Jonathan didn't answer. He just took the rope off and continued trudging through the water until he reached the sh.o.r.e. Once there, he dropped down in exhaustion, his face landing sideways in the sand.

"Jonathan!" yelled Candi. She couldn't move fast enough to get to him because she was still hauling the boat.

Sarah didn't think she just jumped into the water and started swimming, cutting a clean line through the surface, swimming freestyle towards the sh.o.r.e.

As soon as she reached the shallow water, Sarah stood up and ran over to Jonathan, dropping down beside him and turning him over.

"Hey! Are you okay? Jonathan! Say something!"

Jonathan squinted his eyes, trying to open them, the color slowly returning to his face.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked innocently.

"Oooh, you ... idiot!" said Sarah, flinging sand on him as she stood up quickly and moved away from him.

Sarah saw that Candi was nearly to the dry sand now. She was trying to figure out how they were going to get Kevin out of the boat so they could start taking care of him. They weren't going to be able to pull it up very far because it was so heavy.

"Here, let me help." Jonathan had stood up again and got behind the boat where Sarah had already gone, and began pushing along with her.

The boat made contact with the sand and stopped abruptly. They heard Kevin groan as his body was jerked to the side.

"Errrh! I can't. Push. This. Thing. Any. Farther!" grunted Sarah.

"Just do your best ... a couple more inches," said Jonathan, putting his shoulder against the back of the boat and pushing with all his might.

They got two more inches of movement before the boat dug itself into the sand. It wasn't going any farther today, they decided.

Jonathan and Sarah dragged themselves around the side of the boat to stand on the beach next to Candi.

"How are we going to get him out of the boat?" asked Candi, concern marring her features.

"First thing we have to do is prepare a place for him to be taken to." Jonathan looked at Sarah. "Can you manage that?"

"Of course I can," responded Sarah indignantly. "What do you want me to do?"

"Just make some sort of shelter up there in the trees. Use the tarp and the sheet put the sheet on the ground and the tarp in the tree as a canopy of some sort. We need to protect him and us from the sun as best we can." He looked up and squinted at the sky.

Sarah could feel her face burning. She looked at Candi and Jonathan and saw that they had pretty bad sunburns too. All she could think about was the skin cancer that was probably being created on her face as she baked under the sun.

He turned to Candi. "Let's go see if we can wake him up enough to get him out of the boat."

Sarah climbed into the boat, taking the sheet from the puddle in the bottom and the tarp from above Kevin's head. She headed up to the tree line with the two items to begin making their shelter.

After Sarah was gone, Candi and Jonathan got back into the boat, studying the situation. Jonathan was the first to speak.

"Wake him and try to get him to sit up. When he does, I'll try to get him on his feet. Watch his hand."

Candi bent down over Kevin's face. "Kevin. Wake up. Kevin, we need you to wake up." She started shaking his shoulder as she continued. "Keeeevin, wake uuuuup. We're home! Look, Kevin, we're home! Time to get up!"

"Mmmph, home. Good. Tired."

Candi looked up at Jonathan. "He isn't budging."

Jonathan sighed, making his decision.

"I'm sorry to have to do this to you, Kevin, but it's the only way."

He reached down and squeezed Kevin's sore hand.

"HOLY FFFFFRIG WHAT THE h.e.l.l ARE YOU DOING? ... I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

Kevin sat bolt upright, cradling his hand, his eyes ablaze with pain and fury.

"Grab him!" yelled Jonathan.

Brother and sister each grabbed him under an arm and lifted with all their might. Kevin's body didn't budge.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing? Getting rid of the dead weight?" asked Kevin indignantly, thinking he was being offed by the Buckley kids.

"We're trying to get you out of the boat!" yelled Jonathan, frustrated that he had no upper body strength.

"I can't swim like this ... I'll drown!" yelled Kevin.

"Kevin, we're on an island right now. Look." Candi gestured towards the sh.o.r.e.

