Massie+-+Haley,+KatieL,+Alexis

By: Haley Kaercher, Alexis Jeanette, and Katelyn Lillquist



As I came out of the water, my hair heavy and wet, my clothes dripping and dragging, I called Alexis to come and buy a cotton candy with me. “Hey Alexis, I’m going to go get a cotton candy. Do you want to come?” I didn’t have enough time to listen to Alexis’ answer, because I was distracted. As I stared into the ocean, the glare from the sun on the water was making it very hard to see, but I could just make out the frame of an island. There was never an island on Siesta Beach! I gasped and called out Alexis' name again to come. “Alexis, there's something really weird out here!” I yelled to make sure she heard me over the crowd. “I'll be there in a sec!," she replied. I turned back and stared out into the ocean once again. This time, I could just make out a person jumping up and down waving a red towel in the air. He or she was obviously trying to get somebody’s attention. I looked away for a second to see Alexis skipping towards me. When I looked back, the person was gone. “What’s up?” she asked me. “I just saw an island out there. And about two seconds ago, there was a person jumping up and down waving a red rag.” “Sureeeee....” Alexis said, not convinced. "I swear... I know what I saw!" She looked irritated. "Clare, just shut up! I'm not stupid and I really just wanna go get a bite to eat. I'm starving." Now I was getting irritated. It was pretty monotonous trying to get Alexis to believe me. "Ughh... if you don't believe me, I'll just try to find out about it myself." "Clare, can you just come grab an ice cream with me?"  I was tired of trying, so I just gave up. "Fine... but only if you come with me after to see what's up with this island." "Whatever." As Alexis and I waited in line for the ice cream truck, Haley approached us. "Hey... what's up?" she said. "Not much. We're just grabbing an ice cream," Alexis exlaimed. "K. Can I hang with you guys?" "Mhm," I agreed. "But I have no money. Can you lend me some?" "I only have enough money to buy one ice cream. Sorry," I said. "Uhhh...," Alexis started as she checked her pockets, "I have a little extra. Will you pay me back?" "Yeah," Haley said. When we were the next ones up, we all handed our money to the ice cream man. "I'm gonna have a cookies and cream," Alexis said. I examined the truck and decided that the Sponge Bob pop looked good. "I'll have the Sponge Bob thingy," I said. "Uhhh... a chocolate vanilla swirl is good for me," Haley said. The ice cream man went in the back and came back a couple seconds later with three ice creams. "Thanks," I said. As we walked away and unwrapped our ice creams, I told Haley about what I saw. "And Alexis didn't believe you?" She said questionably. "Well can you blame me? I mean... I still don't know if I believe her," Alexis answered. "Okay, then why don't we just ask someone about it?" Haley suggested. "But that wouldn't be any fun... why don't we go see it for ourselves? I mean... if we tell someone about it and they find the island, then everyone will know about it. Why don't we be the only ones? It can be our own little secret," I said. "K, so lets meet back here tonight at midnight and swim out there," Alexis said. "No way... we can't swim all the way out there... it must be miles away," I said. "Well, Katelyn has kayaks we could borrow... she can come with us," said Alexis. "That'll work," I said, "K... so catch ya guys later," I said. "Bye," said Haley. "Bye," said Alexis

