Time Travelers from the Umbrella House

Chapter 17 A Chance at Life in the Midst of Trouble

In the middle of the night, the temperature continued to drop, and the three of them hugged each other tighter and tighter, but their body temperatures continued to drop. They didn't dare to sleep for fear of not waking up once they slept, and they stayed awake until dawn. The sun rose above the horizon and the temperature began to rise. The trio crawled out of the small tent and stretched their arms and legs. It was so dark last night that Ronnie wasn't embarrassed, but this time he froze for a moment when he saw Alice and Michiko, who were only wearing underwear. With a small blush, he took his blow-dried shirt and pants out of the sail and put them on. Michiko teased him, "Looks like Ronnie's growing up to be shy."

"Ronnie, now that the ship is floating on the ocean, where are we going?" Alice asked.

"I don't know, if we're lucky we might come across an island, if we're unlucky we'll have to keep floating on the sea."

"And where exactly is the 'strange island' you mentioned?"

"Now that we've deviated from our original course, I don't know where the currents will take us."

"Looks like we're in for a long ride," Alice said helplessly.

"Sister, how about we use this flag to catch fish?"

"How are we going to catch fish?"

"Let's find some ropes to tie the four corners together and then just throw the net out like usual," Ronnie said and got to work.

First he untied the rope from the sail and tried to cut it in two, but realized he didn't have any scissors. He asked the two girls who were changing clothes, "Do you have scissors?" They both shook their heads at the same time. He had to find a square piece of wood and use the edges to sharpen it, and he managed to cut the rope into two pieces, then he separated the two pieces of rope down the middle, making four, then he unraveled the flag from the sail and tied the four corners of the flag with the rope. He turned to Alice and said, "Sister, you take down the net, I'm afraid I can't pull it up."

Alice had already changed her clothes and was watching him busy, when she heard his request for help, she rushed forward to help and said, "Ronnie, your method is quite good, from now on you will be the captain of the ship and I will listen to your command."

"Really?" Ronnie shouted excitedly.

"Of course it's true, what do you think Michiko?" Alice asked Michiko with a sideways glance.

"I agree, it will make things easier for us."

The three of them agreed, Alice took the 'net' that Ronnie had made and threw it out, after about fifteen minutes the captain gave the order, "Sister, you can pull the net now."

"Yes!" Alice also felt that the time is about the same, grabed the rope and pulled back, with the fishing "net" slowly exposed to the water, the three people's faces changed from joy to sadness, The net was empty. There's nothing in it, they were very disappointed. Ronnie thought that the rope was too short, and he attached another two meters of rope to the "net" in the same way as before.They had some success with their second netting, catching a few small fish, a sea crab, and about a dozen shrimp.The next few times, they caught two bigger fish and three crabs, but the rest were small fish and shrimp. "Not a bad catch," Alice said.

"Captain, how are we going to eat it? are we going to eat it raw?" Michiko asked, pointing at the crabs and fish.

Ronnie was speechless for a moment, he hadn't thought about that. The trio's stomachs rumbled with hunger, but they didn't know how to eat the fish and shrimp when they saw the catch. "Eat it raw or you'll starve," Ronnie pinched his nose. He picked up a shrimp, peeled it, and put it in his mouth to chew lightly for a few seconds. "It's pretty fresh, you guys eat it too, it's the captain's orders," he said with a serious look on his face.

The two girls had to follow him and eat the shrimp in the same way, after a while the three of them finished the shrimp and looked at the remaining fish and crabs, although they were very hungry, they still couldn't put their mouths on it, it was too fishy, especially Michiko wanted to vomit as soon as she smelled the fishy smell. Soon it was noon, and the three people, their mouths dry from the sun, had to put the flag back up as a tent, and the three of them hid inside, feeling much more comfortable, at which time Ronnie had a flash of insight and suddenly spoke: "How about we sun dry the fish into dried fish?"

"Good idea,that way the fish won't smell fishy," the two girls praised at the same time. The three of them did as he said, took the fish and crabs to the tent, broke them into small pieces, then put the small pieces of fish in the middle of the boat and put them in the sun. They stayed in the sun for three days, and for three days they ate only small shrimps to stay alive. After three days, they were satisfied with their dried little fish, but they found a new problem: there was no fresh water. "I can't imagine not starving, but dying of thirst," Ronnie let out a long sigh, then he added, "I read that urine is also drinkable, which one of you has urine? Squat down quickly."

Michiko sniffed, a look of disgust spreading across her face, "I'd rather die of thirst than drink urine."

"Well, then you're out of luck, I was just about to pee," Ronnie laughed.

At this point Alice interjected, "There's actually dew at night, we just don't have anything to keep it in."

The words were not meant to be heard, and Ronnie tapped his head, "Right, I remember the book said that the temperature is lower at night than during the day, so the water vapor in the air condenses at night and forms dew. All we need are those crab shells to catch the dew."

"But we threw them all away!" Michiko regretted.

"That's easy, we'll catch some crabs now and use the shells to catch the water," Alice did as she said and immediately threw out her net and started catching crabs. This time she was lucky and caught four crabs in the second net. She skillfully peeled the crabs' shells, emptied the insides, washed them with seawater, and waited for night. The next day, the trio awoke to find that the crab shells contained a small amount of fresh water. Ronnie carefully picked up one of the crab shells and tilted his head back to drink, "What a thirst quencher,"he clapped his hands in praise. For the next few days, the three of them used the flag to catch fish in the morning and then used it as a tent at night, drying the fish they caught and collecting dew on the side. After twenty-three days of this cycle of boredom, Ronnie began to grow impatient. "When is it going to end? eating dried fish every day makes me sick."

Alice and Michiko had also lost a lot of weight, their faces were dull, their clothes were torn and their bare skin was tanned, and now they didn't care about appearances anymore, they both thought in despair at the same time, "It looks like we're going to be floating on the surface of the sea forever, until death comes." Every day the three of them mechanically fished, tanned, and caught dew. A week or so passed in this way, and one day Ronnie suddenly pointed ahead and exclaimed, "Sister, Michiko, come out and look, I've found an island! "At that time, the two girls were hiding from the hot sun in the tent, and when they heard his call, they rushed out. When they saw that there really was an island, they hugged each other and laughed. But their laughter was so strange that Ronnie thought they were crying, so he said, "Why are you crying? aren't I still alive?"