Adam

             Mama had told me that, if I ever saw something at the line where the water meets the sky, I should build the biggest, smokiest fire I could on the beach and keep it going until the thing went away. That had only happened once before and nothing had happened, except the thing went away, but I did what Mama told me to anyway. This time, the thing got bigger. Soon, a smaller thing started coming towards the beach from the big thing. Mama had said that this might happen and that the things would probably be boats, so I stood on the beach and waited.

             The small boat was being pushed through the water by something noisy attached to the end of it and there were many people on it. A couple of the people jumped off the boat and pulled it onto the beach. Then, another person jumped off the boat and started walking towards me. They were all dressed in the same kind of clothes. Mama had said to not be afraid if some people came to the beach after I built the fire. I was a little afraid of the people and the noisy pusher, but Mama was always right, so I stood and waited for them.  Mama had told me that I was a boy, she was a girl, and explained the differences between boys and girls, so I knew this person was a girl. The other people on the boat seemed to all be boys. Some of them carried sticks, which I thought was strange, and I hoped they weren’t going to hit me with the sticks. 

             The girl said that her name was Lieutenant Jameson and asked me what my name was. I said that Mama called me Adam. She asked me where Mama was. I told her that Mama had gone to sleep one sundown and wouldn’t wake up at sunup no matter what I did. She had told me that she might do this and that I should leave her in the cave and move to the other cave, so that’s what I did. Lieutenant Jameson asked me if I would show her the cave where Mama was, so we walked up the beach, followed by the boys. I pointed to the cave and Lieutenant Jamison went up there and looked inside. When she came back down, she talked to one of the boys for a minute, then came back to me. The boy she talked to and another boy went back to the little boat, made the noisy pusher make noise again, and headed back to the big boat. 

             The Lieutenant asked me how long I had been on the island. I said that Mama and I had been here since the night of the storm. I was much smaller then and didn’t have any hair on my face and body. She asked me if I remembered anything about where we came from or what happened that night. I told her that I thought we had been on a boat with a lot of other people, including a boy with hair on his face that seemed important to me. On the night of the storm, I remembered hearing a lot of people screaming and I had been very scared. Then I fell into the water and started to sink. Suddenly, Mama grabbed me and held me tight until we washed up on the island, which took a long time. We never saw any other people after that, but sometimes stuff would wash up on the beach that Mama said was from home. Mama seemed really sad at first, but she had to work very hard to find water and food and a place for us to sleep out of the rain and the lightning. When I got bigger, I could help her with these things. Mama taught me how to make fire and cook food and do other things to keep us safe. She got less sad after many sunups, but she still would stare at the water sometimes without talking.  She told me there were people who lived in places off of the island and that maybe one day I would get to go there. 

             The Lieutenant asked how long it had been since Mama had gone to sleep. I said that it had been a long time. I was much smaller then and didn’t have the hair on my face. The Lieutenant frowned at this and stopped talking for a little bit, then asked if I would be ok with leaving the island and going with her and the boys. She said that Mama would go with us. Mama had told me that, if people came to the island, they would probably want me to go with them back to where they came from and that I should go, so I said yes. I noticed that the two boys who had gone in the little boat had come back and were carrying a big box, which they took to Mama’s cave. I asked the Lieutenant what they were doing, and she said they were going to put Mama in the box so she could go with us. I felt better knowing that Mama would be with me when I left the island. A little while later, the boys came back out of the cave with the box and carried it to the small boat. I said I needed to get my fishing pole and my spear since I might need them. The Lieutenant said that I should go get everything I wanted to take with me and meet her at the boat with the boys. I asked her where we were going, and she said that she would take me to a place called Sandyeggo. She said that she and the boys were in the Navy and that was where their home base was. I didn’t know what a home base was or what the Navy was, but I liked the Lieutenant so I thought it would be ok to go with them. 

             We rode the small boat with the noisy pusher back to the big boat. I got a little scared when the boys put some vines on the small boat and the small boat suddenly went up into the air, but the Lieutenant and the boys didn’t seem to be worried. After a little time, the small boat was close enough to the top of the big boat that we could step out of it. I looked back at the island, which was now very far away and getting farther away as I watched. I felt a little sad to leave the island and a little scared about where I was going, but I felt better knowing that Mama was on the big boat with me.   

The Lieutenant took me through the big boat, which had a lot of strange, straight caves in it and a lot of other boys and girls, to a place with another boy. He said he was Doctor Steward and asked me if it would be ok if he looked me over to make sure I was not sick. I said that I felt fine, but he could do that if he wanted to. A few minutes later, another boy came in with something on his head. He said that his name was Captain Danforth, he was in charge of the boat, and he was happy to meet me. He seemed nice.  He said that we would be in Sandyeggo in a few days and he would help me find my family when we got there. I told him that I already knew that Mama was in the box, although I wasn’t sure where the box was. He said that she was safe and that he would help me find other family. I decided to trust him because he seemed nice and I wanted to know what else was on the big boat. 

After that, so many things happened that I had a hard time remembering all of them. Doctor Steward looked me over and said that I was healthy, whatever that meant. He had me get under a strange kind of warm waterfall, which he could control and rubbed white stuff on me. He said this was soap and it would get me clean. I told him that I had just scrubbed myself with sand the day before, but he said the soap was better. Then, he took me to another boy, who cut all the hair off my face and a lot of it off my head and gave me clothes a little bit like what he and the other boys had. He pointed a tiny box at me, which he said took pictures of me, and had me touch each of my fingers to a clear thing, which he said was getting my fingerprints, whatever that meant. I was hungry, so took me to a big cave with a lot of other people, told me to sit down at what he called a table, and that he would be right back. When he came back, he had a strange flat, shiny rock with food on it, which he said was chicken, potatoes, green beans, and apple pie. I ate all of it very quickly and liked it all, but I liked apple pie the best.  When I was done, Doctor Steward took me back to the top of the big boat. I thought I would still see the island, but all I could see was water. I felt a little empty in my stomach, despite all the food I had eaten. I had never been off the island since the night of the storm. The sun was going down and I could see familiar stars coming out, so that made me feel a little better. I was very tired, so Doctor Steward took me to what he called a bunk and said I could sleep there. I didn’t see how it would be comfortable without leaves and branches to make it soft, but it was so comfortable I was asleep in a minute!

