A Brave Family

Chapter 1: The Storm.

The Swiss family were on a ship in the Pacific.

"Can we explore downstairs?" asked little Franz.

"Okay," said Mother. Franz's older brothers, Hans and Ernst, went with him. In the dark rooms under the deck, they saw dogs, horses, and a lot of boxes and barrels. At the same time, their oldest brother, Fritz, spoke to some children on the deck.

"We are going to live in Australia," said a Scottish girl, Jenny Montrose, excitedly. Suddenly, the sky went dark. Father stopped writing his journal.

"There's going to be a storm," he told Fritz. "Find your brothers and bring them to our room." In bed that night, the Swiss family listened to the storm. Big waves hit the ship noisily.

"Are we going to be alright?" Ernst asked his father.

"I don't know," Father answered. Up on the deck, the ship's men were tired. They couldn't see in the rain.

"Oh no! Rocks!" One of them cried. Just then, there was a terrible noise at the front of the ship. Father ran to the deck. When he came back, his face was white.

"Everybody's getting into the ship's boats," he said. "Be quick!" But when the family arrived on the deck, there was no boat for them.

When they went to their room, Mother cried, "The ship's going down!" "I can feel it!"

"I saw some barrels downstairs," Fritz said. "Let's make a raft with them. Then we can leave the ship on that." Father and the older boys went downstairs for the barrels. When Ernst opened a door to one room, two dogs ran out. Fritz and Father found barrels, tools, and rope, but they couldn't make the raft in the storm. So they waited for the morning. Back in their room, Mother gave some bread to the boys.

"Are we all going to die tonight?" Father thought. The next morning, the weather was better. The Swiss family went up on the deck. The front of the ship was under the water, but they were near an island. The older boys brought the barrels up from downstairs. Father brought some tools and made the barrels into a raft with ropes and wood. That afternoon, the raft was ready. Father and the boys put it into the sea. Then the family took their things, and they got on it. But the waves were big, and their raft was very little. Could it carry them all to the island?

When they moved away from the ship, Franz said, "Look! The dog is in the water behind us!" Ernst quickly pulled him onto the raft.

"Rocks!" Father cried suddenly. "Go left!" Big waves hit them, and water went over the raft. But slowly, the island came nearer. Mother was very happy when they arrived at the beach. The boys wanted to explore the cliffs and tall trees near them.

"Okay," said Father. "But don't go far." After that, Mother began looking for wood. But just then, she saw Hans. He was in the water near some rocks. "Ouch!" He cried. "Something's got my leg!"

Chapter 2: On The Island

Mother ran to Hans. She put her hands under the water and quickly pulled a big blue lobster off his leg.

"Here's our dinner!" She cried happily. After Mother cooked the lobster, the family ate it hungrily. They gave lobster and bread to the dogs, too. Franz thought of names for the two dogs. He called the white dog Bello and the darker dog Juno. In the evening, Father put up ropes between three trees. He put cloth from the ship over them.

"It's a tent for us," he said. Nobody slept much that night. They could hear the cries of different island animals in the dark.

Next morning, Father said, "We must find food and look for people from the ship." Father and Fritz left the beach for the forest. Juno and Bello ran after them. They found a river and drank some water. Near the river, there were tall coconut trees. But how could they bring the coconuts down? Suddenly, the monkeys in the trees began throwing coconuts at them.

"They're angry with us," Fritz laughed. Then he and Father began hitting the trees, and the monkeys threw more coconuts down. Just then, a little monkey fell from a tree.

"Catch it, Fritz!" Father cried. Fritz caught the little monkey. Then he and Father walked up a big hill. Fritz carried the monkey in his arms.

"Let's call him Nips," he said. From the hill, they could see most of the island. They looked for boats or smoke, but saw nothing.

"So we're the only people from the ship here," Father thought. Then they found some fruit trees.

"Mmm, fruit!" cried Fritz hungrily. "Wait! Don't eat it," said Father. "Is it safe?"

"Father, Nips is eating it. So we can eat it too, I think," said Fritz. Later, they caught two birds for dinner. After that, they walked home.

"We're the only people on the island," Father said that night. "And we need more things from the ship."

"Please don't go back!" Mother cried. "It's dangerous!"

"We must," he answered. The next day, Father, Fritz, and Hans took the raft to the ship. They found seeds and guns, and the animals were alive, too. Father tied barrels to the animals. Then he tied ropes from these to the raft.

"Now they can swim easily behind us," he said. They moved slowly through the water. Then, suddenly, something dark went under the raft. It was a big shark. Fritz took a gun and stood up.

"Careful!" Father cried. "Don't fall!"

