The Island's Secret - 2. Thursday

I woke up early, like always, and worked out for half an hour before running for half an hour and having a shower. When I came out of the shower, everyone was at the table eating breakfast.

“Good morning,” I said, grinning in excitement. Tommy grinned back, and my parents waved, smiling. I ate quickly, finishing at the same time as they did, and my parents started to fuss over what I’d packed, making sure I had everything. I reminded them multiple times that I was only going to be half an hour away, and I could bike back to get anything I forgot if necessary. Tommy laughed and told us that he’d happily drive, and I didn’t need to bike. Finally, we said goodbye, and Tommy and I got on our way.

We didn’t talk much in the car, except for when I interrogated him about the camera’s features. I still hadn’t read the manual, because I find it easier to learn on my own than to have it handed to me in a booklet. I took a few pictures going in, mostly of the large granite cliffs rising on the side of the road. There was never a large area that didn’t have a granite outcropping in it, and even the forests grew around the stone. It was oddly beautiful, especially when we reached a lake and drove along the shore for a time. There were always cracks in the granite, and it was tempting me to climb it already. Some of the cliffs were right up against the water, and I wondered if it was deep enough to jump. Soon enough, we reached the “village”. It consisted of a few houses and a store.

“There’s more to it than that,” Tommy promised. “This area has almost a hundred people living here.”

“The town does?” I asked, surprised.

Tommy shook his head. “The area this store caters to,” He clarified. “Almost thirty kilometers in radius.”

I laughed, disbelieving. I’d grown up in the city my entire life, where a hundred people would be squished into half a kilometer of land.

Tommy grinned, and stopped the car just outside town, getting out. “Road ends,” he explained, pulling a pair of keys out of his pocket. We unloaded my stuff, putting it on the ATV Tommy pulled out of a bush, and got on after. Tommy drove us cross-country for another kilometer before a field opened up in front of us. He drove into it, and I got my first good view of the cottage. There was more glass in the walls than there was stone, and you could see straight through it and out the other side to where a small island waited off shore, surrounded by the lake. The cottage was on a peninsula in the middle of a bay, and there were no other houses in view. There were plenty of cliffs, and lots of forest. It was amazing. Tommy stopped in front of the house, pulling into a shed that was far too big for the two ATVs.

“Now that you’re here, you can pick out an ATV and a jetski, and until then you can use the guests’ ones,” Tommy said. I looked at him like he was crazy, for good reason, but he just grinned.

“It’s the only way to get around out here,” he said, justifying it.

“Thank you so much,” I said, still amazed at all of this. “For everything.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Tommy laughed. “Now let’s get your stuff put away so we can go swimming.”

I nodded, and Tommy led me inside. The first floor was the living room, kitchen, and dining room, and all the walls were glass. You could look around from any point and have a 360-degree view of the bay. Tommy led me up a glass staircase to the second floor.

“This is my floor,” He told me, gesturing around. “I figured I should tell you where everything is before I bring you to your room.”

I nodded, and he began pointing to rooms as he said the name. There were six doors, three on either side. “Bedroom, bathroom, sauna, gym, private living room, and another one I don’t know what to do with.”

“What!?” I asked, amazed. “That’s crazy!”

Tommy grinned. “I know,” he said simply before continuing. “None of this is off-limits or anything, but I don’t think you’ll spend much time here. You’ll be down here,” He said, walking downstairs again and into a basement I hadn’t seen. The doors seemed to be laid out the same way the ones on the top floor had been.

“This,” Tommy said, gesturing to all of it, “is your floor.”

I was fairly sure I heard my jaw hit the floor after that statement, but I couldn’t be sure because my entire body was numb with excitement.

“All of it?!” I asked, and Tommy laughed, nodding.

“It’s stocked with the same things my floor is right now, except for your bedroom, which I customised for you, but feel free to change it up. If you need to buy something, just tell me and I’ll have it delivered.”

“How do you have things delivered?” I asked, wondering why that was the first question to come to mind.

Tommy grinned. “I’m going to get my pilots’ license soon, but until then I had a helipad put in. We can bring in large things by helicopter, and when I have my license I’ll buy a float plane that can stay in the boathouse.”