Kevin sat up straighter, looking out over the bow of the boat. "Hey. We're not moving anymore. And there's trees. Lots of 'em. Holy s.h.i.t, Jon, you did it, man!" A beaming smile broke out over his face, now that he realized he wasn't being fed to the sharks. He looked over at Jonathan. "Way to go, dude. You're the man. Help me get out of this s.h.i.tty boat, will ya?"

"Yeah, like I haven't been trying to do that for the past five minutes," he said wryly, as he bent over to grab Kevin under his arm again.

With Kevin helping, they were able to get him over to the side of the boat. After a few seconds of calculating and debating the best way to get him onto the sh.o.r.e, Kevin managed to roll himself over the side to land on the sand below. He yelped in pain, but it seemed to wake him up a bit and made it easier to get him stumbling up the sand to the tree line.

When the three arrived at Sarah's camp, they were pleasantly surprised to see that she had been very busy setting up a temporary shelter for them. "Wow, this is nice," said Jonathan.

The sheet was laid out over the sand and the tarp had been tied at three corners to nearby trees with some sort of vine. Sarah was nowhere to be found.

Candi and Jonathan got Kevin settled on the middle of the sheet, then worked on carrying the supplies out of the boat and over to their shelter.

"We might as well bring it all over here for now, just in case there's another storm and our boat gets pulled away."

"I hope that doesn't happen. We want to keep the boat, right?" asked Candi.

"Of course, but I'd rather keep our supplies close. Those rogue waves scared me." Jonathan looked at the boat stuck in the sand. "Honestly, though, I don't know that we're going to get that boat moved at all. I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there."

Candi nodded in agreement. "Yeah, me too. It's already sunk into the sand a little bit, even after just thirty minutes."

Four trips later they had everything around the blanket. Candi started unpacking the first aid kit, laying out the items she thought they could use for Kevin.

"There's antiseptic here, and some gauze and tape. Also, I think this is antibiotic ointment." She held up a small, foil packet.

"That's good. First, though, we need to scrub the cut and clean it out get all that pus and stuff out of there."

Candi went a little green. "Ew, are you sure?"

"Yes. Can you do it, or should I?"

"I think you'd better do it."

"Okay, fine." Jonathan moved so he was next to Kevin's hand. "Kevin!" he yelled.

"Dude, you don't have to shout, I'm lying right here."

"Oh, sorry, I thought you were sleeping. I'm going to clean your hand now. It's probably going to hurt a lot. Don't hit me."

Kevin opened his one good one eye. "Don't worry, I can take it. I play rugby."

Jonathan took Kevin's hand and pulled it towards him, muttering, "Playing rugby is not the same as having surgery without anesthetic."

He took a deep breath and began.

His plan was to use the gauze and antiseptic to wipe off the goop that had hardened on top, but as soon as he started, he noticed his heart rate starting to climb. Then several droplets of sweat broke out on his upper lip. He started feeling dizzy and queasy ...

"What the ... ?"

Jonathan sat up, looking around in confusion. Sarah was sitting nearby, smirking at him, and Candi was packing up the first aid kit, casting glances his way.

"What's going on? What happened?" He was completely bewildered.

"You pa.s.sed out, that's what happened," laughed Sarah. "Your little sister had to clean up after you and take care of our patient without your help."

Jonathan looked over at his sister for confirmation, then looked at Kevin's hand. Sure enough, it was neatly bandaged with gauze and tape.

Jonathan looked sheepish. "Sorry, Candi. It must have been a vasovagal response."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that's what it was the vasowhatever thingy. I took care of it, and I think I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself." She smiled, proud that she hadn't pa.s.sed out or puked when that gooey pus had come out of Kevin's poor hand.

"Yeah, Candi's like Florence Nightingale over there. I vote she's in charge of the island hospital from now on."

Candi looked up from her packing. "And I vote Sarah's in charge of shelter arrangement on this island from now on." She smiled over at the girl who had single-handedly made a pretty nice field hospital for her to operate in.

Sarah smiled back. "I don't mean to brag, but I also managed to find these for us." She pulled out a bunch of bananas from behind her back.

