About the Author: I am 14 and I like to fly fish.
Story Description: It is a good short story.
My name is Jonathan. For the past few years, I have been living in the streets eating what I could find. Three years ago, I found a small Spiderman fishing rod and have been using that a lot to get some fish to eat. Last year I found a wallet full of money, I tried to find the owner of it but I could not. There was about one thousand dollars in the wallet. With the money I got from the wallet, I was able to acquire some cheap camping equipment and a new fishing rod along with a casting net. The rest of the money I spent on food that should’ve lasted me two months, but I ate it in the first week. I am homeless and keep a wallet that I found for myself but I am not stupid.
One morning I was going to hopefully catch a fish that I would be able to eat for breakfast lunch and dinner. On my way to my favorite spot, I met an old friend Lee Pierce that I met when I was three. We talked for awhile while I was fishing. He told me that he was living on a yacht and that I could stay on it for a couple of days. I wanted to say that he did not need to do that and I was doing fine in my small tent, but it would feel so good to sleep somewhere else besides a tent. I ended up saying yes. I would be happy to stay in a more comfortable place. He told me to meet him at the dock at 4:30 pm that night.
At 4:30 I was at the dock waiting with all my stuff packed in a slightly oversized backpack. When Lee said he had a yacht I was thinking of a yacht that was big enough to live on comfortably, but when he got there at 4:50 I found out it was a massive yacht the size of two three-story size houses. When I got on the yacht I found out that he was having a party with all the people that were in the same eighth-grade class as. We were going to go on a week-long trip and stop at some islands off the coast of Florida.
The first island that we stopped at was South Bimini. Lee had hired some crew for his yacht so we could party all night and sleep all day. At South Bimini we stayed at the beach all day. After that we were going to Samana Cays. On the second night someone found ten bottles of vodka that were 80% alcohol. One sip of that stuff and you would be out like a light within the hour. Me not being much of a drinker, I decided not to drink any. I was at the railing relaxing when I saw one of the people who had bullied me in seventh and eighth grade and some of his friends. He looked extremely drunk and he had all my stuff.
He came right up to me and said,”What you doing here you poor peasant, are you one of Lee's servants?” His breath smelled strongly of alcohol.
“No,” I shot back angrily.
He stepped closer and said “Then you must have snuck on,” he said as he shoved me over the railing.
When I finally came to my senses my head hurt and I was just barely floating. I looked around trying to find out where I was, then I started to remember. The yacht was nowhere in sight but I did see something floating around in the water and a small island off in the distance. When I got over to the floating thing I realized that it was my backpack. I grabbed my backpack and started swimming toward the island.
It took me over an hour to get to the island, but I spent half that time floating and just resting. When I got to the island I crawled up onto the beach and laid down with my face on the small granules of sand. When I layed down, my mouth got filled with sand, it tasted great for a rock. I could hear the roar of the waves crashing on the beach. My nose was completely filled with salt and it smelled so strong that it overpowered every other smell and it stung like hell. It was getting a bit dark and it looked like it was going to rain so I took my tent out of my bag and started to set it up. The tent was soaking wet on the outside and the inside was still just a little damp. Once my tent was set up I brought my stuff inside and fell asleep.
I was asleep until about halfway through the next day. Immediately after waking up I searched my bag for food, I found a can of beans and a bunch of Twinkies. After breakfast, I decided to explore the island. I decided to start by walking around the island. When I got to the other side of the island I saw a lighthouse that must have been centuries old. I decided to go and check if it was still in use and if so is there anybody in it.
The lighthouse was overlooking the ocean perched on a two hundred foot cliff and the only way up was a tiny path just wide enough to walk up. Once at the top, I walked up to the door and knocked. A couple of minutes later the door opened and a short woman stepped outside and said, “Why hello there.”
I replied with “Hi my name is Jonathan Smith. I fell off a boat and washed up here. I am looking for shelter.”
“Well then you came to the right place,” she said in a kind yet somehow crazy tone.
I told her that I would go and collect my gear. On my way back to my camp I finished my walk around the island. When I got close to my camp I saw some very tall people, some that looked to be about ten feet tall. They appeared to be looking through all my stuff. I ran over yelling “Hey that’s my stuff, leave it alone.”
They looked up and started to walk towards me. At that moment I was thinking shit, what did I get myself into.
I was riveted to the spot, too scared to move. They came up to me and the tallest one, obviously their leader asked, “What are you doing on this island.”
I responded in a quivering voice “I fell off a boat and washed up here.”
The giant said back to me “Then, I am guessing that you need shelter and a way off the island.”