When I got home, I called Katelyn to ask her about coming with us and using her boat. "Heyyyy... Katelyn, Haley, Alexis, and I wanna go out to this island we saw in Siesta Key... It's a long story... but we need a boat, and we were wondering if we could use your kayaks. You could come too, so we'd need 2 kayaks." "Wait... an island?" She replied. "Yeah. I'll explain it when we get there, but could we could to your house at about 11, grab the kayaks, and ride out there? I mean, you live right on the beach, so it'd be easy to sneak them out." "Ummm..." I could tell she was hesitant "Pleeeeease... we really want to see this island." "Well, I guess." "K, great! So I'll see you at your house at like 11." "K. Bye." "Bye," I replied. After I called Haley and Alexis to tell them about Katelyn and the kayaks, I ate dinner and got ready to leave. Sneaking out of the house at 11 was not easy. My mom was on the couch watching T.V., which is near the front door, and my dad was on the computer, which was near the back door. I had to climb out my window onto the top of the shed, which was right under the window, and jump off. It wasn't dangerous or anything; only a couple of feet; but I still had to be careful to be quiet. When I finally got out, I went down Pentecost Street and walked a couple blocks south to Katelyn's house. Luckily, we live very close, as well as Alexis and Haley do, so it wasn't a long walk. I knocked on the door and Katelyn came to the door. "Hey," she whispered, "My parents obviously don't know about this, so you have to be really quiet. They're in their bedroom, so just head upstairs and go to my room. I have to go to tell them something first." "K," I replied. As I tip-toed up the stair, I could hear Katleyn telling her mom someone was just playing ding-dong-ditch. When I got to her room, I sat down on her bed and looked around. I had never been to her house before, but it was pretty nice. Her room was painted light blue and it was decorated with shells. She had a flatscreen T.V. and an Apple laptop on a dark brown desk. There was a plush, tanish rug on the gorund, and her bed was about the size of my room. Looks like she was living pretty big. "Hey. Sorry about that. My parents didn't believe the ding-dong-ditch junk because we've never been ding-dong-ditched before, so I had to convince her of it." "That's ok. You've got an awesome room." "Thanks. We had an interior designer come and decorate it. My inspiration was the beach... obviously." "Nice. Soo... where are your boats?" I asked "They're acually just sitting in the yard. We keep them there during the summer because we use them so often." "K, so I told Alexis and Haley to meet us at the beach at 12 and I would come help you carry the kayaks to the beach. We should only need 2. Alexis and I can ride in one and Haley and and you can ride in another." "K, so we'll just head out now I guess," she said hesitantly. "Yeah, sure." "K, so just follow me... but quietly." "K."