I nodded, numbed to the awe.

“I’ll leave you to pack your things away, then?” he said, making it a question.

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks again.”

Uncle Tommy laughed. “No problem,” he said. “There’s got to be some benefits to being crazy rich, huh?”

I laughed too, and he left me to unpack my stuff and get used to everything. I walked into the bedroom, and saw a king sized bed and a walk-in closet. There were shelves everywhere, and picture frames in every available space. It was exactly how I would have made it, and I grinned, shaking my head. Uncle Tommy really was crazy. I was so outrageously thankful that I didn’t even know how to put it into words.

I decided that Tommy wouldn’t want me to anyway, and I began to unpack. My clothes didn’t fill much of the closet, even though there was a washing machine and a drier in it. All around the washer and drier were more picture frames, and I grinned at how well Tommy knew me. When all my things were unpacked, I walked into the bathroom, since it was attached to the bedroom. It was huge. The bath was big enough for five people, and it had jets and everything. There was a shower that had four showerheads, one on each side, a sink, a toilet, a urinal, and a fully stocked towel rack. I walked through a door that lead to the gym, ignoring the one to the hall for now. The gym was fully stocked with everything I’d use, and I left before I freaked out at how expensive it must have been. I walked out into the hall, looking back down. Tommy had put picture frames all down the hall, waiting to be filled. I moved into the next room on the opposite side, still numb. This was the sauna, and it had a hot tub beside it.

Holy fuck, I thought to myself.

I walked through the door into the private living room. It had two large couches, a TV, a computer desk, a fully stocked mini-fridge, and a snack cupboard. I turned, going into the last room. It was empty, and I think that was what really drove it in.

There’s so much room here even Tommy doesn’t know what to do with it!

I went across the hall, back into my bedroom, needing to sit down, and that was where Tommy found me. I found it amusing that he knocked on my door before coming in.

“It’s all a bit much, huh?” he asked, grinning.

I nodded numbly.

“I figured that I give enough to charity to justify this,” he said, laughing. “If I’m sickeningly rich I might as well spend a bit on myself, right?”

I snorted, falling back on my bed. It bounced beneath me, and I realized it was a waterbed. I stared at it, overwhelmed.

“Do you want to go swimming?” Tommy asked me. “It helps if you get out of the house, trust me. I’m still not used to being rich, and it hits me again every once in a while.”

I nodded, and went into the closet to get changed. I came back out, and found Tommy at the stairs, outside my room.

“Why don’t you just sell the company?” I asked. “Why keep working if you already have more money than you can spend?”

Tommy shook his head. “It’s not more than I can spend,” he said seriously. “Not even close. This is the first really big thing I’ve done for myself with it. All the rest I’ve spent on causes. I worked in Africa for a while, helping with the poverty there, and I’ve spend millions on protecting endangered animals. I keep working so I can keep the money coming for all these causes. Many of the charities I fund depend solely on me, and would go bankrupt without my funding. If I stop working, it would be betraying all those causes.”

I nodded, understanding, and we walked down to the lake. There was a boathouse on the water, right at the edge. Inside were two lonely jetskis, dwarfed by the giant boathouse.

“This is where yours and the float plane will go,” Tommy explained. I laughed, and we climbed up onto the second floor of the boathouse. It had a table, minifridge, and a snack cupboard, but Tommy walked right to the window overlooking the lake, stripping off his shirt. He opened a glass door and jumped off the boathouse, falling ten feet and landing in the water. He came up laughing at the look on my face.

“It’s thirty feet deep here,” he told me.

“We’re ten feet off shore!” I protested. He laughed.

“It gets deep quickly in this lake.”

I shrugged, took off my shirt, and ran through the doorway, jumping over Uncle Tommy and doing a backflip 360. I came to the surface, and Tommy was clapping.

“Nice,” he laughed, and I heard his voice echo from across the lake.

“Does anyone else live around here?” I asked, worried about being noisy.

Tommy shook his head. “Our nearest neighbors are half a kilometer away, on an entirely different bay. They couldn't hear anything short of an air horn.”

