Emily Kinney's Blog - Posts Tagged "adventure"

THERE ARE TWO very different types of people in the world: Individuals and followers. Individuals are their own person, and are exactly who they want to be. Followers try to take on the image of the individuals, and do things exactly like them. Individuals don't follow the crowd, unlike the followers, but create their own image and don't care what people think of it. Some of the individuals and the followers are rather rebellious. Some choose to be that way, while others simply ended up that way, due to pressure. While most rebellions aren't very much appreciated, there are times when they can be quite useful. They can help keep people out of trouble, or help teach them to stand for what they believe in, which you don't see all that often.

One very good-rebellious person in the world was sitting on a car seat one warm afternoon, hugging her knees, and was staring out a window. This person was a fourteen year-old girl, named Milo Hestler. And she was distraught. At least her stomach was. Speaking of which, the distraught feeling in Milo Hestler's stomach increased to an almost unbearable amount as she gazed out the window of her parent's car. They were driving through a neighborhood called Shady Ally. Though it seemed to Milo that it was more like a city than a neighborhood, but her parents delclared it a neighborhood, so it remained that. She also didn't know why it wasn't spelled with an 'e'.

The reason it seemed more like a city was because there were no houses. The only living quarters in Shady Ally were apartment buildings. Dozens of them, all lined up next to each other on each side of the road. That road was the only road there, stretching leisurely onward, making it look more like an actual alleyway. Each apartment building was about thirty to fifty stories high, and they took up most of the sky view. The sun was rarely ever directly over head, but always more to the side, casting shadows from the buildings into the street. So in a way, it really was like a shady alleyway.Why the good people who inhabited the place wanted to use "ally" instead of "alley" was a mystery. An ally is supposed to be someone you trust and rely on. If your ally is shady, it probably isn't a wise idea to continue the relationship.

But that was a very small reason why Milo was feeling nervous. Like any kid moving into a new home, she was worried about adjusting and making friends. The first home she lived in had burned down when she was little, forcing her family to move. She had many friends and relations there and was heartbroken to leave them, especially when she moved into their new house and found that nobody wanted to be friends with her. She moved three times after that, and each time she never made any more friends. She also lost contact with her friends and relations from her first residence.

Continuously finding herself alone, Milo began to fear that she would never have another friend again. She was wrong about that, of course, but for the time being, she begrudgingly sat scrunched in the back seat of a 2002 Camry.

"We're here!" her mother's voice sang out as they braked in front of 711 Shady Ally.

"Ooooh! Goodie!" Milo snapped. "Let's hope we all don't puke with joy!"

Milo occasionally got creative with her words. Her father turned around in his seat and glared at her.

"Sorry!" she said, lowering her eyes. "It's just that, how do we know that this time we're actually 'here'?"

"Oh, Milo," her mother groaned, grinding the heel of her hand into her forehead. "Can't you just try to be a little happy? I mean, we've been driving around all day, all yesterday, and all of last week. We didn't drive all that way not to be 'here'."

It was Milo's turn to groan.

"Fine!" she mumbled. "I'm a little happy. At least we can get out of this car." She opened her door and got out.

"That's the spirit, hon!" her father said heartily, swinging his door all the way open.

Whenever Milo's father wasn't mad at her, he called her "hon".

"You'll see," he continued. "Things will be different here. You'll make plenty of friends and get used to living here like that." He snapped his fingers. "It'd be impossible not to. You don't even need to leave the building for anything! Your mom and I will have to leave for work of course, but you won't ever have any reason to go outside again, hon!"

Milo stopped in her steps, which were leading to the trunk of the car.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her stomach not settling any. Both her parents grinned at her.

"We wanted to surprise you," her mother said. "The building we are going to live in, 711, is one of the neighborhood buildings in Shady Ally."

"It's an entire system of living inside one place, hon," her father said. He pulled two suitcases out of the trunk and handed both of them to Milo's mother.

