I searched the island thoroughly. It was like I was possessed. I was determined to find something- a clue, a hint, a trail of where Kit or Chloe might have gone. I asked everyone I passed if they had seen them and spent hours thinking up reasons about why they might have disappeared. Alice got fed up with me after a day or two and wandered off to play on her own. Most of the tribe ignored me; they were more interested in finding more food and being rescued than finding two missing teenagers.
Despite our efforts, we still hadn't been rescued. A plane had zoomed overhead once or twice but never stopped, never came back for us.
There was more excitement when a few of the women caught a boar. They skinned it on the beach and cooked it. It looked a lot smaller than the other two that Brian had caught. Maybe this was a baby.
We all sat down to eat, and I took a huge bite. Then I stopped. This one didn't taste as nice. It wasn't as tender; it was more chewy and bits of fat hung off of it. Still, I bolted it down. I was in no position to make complaints.
Everyone had learnt to work together in the two months we'd been here. A group of us worked on building huts (we had about seven huts now), some of us worked on looking for food, others concentrated on trying to communicate with civilisation (unsuccessful so far).
I hunt for food. Its boring and tiring work; most of the time we don't find anything apart from a few beetles.
Jack had been acting strange recently. He talked to himself more and more, ignored me when I tried to speak to him and shuffled away from anyone who approached him. I was worried about him.
"Don't be," Alice said when I told her how I felt. "He's old, and tired. He's a long way from home. I'd expect him to go crazy."
"Don't say that! He's not crazy!" I told her- but I didn't even believe myself. Maybe he was going mad.
That afternoon, work was interrupted when I heard yelling down at the beach. I raced down to the sea. Calum, Kit and Chloe's Dad, had Brian by his shirt collar and Calum's fist was bunched up and raised.
"-so where are they? You said you would find my girls! And yet you haven't! WHY NOT?" Brian's own fists were clenched. Spectators' arrived swiftly, anticipating a good fight. Brian took a deep breath, obviously concentrating on stopping himself from lashing out at Calum.
"I haven't had time, what with trying to look after the entire island!" Calum started to reply, but Brian cut him off. "Face the facts, man! No one has seen your daughters' for weeks. You've turned this place upside down looking for them and you haven't. Has it ever occurred to you that you might never see them again?"
And then Calum smacked Brian straight in the face. A few people gasped as Brian fell over onto the sand, unconscious, as blood trickled from his nose.
Calum had broken Brian's nose. Brian woke a few hours later, and was all set to go and attack Calum. Luckily, several of the ones who had watched convinced him not to. But it wasn't a good idea for Brian and Calum to be around each other for long, so they were given different jobs and kept separate from each other. Calum may still have hope, but privately I agreed with Brian. It didn't seem likely that we ever would see Kit or Chloe again.
And then Calum went missing. A few of Brian's associates went searching for Calum. They came back later, ashen-faced, saying that they had gone to the top of the cliff and looked down. It wasn't a pretty sight. The rocks were spattered with blood.
They said that Calum had committed suicide.
No one went near the cliff. No one wanted to see the body at the bottom. No one talked about it. Calum and his daughters' weren't mentioned again.
