Free Survival by Gordon Korman Page A

vegetables. They needed well-balanced meals.
    The equipment from the survival pack helped. Suddenly, they had pots and pans. They could fish and cook what they caught. Even durian seeds were tasty when roasted over the fire.
    Two forked sticks with a crosspiece allowed a pot to be hung over the flame by its half-hoop handle. This enabled them to boil taro, a native root, which resembled a cross between a yam and an overloaded electrical junction box.
    “You know,” said J.J. in genuine surprise, “this isn’t half bad. It’s almost like mashed potatoes.”
    “It gets very soft when boiled,” Ian agreed. “But you have to cook it well to kill off a poisonous chemical that could be fatal to humans.”
    J.J. spit a mouthful halfway across the beach.
    “It’s fantastic,” beamed Luke, digging in. “The only thing that tastes better than food prepared by your own hands is food prepared by somebody else’s.”
    Taro was plentiful; the fresh water to boil it in was very scarce. While it seemed to be raining constantly, it never rained for very long. No matter how many coconut shells the castaways set out — now over a hundred — the yield was never more than an inch or so.
    Ian tried rigging a still — something he had seen onNational Geographic Explorer . They boiled a pot of seawater under a three-sided plastic tent made from a rain poncho. The water vapor rose as steam, recondensing on the sides of the tent. Then the droplets ran down the inside of the plastic and collected in three bowls on the ground. The salt was left behind in the pot. This was fresh water.
    “Seems like a lot of work for a dribble,” commented J.J.
    “You got a busy social calendar?” laughed Lyssa.
    “I could have,” sighed the actor’s son. “In California.”
    “That’s why you got kicked out of California,” Luke butted in. “You were having too much fun.”
    JJ. glared at him, but had to admit Luke wasn’t exaggerating much. His reputation as a wild Hollywood brat had grown almost as large as his famous father’s movie career. Gossip columnists used to call to ask about Dad. Now they wanted the details of JJ.‘s latest escapade. It had been a great source of satisfaction to him. His brow clouded. Until Jonathan Lane had chosen CNC in the hope that it might straighten out his flaky son.
    “How could you dothis to me?” he screamed at his father in tortured dreams every night. But the next morning he always awoke knowing that he’d given Dad a lot of help making the decision.
    Their social calendars may have been blank, but the castaways had plenty to keep them busy. Two patrols per day — morning and afternoon — were dispatched to comb the jungle for signs of Will or his camp. They all took turns searching, with Lyssa leading the group every time.
    Ian built three more stills, so one person had to maintain the fires and keep adding seawater to the pots. This assignment also included emptying the bowls of freshly distilled water into the lifeboat’s keg.
    Each fishing trip began with a spirited round of rock-paper-scissors to determine who would perform the disgusting task of baiting the hooks. This was a job nobody wanted, because, as Luke put it, “The worms are bigger than the fish.”
    Charla didn’t use bait at all. She preferred the challenge of swimming in the ocean and snaring her fish with a lightning-quick hand.
    JJ. volunteered for fishing every day, but spent very little time with his hook in the water. He had discovered sea cucumbers, and was fascinated and delighted by their life process.
    “Picture a bag of guts with a hole at each end,” he explained. “The water goes straight through it. But when some poor sap gets beached, it just sits there, full of water. Watch this.”
    He picked up the creature, aimed it like a water pistol, and squeezed. Instantly, the sea cucumber emptied itself in a thin stream that hit Charla full in the face.
    She pushed JJ. into the surf and held him under.
    Lyssa hauled him