"It's huge!" she exclaimed, obviously sold on the idea long ago. "The building I mean. The idea of an entire neighborhood inside one place isn't very popular at the moment. I don't know why, it seems wonderfully convenient to me. But, as I was saying, the building is gigantic. It has everything you need inside it. First and foremost, a school -"

"A school!" Milo broke in, her eyebrows up. "Right in an apartment building?"

"Yes," her mother said. "Not only that, but also a Wal-Mart and a miniature mall. That's all in the basement. The school is the entire thirty-eighth floor. There are restaurants too, like Burger King and the Olive Garden!"

Milo scrunched up her nose. Despite the fact that she couldn't believe that all this was crammed into one building, she had to sneer at the thought of any restaurant. The family had been on the road for two weeks, eating nothing but fast food. Therefore, just the thought of Burger King made her want to throw-up. She didn't really mind the Olive Garden, but it was still a restaurant and restaurants weren't something that Milo approved of.

Milo preferred to make her own food. She had been interested in cooking ever since she first saw an oven. She kept a large notebook filled with recipes that she had copied from cookbooks. Every time she would find a recipe that she liked, she would copy on a blank page of the notebook, slowly compiling a complete cookbook.

She took this notebook everywhere with her, along with the two other most important things in her life. All three were in the backpack her mother handed to her. The other two were a diary, in which she was writing down her life, and her little radio and headphones.

Without these things, Milo figured she'd die or suffer from some sudden madness. She would write in her diary whenever something interesting in her life happened, such as her house burning down or moving three times. And she would listen to her radio often, in order to relax and momentarily forget about her troubles. She kept extra pens and batteries with her in case one or the other ran out or got lost just when she desperately needed them.

Turning away from the car, with her backpack on her shoulder and a suitcase in each hand, Milo stared up at the building in front of her. Tilting her head back, she could just make out the roof of the building, and much to her surprise, she saw the crowns of trees sticking up from it.

"Uh, Mom," Milo said. "What's that?" She pointed her left suit - case at the roof. Her mother peered upward.

"Oh, right!" she said absently. "There's a garden on the roof."

"Really?" Milo said, perking up. "That sounds cool. It's been a while since I've been able to be alone with nature. This place might not be that bad after all!"

"Not bad?" her father said, striding towards the doors, laden with luggage. "It's the most fantastic place in the world, hon! And the rent's not bad, either. What more could you ask for?"

"Friends?" Milo asked shyly. Her parents grinned at her. Her mother put her arm around her shoulder and guided her to the doors, her father holding one open with some difficulty.

"You'll see," her mother said confidently. "Things will be dif - ferent here."

Of course things weren't going to be, but Milo didn't know that. Almost smiling, she and her parents strolled into the lobby, which was decorated with tinsel.

Milo's mother walked up to the tinsel strewn desk and found the bell. Three rings brought a woman in from another room, tottering on heels far too high.

"Hello?" she said, looking around as if blind. She then reached into a skirt pocket and pulled out a pair of eye-glasses. She slid them on and jumped back in surprise, not helping her precarious balance.

"Oh! My! I mean, hello." She smiled broadly. Milo's mother smiled too.

"Hi there," she said. "We are the new tenants. You must be the Lobby Secretary?"

Personally, Milo had never heard of a "lobby secretary" before, but the woman immediately said, "Oh. Yes. I mean yes! Of course I am! I'm Miz Ricca, and you must be the . . ."

Not waiting for a reply, she made her wobbly way past them to the desk, where she began to flip through a registry book.

"Hestlers?" she finished, squinting at a spot on a page.

"That's right!" Milo's father replied robustly, grinning.

"Well, welcome to 711 Shady Ally!" Miz Ricca said, bringing out a set of keys and handing them to him. "Here are your keys, you can make as many copies as you want, and I look forward to getting to know each one of you!"

"Well, thank you!" Milo's mother said sweetly. "Let's start right now, shall we? I'm Sherrill-Jean Hestler, and this is my husband, Earnest, and our daughter, Milolantalita."

