HARRIGAN'S ISLAND
 c  2010 by Anthony Durrant



Harrigan, the harbour's errand boy, entered the room of David Parker, the
first mate of the S.S. Marine, and found him lying on his bed in a drunken
stupor. With him was his captain, Jacob Grumbly, an old hand in the Hawaiian
Islands waters. Harrigan took one look at Parker and told Grumbly:

"It looks bad, doesn't it, Skipper? I came in here and found him this morning.
I think he's dead to the world for now."

"And just when I was about to begin my regular passenger run, too!" Grumbly
cried. "I guess I'll have to take you, instead!"

Grabbing Harrigan by the wrist, Grumbly dragged him out of the boathouse and
toward the Marine, where he forced him to go aboard and enter the wheelhouse.
Once Grumbly had shut the door behind him, Harrigan took the wheel and began
moving it back and forth. Looking out the starboard porthole, he saw Captain
Grumbly escorting five people aboard his vessel. One he recognized as the
movie star Ruth Rowland, who was wearing a fancy dress with sequins on it; the
second girl was a short blond with a happy grin. This personage was followed
by a man Harrigan recognized as Lord Bardolfe - the sixteenth Earl of
Bardolfe, that is - a respected merchant from England who'd come over with his
wife to Hawaii and settled there for many years. His wife followed him aboard
and was followed in turn by a tall handsome man whom Harrigan didn't
recognize. Grumbly cast off and wheyed the anchor himself. He then walked back
into the Marine's wheelhouse and took the wheel from Harrigan, who then left
the wheelhouse and went aft to join the other guests. He was about to sit down
beside Ruth when a bump from the sea under the boat knocked him down. It was
then that he looked up and saw the big thunderhead cloud in the sky and felt
the first few drops of what was to be the year's worst storm. Rushing into the
wheelhouse, Harrigan was given a yellow rain slicker by Grumbly, which he put
on. Grumbly shouted:

"Throw the anchor over the side!"

Harrigan rushed aft again, cut the anchor from its rope with his penknife, and
hurled it overboard. After watching the anchor plummet to the bottom of the
sea, Harrigan quickly rejoined Grumbly in the wheelhouse as the Marine was
tossed by the waves through the rapidly worsening storm. As the two of them
struggled for control of the ship, a huge wave surged up from the ocean's
depths and surged toward them before the two of them could let go of the
wheel. The Marine was caught up on the crest of the storm and hurled far away
toward the long uncharted Mystery Island, with everybody clinging onto its
mainmast for dear life . . .

***

Captain Grumbly's eyes opened, and he rose from the wreckage and looked
around. Near the port side of the Marine stretched a lagoon as far as the eye
could see. Rising to his feet, the Captain spotted a curved wooden board
sticking out of the sand, and dug around it with his hands to reveal the prow
of another boat that had been thrown there some time before. Using his great
strength, he pulled the wrecked boat from the sand and was surprised to see it
had lost its mast and sail on impact..

"Useless!" he shouted. "Just my lousy luck!"

As he walked back to the wrecked Marine, Grumbly saw the others waking from
their slumber and climbing from the wrecked vessel.

"Where are we, Captain?" asked Lord Bardolfe.

"On mystery Island, that's where!" Grumbly said. "We were thrown here by the
storm, so we're going to be marooned for some time."

"Marooned!" the tall man, whom Grumbly realized must be Professor Wexler, the
scholar who'd recently had his logistics class phased out at Bates College
after some twenty years, shouted.

"We're stuck on this island for keeps?" Harrigan cried as he climbed over the
edge of the deck, slipped, and fell on his face in the sand in front of the
blonde, who shouted:

"Are you all right, Harrigan?"

"You called me by name!" Harrigan cried.

"You don't remember me, do you, Harrigan?" the girl asked. "My name's
Michieline Davis, and I was your neighbour when we were kids."

"The same Michieline Davis with braces and pigtails?" Harrigan asked.

"The very same!" Michieline said. "But most people call me by my nickname,
Mici."

"Now that you've had your reunion, Harrigan, I'd like you to take my rod and
real and go get us some nice fish to eat!" Grumbly shouted.

