The Flight

• Jacob Tomaselli, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2014

One raining day, Jim and his family were going on a plane flight to America. Jim was not very keen on flying. He had seen too many documentaries on plane crashes. The morning Jim was going to America, he was more scared than ever. When he got in the car, he took a sleeping pill to relax. Once he got on board Jim made himself comfortable in his seat. He took five more sleeping pills, hoping he would fall asleep soon enough.
During the flight the pilots began to have trouble. They were losing fuel and they did not understand what was going on! Suddenly the pilots could no longer keep the plane in the air and it crashed into the ocean. By the time Jim woke up, he found himself and parts of the plane floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Jim freaked and began to scream. After a few hours of floating in the rough sea, he saw an island in the distance, so he swam as hard as he could to get there.
After some time, Jim finally reached the island. At first he did not know what to do. He felt so tired and cold. At that point he had a thought. He decided to start a fire. The first time he tried he had no success. All he did was make lots of smoke. The next day he tried again but nothing happened. So the days went past without any fire but he didn’t give up yet. He tried one more time to start a fire but all he managed was to cut his hands from all the rubbing. He was so angry!
That night he did not sleep. In the morning he saw a floating body washed up to the shore from the plane crash. Jim took the man out of the water and felt something in his pocket. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a lighter. “ What luck!” Jim cheered. Now it was easy for him to light a fire. Jim took the body and buried it next to a big rock. In the other side of the man’s pocket there was a picture of his family so Jim stuck it onto the rock. Before long Jim started to explore the island. While Jim was exploring he had found five long logs. One by one he took them back to the beach where he was staying. As the months went by Jim became stronger and stronger and he improved on lots of things such as fishing, facing his fears and most importantly his survival skills.
A year later Jim had made a raft out of the logs and he was planning to get off the island and make it back to Australia. He tried to paddle out on his new raft but the waves crashed too hard on him causing him some injuries. When Jim recovered he tried again and he got past the waves and into the sea. Eventually Jim saw a sailing ship in the distance…