"Actually, it's just Milo," Milo piped up, not knowing where on Earth her mother had come up with "Milolantalita".

It most certainly was not on her birth certificate. She had heard the story often enough of how, at her birth, they had wanted to name her Mila, but her father's hand writing had caused the 'a' to look like an 'o', and it got recorded that way. Though they both claimed that they liked it better that way, Milo always had a feeling that her mother was rather miffed that her daughter had a boy's name.

Her mother nudged her hard and said, "Now tell us your name. Surely there's more to it than 'Miz Ricca'."

"Oh! No! I mean, no. I'm sorry, dear," Miz Ricca said apolo geti - cally, seemingly startled. "I'm not allowed to tell you or let you use my first name. It's a Lobby Secretary thing, and if I make an exception for you than I'll have to make an exception for everybody! And believe me, there's a fair number of young men in this place who would love to call me Reba! Now then, if you need anything I'll be here, and if you get lost, there are maps all over the building."

"Reba Ricca?" Milo muttered to herself.

"And if you have any questions," she added, "don't hesitate to ask."

"Yeah," Milo said, jumping at the opportunity. "Why is Shady Ally spelled without the 'e'?"

Miz Ricca's lips became a line. "What do you mean?" she said casually.

"I mean," Milo said clearly. "A - l - l - y spells al-i. Alley is spelled a - l - l - e - y."

"Oh," Miz Ricca said, looking away. "That. Well, it does read alley, only they thought it would look nicer without the 'e'. It's still the same thing."

"But," Milo insisted. "It says al-i. Not alley."

"Yes, it does."

"No, it doesn't."

"Yes, it does!"

"Thank you, Miz Ricca!" her father said abruptly, well aware of his daughter's legendary stubbornness, and wanting to actually reach their apartment some time that day. "You've been very helpful. By the way, I like what you have done with the lobby."

Miz Reba Ricca glanced around, distracted and pleased. "Really? You do? Well, thanks. It's one of my own designs."

Milo, deciding to let the issue go, took in her surroundings and couldn't quite see where the word "design" came in. Tinsel was strewn all over the carpeting, all over the furniture, and was glued onto the walls. Milo looked up and saw it dangling from the ceiling in great clusters. The only thing it didn't seem to be covering were the lights, which shone down on it all, making the room look very bright and glittery.

"I think it perks the room up a little," Miz Ricca said.

"A little?" Milo thought.

"The elevators are over there," Miz Ricca said, pointing to a hallway on the left side of the desk. "I can see that you have quite a lot of luggage, and elevators are always better than the stairs. Nobody in the building ever really uses the stairs, so we had to install extra elevators. We might have removed the stairs entirely, except for those pesky building codes. Escaping fire and such. I'd help you with your luggage, but I'm afraid of hurting my back. I've not much practice with large, heavy objects; the most I've carried around is papers, pens, keys, and tinsel."

"That's quite alright, Miz Ricca," Milo's father said, hoisting several bags onto his shoulders. "We'll manage to manage just fine!"

He began to lead the way to the elevators. Milo followed with her mother, but something inside of her told her that it'd be better for her health to take the stairs.

That thing inside her was her conscience, and she was so often arguing with it, that she had personified it and called it Bob the Conscience. That particular day, the argument inside Milo's head, went something like this:

"You know, it'd be better for your health if you took the stairs," Bob the Conscience said.

"I know, but our apartment is on the forty-sixth floor. It'd be too tiring to go all that way with all this luggage," Milo replied as she stepped into the elevator. Sometimes, Milo was so into the conversation that she spoke out loud. But she was careful not to when she was around other people.

"You can handle your luggage," Bob the Conscience retorted. "It'll just make it more challenging. Besides, after being cramped in that car all that time, your legs could use some stretching. It will make you feel energized and happier, too. You should take the stairs."

"No," Milo insisted. "By the time I got to the forty-sixth floor, my parents would have already moved in and started dinner. The elevator is faster; look, we're already on the thirty-sixth floor! And you wanted me to take the stairs! Ha!"