"Aye, aye, Skipper!" Harrigan replied, giving what would become Grumbly's
nickname for the first time in public, then took Grumbly's rod and reel from
the locker in the still intact wheelhouse and hurried to the lagoon to try and
catch some fish.

***

Once he'd arrived at the lagoon, Harrigan removed the handle of the rod and
reel, took the instructions out of the handle and screwed it back in place.
Opening them, he read:

"Step One: Bait your hook."

Grabbing a small fish from the water, Harrigan slammed it onto the rod and
reel's hook

"Let's see now. Step Two: Cast the end of the line with the hook on it into
the water."

He then cast the hook into the water before him.

"Step Three: Lift the rod and reel up and down and turn the reel at the same
time so that it looks as if your lure is injured and possibly dying."

And that's just what Harrigan did! Whilst he was making like an injured fish,
he felt the rod go downward as something pulled on it from under the water.
Hurriedly, he read the fourth and last step on the instructions sheet:

"Step Four: If a fish does bite your hook, pull up on the rod and run
backwards to pull it out of the water and onto the land."

Hurrying backwards, Harrigan pulled on the rod even as the fish pulled back.
The result of this was that Harrigan fell on his back in the sand, and his
captive, a large wobbegong - a colourful and deadly shark that lived as an
ambush predator - flew over him and was flung into a nearby palm tree.

"Harrigan!" cried Grumbly. "I said to catch us some fish, not a wobbegong.
You'll have to climb up there, get the shark, and put it back in the sea."

Harrigan shinnied up the trunk of the tree like a little monkey. He grabbed
the shark by its tail, and slid all the way back down again. When he reached
the ground, he went over to the sea and placed the shark in the water. It swam
away, headed for the deep sea.

"Bye, fishie!" Harrigan said as he walked over to a small rock outcropping at
the edge of the lagoon and used another small fish to bait his hook. After a
few minutes, he'd managed to land several proper-sized fish, which he brought
back to the wreck site and cooked on a stake over a fire made from some of the
Marine's wooden deck plates.

"And, along with the fish," Lady Bardolfe added, "we have these strange fruit
that I found on a tray near the wreck. I've eaten some, and it tasted
wonderful."

The combination of fish and fruit proved a delicious and irresistible one, and
everybody loved the taste. It was at this time that the actress, Ruth Rowland,
said:

"This has been one of the finest, if strangest, suppers I have ever had.
Thanks, Harrigan!"

After finishing their meal, the seven castaways then again slept in the hull
of the Marine. The next morning, Mici saw that a pile of carp had been left
near the wreck site. Having nothing else for breakfast at the time, the
castaways cooked and ate them.

"Someone's evidently helping us!" Professor Wexler said. "But who could it
be?"

"There's another castaway?" Lord Bardolfe asked.

Grumbly, anxious to radio for help, went into the wheelhouse and grabbed the
transmitter for his C.B. radio, only to make the shattering discovery that it
had been damaged in the storm and was useless. However, the small portable
radio was intact, and so he grabbed it and took it back outside with him.
Placing it on the ruined deck, Grumbly turned it on and switched it to the
Jewel. While Harrigan rose and went off on his own, the others just sat around
and talked to each other and sulked, except for Ruth Rowland, who ran hastily
away from the Marine and followed Harrigan as he aimlessly wandered about,
perhaps looking for shells on the beach in the golden sand.. She caught up to
him and threw her arms about him.

"Harrigan, darling!" she cried. "Why don't you go and get me some of those
large shells lying in the water near that rocky outcrop?"

"Okay, Ms. Rowland!" Harrigan cried as he walked into the surf, grabbed the
shells, and brought them right back to her. She took both of them and put one
to her ear, then handed the other one to Harrigan himself.

"If you put that shell to your ear, Harrigan, you'll be able to hear the sea."
she said.

When Harrigan put the other shell to his own ear, he could hear the sound of
the sea winds blowing - an enchanting wonderful sound that brought him back to
his childhood, when his grandmother had brought a green conch shell back from
her vacation in Florida. He still had that shell back at home; it reminded him
of her. Mici had followed the two of them down the beach, and when she saw
them together her rage exploded and she grabbed a huge rock and pulled it out
of the sand, then rushed toward them.

"Get away from him, you sorceress!" she cried. "Or I'll use this rock to
squash you like a bug before you can run away with him!"