I nodded, considering that. “What are they like?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy said, sounding curious. “Let’s swim for a few more minutes and then go meet them.”

I nodded, and dove underwater. I dove towards the bottom, keeping my eyes open, and my ears began to feel the pressure when I was still ten feet from it. I kept going, determined to touch the bottom, and my head began to ache. I stopped, waiting it out as I became accustomed to the pressure until I could go the last few feet. I ran my hand through the sand, surprised that it wasn’t granite. I picked up a handful, and brought it up to show Tommy, swimming quicker as my lungs began to ache. I broke the surface to find Tommy staring at me in amazement.

“You were under there for forty five seconds!” he said, shocked. “I counted!”

I grinned at him and held up the handful of sand. “It’s a sandy bottom,” I offered, and he laughed.

“I tried to reach the bottom the first time I swam here too,” he said. “I got twenty feet before my eardrums were about to rupture.”

I grinned. “I’ve got practice,” I told him. “This is what my friends and I do all the time.”

“Oh yeah,” Tommy said, remembering something. “I forgot about your friends. You can have them over whenever you want, but I won’t be able to drive them very often. I’m still working.”

I grinned. “Thanks!” I said, excited.

“Let’s go visit the neighbors now,” he suggested, and I agreed. We ran back up the boathouse stairs to grab our shirts, but before I went back down Tommy gestured for me to stay. He reached behind the fridge, and pulled out a rope.

“We should bring this in when we’re not using it for long periods of time so it doesn't get mossy,” he told me, holding up a rope. I guess I looked confused, because he attached a clip at one end of the rope to the roof and then dropped the rest off the boathouse. He grabbed the rope and jumped off, swinging out over the lake. I laughed in delight, but he didn’t let go. He swung back in, sliding down the rope, until he jumped off onto the dock next to his jetski.

“Wow,” I said, copying him. “That’s useful.” He grinned, and gestured to the other jetski, getting on his.

“I don’t have a licence!” I protested.

Tommy looked around, shading his eyes with his hand as if searching for something. “I don’t see any cops,” he said, and we laughed.

“You’re a bad influence!” I accused, smiling.

“You’re mature enough to handle it,” he said, grinning, and revved up the engine.

I got on the other jetski, and turned it on. “You can’t steer unless it’s going, right?”

Tommy nodded. “These ones have reverse, so you’ll be fine.”

He accelerated, and I followed. We drove through the lake, and I enjoyed the new experience. The shore was a mixture of forest and rock, with cliffs appearing regularly. It was beautiful. We went into another bay, next to ours, and I saw a house. It looked like a wooden cabin, in the same way that a Tonka truck looks like the real thing. We pulled up at their dock, and I saw Tommy eyeing how they had a speedboat.

“Good idea,” he said, and I guessed we’d have one soon. We walked up to the house and knocked on the door. There was no doorbell, which made sense considering they must not get many unexpected visitors. I saw that there was a road leading here, so these people didn’t need to use ATVs to get to their house. My attention was turned back to the door as we heard footsteps on the other side. The door opened, and we saw a nice looking older man.

“Hello,” he said cheerfully. “Are you our new neighbors?”

Tommy grinned. “That’s us,” he said.

The man looked at me. “I have a grandson your age,” he told me. “He’s coming up tomorrow. Maybe you two will be friends?” He said it like a question, so I felt obligated to answer.

“Yeah, maybe,” I said noncommittally. I was enjoying this lifestyle for a summer, but I didn’t want to have to hang out with someone who lived it constantly. I hate snobby people. At least this man didn’t seem to be like that yet.

“Martha!” The man called behind him, louder than I would have expected, and we heard a voice call back.

“Yes, dear?”

“Our new neighbors are here!” The man called, and soon a plump older woman waddled into view.

“Hello!” she said, hugging us both. “I assume my husband hasn’t introduced himself?”

We laughed, nodding, and she turned to him.

“See, Bernie? You always forget to introduce yourself,” she said. She sounded amused and gentle, not nagging at all. I guessed that this was a discussion they had a lot.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t see people much, so we’ve forgotten our manners. We’re Bernie and Martha Hastings.”

