A cruise gone wrong Part 1 "The Bad Beginning"
By Daria C. Montello
adventure/humor

Go inside Daria's journal as she goes on a family cruise. Find out what happens to them when they are marooned on an island.



July 23 Friday

      I'm in my room. unfortunately forced to go on a family vacation, making it even more unfortunate it's my family that I have to be with. It was my parents idea to go on a cruise ship. They said that it will be fun. Yes, it will be almost as fun as drowning.

      I just got off the phone with Jane, she took it pretty hard that I had to miss Bad Movie Night, even worse is when she found out she had to baby sit the Gupty's for Quinn. I told her that this isn't going to be fun for me. Just spending breakfast with my family is about as much as I can take.

      We're leaving tonight, coming just in time to make the midnight shove-off. Mom is downstairs on her cell phone and Dad is complaining to anyone who'll listen about his bad childhood. The fashion club is here and I need to go tell them to keep their cackling to a minimum. And for now, this notebook is all I have to keep me sane. Who knows maybe if I lose my sanity I won't have to go. Doubt it, the rest of the family lost theirs a long time ago.

LATER

      I'm sharing a room with Quinn. Oh, dear God, I'm sharing a room with Quinn. Mom and Dad have the room next to us, in fact the rooms are quite small. At least there's a window.

      Quinn already left, fine with me. Mom and Dad left for one of the restaurants on the upper deck, leaving me. For a family vacation, there isn't much family things involved.

      There's a casino on board. I can sneak in and play the slots, yes that sounds like a plan. The ship hasn't taken off yet, or I could leave...I never liked black jack that much anyway.

EVEN LATER

      You would be happy to know that I didn't exit the ship. I didn't even go to the casino. I went to the bar instead and ordered a glass of water. It tasted a bit odd, but for all I know it could have been vodka. I took my time and watched some very interesting people come in. The people here seemed a bit different. It would be cool if these people were my family.

      Now I'm back in our room, sitting at the desk. Quinn isn't back yet, and I have no idea where my parents are. That's good, the less I see them the better this family vacation will be.



July 24 Saturday

      I awoke this morning with high hopes that this so called "family vacation" idea was only a nightmare.

      Quinn is sleeping silently in her bed and I am still unaware if my parents are back in their room. It's quarter to nine and I better leave before my parents find me and decide that we should do some family togetherness thing.

      As I look out the window I can see that we are surrounded by the ocean. From what they tell me we won't dock anywhere until tomorrow morning. Great I'm stuck on this stinkin' ship all day. Joy.

      I'm hungry, I'd better get breakfast before I decide to eat Quinn.

LATER

      We're stranded. The ship hit something causing a wave of panic over everyone. Dad claimed us a blow up boat and being the good people we are we took some guy from the bar and a happy couple along with us. Well Dad didn't pay attention and he popped our blowup boat once we hit shore.

      There was a bit of a mix up with the staff and they had unloaded the blow up boats by mistake so they had to help the boats around the ship back on board. We weren't one of the boats, they didn't see us.

      Now we're here. Dad whimpering behind a tree, Mom trying to get some reception on her cell phone, and Quinn trying to find her best stranded outfit. The happy couple is mingling with the guy from the bar.

      At least I'm not on that damn ship.

LATER

      The ship is gone and it isn't coming back. We are all introduced, the happy couple is Alan and Allison and the guy from the bar is Chet.

      Night is slowly falling and we have no shelter or food. No one has even gotten the bright idea to search the island. If we don't find shelter or food soon someone is bound to be eaten. My vote is Chet, he's the meatiest.



July 25 Saturday

      We got threw the night. Without food and without a bed. We slept on the ground and Alan ate a leaf.

      Breakfast was leaves, but from a different bush. Turns out Alan had a midnight snack.

      Quinn, Allison, mom and I are out looking for anything on the island, so are the men. Allison and Quinn have gotten into a deep discussion about boot leg and flare jeans. Allison prefers boot leg, but Quinn goes on about the pros of flares. Mom is still trying to get her cell phone to work. It probably helps if you know where you are.

      I have not engaged anyone in conversation, maybe it's my soul duty to record what happened in case we die out here and are used as worm food. Then who ever finds this will know what kind of freaks I had to die with.

      I'm not sure where we are going, or where we are for that matter. For now my future looks like eating leaves that double as toilet paper. I can slowly sense that we're going insane. It was the leaves, it had to be.