“Yes, but a nice lady in the lighthouse told me that I could stay there,” I quickly said with a bit less of a quiver.
“That nice lady is a mad scientist and does experiments on the inhabitants of this island,” he said angrily. “Anybody that ends up on this island and goes to her will end up as another test subject, come with us and we can protect you.”
I ended up deciding that the best choice was not to refuse the giants, and although she was not ten feet tall the lady seemed a bit scarier. On the way back I decided to ask the giant some questions to get more information about the island, the inhabitants, and the lady.
I started out by asking “What’s your name?” to the giant
The giant answered with “my name is Aiden Charming Beanstalk, that woman Charlie killed my brother, Jack”.
“Did you originally live here?” I asked.
“Yes, my kind has lived here for thousands of years, we are all basically one giant family of giants” he responded with.
“How did the scientist get here?” I asked
“She just came here on a boat one day and took over the lighthouse.”
“How do you know English so well?” I asked
“One day some people came here to build a lighthouse and found us living here so they decided to build the lighthouse and have us run it. As they worked on it we helped and had to learn English to work with them.”
The village that these people lived in was all mud huts. The huts were set up in a circle with three smaller huts in the middle. Aiden told me to stay in one of the middle huts. I went to one of the huts and I went inside. The inside had an earthy smell and was a basic room with one bed and a small wooden table in the center although the bed was more of a shelf with a blanket on it. I went outside to inspect the other two huts, and they were the same, after walking a bit further I found a group of giants arguing about something in a weird language that might have been Russian. I went over and asked Aiden what was happening.
He replied with “We are arguing about what to season you with when we cook you up to eat tonight.”
“Wha- SAVAGES!” I yelled.
“No I am just joking, we are not savages. If we were savages than we would not have a lighthouse and we would not have problems with a mad scientist.”
“If you were not arguing about that than what were you arguing about?” I questioned.
“We were arguing about what to do with you, and I think we decided before we help you off the island we need your help dealing with Charlie.”
“What do you mean by dealing with Charlie?” I asked
“We need you to find a way to kill or get her off the island.”
“Why can’t you do that?” I asked in an annoyed tone.
“Because she put a computer chip in our necks that shocks us. If we try to get out we will kill ourselves in the process. The source of the shock is at the center of the lighthouse and creates a force field that if we get in it will shock us. The closer we get the higher the shock. If you could shut off the electric field than we can deal with her.”
“How long would I have before I became a test subject If I went to the lighthouse?” I asked
“Maybe two days but now that I think of it you may be able to help her with her experiments and get information about how to shut off the electric field.”
“Ok, but if it is too late on the second day than I will give up and find a different day. If I shut off the power I will come here.” I agreed “Right now I am getting hungry and am going to catch some fish to eat
The next day I went to the lighthouse and told Charlie that I fell into a hole in the ground and went unconscious. When I finally awoke I had to dig my way out with my hands. It was a terrible lie but she believed me and let me in. she showed me to a room with an actual bed with some pillows. There was a small desk in the corner with a book that Charlie told me was a log book and that I should write my name in it and the time that I stayed here. I yeeted my stuff onto the bed and sat down to write down what Charlie suggested in the book.
For the rest of the day, I questioned Charlie about the island and what she does there. She told me about the giants and told me that they were bad people, but they couldn't hurt us because of the electric field. I asked her how the electric field worked and if I could see the device that creates it. She took me down to the basement and showed me a small computer connected to a weird device the size of a person. It was in the shape of a box and there was a red button on the side that read off. Before I could really inspect the machine Charlie said it was time for bed.
The next day I woke up at 1:00 AM and went straight to the machine hit the off button and slipped out the front door to meet Aiden at his village. All of a sudden light spilled down around me. Then there was a roar that shook my whole body, suddenly I heard footsteps almost silent. I sprinted into the village and ran to find Aiden. Once I found him I woke him up and told him I had shut off the electric field and there was something chasing me. He then told me that I could go to sleep in the hut that I had slept in before and he would take care of everything else. I followed Aiden outside and saw him strangle a lion that must have been chasing me. I ran to my hut and went inside. I was asleep before I hit the bed.
After that day Charlie was never seen again and I decided that there was no reason to go back to Florida so I stayed on the island and worked in the lighthouse. I slowly learned their language and could understand a basic conversation. When I learned their language I heard stories that Aiden had yoinked Charlie off the ledge that the lighthouse was perched on. The giants were very interested in all my gear, especially my fishing rod. I showed them how all of it worked. Days later Aiden came up to me with a broad smile and showed me a homemade fishing rod that he built with a stick and some eye hooks. I lived the rest of my happy life on that island with my new family of giants.