Escaping the Lost Island (working title)

Chapter 14

The first thing that registered the next morning was pain. My arms were made of lead and it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my back.

"Ohhhh God," I groaned, rolling onto my stomach. Even that small movement sent ripples down my spine.

"Morning Meg!" Kate bounced over to my side. "Isn't it a beautiful morning? The sun is shining and the birds are singing." She gave a happy little sigh and drifted away.

I wondered for the umpteen millionth time how we were members of the same species. Gritting my teeth I rolled to a sitting position. Kate was sort of right. It was a beautiful morning, but my throbbing muscles didn't make it quite as Disneyesque as she had described.

"Back to the rafts." Joe appeared, looking much more reasonably cheerful than Kate.

I nodded. "And we've got the roots now. How close to sealing point are you guys?"

"Pretty close I think," Joe replied. "We can probably start sealing either late today or tomorrow morning."

"That's great!" I stood up and gasped.

"Whoa!" Joe reached out a hand to steady me. "You alright there?"

"Yeah," I lied. "Just a little sore from yesterday."

We made our way over to the fruit pile and grabbed a couple of bananas.

"You know what I miss?" Joe said abruptly, taking a bite of his peeled fruit. "Scrambled eggs."

I looked at him in surprise. That was the closest thing to a complaint that I had ever heard out of Joe. "What made you think of that?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just used to have eggs for breakfast, like, every morning. Don't you ever think about little random things that you miss from your old life?"

Of course I did. We all did. We just didn't talk about it because it was too painful. But since Joe had already opened this can of worms. . .

"I miss hockey," I said. "I used to go down to the rink and practice almost every day."

He smiled. "That's cool."

"What are you guys talking about?" It was Brian.

"What do you miss about your old life?" I asked him.

His forehead scrunched as he thought for a minute. "My TV," he concluded.

"I miss my car," Chris said coming up behind us.

"Me too," Joe agreed. "And going out in my parents' boat."

"I miss bacon," I contributed.

There was a collective moan. "Why would you say that?" Brian whined.

I shrugged. "Sorry, that's just what I thought of."

"I miss coffee," Kate entered the conversation.

A small cluster had formed and soon we were all talking at once.

"Alright well as fun as this is, we should really get to work," I interrupted a few minutes later.

Slowly, we dispersed and headed towards the beach. I squinted up towards the sun, reveling in its warmth on my face. 

"Meg!" A voice behind me called.

I turned to see Jessie approaching. Her face spoke the words she was about to say before she could open her mouth. "I need to talk to you."

For a day or so, I had actually forgotten about what had happened with Alex and Jessie. Unfortunately, such things always figured out how to catch up with me.