Chapter Seven The Island of No Return

Unfortunately Kay had little or no sense of direction. Instead of heading towards the plantation house, which was her original destination, she headed deep into the woods on the island of no return. The name they just gave the island, since Kay’s return was unlikely.

They climbed out of the boat bringing all of the supplies with them. Mary led the way. She had retrieved the stick with the rope attached and held it out in front of her. She looked like a brave hunter. She followed Kay’s path of discarded clothes and headed into the woods. Olivia followed. She carried Herman to her side. His long legs draped behind. Carol was used to being the pack horse. She picked up each backpack and swung them onto her back and ran to catch up with the others.

The woods were dense with tall, dark trees. Leaves covered the ground in shades of brown, red and green. Wisteria vines spread up the tree trunks and out among the branches. Their purple blossoms were a welcome site in an otherwise gloomy forest. Birds competed with a multitude of squirrels for space on the tree limbs.

Mary, Olivia, and Carol followed the trail that looped around in a circle then veered off deeper into the woods. It looped around again. It veered again. Finally, it came to a stop.

Kay stood there frozen in place. She stood at the opening of a small cave. A small dark cave. A small dark mysterious cave. The entrance was covered in moss. Trees grew all around. On the very top, a huge rock that looked very much like a skull, teetered back and forth ready to fall in any given direction at any given moment.

“You found the dragon’s den. How clever of you,” said Mary

Kay tensed up even more. They all ignored Kay and flew into action. Mary took Herman and placed him on the ground several yards away from the cave opening. Olivia retrieved the bags from Carol’s back, rummaged around inside, and removed a handful of M&Ms from each one. She marched up to the cave entrance and started to place a trail of the candy, one at a time, from the opening out to where Herman laid.

Carol took her position behind Herman. She got down on her hands and knees. Mary crouched down behind Carol. Her sick at the ready. Olivia sat next to Mary.

Kay still stood frozen at the caves entrance.

Mary yelled, “Kay, get out of the way,” but got no response.

She leapt up, walked over to Kay, and said, “Snap out of it.” She then grabbed Kay by the arm, “Ow,” and led her to the makeshift fort.

Carol started to sing:

“Oh, ho, ho and a bottle of Kool-Aid, Off to bag a dragon, if it doesn’t have us slayed,…”

“Carol,” Mary barked which abruptly ended the song.

“Listen. Music calms a dragon down. Like a lullaby does a baby. It’s a documented fact,” Carol pointed out.

“The Vicar always says that music tames the savage beast,” Olivia added.

A deep threatening howl erupted from somewhere in the distance. They looked at each other and in unison:

“Oh, ho, ho and a bottle of Kool-Aid, Off to bag a dragon, if it doesn’t have us slayed, Picking up kid bits is not a lot of fun, If you happen to ask me, I think we ought to run…”

After they repeated this song several times, they stop and waited.

And they waited. They waited and waited and waited and waited. Nothing happened. They waited some more.

“Maybe the song killed it,” said Mary in disgust.

“Maybe it’s not hungry,” said Carol.

“Maybe it doesn’t like M&Ms,” said Kay.

“No way. Everybody and everything likes M&Ms,” Olivia stated defiantly.

Mary leapt up again followed by the others and carefully walked to the cave entrance. They each in turn peered in not knowing exactly what to expect.

What they saw was not what they expected. Two large menacing blue eyes stared back at them, blinked and stared back some more.

“Boo!” A voice boomed from the back of the cave.

The girls screamed, turned and ran. They abandoned all of their equipment and ran as fast as they could back through the woods in the direction they had come.

From deep in the cave, the sound of laughter filled the air and poured out from the opening.

Gerald walked out and said as he laughed, “I love this job.”

He then bent down and picked up an M&M and popped it into his mouth. Peter walked by, his head still in his book, gave his dad a thumbs up and continued on his way without lifting his head from his book.

Gerald walked over to the next M&M and popped it into his mouth. He repeated the process until all the M&Ms were gone and the only thing that remained was the skeleton.

“Hello Miss Ida,” he said.

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