Island

"Lousy reason. Give me another."

I shrugged. "Well, I've already seen . . . you know, seen you topless."

"And once was enough, huh?"

Woops.

"No," I protested. "But it's too dark here. I wouldn't be able to see."

"You could touch."

"Really? You didn't say that before. Okay, I pick that."

"What?"

"Taking off your top."

"Too late. You already made your choice."

"Can't I change my mind?"

"No."

"Okay."

"You sure give up easy."

"I just don't want to argue."

"You just really don't want to see me topless again. Don't worry, pal -- you won't."

With that, she pulled at the waist of my trunks as if she wanted to see how far the elastic would stretch. She drew it out about half a foot, then let go. It shot in and snapped me.

And it hurt.

I staggered backward to get out of her reach -- not knowing what to expect next.

She stood up. "Fuck you," she snarled. "You're such a pathetic fucking loser. You really thought I'd pull your trunks down? Or take off my top? No way. Not a prayer. Last thing I want is your stupid cock in my face. And the only reason I let you see my tits back at the fire was to let you take a good look at what you're never gonna see again."

I doubted the truth of that. Fact is, I doubt that she ever says what's really going on in her head -- maybe doesn't even know what's going on in there.

But she was looking for trouble, so I gave her some. Not a smart move, but what I said was, "I figured you took off your top 'cause you wanted to show off your boobies -- such as they are -- to Wesley."

Her mouth fell open.

A moment later, she blurted, "That's the thanks I get for trying to be nice to you."

Whatever that meant.

I was afraid she might go for the ax. She didn't, though. She stomped through the water and ran up the bank and didn't stop till she reached the sleeping area. There, she flopped down on her usual assortment of rags.

I was left standing in the stream, a bit confused about what had gone wrong.

She'd been getting pretty friendly there for a while.

Unless it had been an act.

When it comes to Connie, it's just mighty damn awful hard to tell what's real from what isn't.

All I can be sure of is that she is never likely to react the way I'd expect a person to react. Not like Billie or Kimberly, for instance. You can make sense out of them. Unlike Connie.

Could it have to do with the fact that she's still a teenager? At eighteen, though, you'd think she might be past the usual adolescent crap.

Doesn't seem to be.

She reminds me of a cat I used to know. One time, I was petting its head. The cat was really into it, eyes half shut, its purr rumbling away. But all of a sudden, God knows why, it went nuts and shredded my arm.

I was thinking about that sort of stuff while I finished at the stream. What I did there was kneel in the water, wash the blood off my body as well as I could, then work at getting my trunks clean. Finally, I waded out, picked up the ax and returned to camp.

Connie was probably not asleep. I considered going over to her and trying to make amends, but that didn't seem like such a hot idea. I might just end up setting her off again.

So I went to the fire and sat down, figuring I might as well keep watch -- even though sentry duty didn't seem very necessary.

Our ambush hadn't been a complete failure -- Kimberly had delivered a couple of nasty wounds to Wesley. They were probably not fatal (barring infection), but they were pretty sure to keep him in major pain for a while.

And out of our hair.

Though I didn't expect an attack, I stayed awake and kept watch. There was plenty to occupy my mind. My plan was to stay up all night, so that the gals could get plenty of sleep. A while before dawn, though, Billie woke up and came over to the fire.

She sat down next to me. The side of her face was swollen and discolored by the blow from Thelma's spear. "How's it going?" she asked.

"I don't think there's much chance of them bothering us tonight."

"There isn't . . . How about you? How are your wounds doing?"

"Connie washed them off for me."

"Let's see."

I leaned back and turned toward her. Looking at my injuries, Billie grimaced. "Must hurt."

"How about you?"

"I'll live." She put a hand on my leg. "Why don't you go on to bed, now?"

"I'm not that tired."

"Sure you are. Go on."

"Why don't I stay and keep you company?"

"Thanks. But you know what? I'd rather be alone for a while. You know?"

I wanted awfully badly to stay with her -- not to keep her company, but because I felt sort of lonely, myself. When it comes right down to it, I'd rather spend time with Billie than with anyone else I can think of.

But she probably wanted time to sit by herself and think about Andrew. I said, "Sure. See you later."

Then I went over to my sleeping place.

Before you know it, I was out like a light.

Odds And Ends

So much for last night. This is still day four, and I've spent the better part of it working on my journal here.

I'm just back from another break.

It's late afternoon, now. This has been a fairly uneventful day. Thank God.

I already went into how I took the earlier break from my writing and told the gals about the journal.

There are a few other matters worth mentioning.

For instance, we've started using the latrine as a toilet. Laid some branches across the hole, to stand on.

Also, Billie and Kimberly, with some help from me, constructed a couple of shelters. We made them like the walls of the latrine, by lashing bushes and fronds to frameworks of sticks. Instead of being walls, though, these are roofs. We set them up on poles, near our sleeping area. The purpose is to have places where we can escape from the sun. I'm using one, now. Though the sun hasn't been terrible (the heat is fairly moderate, and there's usually a pleasant breeze), I really enjoy being able to sit in the shade while I write.

Billie and Kimberly also made new weapons to replace the ones that were lost or broken last night.

Connie has spent most of the day by herself. She's hardly spoken to me since our squabble at the stream. The few times she's been near me, she has thrown narrow-eyed glares my way.

The good part is, she spent hours fishing. This morning, she borrowed the knife from Kimberly and used it to whittle a special point on the end of her spear. The point is very long and thin, with three barbs carved into its side. They look like small, sharp limbs, and sweep back at an angle away from the tip. The one nearest the tip is the smallest. They get bigger as they go. The obvious purpose for the barbs is to stop fish from falling, off, once they've been speared.

It's a wicked-looking piece of work, though. Sure hope she doesn't get into a tiff and decide to use it on me.

Anyway, she stood in the inlet for hours, way out where it's waist-deep. Must've taken a long time to get the hang of using the spear. Every once in a while, I heard her yell "Fuck!" Finally, she yelled, "Yes! Gotcha, you bastard!" I looked up and saw her hoisting a big, silvery fish toward the sky on the tip of her spear. Everyone cheered, including me. She brought the fish ashore. Kimberly went running to her with our biggest pot, scooped it full of salt water, and Connie tossed in the fish.

She ended up with four of them.

We'll be having a real feast, tonight.

That's about it for today's events. So far, so good.

We've done pretty well when you take all the circumstances into account. Yesterday, we'd had to deal with the killings of Keith and Andrew. Today, on top of that, there was the failure of our ambush to think about and the defection of Thelma -- plus all the injuries from last night.

In the injury department, I'm the worst off, if you don't count Wesley.

Kimberly is probably the most beat up, after me. Her skin didn't get broken, but she has a horrible bruise on her ribcage, just below her right armpit. She also has bruises on her stomach and right hip from Thelma kicking her.