May with her hair still in curlers.

  “I’ll help,” says Hope.

  She takes the juniors into the shade at the top of the beach and pours salt into the palms of their hands.

  “Now lick it all up, and then drink lots of water,” I hear her tell them, not unkindly. They are red-faced and tearful. They lie down under the trees, whimpering and restless.

  I search the far end of the beach for coconut husks and dry twigs and relight our fire. The matches are damp and I waste several trying to get a light. I lay them out on a fallen tree to dry. There aren’t many left, and they’re Thai matches, which bend and split if you put pressure on them.

  Mrs. Campbell has woken and staggers after May and Arlene.

  I wander back to the edge of the sea, stand on a rock, and look down into the still water of a small tidal rock pool. My vision is blurred by tears. These are not tears of grief or sorrow, or of longing for home and my parents. They are tears of anger, a deep dark rage at Layla Campbell that frightens me, terrifies me. This isn’t me, this furious girl staring back at me from the surface of the water. My features tremble, alter. I do not recognize myself: the grim mouth and hard eyes—a stranger.