CHAPTER 4: Learning To Survive

"What are we going to do now, Captain Chapman?" my mother asks. Or captain scratches his head and shrugs.
"There's no dock or civilized island for miles now. An', no offense, Miss, but I doubt Mr. Tame is smart 'nough to sail for help or even to sail back 'ere to us. Guess we're gonna survive thin, ma'am," replies the captain, sadly.
He's probably right. David Alexander Tame would never be smart enough to do anything, really.
"I could use my cell phone!" yells a lady with white hair and a crooked smile that I don't know the name of.
" 'Fraid not, Mrs., no reception for a while now from as far as I can see," the captain looks around, searching.
We all sigh. I hug my mom and whisper, "I'm sorry.". It is only the morning still, of course, so there is no need to rush around for food or shelter or anything.
"Alright, then. Let's split up. It's not a big island so it's okay to do so. Young men all o' ages 13 to 31 can go look for things for a shelter. Ladies all can go lookin' for food. And other ones of you gents and ladies can find water, and set up things for camp. I'll help little bits o' everyone. Meet back 'ere when ya done."
Everyone heads off quickly so that the tasks can be completed before dark. I am off to help mom find some food, when this really mean niece of Dave's comes up to me.
"Um, Anna-Dork! Cover for me. I like would never be caught dead doing actual work, duh!" she snarks.
"Well, Bethany Lattiot, you will be dead if you don't do work, duh!" I snap at her.
I head off with mom and Taylor. We spent only a couple of hours picking berries, finding dead animals, picking fruit, and scraping moss off trees. We figure we should gather food for more than just one meal. Plus, we are gonna have to feed 100 people. So we gather the food in our shirts and purses, and bags, and arms, and anything else we have laying around. We bring it all back to the captain and he starts a fire with a couple other of the men. One of them is Gerald Lattiot, Bethany's dad. He isn't very good at making fires and it keeps smoking up. It takes 25 minutes to start a tiny fire. It's already 3:00 in the afternoon and no one has had lunch yet. Us ladies who gathered food ate a couple of berries, but that's it. So we start up our fire and the captain finds some pieces of scrap cardboard and a bunch of other stuff to cook the meat on. We pick through and find the ripest, cleanest, healthiest food we can. We also cook the bark. Only certain people get to eat fruit, usually the people that did the most work. Everyone gets a thin slice of meat and a handful of berries. The young kids and babies get the bark, because it is "good for growing". We cut the meat with some guy's pocket knife.

Turns out the shelter people did a pretty good job because every family gets their own mini shelter thing. It's made of sticks in a house shape. There are branches with leaves attached to hang over the top. Straw is weaved into the sticks to keep the rain out. Each family, no matter the number of people, gets one shelter. We also get 3 oranges in case we get hungry. We're able to keep everything safe under the shelter.