Hello. My name is Curtis Cartwell and I am 16 years old and I love reading any types of books that take my fancy. I have short dark brown hair, light blue eyes and am 170 cm tall. I live with my mum, dad and two sisters, Caroline who is 19 and Pamela who is 14. We live in an old heritage cottage in London which we are in the process of moving out of. We are moving to somewhere in Western Australia tomorrow because my dad has had a job reallocation. Well enough on that! I’m heading over to my friends house because all my friends are there waiting to say goodbye. When I got there it was more emotional than I thought it would be. We where all crying and I told them that when I was settled in Australia that I would write to them and tell them how I was doing and what Australia was like. When I left there I went home and we had some takeaway because everything had been packed up and was already travelling to Western Australia so that it would be there when we got there. It was midnight by the time we got to Heathrow Airport so we had a couple of hours sleep in the car before we had to be inside the airport for our flight. As soon as we stepped into the terminal a short man in a black suit came up to us and told us that my dads company had provided a private jet that would take us directly to our destination, a private airstrip somewhere in Western Australia. When we got on board we were surprised that it was a Citation X Luxury Jet. During the flight we were given a gourmet breakfast. Though when we thanked the chef he said, “This is not a gourmet breakfast; it’s a traditional Aussie breakfast”. When we had landed on the runway we looked out the window and were surprised that the jet had not taken us to the mainland, but to a large island off the coast of Western Australia.
We were still waiting on the plane when the fasten seatbelt light went out and the pilot walked in and said, “Welcome to Leroy Island”. We got off the airplane and drove for half an hour across the island to its centre. This was the village where we were going to live. When we got out of the four wheel drive we were given a personal tour of the village. Our tour guide was my dad because he had been here before. First stop was a cottage right on the edge of the village. We stopped at the cottage and my dad opened the door, showed us inside and said, “There are guards on duty in here 24/7 using these computers to monitor the security cameras hidden around the village”. When he said this I started wondering why they would need so many security cameras. I think that he read my mind because he then said, “This is a secret island that no-one knows about because we need to keep it a secret from everyone that we can.” By this time we had left and were heading over to the hut next door that had a bunch of large satellite dishes on the roof. When we got there my dad had to knock on the door in a special rhythm and someone on the other side of the door unlocked at least six locks from what I could make out through the thick door. When we looked inside we saw a bunch of technicians surrounded by computers and switch boards. This is when my dad told us one of the biggest secrets of the island. This is what he said, “These technicians in here use these workstations that send out a signal through the satellite dishes you can see on the roof, to a bunch of tall pylons that encompass the island, once transmitted to these they put up a force field that wraps around the whole island and makes the island invisible to all aircraft and boats so it only looks like it is a part of the ocean.” The next stop was our new cottage that we were going to be living in which we walked inside of and there was dinner sitting on the dining table which we ate with gratitude to whomever had prepared this delicious meal for us. Our dinner contained some roasted vegetables and some roast beef with mashed potato and gravy. After this we went to bed and had a long sleep because my dad said that tomorrow we were going to have a long day and there would be a lot of excitement for us all.
The next day my dad got us up really early and we got into the four wheel drive and one of my dad’s workmates drove another one across the island and back to the airstrip where we got the surprise of our life. The Citation X was flying back to the island, which I thought was weird because I hadn’t heard it leaving the night before. When the jet landed the stairs folded out from the jet’s side and another family who were on the jet stepped out through the open side door of the jet and walked down the stairs. This family was made up of a man, his wife and their three children, two boys and one girl. The girl looked like she was my age. She had long blonde hair, bright green eyes and looked approximately 169 cm tall. When they were all on the tarmac my dad ushered us over toward them and said, “Hello my old friend how have you and your family been these past few days with this quite fast paced move to Leroy Island that you’ve all had.” The man introduced himself and his family to all of us. The man was Mr. Longwrite and his wife was Mrs. Longwrite, their sons names were Michael who is 19 and Jake who is 15. Their daughter whom I had just been admiring when she had been getting off the plane was introduced to me as Danielle and she was 16 years old just as I had thought. Then we all started mingling with each other and this is where I found out from Danielle that they had also been living in England before they came here. A couple minutes later my dad told us all to get into the four wheel drives and head back across the island to the village where both our families were going to live from now on. While dad took the Longwrite’s around on a tour of the village he told us that we could go exploring for half an hour by which time the Longwrite’s would be finished with their tour and lunch would be ready for us all to share in the pavilion with the Longwrite family so that we could get to know each other better. At exactly 12:30 we all arrived at the luncheon with rather more suitable clothes on than we had put on when we got up so early this morning. I was very overwhelmed by the effort that someone had gone to. They had provided a buffet with roast beef and turkey, all kinds of different salad bits and glasses of champagne for our parents and glasses of half champagne and half orange juice for us kids. During our scrumptious lunch my dad announced with a clink on his champagne glass that he would like to say something. He toasted “to our two families who have gotten together to live on this secret island and to the company that we own.” We must have all looked shocked at the mention of our families owning the company and the island because our dad’s said to us “We didn’t want to tell you this until today so that we could make sure that you couldn’t blab the whole secret out about this island and why we are here which we will get to after we finish this delicious lunch that our great chefs have provided for us.”