After we retrieved the two double kayaks, we headed down to the beach. When we arrived, we saw Haley and Alexis waiting for us with two bulging bags of stuff. "Hey," they exclaimed at the same time. "Hey," Katelyn and I responded. "So, I guess we're just gonna wing it and head out. We brought sweatshits so we won't be too cold... we have four life jackets we can put on, and we have lots of flashlight so we won't get lost, and if we can't find the island, we can head back to shore," Alexis explained. "Good thinking," I started, "I guess Katelyn and I didn't really think about that stuff." We glided the kayaks in the water. Alexis and I got into one of the kayaks. It's been a while since I had been in one, so I was a little scared when it wobbled a little, but Alexis reassured me that she had ridden in a kayak several times over the summer. When Katelyn and Haley got into the other one, we all paddled out in the direction in which we saw the island earlier today. We took turns paddling since our muscles cramped after a few minutes of working. It was silent between the four of us until Alexis asked Haley to get her a sweatshirt from their kayak and throw it over. We had to stop several times after that throughout our journey to swap sweatshirts and flashlights, but besides that, it was pretty much completely silent. I enjoyed the quiet; it was calming and cool. It was pretty freezing, even with the sweatshirts, but besides that, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. The only confusing part was that we had no idea if we were going in the right direction or not. We just kept paddling in the direction in which we saw the island earlier in the day, but we could have been paddling into nowhere. After about at least an hour and a half, it was then that I started to realize this could be dangerous and started to worry.... Until our kayaks ran aground. When I started to feel something graze the bottom of our kayak, I told the other girls that I thought we were landing on something. "Wow this is really cool!" Katelyn exlaimed. "We might acually be on this island you saw!" When we knew we were completely on land, we stepped out onto the soggy sand that was beneath us and flashed our lights ahead into the darkness. There was about 8 meters of sand until the beach gradually turned into a dense forest filled with exotic trees and bushes. We walked along the beach for a while before setting out into the jungle. I was hesitant, but did not complain. Although this could be a chance to rescue someone who might be stranded on this island, I also realized this could be a trap or just a dead end, and I started to regret our trip again. Once we were deep into the jungle, evrything was pitch black. We could not not see anything, even with our flashlights. We only heard the loud screeches and cries of birds swooping up above. My stomach did a flip and Haley screamed at the top of her lungs. "I heard something! I swear! I gotta get out of here!" She began to run back to where we left the kayaks, and I was almost about to go with her until Katleyn grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Suddenly, something caught my eye. "LOOK!" I said. Up ahead in the distance, there was a soft glow, like a burning a fire. We crept along the jungle floor, never taking our eyes off the orange glow. When we were very close to the fire, all of the tress opened up into a large clearing. A tent was set up, and a hammok hung between two trees. A huge bonfire was blazing, surrounded by dead tree logs, which were meant for sitting on. Over the fire hung a pot boiling over. katelyn gasped loudly. Suddenly, we heard a noise. An old man with a beard that had to to be at least two feet long stood before us, holding two alive fish. He must have just came back from fishing. He looked more surprised to see us than we were to see him. His hands opened, realeasing the two fish. They fell to the ground, flailing around wildly. His jaw dropped. "Ummm... H-h-hello," I said nervously. The man did not respond. "We saw you earlier today and you looked like you needed help. So here we are." The man had beady red eyes and long finger and toe nails. His teeth were yellow and leaves hung on his beard. His mustache curled at the ends. His ribs poked out from his skin. He did not look very healthy. "Salutations," the old man said weakly at last. "Ummm... yeah... so what are you doing on this island?" Alexis asked. It was a little akward for a moment. We were kind of just winging this; we hadn't planned a rescue plan or anything... it was all just really weird. Both of us were kind of at a loss for words, but thank god he finally spoke up. "Well, it's a long story, but since it will involve you, I guess I'll get started. Acually, 1 other person and I are on this island. I too was once on the beach one day and noticed just the shape of an island far, far out in the ocean. I was quite curious, so I gathered up a group of 5 people and asked them to take a boat ride with me late at night when nobody would be on the beach. I see you ladies had the same idea. Anyways, the 5 others had no idea we were searching for an island, but when we finally hit ground, that's when I told them that the whole purpose of taking the boat trip was to find this island. For about a month we stayed. We didn't really think about the jobs or family we had left behind. We were all adventerous people, and we liked it out here. It was peaceful and calming. However, after about 3 months, 2 people got home sick and started to hate living up here. Us other 3 people over-ruled the others and wanted to stay, and we refused to leave. One night, when we were all asleep, the group that wanted to leave took our boat that we had left on the island in case we decided to go back home, and didn't tell us. Ever, since, we've been trying to get peoples' attention, and I guess it worked. It's been about a half a year; not that long; since we've been here, but we are now sick of it, and cannot go back home because we do not have a ship. I'm hoping greatly that you will bring us back." We were all silent for a moment. The story he had told us was unbelievable, but he seemed nice enough. We had come all this was to see what was up here, so I guess it wouldn't be worth it to just leave these people on the island here. It would be mean and pointless. However, we only had 2 double kayaks. "I don't think we'd have a problem with helping you people, but we only have kayaks to fit four people," I said. Just then, 2 others approached from behind. They all looked at us in disbelief, and they looked quite dumbfounded; the way I imagine we looked when we first saw Gary. Gary told them the whole story about how we saw him earlier today and came in two double kayaks. He told them they were probably going to find a way to get us home, but we were at a loss of how. One of the 2 other guys started to make a suggestion. "Well, there's only 3 of us and 2 of you," he said, "So I can sit on someone's lap, you 4 girls can pair up and sit on eachothers' laps, and one of us can sit alone." He had a strong voice, much different from Gary's. "That sounds like an ok idea. I mean, there's really no other way to get back," Haley said. "Ok, so shall we leave now?" I said. I really just wanted to get off that island. It seemed so ficticious and unreal, and I wanted to return to home. "Ok," they all responded. We walked back to our kayaks and prepared to leave. "We only have 4 life jackets, so we don't have any for you 3," Katelyn told the men. "That is fine," Gary said. I sat on Alexis's lap in the back, and Gary sat in front of us. Katleyn sat on Haley's lap while the other 2 guys sat in front of them. We started our journey back home with great relief. The ride back was pretty much the same; long and boring, yet relaxing. However, when it wasn't our turn to paddle, we occasionally dozed off. We were extremely tired and exausted.

We got back to Siesta Beach at about 5:30 in the morning. There, Gary and the 3 men told us they'd find their way from there. It'd be weird back on real land for them, but we wouldn't be much help to them from there. They thanked ua a million times and we said our farewells. While walking back to Katelyn's house to put away the kayaks, we didn't talk at all. We were all kind of confused on what had just happened, and we had a lot on our minds. We stashed the kayaks away again like they had never been touched. We all agreed that we would not breathe a word about it unless Gary contacted and asked us to do so. We all said good night and walked home. It had been a long night. When I arrived home, I knew my parents would be hestaricle. Yes, they probably had already called the police, and they were probably tremendously worried and anxious, but I was immensely tired and just wanted to crawl under my covers and drift away into a deep sleep. I wasn't going to tell them what had happened. I would come up with something to say when I got there, and I knew I was going to be in trouble, but it wasn't worth having them know. No one in this world but my friends, Gary, and I knew what happed that night.