Read Stranded! for Free Online Page B

the forest as if it were reaching from the shadows to the brightness of the sunny beach.
     
     
     
    Marshall was wearing a pair of jeans that had been in Geddes' pack and he looked up at the tree with some trepidation. He began climbing it, thinking that if he fell...well he'd surely break something because the ground here was nothing but rock...But he didn't fall and after a lengthy trial and error, he was able to secure one end of each hammock to a sturdy branch.

It wasn't a hard decision of where to hang the other end of the hammocks because there weren't very many more options. After several hours bother hammocks were secure; though not exactly as close to each other as they would have liked. Also they were pretty high from the ground...and there were deadly rocks beneath them. Not the perfect situation; it would be damned hard to get into it and would require some acrobats to get out of it. But on the plus side, no wild boar would be able to reach them as they slept. Marshall thought it was a good trade off.

At approximately 2 pm, seventeen days into their adventure on the island, Marshall and Oceans climbed into their respective 'beds' a mere foot from each other. One hammock was five feet from the ground the other was another foot higher. Deadly rocks were beneath them. BUT...No bugs crawled from a mass of green woven banana leaves to invade their hair and clothes. No sand would find its way into their ear hollows, eyes and nose. And being under the oversized palm leaves made them feel as if they were at a resort. Marshall smiled for the first time in over a week. He looked down at her as she used her right leg to swing her hammock lightly.

"This is great isn't it?"

She just smiled like a Cheshire cat. "I'm never getting out of this." Then she looked over the side of the hammock. It was a steep, dangerous drop. Yeah, she was content to stay here until the call of nature made its appearance.

***

The new beach was nice, though it was far from where they had originally washed ashore and on a rockier portion of the beach. The benefits outweighed the faults in that the new beach offered more shade and the rocks could be utilized for cooking and sitting. Marshall and Oceans found that by keeping busy, the reality of being stranded was held at bay. They worked hard during their waking hours and then slept deeply in their hammocks.

Immediately, Marshall began securing a safe floor for beneath their hammocks. It meant rearranging the rocks until they were level and then shoveling pounds and pounds of sand to pack it down. He proudly announced that when it was done, it would be the foundation for their new and improved hut. He had intricate plans that, to Oceans, seemed hard to follow. But he seemed to enjoy creating large walls from saplings, vines and banana leaves, and then laying them out neatly against the rocks until he was ready to assemble them.

Oceans had a new project of her own. She finally had the resources to safely prepare the bitter cassava. As a bonus, she also found several Ackee trees. For the last few days, she had used some of the extra parachute line to make a trap for some small animal. After more than a month, fish had definitely lost its appeal. However, Marshall had not perfected the art of catching other edible sea creatures. So Oceans was beginning to utilize her cooking skills. Using her new scraper, she shredded the fibrous yucca root and soaked it for a day in the sea water, then as an extra precaution, soaked it again in fresh water from the spring. Next the fibers were allowed to dry in the hot sun and then she used two rocks to grind the meal into flour. Once the precious flour was made, she carefully wrapped it in a silk scarf that she'd had packed away in her suitcase, which also kept it from the sand and from being food to the insects.

Marshall watched her with interest, when after a week of preparation, the day finally arrived that it was time to use the cassava flour. She grabbed a