"Holy c.r.a.p, bananas!" exclaimed Candi.

"Yep!" said Sarah, as she ripped one from the bunch and started peeling it. "There are trees full of 'em on this island." She took a bite of it and continued, "They're kinda little, but they taste fine. I also saw some coconuts, but they were up too high to get. Plus I have no idea how to open one."

Jonathan sat up slowly, holding his spinning head gingerly. "I think we could figure out how to open them. I'm glad to know they're here, because we only have a little bit of water. Until we find other fresh water, we could survive on coconut water."

"Isn't it called coconut milk?" asked Candi.

"No, not really. What we call coconut milk that people make daiquiris out of is actually the juice squeezed from the white meat of the coconut, not the liquid that swishes around inside the round nut."

Sarah looked at him with exasperation on her face, like she couldn't figure him out. "How do you know all this stuff? I mean, the difference between coconut water and coconut milk? How esoteric can you be?"

Jonathan shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Bill Nye the Science Guy. A variety of sources, really."

"Yeah, but, how do you remember all of it?

"I don't know. I just do."

Candi nodded her head. "He's like an elephant. He never forgets anything. He's still mad about a lollipop I stole from him when I was three."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "How annoying."

"Well, people shouldn't steal other people's candy. That's just not right. Anyone would remember that."

Candi laughed at him and reached over to play-slap him on the arm. "Sorry, Jonathan. I'll buy you a new one when we get home."

The group fell silent as they thought about the idea of going home and being able to just walk into a store and buy a lollipop. It seemed so simple, purchasing candy. Now, it was something they couldn't do and maybe would never be able to do again. It was a sobering thought that no one wanted to say out loud.

"Mmmph ... wanna lollipop ... " Kevin's head moved from side to side.

Candi, Jonathan and Sarah all shared a look and then burst out laughing. Leave it to Kevin to rein them all in again. Even when he was pa.s.sed out, he was still keeping it real.

"No ... notta lollipop ... wanna gumdrop ... heh, heh ... " He smiled in his delirium.

Candi's eyes bugged out of her head, afraid she had just heard what sounded like Kevin saying he wanted a gumdrop. Her face turned burning red.

Sarah got a wicked look on her face. She leaned in towards her brother. "What's that Kevin? What do you want? Tell us again." She looked over at Candi's face and lifted her eyebrows twice, signaling that she had heard the same thing Candi had heard and now she was going to torture Candi with it, just for fun.

Jonathan leaned in curiously. "What is it? What does he want? Maybe we can give it to him."

Sarah rocked back on her heels laughing her head off. "Jonathan, you are hilarious, you know that? I love it. I agree maybe we can give it to him. Candi, what do you think? Can we give it to him?" She snorted at her own teasing.

"What? What'd I say? What's so funny?"

Candi stood up and patted Jonathan on the back. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Sarah's just insane. We're going to need to build a cage to put her in later. We'll call it the coconut house." She looked over at Sarah and glared at her.

The girls spent the next couple of hours forcing water down Kevin's throat while he yammered on and on about gumdrops and rugby. His fever seemed to be dropping which made them all feel a little bit better. He hadn't vomited anymore which was definitely a good sign.

Jonathan did a little nearby exploring, bringing back a coconut that he had found on the ground and proceeded to examine it in great detail, before laying it in the sand near the blanket.

They ate only a small amount of their food and water. Not wanting to risk being discovered by who knows what, and the night being pretty warm, they vetoed building a fire and went to bed early. They agreed to come up with a plan of action when they woke up the next morning no use trying to figure anything out now in the dark when all of them were too exhausted to think straight.

They opened the ponchos and laid them out as covers for all of them to share. Each one was almost big enough for two people. Kevin was still a little hot, but he was shivering. Sarah and Candi positioned themselves with their backs up against him to keep him warm.

One by one, they drifted off to sleep, left alone in their thoughts of home and being lost in the middle of nowhere, none of them hearing the distant sound of a powerful motor slipping past the island, far out in the ocean waves.