Now we are standing outside waiting for everyone to get back from their rooms after they have freshened themselves up. As we waited in silence I sighted two people, the first ones I had seen since the tour we had gotten of the island yesterday, coming out of one of the buildings on the opposite side of the village. One of these people looked quite familiar and when I moved forward to have a closer look I knew why. At first what I thought was two men were actually a man and a woman chatting. What gave me a surprise was when the man turned his head slightly and looked straight into my eyes. Now I knew where I had recognised the man from. It was one of the people that you would think that you would never see again; he was a teacher from the school I had just left in England. The name I knew him as was Mr. Pebble he had been the head of science when I had left. Now I had to blink to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. When he registered that I was staring at him he excused himself from the conversation and walked towards me. When he was close enough he said, “If your wondering why I am here it is because I don’t work for the school anymore. The reason is that there was no need for me to be there anymore because you had moved here.” Being me, I said, “Why did you leave because of me not being their anymore.” He said, “Well the reason is that teaching was just my part time job. The reason I’m here is that I’ve been working for this company for longer than you’ve been alive.”
Then I said, “What does this company do.” Mr. Pebble answered me by saying, “I believe that is what your dad is going to tell you in a minute.” When I turned around I noticed that my dad was walking towards the group, so me, Mr. Pebble and the woman went and joined them too. My dad said, “Some of you may know this man, his name is Mr. Pebble but you can call him Kyle and none of you know this lady, but her name is Dr. Nicole Wandergeist.” When he said this we all stopped to greet them and then my dad started taking again. “Well everybody now this is the time you’ve all been waiting for. You’ll all be seeing what the reason for all of us being here is now.” Then he knelt down on the ground and lifted up a small square piece of grass to reveal a keypad and said, “We are going to be travelling 60m underground to our HQ which is home to more than 1,000 employees who also work there. Some of the people you see down there may have lived and worked in the neighbourhood where you came from so don’t get surprised if you see anyone that you recognize.” Then he whispered something in Kyle’s ear. Then Kyle picked up a pile of pages from the ground and handed one to each of us and my dad said, “This is a list of employees who work here, study them in your own time.” Then he told everyone to stand behind him as he typed the code into the keypad and a hole opened up in front of him. When it was all the way open dad said, “Everyone go down this ladder in single file and when you get to the bottom there will be a security team waiting for us there.” All of us kids climbed down into the deep dark tunnel. Then the adults followed us down and we heard the clang as someone closed the door behind us. When we got down to the bottom we saw the security detail that my dad had been talking about. As we were all settling down after our long descent, one of the security men who was wearing a special containment suit, stepped forward and said, “Women’s change rooms are on the left and men’s change rooms are on the right. When you all get into them you are to strip right down to your undergarments and one of my men or women will search you for any drugs or listening devices and cameras.” When we were done being checked we were given a new set of garments with a Logo with the letters W.A.S.A.R. on each of them. When they were handed to us we were told that we had to put them on and meet everyone back in the main foyer. As I was putting mine on I wondered how they knew what size I would fit into, but I’m going to take a guess and say that our old local clothes store owner works for this company. I found out I was right when Mr. Grey walked in and asked us if our clothes fit us alright. We all nodded and said as a group, “Yes sir.” Then my dad stepped forward, faced us all and said, “We as a group will be entering through this door directly behind me. Now it is my very pleasure to invite you to our Headquarters.” As he said this he opened up the very thick steel door which led into a very long corridor with doors positioned at intervals on either side.