Chapter 3: The Treehouse

The shark came nearer to the raft. At the last minute, Fritz shot it.

"Wow! You hit it, Fritz!" Hans cried. After that, they watched the water carefully. But the shark didn't come back. Mother met them on the beach.

"We've got a horse now," Father said.

"More importantly, you're alive," Mother answered. That night, the family heard a noise and looked out of the tent. Yellow eyes watched them in the dark.

"Jackals!" Ernst cried. Hans saw a little jackal.

"It can be my pet," he thought. So he caught it with a rope. Just then, Bello and Juno attacked, and all of the bigger jackals ran away.

"The island animals can easily attack our tent," Father said next morning. "We need a better house." Some days later, they found some big trees on a hill. Father threw a rope over a branch and went up into the biggest tree.

"Here's our new house," he said. Father and the older boys put long pieces of wood between branches for the floor. Then they made the rooms. They put a big cloth over them. When the treehouse was ready, Hans asked,

"What can we call it?" Fritz saw a falcon in the sky.

"How about Falcon Wood?" he said. One day, Hans wanted to teach his pet jackal, Fangs, to hunt. So he and Fritz took it into the forest. Suddenly, they heard a terrible noise from the trees in front of them. Minutes later, hundreds of buffaloes began running out of the forest at them.

"Quick!" Fritz cried. "Let's go behind those rocks!" Hans took Fangs in his arms. Then the boys went behind the rocks. Fritz caught a young buffalo with a rope when all the bigger buffaloes ran past them.

"Father's going to be very happy when we take this little buffalo home with us," he said. In the autumn, Mother made a garden with their seeds. The boys looked for food in the forest. They put it in barrels for the winter. Father made a room for their animals under the treehouse. Then he put his tools in the beach tent because there was no room for them in the house. When the winter came, the family stayed in their treehouse, and their animals stayed in their home at the foot of the tree. It rained for weeks.

"We haven't got much food," Father wrote in his journal one day. "Are our animals going to live? Are our seeds going to grow?"

Chapter 4: The Cave House

After winter, spring arrived. All their animals were alive, and little green plants grew in the garden.

"Very good," Father said. "And now let's go to the beach for my tools. I need them here." When they arrived, they couldn't see the ship anymore, but they found pieces of wood by the sea. Their tent was in pieces, with Father's tools, cloth, and barrels all over the beach. Nips ran after a little forest animal. He went into a hole in the cliffs.

"Where is he?" thought Ernst. He looked into the hole.

"Hey, everyone!" he called. "There's a big cave behind this cliff! What a good new home for us! Let's make a door into it." After hours of work, the door was ready. They went into the cave.

"You were right, Ernst. It is big," Father said. "This can be our winter house." For weeks after that, Father and the boys worked on the cave house. They made rooms and cut windows in the rock. One day, Mother found some tall plants in a swamp near the beach.

"With these reeds, we can make a reed floor for the cave," she said. The next day, Hans wanted to cut more reeds. He went further into the swamp. Suddenly, he began sinking into the water there.

"Help!" He cried, but nobody heard him. Hans cut some reeds and made a raft from them. He pulled his body up on the raft, but how could he get out of the swamp? Just then, his pet jackal arrived.

"Fangs, come here!" he called. Fangs ran to him. Hans took the jackal's tail in his hand. When Fangs ran away, he pulled Hans out of the swamp.

"What happened to you?" Mother asked when Hans arrived back home later.

"I got some reeds for the cave floor," Hans said. "I nearly died in that swamp, but Fangs came and pulled me out in time." One hot day, the family were near the river. Their thirsty animals began drinking. Suddenly, a very big snake came out of the water.

"Quick! Move the animals to the cave!" Father cried. They stayed in the cave all day. Father and the boys stood at the windows with guns, but the snake didn't come.

"Perhaps it went away," Father said that evening. "I'm going to look." When he opened the door, their horse ran out into the swamp. Fritz went after it before Father could stop him. Fritz wanted to catch the horse, but the snake waited out in the swamp, and now it saw Fritz. It moved nearer.

Chapter 5: A Message

Fritz heard Father and Hans behind him.

"Don't move!" They cried. Then he heard their guns, and when he looked down, the snake was dead at his feet.

"Hurray! We killed it!" Hans cried excitedly. "This winter, we can be safe from storms and snakes in the cave house," Father said. That autumn, the family made the cave ready for the winter months. When the rains came, Father made some cloth from plants and animal hair. Mother made new clothes from this for everyone. One night, Mother said, "Our island home hasn't got a name. What can we call it?"