LATER

      Right now I'm settled on a rock. My feet are tired from a long hike from somewhere to somewhere else. We're at a waterfall and near by are some fruit trees. It took a lot of shoe-throwing to get this coconut I'm eating. In fact it was my shoes they threw, as Quinn said, "They aren't that cool anyway." But my combat boots got the job done and I'm proud to say, "Those were my combat boots being tossed around up there."

      Those three are in the water splashing and cooling off. I dipped my feet in the water felt refreshing, but I wouldn't risk going in. For now the only water for us is this waterfall. Our coconuts are now are canteens. Allison showed us how to make a hole at the top and drain out all the milk. Somehow she got the coconut out of it's shell so now we have authentic coconut canteens. They don't hold much and they make the water taste slightly like coconut.

      We don't know where the men are or if they have found anything. Who knows this may even be a story where I never see my father again. To bad that couldn't happen to the Fashion Club.

LATER ONCE AGAIN

      We hiked a little further and now we are on brake, but it looks like dusk and we should probably settle in for the night. This may be hard because none of us are too sure on how to make a fire, but even if I did know, I'd just like to see then suffer.

      Mom has given up on getting cell phone reception and is about to smash her cell phone to bits. She most likely in a roaming zone anyway.

      Quinn, who had to lug half her wardrobe into the blow up boat before she left is complaining about her jeans from Cashman's. She has also been shouting that if she doesn't get her shampoo soon then she's going to get split ends. Wouldn't want that to happen now would we?

      Allison is actually the only sane one here. She isn't complaining about her phone or clothes, she isn't complaining about anything. One less idiot I have to listen to. I sat down and talked to her, well she did most of the talking.

      We have set up some kind of sleeping space with a roof. It isn't quite a shelter, but it gets the job done. Allison claimed to feel some rain so she made us build a shelter. We got some sticks and big palms. We build it under a huge branch so half the roof was finished. It leaks, but it keeps us from getting soaked.

      It's raining now. Quinn won't leave the shelter because she doesn't want to ruin her suede jacket. With her and her clothes she already takes up about half the shelter. It's bad out here and when we start to eat each other I hope I go first.



July 27 Sunday

      Quinn's screaming woke me up. Turns out that some bugs nested in one of her shirts. It was a poor choice on the bugs' part. She's shaking her shirt violently. There are bugs on her hands now, they must really like her.

      Mom came over and talked to me. It was an odd conversation, but whenever I talk to my Mom it usually turns out odd.

      "Daria, you're a smart child, do you know where we are?" My mother asked rubbing her temples.

      "No, Mom."

      "DARIA MORGENDORFFER TELL ME WHERE WE ARE, DARN IT!"

      "I don't know, Mom."

      "What are they teaching you in school these days! When your parents ask you a question you should know the answer! I should really write a letter to the school board about this, Daria."

      "No, Mom. It's the leaves talking, not you."

      So then my mother walks off mumbling something strange. I am quite sure that we're all going insane. I'm still not sure if it is our conditions or those leaves. We're tired and haven't showered in a day or so and I'm the only one who hasn't completely lost it.

LATER

      We caught a monkey. Everything here is attracted to Quinn. I guess there is something about a size 3 teenage girl. Mom and Allison have be arguing about if we should eat it or not. It would probably help if we had a fire to cook it on.

      Mom wants to eat it and Allison wants to let it free. The monkey was too good to be in our stomachs.

      Now I need to tell how we lost the monkey. I didn't say this in the beginning because if we die and someone reads this I didn't want them to think that we are completely hopeless and that we did catch food.

      Did I mention that not only we lost a monkey, we lost Allison. And she was the only nature-aware person we had. Mom had the monkey in a death grip when Allison played dirty. With one hand on the monkeys wrist she said it, something that made Mom scream with joy, "Look you have reception."

      That did it for my mother. She let go of the poor monkey and grabbed the phone out of Allison's hands. And that is when it happened. Allison picked up the monkey and ran. Mom didn't even notice until you couldn't see her anymore. Allison didn't want to see Mom mad. I should have been smart and left with her.

      After Mom was done cursing at the forest and Allison she calmed down and talked to us, "Now we can have a girls only camping trip!"

      First of all we're stranded, not camping, and secondly, we've done the whole camping thing before and the berries drove us insane. Well not me, I didn't eat them. I didn't tell Mom this because her mood can change very easily at the moment.

      We have to go find Allison. As I walk along on this island I consider this trip so far. I have left a place I don't like, gone to a place I don't like even more, to not knowing or liking where I am at all. Things are getting worse and aren't looking like they are getting any better. If I'm lucky a coconut will hit me on the head and cause me to forget everything, but I'm not that lucky, but for now I'm part of a search party for someone I hardly know and don't plan to get to know even better. Just great.