She heard Bob the Conscience sigh.

"Yes, Milo," he said, patiently. "It is faster, and it is useful, if we are on a schedule. But if you keep on riding elevators, you will start to get fat!"

Milo chuckled. "That would do me a world of good," she remarked. She looked into a mirror at herself, which was an easy thing to do because enormous ones lined the walls of the elevator.

She didn't like what she saw.

She could name the things she didn't like about herself from head to toe, starting with her hair. It was a rich, dark brown that hung down past her shoulders. But Milo thought it was too dark and, like all the girls of today, she wanted highlights but didn't have any.

Moving downward, her next complaint was her body. She was very skinny for her age and it showed. Two full weeks of eating fast food, without any exercise, hadn't made her an inch rounder. Milo's arms were spindly and long, and she didn't think she had much muscle on them. Nevertheless, whenever she needed to push bullies away, she always found the strength she needed.

Her legs didn't really matter much to her, but she still found them far too slender for her liking. Indeed, she often referred to them as "tooth picks". Not that anybody could tell, for she often wore baggy jean cargo pants.

Her face didn't contribute much because it was always sur - rounded by her hair. It was thin, but not pinched. Sure, it wasn't filled with chubby cheeks, but at least she didn't look like she was starving. That wasn't the reason it was normally hidden by hair. The reason was that Milo couldn't find a way to keep her hair at bay. Usually, she would have it up in a ponytail to keep it out of her face, but her mother hated that look, and would always tell her to let it down. Therefore, Milo usually couldn't quite see what was on either side of her.

"It gives you a shy look," her mother had told her when Milo tried to complain about it. She had tried to explain to her mother that the look didn't suit her, because she wasn't a shy person, but her mother wouldn't listen. Milo found that happened a lot.

"It would do me a world of good," Milo repeated softly.

"What's that, dear?" her mother asked.

"Nothing," Milo said quickly.

"No," her mother said. "I'm sure I heard -"

"Here's our floor!" Milo's father sang out as the elevator stopped with a ding. "Our new lives start the minute we walk out of this elevator, ladies."

Of course, for Milo that wasn't true, but she thought it was, as she followed her parents out into the hallway and up to a door that said "B-1107". She didn't know that it would merely be a push in to her real new life.
The Island of Lote

FOUR DAYS LATER, the Hestlers traveled to the airport. Milo already had a passport, procured years ago to make moving easier, and her ticket had arrived surprisingly quickly. Her backpack and suitcase were crammed with new clothes, her mother having insisted that just because she was going to the outback didn't mean she couldn't look nice. "You are also going to want extra if any get torn or dirty," she had said.

She also had suggested, Milo agreeing wholeheartedly, that they put her radio/headphones, batteries, pens, diary, and cookbook in sealable plastic bags. "It will make it easier if security wants to search your bags," she had said. "Not to mention, you don't want anything to get damaged. I know how much you love all those things, though I'm fairly certain you'll be too busy chasing wallabies to need any of them." Milo strongly disagreed and said that was irrelevant; those objects went with her everywhere, period.

At the airport, her parents waited off to the side while her passport got scrutinized. Once it met the approval of the security personal's shrewd eyes, she was allowed to check her suitcase. Milo had made sure beforehand that her backpack was the right size to carry onto the airplane. She wanted to keep it safe with her until after the trip. Nothing must be lost, or end up in another state.

Before heading down the boarding bridge to the plane, her parents came over to say goodbye.

"I can't believe you're leaving already," her mother said, pulling Milo's scrunchie out of her hair. "I'm going to miss you. We'll be eating out a lot."

"Aw, Mom," Milo groaned, reaching for her scrunchie. "Come on! Just for today?"

"Please, Milo?" her mother asked, holding it behind her back and giving her daughter a hopeful smile. "You look so sweet with your hair down."

"I know," she said. "That's why I want it up. I believe in honest appearances."

"Oh, fine!" her mother said in exasperation, tossing the scrunchie back. "But I give you fair warning. Hot Australian boys are looking for shy, sweet girls."

