Kevin looked over at Candi, watching her reach up to feel her hair.
“Nervous?” he asked, smiling.
“Maybe a little. But it needs to happen. Goodbye frizz-head. Hello Rasta girl.”
“It’ll look great,” he encouraged. He knew now that Candi could look beautiful not matter what she did with her hair. None of them had access to shampoo or brushes, but it didn’t stop her from being one of the most attractive girls he’d ever seen. His thoughts were interrupted by Sarah coming down the ladder and grabbing Candi’s hand.
“Sit.” She pushed Candi down onto a chunk of palm tree that they used as a seat near the fire.
Kevin sat back on his heels, watching his sister take charge of Candi’s hair.
“Now, we have to first try and get the existing knots out. It’s going to hurt, but trust me, when I’m done, you’re going to look
awesome
. Seriously. You have the face for this, and now with your tan and those adorable freckles … you are gonna have the boys all over you.”
Candi didn’t say anything, but Kevin caught her looking over at him. It made him feel warm inside to think that maybe she was trying to be pretty for him.
“Ouch!”
“I’m trying to be as gentle as possible, but getting the matted knots out is hard. Please don’t cry!” Sarah begged.
“I’m not.” She sniffed.
“I’m sorry – I’m almost done,” promised Sarah. A few more rips of the comb, and she was ready.
“There! Now I’m going to section it off and start dreading it. That won’t be as painful. It will be a little, but not as much, okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine, I can take it. Just get it over with.”
Kevin was totally engrossed in his sister’s hairstyling process. He’d never thought about what went into making those hair rope things before. It was actually pretty cool. And he could see now, as they started to appears, why Sarah had suggested it. Not only was it going to be perfect for life on the island, but it really suited Candi’s face.
An hour later, Candi’s hair was carefully divided into even chunks around her head. Sarah had carefully tied each chunk at the roots with the plant rope and then back combed them until each of them turned into a tight dreadlock. She tied off the ends with more plant rope to keep her handiwork from coming out.
“Now, you have to keep the rope ties in for a while until we’re sure the dreads are staying, but don’t worry, it won’t be long. I’ll have to make sure they stay tight for you, but not having any conditioner and all this salt everywhere will help the dreads get solid pretty quick. Now turn around so I can see my finished product.”
Candi did as she was told. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying but that didn’t keep Kevin from seeing how amazing she looked.
“Holy shit, Candi,” said Sarah, “I knew this was going to look good on you. Man, if the people back at school could see you now, you’d be in the running for homecoming queen.”
Candi gave her a critical look.
“I am dead serious, Candi. Here, look.” She handed Candi the mirror that had been hanging in the bathroom.
Candi took the mirror from her and held it up so she could get a full view. She moved the mirror from side to side, trying to get a full reflection.
Sarah was right. It did look good. Kevin had never considered himself a dreadlock lover before, but he was definitely liking them on Candi. They made her look a little rebellious and a little bit wild.
“Oh, this feels so much better than all those matted clumps. I can feel a breeze on my scalp for the first time in … well … ever!” She smiled and grabbed Sarah in a big hug. “Thank you so much! I
love
it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to, but you were right; it’s cool.”
“Okay, girls, breakfast is served!” said Kevin, grinning mischievously.
Candi and Sarah looked at each other with question marks on their faces.
He pulled out two bananas from behind his back.
Sarah and Candi rolled their eyes.
“I should have known,” said Sarah.
Candi stuck her tongue out at him as she took her banana and said, “Tease.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. Apparently her new hairdo made her not only sexier, but bolder too.
“Okay, we have to decide what we’re going to focus on next,” said Jonathan. “It
was
the treehouse. It still needs a lot of work, but we can focus on other things if we want now since it’s livable at least. I would suggest we walk through the middle of the island to see if there’s any reason to install some platforms in the trees.”
“I agree, it’s worth a shot. What do you girls think?”
“Sure.”
“Yeah, I’m game. Maybe we’ll find some other food we can add to our menu,” said Candi.
“Okay, so that’s settled. What else do we need to get done in the next week or so?”