“I’m Tommy EIdridge, and this is my nephew Ben.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Tommy, and you, Ben!” Martha said happily. I decided that I liked these two, as weird as they were.

“Do you want to come in?” Martha asked us. “I’ve made cookies!”

“Sure,” Uncle Tommy said, looking at me to tell me I could go back if I wanted. I shrugged, telling him I’d stay, and we followed Martha and Bernie in.

“You look like you’re the same age as our grandson Asher,” Martha told me. “He’s coming up here tomorrow. I think you two will like each other.”

“I told him that already,” Bernie told her, smiling. They looked like they were really excited for me to be friends with their grandson, and I felt bad about how likely it was that I’d disappoint them. Martha went to go get the cookies she’d offered, and Bernie sat us down on the couch.

“Are you two moving in OK?” Bernie asked us, sitting down across from us.

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “We’re almost all done.”

Martha came back at this point, and we all forgot conversation in favor of cookies. They were really good, and when we had all had a few Martha began speaking again.

“You two are brave to live so far out from the town,” Martha said. “Did you have trouble moving in?”

We all laughed, and Bernie explained to Martha that he’d already said that. We talked until it was almost dinnertime, and then Martha insisted that we stay. We had to refuse, because of how dark it would be, and we said goodbye. Martha made us promise to come over for dinner tomorrow so I could meet Asher, and then we left. We made it back home before it was very dark, and we went swimming again before going back up to the house. We had a simple dinner of pizza that Tommy had picked up earlier, and Tommy told me about the pizza oven he’d made outside. It sounded awesome, and he joked about converting the empty room on his floor into a pizza kitchen.

“Seriously though,” he said after. “Everything you need is in the fridge. If you want to make pizza at any time, you can. The kitchen’s fully stocked too, so feel free to make anything you want.”

“Thanks,” I said, grinning. “That sounds awesome.” We finished dinner, and Tommy went upstairs, having to work. I went down to my floor, and decided to use the gym. I worked out for an hour, until my entire body was sore, and then I went in the sauna, stripping naked and enjoying the heat. I lay there for a little while, until the hot tub was too tempting. I went in, choosing a seat that had full body jets. I turned the jets on as powerful as they got, and sat for a while, savoring the pain as the stiffness left my muscles. When I was fully relaxed, I got out, walking naked through the hall to the bathroom. I got into the shower, turning the water on cold, and stepped in, sucking in a breath at the shock. I stayed in the shower for a little while longer before getting out, grabbing a towel and heading to the living room, where I’d put my laptop bag.

I wrapped the towel loosely around my waist, too self-conscious to stay naked, and set up my computer. When it was done, I connected to the internet through my phone and left it, lying down on the couch instead. I looked at my phone, checking my messages. Many of my friends had messaged me, and I talked with them for a while, telling them about the cottage and everything that had happened. They were all happy for me and jealous, and I promised them I’d ask Tommy to let me bring them up. Finally, I noticed an indent in the wall above the TV. I walked over to it, examining it, and saw it was a speaker. I looked around more, and found that they were all over my floor. I found the remote on the table in front of the couch where I had started, and soon I had them wirelessly hooked up to my phone so I could play my music without being attached to the wall. I walked into my bedroom, enjoying how the music never faded. I kept it quiet, not wanting to bother Tommy, but I kept walking around, enjoying the exercise and being amused by the music.

Eventually, I realized that at some point, I’d lost my towel and I hadn’t noticed. I marvelled at how I was used to being naked already, but it was enjoyable. I felt free, and wild, and I loved it. I walked around one more time, grabbing my towel and clothes, and brought them back to my closet. I threw them into the laundry basket after toweling myself off fully, and fell onto my bed, feeling the water underneath me. I turned off my music and got under the covers, surprised by how cold it was in the basement. I hadn’t expected being underground to make that much of a difference, but it did. I guess that’s why Uncle Tommy put me down here. He knows I love the cold. I lay naked under the covers, enjoying the soft silk against my skin, until I fell asleep.