"You wouldn't dare!" Ruth shouted.

"Wouldn't I?" Mici cried. "You're with my man, and I'm afraid I can't allow
that. So I want you to return to the boat and leave Harrigan alone!"

"Never! Never!" Ruth shouted angrily as she jumped on Mici before she could
throw the rock at her, forcing Mici to drop it, then grabbed the rock herself
and raised it over her head.

"Now I am going to crush you!" she cried.

"Nobody's gonna crush anyone!" Harrigan cried as he slammed clumsily into Ruth
and knocked her down, causing the rock to fall into the sea.

"Why, you little -" Ruth cried as she grabbed Mici by the shoulders and shook
her violently, only to have Mici grab her and throw her over her shoulder into
the sea. Rising from the water soaking wet, she charged Mici and tried to
strangle her, but was hurled into the sea again.

"Stop it! Stop it!" shouted Harrigan as he stepped between the two of them and
tripped over a crab, falling on his face in the mud under the water.

As he rose to his feet, he saw the girls were still fighting. Grumbly ran up
to them and pulled them apart, shouting:

"Now, now, ladies, let's please not fight!"

"Yeah," said Harrigan, "let's please not fight!"

The two of them then escorted the women back to the Marine, where they sat
down on the deck, safely away from the sea itself.

***

"Isn't this a beautiful place, darling?" Lady Bardolfe asked as she and her
husband strolled out through the palm trees, and he replied:

"Not as lovely as the cash in my bank vaults, Lusitania!" he replied. "The
green leaves of the palm trees here remind me of my greenbacks!"

At that moment, the two of them heard a rustle in some bushes and stopped. Her
Ladyship pushed her husband away, and headed for the bushes. There, she was
grabbed by someone who was powerfully strong and pinned to the ground.
Enraged, she kicked upwards and hit her opponent in the stomach, threw her
arms around a slender waist, and shoved forward so that her opponent fell on
their back.

No, Lady Bardolfe thought, her back. She had felt the chest of her opponent
against her own, and it was definitely a woman's. Therefore, she knew her
opponent's gender. The other woman slammed into her and knocked her down, then
got to her feet and ran quickly away, leaving her Ladyship caught in the
bushes. She broke free and hurried back to her husband.

"Hugh," she said, "I believe that I've just had a scuffle with the woman who's
been leaving us those strange fruit we had at dinner and for breakfast this
morning after we found them near our wrecked boat. We must report this to
Captain Grumbly at once."

"And we will!" Bardolfe said gently.

***

But when they delivered their news, Grumbly refused to believe them. He
hollered:

"How could a woman live tucked away on this island for so long? That wrecked
boat I found buried in the sand was at least ten years old, judging by its
current condition. That tells me whoever's giving us the fruit is keeping
themselves hidden away because they were scared or hurt in the storm that
brought us here."

"Even so, Captain," the Professor spoke up, "it seems to me that they may be
telling the truth. Japanese soldiers were found years after the war at the
spots where they were stationed, because the surrender had never reached their
ears, and it is Japanese tradition to never surrender."

Even as he spoke, Wexler watched Harrigan return to the Marine and sit down,
pulling a small sand crab from his sock as he did so. He threw the crab onto
the beach and it scampered away.

"All I can say, Captain, is that it is damn cheek of you not to believe my
wife, because she has never told a lie in her entire life!" Lord Bardolfe
retorted angrily as Mici took hold of Harrigan's hand and they watched the
seagulls fly.

"Fly, little ones," Harrigan said, "fly right up to Heaven, for there and only
there can you rest in peace and contentment, away from all the troubles and
cares of this weary world. Say, I wonder what made me say those strange
words?"

"Danmed if I know!" said Mici calmly.

"Would you please catch us some fish for lunch, Harrigan?" asked the
Professor, and Harrigan left the Marine and bid Mici goodbye, then took
Grumbly's rod and reel again and walked off to a new spot along the edge of
the lagoon. There he baited the hook with another small crab and again lowered
the rod and reel's hook into the water. Having baited his hook properly,
Harrigan hoped he'd be able to catch the proverbial "big one," the kind of
trophy all fishermen dream about. Soon, he'd hooked something again and pulled
back on the line, this time pulling a struggling grouper out of the water and
flinging it into another palm tree. Rising to his feet, Harrigan climbed over
the sand to the tree and then made his way up the trunk. He then grabbed the
grouper with one arm and slid all the way back down, at which point he took
the grouper back to the Marine,
where it was very warmly received and put on the spit over the campfire area
for luncheon.