“Well, I’d like to finish the walls for the treehouse because if there’s some sort of major rainy season here, I don’t want to be trying to build stuff when it’s pouring; and I don’t want to sleep with rain going all over my bed,” said Sarah.
“Yeah,” agreed Candi. “I think that makes sense for sure. I’d also like to find something to use as blankets or covers … something other than that plastic poncho.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a Pottery Barn right now,” said Sarah wistfully.
Candi nodded her head vigorously in complete agreement. “I totally love Pottery Barn sheets. They are the softest ever.”
Kevin thought about it for a second and then said, “I don’t know about Pottery Barn, but I’m kinda thinking I’d like one of those cots like you girls have.”
Sarah smiled. “Yeah, I had a feeling you’d say that. Cut the bamboo for me, and I’ll make you both one. I already have the sling parts done.”
“Okay, so we have to finish the treehouse and explore the option of platforms. What else?”
“I want to start a band.”
Everyone stopped chewing their bananas and just looked at Candi like she was nuts.
“What? I’m serious. I miss music and I’m tired of Sarah’s banana song. I think we should each make some sort of musical instrument and one night a week we can sit around the campfire at night and make some music. I always wanted to be in a band,” she confessed.
Kevin got a big grin on his face. “I get to play the drums.”
“I can make a shell shakey thing with little shells and coconuts tied together,” said Sarah gamely.
“Well, if you want to do it and everyone else is on board with it, I can probably figure something out for myself. I’m in,” said Jonathan.
Candi smiled. “Great. This is going to be fun!”
The others just looked around at each other and shrugged their shoulders. If it made her happy …
“You know what?” asked Jonathan.
“What?” answered the other three in unison.
“We never just go in the water for fun. I mean, why don’t we? When we went to the beach for vacation and stuff, we spent the entire day in the ocean. Now we live at the ocean and we never go in. Seems stupid. I vote that we have a picnic at the beach before the weather changes.”
“Works for me,” said Kevin, shrugging.
“I think it’s a great idea, Jonathan. It reminds me of when we went to Myrtle Beach that summer,” said Candi, wistfully.
“I’ll be there. Maybe by then we’ll have food from some other part of the island, and we can make it a really good picnic,” said Sarah.
“So we have lots of things on our agenda. We have the treehouse to finish, platform exploration, ummm, music night, and a picnic on the beach. That should keep us busy for a while.” Jonathan stood up. “No better time to begin than the present. Anyone up for a trip to the center of Peanut Island?”
Everyone volunteered. They left the fire ring to gather supplies, each taking a backpack with a full water bottle, rope, bananas, and cracked coconuts. Jonathan carried the flint and the telescope. They each picked up a spear from Candi’s fishing tackle.
They started walking straight towards the center of the island and were soon in an area that they had never been to before. The trees were dense, birds were chirping and screeching in the canopy above.
“Man, it’s louder here. I can’t hear the ocean anymore,” said Sarah.
“If we could figure out how to spear a bird, we could have chicken for dinner,” said Kevin, only half joking.
“It took me two weeks to figure out how to spear a fish that was two feet away from me – I don’t think I’d be able to do the bird thing anytime soon,” said Candi.
“Well, you know, guys, where there are birds, there are eggs … ,” said Jonathan.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Sarah. On the ground, in a clearing where the sun was able to shine through pretty strongly, was a round, green fruit of some sort. Sarah walked over and picked it up. The tree she was standing next to had several of the same things still attached to its branches. “Is this a lime?”
“Let me see,” said Jonathan, holding out his hand.
“Hmm, I don’t think this is a lime. It doesn’t look or feel right. Kevin, do you have the knife with you?”
“Sure, hand it over.”
Jonathan gave him the fruit and Kevin sliced it in half. The inside was a bright pink.
Jonathan smiled at Candi. “You know what that is, don’t you?”
“Is it guava?” she asked.
“Yep, I think so.” He looked at Sarah and Kevin. “We used to have Mexican night at our house once a week. Our mom would make tacos or enchiladas and we would drink guava juice. The container had a picture of a guava fruit on it. We loved it. I think it has a lot of vitamins too.”
