I think there are always other reasons for everything. Invisible reasons. Sometimes, they’re so well hidden that nobody knows about them at all.
There might be some deep, dark reason why I’ve been going out with Connie. I hope so. Otherwise, it’s just because she’s the only gal at school who has ever shown the slightest interest in me. It certainly isn’t her glamorous looks or her winning personality.
Among other things, she’s a real prude.
I mean, I’ve gotten nowhere with her in the romance department.
Which is about as far as I’ve gotten with most girls, which might explain why I’m so interested in looking at people like Kimberly and Billie.
Or maybe there are hidden reasons.
It’s almost too dark out here to see what I’m writing. I’ll quit now and go over to the campfire, where everyone else is.
DAY TWO
A Mysterious Disappearance
Keith is missing.
It must’ve happened while he was standing watch.
Right after I joined the bunch sitting around the campfire last night, we had a discussion about whether we ought to take turns on guard duty. Most of us were against it. Why bother, since we’d been on the beach since late morning and hadn’t found any reason to consider ourselves threatened? But then Andrew said that, even if we didn’t seem to be in any danger, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Also, he thought we shouldn’t let the fire go out.
“We ought to keep it going day and night till we’re picked up,” he said. He was packing tobacco into his briar pipe as he spoke. “Don’t need to get caught with a dead fire when a search plane comes along. Besides, we let it go out and we’ll wind up lighting new ones all the time. That’ll get a bit more difficult after my Bic runs out of juice. I’ve stopped using it to light my pipe, of course.” As he said that, he pulled a stick out of the fire and sucked its flame down onto the tobacco in his pipe. He puffed to get things stoked up. Then he explained that the men should take turns staying up to keep watch and feed the fire.