28 A Lonesome Landing

As they neared The Second Island, just as Polly had hoped, more features of the island began popping out. A closer look informed her that the island was not nearly as brown as it had appeared when she had first seen it, and actually boasted a considerable amount of greenery. Of course it had nothing on the monochromatic green monstrosity that was the island the kiwi’s hailed from, but there was enough to make The Second Island look like an island and not a hardened blob of mud.

As they drew even closer, details such as buildings began taking shape. The buildings of The Second Island were colored in bright pastels, which was in sharp contrast to the mostly dark terrain around them. Their architecture was not of towering metal skyscrapers but more like low, down-to earth homes. All in all, The Second Island made quite a welcoming first impression.

Polly assumed The Second Island didn’t get many visitors for its harbor was relatively empty. There was also the fact there was barely any relevant information about it in her encyclopedia and even Fethar didn’t know much about it. Polly wondered why that would be considering the place looked so pleasant and all.

“I think this is going to be my first time docking The Birbalinda,” said Polly to Fethar. “Here’s to hoping all goes well.” Polly knocked back her lemonade like it was her last drink before leaving a bar, and stood with a look of grim determination taking over her face.

“As long as you proceed with caution and do not make haste when haste is not needed, all should be well.”

“Right,” muttered Polly to herself as she carefully directed The Birbalinda to The Second Island’s harbor, which just so happened to be a natural one. Given that there were only a few other boats in the space, Polly wasn’t terribly concerned about crashing as she guided her ship to the pier that had become visible.

“So far so good,” said Polly as The Birbalinda inched closer and closer. She waited with baited breath until they were at a distance she considered reasonable and scurried to where the main anchor of her ship was.

The anchor was no light piece of metal. In fact calling it light would be something akin to calling purple an ugly color; it was simply not true. Letting down the anchor was a job for a team, and not a one-man team, but Polly didn’t have the luxury of a crew to help her let down the metal beast that definitely weighed more than five pounds.

Fortunately, Polly had the power of The Lord and animated television on her side so despite having barely enough muscles to do twenty push-ups in a row, she was able to drop anchor and dock The Birbalinda with all the prowess of an experienced team of sailors.

“Excellent work if I do say so myself,” chirped Polly as she jumped the couple of feet off her ship and onto the pier’s dock with the same ease of one skipping a step on a flight of stairs.

“Not bad at all,” agreed Fethar.

“Let’s see what The Second Island has got going on I guess.”

Fethar as her cap, Polly strolled across the wooden dock toward the city. Polly wasn’t sure what she planned to do, because was she ever, so she figured she’d figure something out as she checked the island out. Perhaps she would get her fortune told, for she did remember Fethar saying that fortune telling was something the residents of the island were good at.

Unlike the lively Sea-Island 6, The Second Island was fairly quiet. Sure there was a breeze blowing and birds chirping, but that was about it. And though it was a fabulous sunny day, not one of those hot summer days that make you wonder if you’re a popsicle because you’re sweating so hard you probably sweated off an inch or two of height, there was not a person besides her on the streets.

It wasn’t as if The Second Island was a horrible place to be walking around in, or at least to Polly’s knowledge it wasn’t. The streets were clean, she didn’t see any nasty trash littering the ground, and were paved with cobblestone. As she had noticed before, the buildings were a pleasant pastel, but Polly’s experiences had taught her that if she kept on walking there was the possibility of her seeing some dingier structures. But as far as her eyes could see, there were no other paths besides the one she was on, so she couldn’t even be a hundred percent sure about that.

“Wonder where everyone is,” commented Polly. “Hey Fethar, you think I should rent a room here for a night or stay the night on The Birbalinda? I feel like leaving after less than a day would be too soon, so maybe two days? Definitely not over a week though. Sea-Island 6 was nice, but three weeks was a bit too long.”

“If you plan on staying here, then I suggest you start looking for somewhere to take up residence in. It is late afternoon and all, which means evening and then night will soon be upon us.”

“Once again speaking facts,” nodded Polly. “I wonder which one of these buildings is a hotel. You know what, I wonder if there’s a town hall or anything like that where I can go to get some info.”

“Alas I would direct you to one, but that is not within the scope of my knowledge. It is strange, I will admit, the dearth of information I am able to access about this island.”

“Well this road has got to lead somewhere, right? It’s not like we’re just gonna walk off the island, right?”

They walked off the island. The road, a single, straight path, took them through the city and it’s many buildings and to a beach, which Polly guessed was the other side of the island. If not the complete opposite side, then it had to be a side she hadn’t seen yet. At the end of the cobblestone path was a large expanse of powdery white sand, and just beyond that were pale blue waters. There was all that fine scenery, but still no people.

“Can’t say I saw that one coming,” remarked Polly with a hand on her hip. She squinted at the sun as if the answer to all her life’s woes would write themselves out in the clouds. She frowned at the sand beneath her feet as if the reason for all her life’s woes were buried in them.

The sun had sunk some since Polly’s wanderings began, but there was still enough light out for Polly to want to keep exploring.

“Maybe they’re nocturnal folk,” Polly mused. She looked at the land around her. “I hope no sand got in my boots. That stuff… it’s course, and rough, and annoying, and it gets everywhere.”

Having said her famous movie quote of the day, Polly figured she might as well head back to where she had come from and see if anything had changed. Certainly there had to be more to The Second Island than just one quaint city and some beaches. It was far too big for it not to.

Polly turned away from the beach and began the trek back to and through the city. She had traveled far enough back in so that the gal was surrounded on all sides by buildings when she stopped because her arachnid senses were tingling.

“Ahh, you have arrived,” a creaky voice from behind her spoke. If old doors with rusty joints had voices, Polly was pretty sure that person was exactly what they would sound like.

Polly whipped herself around like a whisk beating eggs to see who had spoken.

A figure hunched and wrapped head to toe in a covering of pitch black stood behind her. The figure was pretty short though, for they only came up to Polly’s waist and the petit lass herself was more of a footstool than a ladder.

“The hairs foretold your arrival.”