"Uh-huh?" Milo said, sweeping her hair up into a ponytail. "I'll keep that one in mind, Mom," she lied. "See you later."

"Goodbye, dear," her mother said, giving her a hug and kissing her cheek.

"Bye, hon," her father said, doing the same.

"I'll see you guys in a month," Milo said, other people filing past her into the tunnel.

"Okay and don't forget, you're a Hestler," her father said proudly, beaming at her.

"Um . . . alright. Why?" she asked.

"Well . . . I don't know, hon. Just don't. It wouldn't be fair to us if you did. So don't."

"Right!" Milo mumbled, rolling her eyes at his cryptic words.

"I've always admired your father's satisfying way of answering questions," Bob the Conscience remarked. Milo snickered.

As she entered the grey wormhole, walking to the plane door, her parents called after her. Their voices echoed throughout the terminal, causing several heads to turn.

"Goodbye!"

"Bye, hon!"

"We love you!"

"We what?"

"We love her, Earnest!"

"Oh! Yes! Of course we do! We do!"

"Don't forget us!"

"If you can help it!"

"Keep out of trouble!"

"Keep out of wombat holes!"

"Don't stare at your counselor's butt!"

And just as the door was closing, her father bellowed, "And if he looks at yours slug him!"

"Oy!" Milo moaned, her face burning.

A nearby flight attendant gave her a wan smile, but tactfully didn't say anything.

Milo determinedly tried to forget what her parents had just shouted all over the airport, and found her seat. She didn't put her backpack in the overhead. Instead, she sat down and hugged it tightly, attempting to leech out some comfort from it.

"We're really doing it," she whispered excitedly, glancing out the window at the grey stretch of runway. "We're by ourselves on a plane, going to camp. It's really happening."

"Are you talking to me or your backpack?" Bob the Conscience inquired.

"I don't even know," Milo admitted.

The instructions for such-and-such things came while the plane roared and started to move, but she didn't pay much attention. She had been on airplanes plenty of times before. She knew everything there was to know. While the flight attendants showed everyone how to buckle the seatbelts, Milo gazed up at the white tufts of clouds in the vibrant blue sky, knowing they were about to get significantly larger.

The rest of what happened was regular. The plane sped up and took off, momentarily pressing the passengers to the back of their seats. Milo worked her jaw in circles to get her hearing back once they leveled out. The seatbelt sign eventually turned off, and people began the perpetual shuffling back and forth to the bathroom.

Milo spent the rest of the morning listening to her radio and writing in her diary. When they served lunch, she ate an egg salad sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes. She then recorded the recipe in her cookbook, deciding that the bread had been some sort of sourdough. She had recently come up with a title for her cookbook, writing on the cover in big swirly letters: Milo's Cookbook of Plagiary. This is actually a very appropriate title, if you mull it over. Milo adored it.

At two o'clock the plane hit an unusual amount of air pockets, sending drinks, food, items, and people's stomachs everywhere. As the plane was being cleaned, the flight attendants apologizing profusely, several important looking men dashed by Milo's seat and entered the cockpit. The plane didn't settle down for a while, outside or in. When the turbulence finally stopped, they were able to fully clean up. All the spraying and wiping was for naught, though, because there came suddenly a horrid bump. This was followed by an enormous bang.

Everybody inside the plane, all ordinary folks and high strung, flew into a terrified frenzy. Milo, curled up into a ball on her seat, stared unblinkingly at all the yelling, pointing, and pushing. At last the captain himself had to emerge and calm the passengers down.

He composedly explained to them that it was only a small problem and there was nothing to worry about. This seemed to be accepted willingly enough, and everyone sat back down. But even so, Milo felt uneasy. She put all her things away in the bags, making sure each one was sealed. She then hugged her backpack for an hour, telling herself that everything was fine. Another hour later, she was fast asleep.