“How did a guava tree get all the way over here if it’s a Mexican fruit?” asked Sarah.
Jonathan looked up into the trees. “My guess is it came here in a bird’s butt.”
Sarah looked at Jonathan like he’d just grown two heads. “I’m sorry. I thought I just heard you say a bird brought a fruit tree here in its butt.”
“I did. What I meant was, the birds eat the fruit in Mexico, which means they get a seed or two in their bellies, then they fly around in their migratory pattern over to an island, they poop, and the seeds come out and start growing. That’s how fruit trees that were native in one place start growing in other places – when it’s not man transplanting them, that is.”
Kevin cut the fruit up into four pieces. “Let’s give it a try. Bird’s ass fruit. Yum.”
They each took a hesitant bite into their piece. All of them smiled, although Sarah not as enthusiastically as the others. “What’s the matter, Sarah, don’t you like it?” asked Candi.
“It’s okay. It’s not my favorite thing in the world; plus the whole bird’s ass thing isn’t very appetizing. But it sure beats the heck out of bananas right now. I’m happy to have a banana break.”
“Me too. And I think I could use this to cook with the fish,” said Candi.
“You know, guys, we should keep our eyes open for sugar cane,” said Jonathan.
“What’s it look like?” asked Kevin.
“Actually, it looks a lot like the bamboo we’ve been cutting down, only it’s shorter and the stalks are thinner, and most of the leaves are at the top.”
Sarah looked at Jonathan with a frustrated expression on her face. “How can you possibly know that? Did you download Wikipedia into a hard drive in your brain?”
“Well, about four years ago, in middle school, I did a science experiment about sugar cane. See, I was in the grocery store with my mom, and there were these sticks in the produce department – I asked her what they were and she told me they were sugar cane. She bought a cane for me and told me to peel off some of the fibers and chew on them. I did it and it was sweet, like sugar kind of, but different. So then it was time to do a science experiment for school, and I had the sugar cane sitting there. I decided I’d do an experiment about making sugar.”
“And how’d that work out for ya?” asked Kevin, smiling.
“Well, I put together a diorama of the process with pictures and stuff. I tried to actually make the sugar at home, but I wasn’t very successful.”
“Well if you couldn’t do it at home with a kitchen and everything, I don’t know that we’ll be able to do anything with it here,” said Kevin.
“Yeah, but I was trying to make refined sugar – like the whole deal with white crystals and stuff. To make things sweet, you just need to squeeze the crap out of the fibers. Cane juice is like sugar water kind of. It just still has the brown sugar molasses in it, so it has a stronger flavor.”
“I think I could work with that. We could actually make like a dessert or a sweet coconut drink if we had some sugar cane juice.” Candi was obviously getting excited about the idea.
“Mmm, sounds like party time. Island coconut daiquiris, minus the ice and pineapple,” said Sarah.
“Okay,” said Kevin. “Add it to the list of things to do this week – find sugar cane.”
The group continued moving through the trees. “I think it would be worthwhile to build some platforms going from the treehouse to the guava area. It took us about forty-five minutes to get here walking on the ground. If we had some sort of platform system and used ropes or something to swing from one to the next, we could move a lot faster,” said Jonathan.
Kevin looked above his head into the tree canopy. “We really wouldn’t need to do too much, I don’t think. I mean, there are tons of wide tree limbs that wouldn’t need a platform at all.”
Candi eyed the trees suspiciously. “I don’t know about the whole idea, guys. I was never very good at climbing the rope in gym class.”
“Yeah, me neither,” said Sarah.
“Well, we at least need to do a tree climbing class,” said Kevin. “Who knows when you might be out in the jungle and need to get up off the ground? We still don’t know what other animals are out here.”
“That’s a good point, Kevin,” said Jonathan. “Let’s put that on the list too – tree climbing. Maybe if we get good at tree climbing and rope swinging, we won’t need platforms. I guess we won’t know until we get up into the trees.”
They walked on, debating the pros and cons of moving through the trees like monkeys. After a while they stopped for a lunch of bananas and coconut.