The next sunup, I was taken all over the big boat, which I was told was a destroyer. There were people all over the boat!  I didn’t know there were so many people in the world! I ate all kinds of different foods. I was given some cold, wet stuff that they said was ice cream, which I liked very much. I saw Lieutenant Jameson many times. She showed me things that she called books and said that one day, I could learn how to read them, and they could help me learn lots of other things. I went to the top of the big boat and looked out at the water. I watched other people on a box called television. I didn’t understand a lot of what the people were doing on the television, and they wouldn’t answer me when I asked them questions, but I was fascinated. Occasionally, I felt bad because I still didn’t know where Mama was, but there was so much to do and see that I didn’t think about her much. I could stay up after sundown because the boat had lots of little, tiny lights everywhere that let me see and when I got tired, I would lay down in my bunk to sleep until sunup. 

One night after sundown, Captain Danforth came to tell me that we were coming into Sandyeggo and that I should come up to the top of the boat to see it. I didn’t think I would be able to see much because it was dark, but I was wrong! Along the line between the water and the sky were huge, standing rocks with many, many tiny lights all over them. Some were very wide and not all that tall, others were taller and skinnier, and some were so skinny that they seemed to be nothing but a line of red fires. There were so many standing rocks that I couldn’t see them all. There were lights in the sky around some of the rocks and more lights moving along the ground. There were so many lights that the sky above the rocks glowed pink and I couldn’t see as many stars as I was used to. I asked Captain Danforth what the rocks were. He told me the rocks were buildings and that there were people inside them. In fact, he said, there were people in most of the lights.  The lights in the sky were airplanes and the ones on the ground were cars. There was one, bigger car that had bright, flashing lights and made a sound like a strong wind blowing through the trees, which he said was a special kind of car called a firetruck. I asked him if we were going to get closer to Sandyeggo. He said that we would be there in a very short time. 

The big boat stopped a little way from the land and people began to run around tying vines (which I had been told were called ropes) and doing other things. After a while, Lieutenant Jameson came over to me and said that she was going to take me to meet some people after we slept for the night. The next sunup, we got on a little boat and went to the land. There were people everywhere, most of them wearing the same kind of clothes that the Lieutenant was. There were also all sorts of different cars (which the people on the boat had told me about), all of which had at least one person in them.  The Lieutenant took me to a room inside a building that had lots of people going in and out of it and introduced me to Commander March, who she said would tell me about my family and help me get in touch with them. Commander March smiled at me and asked me to sit down, while Lieutenant Jameson sat down in a chair behind me. He told me that Captain Danforth and Doctor Steward had sent them information describing me and where I was when they first picked me up from the island, so they had had time to find out about who I was and where I came from before I got to Sandyeggo. 

Commander March said that my name was Adam Deadmarsh and that I was 19 years old. He said that, on the night of the storm, I had been on a boat called the Southern Cross with my parents, on our way to a place called Australia. The storm had caused the boat to sink and Mama and I were the only ones who didn’t drown, although nobody knew that until the Navy saw my fire and found me on the island. I was 4 years old when that happened. Mama’s name was Sarah and my father, who was probably the boy with the hair on his face that I remembered being there, was Aaron.  I was the only child they had. Mama had a brother named Jeremy Jackson, who they had called and was on his way over to the building to meet me. Mr. Jackson had told Commander March that he would take me home to a place called Montana with him and I could live with him until I wanted to live somewhere else.  He said it would be a couple of hours until Mr. Jackson got there, so he would take me into the city to show me around while we waited. He took me out to his car, and we got in.

At first, the motion of the car made me feel a little sick, but I forgot that as soon as I saw the city. There was so much activity and noise everywhere! Everywhere I looked, there were people walking and cars moving. There were lights and pictures and so many tall buildings I could barely see the sky! Commander March told me the names of some of the buildings, but there was too much going on for me to pay attention and it was so noisy I could barely think straight.  After a few minutes, I got a little dizzy and had to close my eyes for a minute. I asked Commander March if this is what Montana was like, but he said no. He said that Mr. Jackson doesn’t live in a city and that there aren’t as many people in Montana anyway. He said I probably would feel much better there because it would be calmer. 

When we got back to the building, Jeremy Jackson was there. I liked him right away. He looked a little bit like Mama and even sounded like her. He gave me a hug right away and said he was so happy to meet me. He told me to call him Uncle Jeremy and that he had met me once before, before we went on the boat, but I had been too little to remember. He said we would have a lot of fun getting to know each other and that he thought I would like his ranch. He told me I had more family to meet and they were excited to meet me. He also told me that he had Mama’s box and that we would take it to Montana, so she would be with us. 

It took a little more time to say goodbye to Lieutenant Jameson, Doctor Steward, Captain Danforth, and Commander March. I was sad to leave them, but I’m very happy to go with Uncle Jeremy to Montana. I am glad that Mama took such good care of me and made sure I was ready to leave the island when it was time. I will miss being on the island, but I’m very excited to start my new life!