It's a funny thing, sleep. Deprived of it, you are cranky, tired, and forgetful. Therefore, people ought to get plenty of it. But sleep has one unfortunate stipulation: You must close your eyes, removing yourself from reality, in order to slowly fall into the cycle of sleep that makes you dream. And when you dream, you are in another world, even though you are still in this world, and are oblivious to what is going on around you.

It is therefore good to have an alarm clock, or a reliable mother, to wake you up in the morning. If you didn't, you wouldn't know that morning had come at all, and might miss the bus and have to walk to school. So, even though sleep is usually beneficial and on our side, sometimes it isn't.

It certainly wasn't on Milo's side while she was on the plane. It prevented her from participating in a very important event, thereby putting her life in danger. Nobody bothered to be a reliable mother and wake her up. She what woke her was a loud, blaring alarm. It had been going off for some time, but she had been sleeping deeply, in a very involved dream, and didn't hear it until then. She also woke up because the plane happened to be shifting and rocking violently.

Blearily, she sat up in her seat and looked around, everything dark and blurry at first. Nobody else was with her. Adrenaline shot through her, immediately making her wide awake and alert. Clutching her seat's headrest, she stood up and looked behind her, then in front of her.

The plane was completely empty except for her. Masks were dangling from strings from the ceiling, bopping and dancing wildly as the plane shook. Luggage had been thrown aside and abandoned in the aisle, the arms of seats broken and swinging limply. Milo stared around frantically in confusion, sweat erupting all over her face and neck. A red light was flashing languidly, illuminating the space in an unnerving scarlet glow before fading to darkness. It revealed vacated cushions, rows and rows of them, not a soul to be seen.

Normally any other human being would have panicked, and Milo wasn't looking to be different. She panicked, but only for about two minutes, because when a plane is twisting violently in the air, people have to concentrate on balance more than panicking.

Milo steadied herself and grabbed one of the masks, trying to calm down. She held it to her nose and mouth, taking huge breaths. The jerking and downward, falling motion prevented her from inhaling too long, however. She pushed the mask away, slung on her backpack, and shakily walked into the center aisle.

"Hello?!" she called out, just in case someone was hiding.

There was no answer.

"Hellooo??!" she yelled, taking a wide stance to keep from falling over. "Is aaanybodyyy here?!!"

Once again, no answer came.

"Please!!" she cried miserably.

She looked around frantically, squinting in the meager, red light. She was entirely, one hundred percent alone.

"Oh!" she groaned, clutching her stomach as the plane lurched horribly.

She began to make her way to the back, though the floor was slanting. She caught a glimpse out a window then quickly looked away, gulping. An engine had exploded, and fire was leisurely engulfing the aircraft.

Milo whimpered for a second, then screamed and started to run. She didn't stop until she got to the end of the plane. To her surprise, all the classified, locked doors were flown open, and there was a huge emergency exit open in the back. Night air rushed in at her, chilling her to the bone. She had no idea how long ago she had fallen asleep. She had no idea what time it was. She didn't care. Inching towards the hole, making sure not to get too close, Milo peered out. Stars were sailing by, the moon full and off to the right. It was too dark to see what was below her, though.

The room she was in had been fortified with different supplies for escape, such as instant inflatable rafts, thousands of parachutes, maps, transmitters, first-aid kits and food kits. All the rafts were gone, as well as the kits and transmitters, but there was one more parachute left. Milo crawled over to it and unhooked it from the wall. She shifted her backpack so that it was on her front, and then fastened the parachute to her back.

Suddenly there was an enormous explosion on the left side of the plane that Milo deciphered as the other engine blowing up. It told her that she'd better move it. She clasped her backpack, screwed her eyelids shut, ran, and took a daring leap.

Air whizzed past her, filling her ears with a hollow roar, but she still was able to make out a furious grinding sound. Looking up, she could see underneath the plane and that one of the compartments had broken open.

Suitcases came spilling out, dropping as fast as Milo. A familiar one, perhaps inexplicably able to sense its owner's presence, collided with her head. Blood trickled down her face, getting in her eyes and blinding her slightly. A searing pain raced across her forehead, making her gasp.