"New Switzerland!" Ernst cried, "and we're the Swiss family Robinson Crusoes!" Everyone laughed at that, but they liked Ernst's name for the island. Over many years, the family changed their garden into a little farm. They grew food on the farm, and had lots of animals, and lots of pets, too. Little Franz was 12 now, and he liked to explore New Switzerland with his older brothers. They often went away for days.

"I worry about them," Mother said. "I worry sometimes, too," Father answered, "but they must learn to be men."

"What happened to your face, Hans? It's all red," Mother said, when the boys came home one day.

"We found some honey in a tree," Hans laughed, "with lots of bees!" The next summer, Fritz made a new boat with Father. They made it from wood and animal skins. When the boat was ready, Fritz wanted to take it out to sea, and to explore the island in it.

"All right," Father told him. When Fritz took his boat out across the bay, Mother and Father watched from the beach.

"Is he going to be okay?" Mother asked.

"Elizabeth, he's 21," Father answered. "I was 21 when I met you, remember?" Mother smiled at that, but she didn't feel better about Fritz. For many days, Fritz explored the island by boat. He swam in the sea, and he hunted in the forest. At night, he made a tent from cloth and branches on the beach. He slept in it. One afternoon, Fritz caught lots of fish. Suddenly, lots of birds came down from the sky, and they began to take all the fish from his boat. Fritz caught one of these birds. Just then, he saw a piece of cloth on its leg.

"It's a message!" he thought excitedly. He quickly took the piece of cloth off the bird's leg and opened it.

Chapter 6 To England

Fritz read the message.

"My name's Jenny. My father's a Scottish captain, James Montrose. Please find me. I'm living on an island near Australia, in a bay to the north of it." He remembered the Scottish girl from the ship. Her name was Jenny.

"I must find her," he thought. Fritz looked for Jenny for two days. In the end, he found a sea cave, and he took his boat far into it. After some time, he came out of the cave into a little bay. There were tall cliffs all around it. He saw a girl in animal skins on the beach near these cliffs.

"Hey, you there!" he cried. When the girl saw Fritz in his boat, she began running away.

"Wait!" he called. "Jenny Montrose!" She stopped at this and waited for him. In Jenny's cave home, they talked about their last night on the ship.

"I got into a boat, but it sank near the cliffs," Jenny said. "So I swam into the cave and found this bay."

"We couldn't see it from our hills," Fritz told Jenny.

"And I couldn't climb the cliffs," Jenny answered. "So I wrote messages."

"But why did you run away from me?" Fritz asked her.

"Pirates came here last year," Jenny said. "I ran away from them. When I saw you, I thought, 'More pirates are here!'" Jenny had some books with her.

"They're from the ship," she said. The next day, Ernst ran to the cave house. "Fritz is coming, and there's somebody with him," he told Mother and Father. Fritz's brothers were excited when they met Jenny. They asked her lots of questions and took her around the farm. Father made a room for Jenny in the cave. She was happy.

"I've got a family again," she thought. When the winter came, the boys read books for the first time in years.

"Fritz's English is very good now," Father said one day. "Jenny's books are helping him."

Mother laughed. "It's not the books," she said. "It's Jenny." "This is an important day," Father said one morning. "We arrived on this island seven years ago, so no work today." At once, Jenny and the boys ran up the hill and shot their guns over their heads excitedly. Suddenly, they heard the noise of a ship's gun.

"Somebody heard us, and they're answering," Fritz said.

"Pirates!" Jenny cried. They ran to the cave house, but no pirates came. The next morning, Father and Fritz took the boat out. When they left the bay, they suddenly saw a ship in front of them. They quickly moved their boat behind some rocks. Then Fritz looked out from behind the rocks and said, "They aren't pirates. They're British!" So they went to the ship. When they arrived, the captain met them.

"I'm James Montrose," he told them.

"Captain Montrose!" Father cried. "Your daughter, Jenny's with us!"

"That's wonderful!" The Captain said. "I waited in Australia for her, but a ship never came. I looked for her for years, but found nothing. Then four months ago, we caught some pirates. They told us about a girl on this island." That afternoon, the captain visited the island. Jenny took him in her arms happily. A week later, Fritz told Mother and Father,

"Jenny's leaving for England tomorrow, and I want to marry her and go with her."

"Then let's tell Captain Montrose," Father said. And they did. The next day, the Captain married Jenny and Fritz. When they said goodbye to the family, Father gave a box to them.

"Open it later," he said. Jenny and Fritz stood on the ship and looked back at their island home. Soon, they could see it no more. Then they opened the box. In it, they found Father's journal: The Story of the Swiss Family Robinson.