"I guess it didn't get away, huh, Skipper?" Harrigan cried proudly. "That
grouper's so big, it should last the seven of us for several days."

"Harrigan!" Grumbly cried angrily.

"I was only joking, Captain!" Harrigan said.

It was then that Grumbly noticed a pair of lady's hands come out of the
nearest bush with another platter of fruit on them. Running over to the bush,
Grumbly ripped it out by the roots, only to discover no one underneath it -
the owner of the hands had already scampered away.

"Go after him, Harrigan!" Grumbly cried.

Harrigan leaped from the boat and fell on his face on the ground, but got up
and ran after the woman, following her tracks in the sand to an area near the
middle of the island where there was a small cave in an outcropping of rock.
Once he'd gotten into the cave, Harrigan walked inside and proceeded to trip
over a small rock on the floor. He then arose and hurried into the cave.
There, as he stumbled into the darkness, he came across a tall pole sticking
up in the sand at his left, which was clearly the other wreck's missing mast.
Crouching nearby and trembling with fear was a woman covered in filth and
wearing a tattered dress. She was eating one of the strange fruit, and
apparently enjoying the taste much as he himself had.

"Poor thing," Harrigan said solemnly as he came up to the woman and she
recoiled from him, "I can see, now, who you are - or, rather, whom you were
and will be again."

He then gently caressed her face with his hand, brushing the locks of white
hair from her face, and grabbed her by the hand. Pulling a knife from its
sheath at her waist, the woman tried to stab him with it, but he grabbed her
other hand, then pulled her towards him. She screamed and bit him in the
shoulder, but he held on to her hands even as she slammed her own hand into
his and knocked him down on the floor of the cave. Eventually, the woman
stopped struggling, and he tied her hands together with his belt, then took
her all the way back to the Marine. There, Harrigan dragged her in front of
the other castaways, even as she spit directly into his face, and said:

Ruth came up to her and took the woman by the hand, leading her back to the
stern of the ruined boat and looking her over.

"Girl," she told the mystery woman, "once I get through with you, you'll be
more dazzling than the lights on a Christmas tree!"

And then she took the woman to the lagoon to help her wash off all the filth.

***

Once the woman was clean, Ruby showed her how to apply the makeup she'd
brought with her on the Marine. Once that had been applied, Ruth gave the
woman her spare dress and shoes and showed her off to the other castaways.

"Stunning!" said her Ladyship. "Simply stunning!"

"Who are ya, lady?" Grumbly asked.

"I am Rujah," the woman said, "Rujah, the Langur Girl. Thank you for helping
me."

"As long as we can continue to enjoy your fruit, Rujah!" Lady Bardolfe said.

With her hair flowing down her back and coming to a stop at a widow's peak on
her forehead, Rujah indeed looked stunning. Tall and with darkly tanned skin,
she was a truly exotic beauty.

"Wowzers!" Harrigan cried, and Rujah promptly hit him in the face and set him
flying onto the sand below the Marine, knocking him unconscious.

Rujah then leaped off the Marine and ran over to the fallen man, cradling him
in her arms.

"Mister!" she cried. "Mister, are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm sure he is!" Mici said.

Scooping Harrigan up in her arms, Rujah hurried back to the Marine. There, she
handed him over to Professor Wexler, who examined him. Carefully lifting the
locks of hair Harrigan wore on his forehead under his white sailor's cap, the
eminent scholar saw something odd underneath them - a silver band that was
thin and stretched from one of his ears to the other. Staring at the strange
device, Wexler said:

"I don't know what this is, but the various falls undertaken by Harrigan here
on Mystery Island have affected its operation by damaging its components -
that's why he's been behaving oddly. I'll have to go below with him and
operate, Captain Grumbly."

"Take care of my little buddy, would ya, doc?" Grumbly said sadly, and Wexler
replied:

"Don't worry, Captain - I will. That's a promise."