Remembering suddenly that she had to open her parachute, she groped behind her for the string that released it. She gripped it and tugged, but it nothing happened. She pulled harder. Still nothing. She yanked with whatever strength she had left and finally heard a click. Cloth came billowing out. The parachute snapped open and caught air, stopping Milo with a jerk.

Her legs swinging loosely below her, she tried to catch her breath, the parachute straps digging into her armpits. At least she was no longer plummeting towards the ground, which was still shrouded in darkness. Yet, she didn't seem to be drifting either. Milo peered upward through the blood and night, trying to figure out why she was still falling rather fast. Her vision hazy, she could just make out a squarish lump amid the stars. She made a strangled noise when she realized that it was the suitcase that had crashed into her head. It was tangled up in the strings of the parachute.

This didn't help her situation very much, but it also didn't hinder it completely. At least she was slowing down a little bit. A good thing too, for a few moments later her legs hit water. Coldness enveloped her as she went under, her body smarting from the impact. Instinctively she began to kick, searching for the surface. Her head suddenly met air, and she pushed hair out of her face.

As she spat water out of her mouth, she noticed it was sicken - ingly salty. The ocean. She was in the ocean! Salty water splashed into her mouth and seeped into her injury, making her wince. But she didn't have time to fuss about it. The parachute, once her savior, was now filling with water, dragging her down. She detached the belt quickly, letting it slide off her shoulders and sink into the briny depths. Her head was throbbing, making everything pulse blurrily. She worked her arms and legs back and forth, treading water and snorting it out of her nose.

The suitcase floated up, bumping into her fingers. She lunged for it, gripping its handle. She flung her backpack upon it, and floated for a minute, pulling herself together. Gingerly, she touched her forehead, igniting pain. Milo sobbed and whipped her hand away. Tilting her face towards the sky, she saw the plane, all ablaze, barreling downward. She looked to where it was headed and, to her absolute shock and relief, saw an island.

From where she floated, it didn't look extremely big, but at the same time exactly tiny. She couldn't make out any details, but it was solid land and that's what mattered.

As the throbbing increased and her vision got fuzzier, she began to kick her way towards it. Already exhausted and sore, she began to pant. She checked her course every now and then, and soon saw the plane crash down on the other side of the island, creating a mushroom shaped explosion. It surged into the sky and was followed by a deafening boom.

Breathing raspily and heavily, Milo tried to increase her speed. Not only did her head hurt, but her stomach and jaw too. She wished she could throw-up; maybe she had swallowed too much sea juice, or maybe it was panic. But she couldn't stop. In the back of her mind, Milo didn't doubt that she was about to fall unconscious, and she wanted to be on dry land when that occurred.

More blood oozed from her head into her eyes, clogging her nose with a metallic stench. She tried to blink it away, but only suc - ceeded in making it worse. The only good thing in the whole messy ordeal was that the tide was pushing at her, making it easier to move. For what seemed like hours, she kicked away in the water, which had numbed her long ago. On all sides of her, suit cases bobbed and floated aimlessly, headed in the same direction. Now and then she had to pause to push one aside. Nothing was going to get in her way. The island was her goal. Nothing else mattered to her at that moment except getting to that island.

She mumbled dumbly to herself, "Must keep going. Must keep going. Gotta get there! Just gotta."

As the island got closer, her legs got stiff and lazy, until at last she couldn't even move them. Suddenly the water changed climates. It was gradually growing warmer, but that didn't reinvigorate Milo any; she was still too tired to kick. Her consciousness was slowly ebbing away, the lapping sound of the water getting fainter and fainter.

She laid her head down on the suitcase, letting the tide carry her the rest of the way. The shore was growing closer. It looked very foggy and red and was still far off, but she could see it.

"I'll get there," she thought weakly.

She had to. Just had to. She would. She had to. Had - to. Just . . . had . . . to. Just - had . . . to. Just . . . had - to. Just had . . .
The Island of Lote