Dolphin Island

When he awoke, the ship was at rest; he could tell this immediately because of the silence and the absence of all vibration. Johnny looked at his watch and saw that he had been aboard for five hours. In that time—assuming that she had made no other unscheduled stops—the Santa Anna could easily have traveled a thousand miles. Probably she had reached one of the great inland ports along the Pacific coast, and would be heading out to sea as soon as she had finished loading cargo.

If he was caught now, Johnny realized, his adventure would soon be ended. He had better stay where he was until the ship was on the move again, far out over the ocean. She would certainly not turn back to discharge a sixteen-year-old stowaway.

But he was hungry and thirsty; sooner or later he would have to get some food and water. The Santa Anna might be waiting here for days, and in that case he’d be starved out of his hiding place…

He decided not to think about eating, though that was difficult because it was now his breakfast time. Great adventurers and explorers, Johnny told himself firmly, had suffered far worse hardships than this.

Luckily, the Santa Anna remained only an hour at this unknown port of call. Then, to his great relief, Johnny felt the floor start to vibrate and heard the distant shrilling of the jets. There was an unmistakable lifting sensation as the ship heaved herself off the ground, then a surge as she moved forward. In two hours, thought Johnny, he should be well out at sea—if his calculations had been correct and this was indeed the last stop on land.

He waited out the two hours as patiently as he could, then decided it was safe to give himself up. Feeling just a little nervous, he set off in search of the crew—and, he hoped, of something to eat.

But it was not as easy to surrender as he had expected; if the Santa Anna had appeared large from the outside, from the inside she seemed absolutely enormous. He was getting hungrier and hungrier—and had still seen no signs of life.

He did, however,- find something that cheered him considerably. This was a small porthole, which gave him his first view of the outside world. It was not a very good view, but it was quite enough. As far as he could see, there was a gray, choppy expanse of waves. There was no sign of land—nothing but empty water, racing by beneath him at a tremendous speed.

It was the first time that Johnny had ever seen the ocean. All his life he had lived far inland, among the hydroponic farms of the Arizona desert or the new forests of Oklahoma. To see so much wild and unconfined water was wonderful, and a little terrifying. He stood for a long time staring through the porthole, trying to grasp the fact that he was indeed racing away from the land of his birth, toward a country of which he knew nothing. It was certainly too late now to change his mind…

He found the answer to the food problem quite unexpectedly, when he stumbled upon the ship’s lifeboat. It was a 25-foot, completely enclosed motor launch, tucked under a section of the hull that could be opened like a huge window. The boat was slung between two small cranes that could swing outward to drop it in the sea.

Johnny could not resist climbing into the little boat— and the first thing he noticed was a locker marked “Emergency Rations.” The struggle with his conscience was a brief one; thirty seconds later, he was nibbling biscuits and some kind of compressed meat. A tank of rather rusty water soon satisfied his thirst, and presently he felt much better. This was not going to be a luxury cruise, but its hardships would now be endurable.

This discovery made Johnny change his plans. There was no need to give himself up; he could hide for the whole duration of the trip—and, with any luck, he could walk off at the end without being spotted. What he would do afterward he had no idea, but Australia was a big place, and he was sure that something would turn up.

Back in his hide-out, with enough food for the twenty hours that was the longest that the voyage could possibly last, Johnny tried to relax. Sometimes he dozed; sometimes he looked at his watch and tried to calculate where the Santa Anna must be. He wondered if she would stop at Hawaii or one of the other Pacific islands, and hoped that she would not. He was anxious to start his new life as quickly as possible.

Once or twice he thought of Aunt Martha. Would she be sorry that he had run away? He did not believe so, and he was sure that his cousins would be very happy to have got rid of him. One day, when he was rich and successful, he would contact them again, just for the satisfaction of seeing their faces. And that went for most of his classmates, too especially those who made fun of his small size and called him “Tiny.” He’d show them that brains and determination were more important than brawn… It was pleasant to lose himself in such fantasies, and from them he drifted slowly into sleep.