***

After making sure everything below decks was as completely clean as he could
manage, Wexler used an injected sedative to put Harrigan to sleep, then used
some tweezers to try and remove the band, but it remained stuck and wouldn't
come off. Finally, he used a pen like a lever and pried the band off
Harrigan's forehead, breaking it in half in the process, and then tossed it
out through a porthole. Just a few minutes later, Harrigan awoke from his
drugged sleep and rubbed his head. He cried:

"The Memory Band - it's gone! My real memories are back, and I know now who I
truly am. I'm Bronchior, formerly the Spiritual Father of my adopted people,
and better known as the Monkey King."

"I've heard of you!" said Professor Wexler.

"Oh, you have, have you?" Bronchior asked.

"Yes, you are the one who stopped aliens from breaking up Kraken, your second
wife's colony!"

"Mici, you mean?" Bronchior asked. "That's right, Professor, and the Mastyrial
who was impersonating her father is now in Kraken custody. After the two of us
were married, I had my memories erased and replaced with the Memory Band, so
that Mici and I could have a normal human life together. Unfortunately, we
separated and haven't seen each other for several years. I have no idea why
she chose to take Captain Grumbly's three-hour tour, but I am going to ask
about it, for sure!"

Rising to his feet, Bronchior left the planet through a hole in the hull made
by the storm as it hurled the Marine onto the island.

"Are you okay, little buddy?" Grumbly asked.

"Indeed I am, Captain!" said Bronchior, and he leaped lithely onto the deck
and went over to Mici, to whom he said softly:

"Mici, the time for deception is over. They know."

"Damn!" said Mici. "I tried to warn you that your alien mind might not take to
the Memory Band as well as a human's, but you wouldn't listen."

"I didn't want to hurt anybody else!" Bronchior retorted as Mici tore off his
outer "Harrigan" disguise and revealed his true form, that of a tall slim
humanoid with fiery red fur all over his body and black eyes set in a lean,
bony, purple-skinned face, then handed him his clothes and his staff.

"I've always carried them with me in case you recovered your full memory!" she
said simply as her husband dressed in his own clothes once again. "That was
why I joined Grumbly's three-hour tour: I intended to take that band off you
sometime on the tour itself, which is why I drugged Grumbly's mate's liquor.
As that proved impossible, I introduced myself as your childhood friend in the
Band's memory lexicon so as to allay any suspicion of who I actually was, so I
could try and remove your headband later."

Once he was fully clothed again, Bronchior turned to the others, and even
Rujah was surprised when she saw who her rescuer actually was.

"I've heard of you, Monkey King!" she snapped. "Why did you disguise yourself
as Harrigan?"

"Because I didn't want to have Mici live with the stigma of the crime I
committed when my Eye of Time imploded my homeworld's moon and set me spinning
through space to Kraken."

"That doesn't matter, darling!" said Mici. "I don't care about your past or
what might have happened to your homeworld's moon - I care about you,
Bronchior, and I wish only to live out the rest of my life with you. You must
learn to be yourself and not someone else."

Bronchior seated himself on a rock near the wreck and Mici sat down beside
him. Taking one of the strange fruit from the dish, she bit into it and seemed
to be enjoying the taste. Bronchior then himself took one of the strange fruit
and tore it apart with his claws. Looking at the interior of the fruit, he
showed it to Mici with a sad smile and said:

"This is the creation of one of the former rulers of my homeworld, a
tyrannical despot who created them to destroy our enemies. He created these
diabolical plants and expelled the seeds into the cosmos. The seeds were
designed to live in outer space and to only open after entering the target
world's atmosphere. This particular batch must've missed their target planet
and landed here on the island because it has long since been destroyed. All of
us will have to work together to locate the tree this came from and destroy
it."

They then returned to the Marine, and Bronchior told the Professor about the
fruit.

"This fruit makes women stronger and more aggressive, so as to turn them
against the men of their world and themselves!" he said. "Once this had
happened, it was fairly easy for the tyrant's army to take over the targeted
world! Unfortunately, they fall through space so slowly that I was still
dealing with the repercussions of the seed landings as Spiritual Father."

"Rujah," said Grumbly, "Could you please tell us where the tree you found the
fruit on is?"

Looking around at the other castaways, Rujah's shoulders sagged, and she said:

"It is near the cave where I live, and in which the Monkey King found me!"

