“I imagine you’re hungry,” came the calming voice. I opened my eyes to find one of the nurses standing one step inside the door, same place as earlier in the morning.
“Yes,” I croaked. After a small cough I tried again, “Very hungry.”
“Come along then; you wouldn’t want to be late for lunch.” She moved in the same way as this morning, slowly, carefully, concisely. Somehow I had fallen asleep with the window open, and I looked outside to see that the sun had disappeared from view. It had to be past midday then.
As if on queue, my stomach grumbled. “Come along,” she repeated, waving her hand frantically. I didn’t need to be told twice, and I pulled back the covers and hurried out of the room. At that moment, there was something inside me just waking up. It said, hey… hold on a second. Shouldn’t we be a little suspicious here? But I ignored it. There was a nasty tone, like a dirty rat crawling out of a hole.
And I was too hungry to be suspicious.
We were led along the hall and down three flights of stairs to something completely unlike what I was expecting. Floor seventeen should have been another hallway, with thirty odd more rooms just like floor twenty. But it wasn’t.
It opened up to a hall, like the one we had been taken to this morning. But this one didn’t have comfy chairs, and no injections had been mentioned. Instead there was a long table with fifteen chairs to a side. We all walked up to a seat and let our eyes feast on the gorgeous food.
It was entirely seafood; crayfish sat in clumps on huge brass dishes, bowls of prawns were filled to the brim. There were so many different flavours of sushi that I couldn’t even count them. Champagne glasses were bubbling with sparkling grape juice.
I sat down and started to pile the food onto my plate, trying to stack it in the perfect balance so I could try everything, but not bloat myself too much that I couldn’t go back for seconds.
“Mmm. The food is delicious!” I told Jess through mouthfuls. I looked at her plate, opposite me just like out rooms, and saw that she was just as hungry as me.
“It feels like I haven’t eaten in ages!” she said.
“But it’s only been… Last night, at the party; I can’t believe I’m so hungry,” I agreed.
“My last meal was at home. Roast Chicken. I thought it tasted great, but this food is delicious.”
I nodded, and then turned to the boy sitting next to me. He was wearing a white towel T-shirt and shorts that were longer then the girls. They were separate from the tops, too, tied up by a white towel-belt. “Hello. I’m Steph. Do you like it here?”
He nodded and grinned. “I love it here!” He paused to take in a bite of shrimp and a drink from his glass. “I’m Jake, and tha’s Max.”
Max said a quick “How aer ya?” and dove back into his mussels. I noticed that no one had yet gone for the crayfish; the pyramid of them was still stacked high, even though everyone’s plate was full.
“Australia?” Jess asked, picking up on the heavy accent immediately. She let out a small laugh, “Say fish and chips?”
“Feesh and cheeps. You say it weird, like fush and chups.”
“No, you say it weird. Anyway, I’m Jess, and I would much rather have some more of this seafood.”
“Yeah,” Max agreed. “The food is delicious.”
We ate until out plates were empty and our stomaches full. No matter what I tried, it tasted better then the food before it. Max was even brave enough to try a crayfish, and he ate the whole thing. Claws and all.
“Alright,” a voice chuckled. “You’re all looking very full. Did you like the food?”
We all spoke at once, our voices merging into a chorus of agreement. “The food is delicious.”
“It’s great to hear that,” she smiled. “But I imagine you are all missing your parents’ food. Speaking of your parents, they all miss you very much.” She tilted her head to the left, and she looked sad. I frowned, because I didn’t miss them. Should I miss them?
Tau’tavaka was great. I didn’t miss my friends or family at all. I didn’t want to go home.
“So who wants to write a letter to their parents, and tell them about how much fun you’re all having here?”
I do, came the perky voice. And so I repeated it, along with everyone else in the room.
“Follow me,” she said and walked back out of the room. We walked down five more levels, into a corridor. At first I thought it was another level of bedrooms, but we were led into a school type classroom. There were five desks across, six rows. I sat near the front.
The chairs weren’t as comfy as they were in the dining room, or the hall where we got the injections. They pressed into my back like a dagger, random bits of wood that poked out for seemingly no reason. I looked at the blank refill that was sitting on the desk. A blue pen sat there, slightly on an angle, ready for use.
I wanted to write something effective, something that would make my parents really see how beautiful the island was. I tried to think of the words that would capture the scent of the sand as we walked to the injection hall; shine the sun in their eyes and release the complete silence here on the island. I started to write:
Dear Mum and Dad,
I love it here. Everything is perfect. The food is delicious. The sand is like velvet and the sea smells better then it ever did at home. This place is amazing, and I can’t wait to go and relax some more.
-Stephanie.
There wasn’t too much to write, actually. Now that I thought about it, whatever I had been bursting to tell my parents was basically the same as I had been telling Jess, Max and Jake at lunch. I hadn’t even been in the island for a day, and we hadn’t gone anywhere apart from the injection hall.
“Finished?” The nurse was at my side, looking at my paragraph.
“I haven’t got much to say,” I said solemnly, like I knew I should have more to tell them. “I don’t want to go home. I love it here.”
“Well...” she picked up the paper. “I’m not too sure that’s such a bad thing.” The nurse smiled and walked off, moving onto the next person.
“Finished?” she asked, just as pleasantly as she had asked me. The boy, whom I had not bothered to look at, replied with the same answer as me, and I realised just what kind of situation we were all in here. I wasn’t the only one who liked Tau’tavaka better then home. This place was truly perfect.
--PART TWO UP TOMORROW--
