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Help We're Stuck on an Island
By Samantha, age 11½, 5th Grade, The Bullis School, Potomac, MD, USA
"Hey Shawn, are you ready to go?" "Coming Annie!"My twin brother Shawn, our two friends Jenny and Scott, and I were going on a canoe trip on Lake George. I was so excited!
My name is Annie Elizabeth Randolph, and I am eleven years old. I love our summer home at Lake George and I love being outdoors! My family comes to the lake house every summer, and we stay for two months. We live in a big, old, white house with a long screen porch that overlooks Lake George. The house is four stories high including the attic which my brother says is haunted. He's always making up stories. He has a big imagination.
This morning when I woke up I smelled the beautiful fresh summer air and looked out the window at the calm shimmering lake.
"Shawn! Shawn!" I called. "Jenny and Scott are here!"
"Yippeeeeee Skippeeeeeee!" he hollered.
"Come in guys," I said. I knew right then that the fun was now beginning!
Shawn looked at me and said, "Do you have the food, towels, sunscreen and all our supplies?"
"Yep!" I announced. "Let's go guys! Let me just tell my mom that we're leaving."
On the way down to the dock Jenny and I talked about this really cute guy at her school in New Jersey. Jenny is my best friend. She's kind of gullible, but nice and really friendly. I love her long blonde hair that falls to her waist. Shawn and Scott talked about sports. They both are on the football team at our school. Scott can be a little conceited but most of the time he is fun to be around.
When we reached the dock, we put on our life jackets and then jumped into the canoe. Scott and Shawn said they wanted to paddle so I let them.
"Do you have your boat license yet Annie?" Scott asked me.
"Yup! Do you?"
"Of course I do," Scott bragged.
When we were out pretty far I said, "Let's eat." We were all starving. I think I brought way too much food but that's okay I guess.
Then Shawn yelled, "Look at the sky its turning black, and a storm is coming!"
"Oh no, what are we going to do?" Jenny cried.
I shivered with fear. This was going to be very scary, and we were so far from home so we couldn't get home before the storm started.
I screamed,"We are going to have to "
BOOM, BOOM! FLASH! BANG!
"Help! Help!"
The next thing we knew we were on an island. The rain was beating down hard and a ferocious wind was blowing our boat out into the lake. The lightning bolts seemed so close and we were so scared.
"Is everybody okay?" I asked. "Look! Let's head over to those large rocks and get shelter."
We dashed over to the rocks and collapsed in exhaustion and fell fast asleep.
"How long ago did the storm end?" Scott asked when we all awoke.
"Maybe an hour or two,but that's not what I'm worried about. How on earth are we going to get home? We're stuck on an island!" I said.
"Okay,let's think about what supplies we have," Jenny suggested.
"Well, we have towels, food and bottled water, suntan lotion, extra clothes, pencil and paper, and a wrecked canoe," I announced with confidence.
That meant that we had enough stuff to stay there for about two days. I didn't even want to stay there even one day, but I couldn't do anything about it.
"I got it!" I hollered.
"Got what?" Shawn asked.
"We can write a note asking for help, we can put it in the empty bottle of water, and then throw it in the water. Someone will find it and come and save us."
"Great idea, Annie!" Jenny said, beaming at my brilliance.
Later that day we wrote the note. It said:
Dear person who is reading this note,
We are stranded on Willabe Island.
Can you help us? We are just kids.
From, Annie, Jenny, Shawn, and ScottI threw the bottle out into the lake, and we all hoped that someone would find it. It was getting late and we were tired and hungry, so we ate. After dinner we set up our sleeping area. We set up two big towels on the ground for the mattress and two big towels on the top for covers. We used the extra clothes for pillows. Then we got in bed and fell asleep.
In the morning I woke up and had to go to the bathroom so I went behind a tree. Later we ate breakfast and then went to see if any boats were coming. Way out in the distance I saw a figure coming towards us and I shouted, "Look guys, there's a boat coming towards us!"
"Yes! Hooray! Yeah! It's our parents!" we all screamed.
When our parents got there they told us that they had been out looking for us in the boat and they noticed a bottle bobbing in the water. They were so relieved when they found the note. They headed immediately to the island to rescue us.
When we got home we promised never to go out in a canoe again without our parents, and to especially never go so far out into the lake that we didn't know where we were.
The End
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Last revised: 9th June 1999