She then stood up and led the other castaways through the jungle to her cave,
then turned left and headed toward a clearing in which a tree was standing, a
mighty tree that had silver leaves and a very thick and rugged-looking trunk.

"Damn!" said Bronchior. "This is what I was afraid of. The tree's grown to
maturity, and I can see the fruit among the leaves up there. We're going to
have to burn the tree at the root before those fruit open and release their
seeds up into the stars, where they'll float until they end up on another
planet. This type of artificial tree is called a Pexas tree after the despot
who created the species!"

Even as Bronchior spoke, one of the fruit burst open and released the seeds
inside it.

"Damn!" said Bronchior. "It's begun!"

And then he channeled his power through his staff and fired a beam of psychic
energy into the tree's trunk, which promptly caught fire and burned like
blazes. The girls ran up to the tree and picked some of the fruit, then
hurried back to avoid being burnt. Grumbly rushed up to the tree with his
ship's fire axe in hand and began chopping the branches of the tree off its
trunk. Ruth and Mici each ate their fruit and enjoyed it; they enjoyed
watching the guys and Rujah destroy the tree. Rujah, meanwhile was hacking
away at the roots of the tree with her knife, and so was her Ladyship. Lord
Bardolfe rammed his brolly into a hollow into the tree and pushed it forward
to split the trunk in two. Seeing this, Bronchior inserted his staff into the
hollow and pushed alongside him, so that they were able to split the trunk in
half. One of the halves fell down on the ground and disrupted a few
butterflies from their food plants, while the other one remained standing and
burning. Eventually, the branches on the fallen half caught fire as well.

"Finally!" said Bronchior as he sat and watched the Pexas tree burn. "Highlord
Pexas's weapon on Earth no longer exists."

***

Once the tree had been destroyed, Bronchior and Mici returned to the lagoon to
pick up Mici's backpack, then went with the others to the clearing near
Rujah's cave. There, they cut down some of the bamboo growing there, and began
building huts for themselves.

"This is hard work, isn't it, Skipper?" Bronchior said as he and the Captain
built their hut together with the aid of Bronchior's great strength as well as
the Captain's own might.

"You better believe it is, little buddy!" Grumbly replied. "Especially in this
heat."

***

After a hard day's work, the eight castaways gathered around the radio, which
Professor Wexler had repaired, to hear the latest news. The clock on the radio
read 5:30 P.M., and the news broadcast came on immediately:

"The Coast Guard reports that a small vessel, the S.S. Marine, has vanished in
last night's storm after setting out for its regular three-hour tour of the
Islands. Aboard the missing ship were seven people:

"Jacob Grumbly was the Marine's captain and is an old hand in these tropic
waters. His mate on this voyage was Harrigan, normally the harbour's errand
boy, who was replacing his regular first mate, master seaman David Parker."

"If he only knew!" said Bronchior proudly.

"The passengers included Ruth Rowland, the sultry raven-haired siren of the
silver screen; Professor Jonas Mixler, a retired college teacher; Hugh
Stanton, the Earl of Bardolfe, who is a respected businessman in these shores,
and his lady wife, the former Trixie Tryfle, who is one of the finest ballroom
dancers ever known. They've followed in the wake of Rujah the Langur Girl, the
astronaut and hero who started out life as a black-faced langur, who vanished
in her sailboat during the last big blow. With these people was Michieline
Davis, a country girl from Little Rock, Arkansas."

After listening to this lengthy report, the castaways were served their supper
by her Ladyship, who was a very accomplished cook.

"This is a very delicious repast, my Lady!" said Bronchior proudly. "It easily
equals the repasts I had on my homeworld."

"Yes, I'm sure it does!" said Lady Bardolfe as she savoured her pineapple
upside-down cake.

"Can't you use your powers to escape?" Rujah asked.

"No, I'm just as much a castaway as you are, Rujah, even with all of my
power." he replied as he and Mici put their arms under hers and clasped hands.
"Don't worry - Mici and I will be your parents now."

"We can't call this island Mystery Island now," mused Grumbly, "so what should
we call it?"

"Why not name it after my lamented fake identity?" Bronchior asked. "After
all, people are sure to get a smile from the lot of us stranded castaways here
on Harrigan's Isle!"

THE END