Okay, kids, this is it. I'm not in love with this, but it works.
The first two closings of the letter are supposed to look scratched out, but won't let me do a strikethrough. It formatted correctly in Word, so just pretend, okay?

The Pearl

The Skipper was worried.

Headhunters, he could handle. Hurricanes? No problem. Food blight? Piece of cake.

But this? This was serious.

The Skipper was normally a man of action. He formulated a plan, carried it through, and anticipated results. He didn't always get what he wanted or expected, but results were results nonetheless.

But this stumped him. He was paralyzed. He didn't know what to do mostly because he didn't know what happened. He wasn't entirely sure that the situation warranted yelling, or even a lecture. But he was sure that it required some sort of response.

So in the meantime, the Skipper resorted to planting himself solidly on the bench between Gilligan and Mary Ann at lunch that day. The first mate looked briefly surprised at being ejected from his usual seat, but he sat down at the end of the bench without comment.

The Howells were back at their fight, the scandal of the morning momentarily forgotten as the couple attempted to shift focus back to their own issues. At one point during the tense words that followed, the Skipper caught Gilligan direct a grateful smile at Mary Ann after she defended him to Ginger. The Skipper frowned and crossed his massive arms, attempting to fill up as much space between them as possible. The Howells sniffed and clicked all through the meal and the remaining castaways eventually stormed away one-by-one, irritated by one nonsensical comment or another.

Over the next few days, whenever the Skipper attempted to talk to Gilligan, the young sailor always insisted that he was fine, there was nothing to talk about, he felt a lot better, and he didn't remember anything anyway. Then he would quickly gather up an empty bucket or basket and busy himself with a chore that didn't need doing.

But sometimes the Skipper would enter his hut and catch Gilligan hide something he was working on. His hand would disappear briefly into his pocket and he would paste that disarming smile on his face and actually ask the Skipper if there were any chores he wanted him to do.

Sometimes when the Skipper brought up what Ginger took to calling The Incident, before Gilligan could insist that he was fine and disappear, the captain would catch a look flash across the young man's face for the briefest moment – a little bit embarrassed, a little bit ruminating, and a little bit proud of himself.

And sometimes the Skipper would look up from his plate at mealtimes as Mary Ann was telling a story and catch Gilligan watching her intently – a little bit captivated, a little bit perplexed, and a little bit twitterpated.

The Skipper was worried.

The letter that Mary Ann found on her pillow a week after The Incident went something like this:

Hi Mary Ann,

Here are the earrings you said you wanted. I wanted to make you what you said you wanted even though we only found one pearl. So I used the other four pearls I found after all that gold sank our raft and made the earrings out of them. I know you'll take better care of them than me, so I want you to have them. Plus I'd look pretty dumb wearing pearls. I used the one we found the other night to make a necklace to go with them. I didn't want it to get mixed up with the others. Anyway, I hope the earrings are what you wanted. Nobody ever asked me to make them something like this before. If you don't like them, I can change them.

Sincer- Lov- From,
Gilligan

P.S.: Do you want to go butterfly hunting tomorrow? The Professor says the butterflies by the banyan tree will come out of their cocoons soon and I want us to see it. I fixed your net today. And I'm sorry I broke your net yesterday.

P.P.S.: This isn't like the last time I left you something on your pillow. This is actually from me, I promise.

"Oh, Mary Ann," Ginger breathed as she looked up from the paper. "This one's a keeper."

"What?" Mary Ann lifted her head from where she was staring dumbly into the unwrapped box in her hands. "Oh. No. He made these for me because I asked him too."

"Sure, Mary Ann. And I help the Professor with his experiments because I like science."

Half an hour earlier, Ginger sauntered across the clearing, humming to herself, nearly drunk on contentment. She breathed deeply, the heady aroma of the flowers she carried just about knocking her over.

The actress suddenly skidded to a halt in her high-heeled tracks and swayed once before regaining her balance. She smirked and her eyebrows shot up as she spotted Gilligan cautiously leave the girls' hut and hurry away into the jungle. Ginger lowered the flowers from her nose and dashed through the sand toward her hut. She threw open the door with a triumphant "a-ha!" and was noticeably disappointed when her roommate was nowhere to be found.

Ginger sighed and entered the hut. She filled an empty gourd vase with water and deposited her bouquet on the vanity, where it was dwarfed by Mary Ann's giant bouquet from the previous week and even the now wilted misunderstanding bouquet from the day before that.

Ginger frowned slightly, hands on hips, as she studied her flowers. The Professor spent so much time lecturing her on all of the scientific names and practical medicinal uses for each and every blossom that at the end of an hour she was still only left with a third of the flowers her roommate had acquired.

The actress sat down at the vanity and raised her hand mirror to beam brilliantly at her reflection in the glass. She began fixing her hair, but froze upon spying something odd in the mirror.

Behind her, on Mary Ann's cot, was a package.

Ginger put down the mirror and spun around on the bench to make sure it was really there. She slowly stood and crept closer. On her roommate's pillow lay a small box wrapped in a giant palm leaf with a piece of hemp rope tied around it as a ribbon. A pink tropical flower decorated the present, stem pushed through the rope's knot. Beside the box lay a piece of paper, folded once. Ginger tip-toed closer and could see the faint upside-down handwriting through the top fold of the paper.

She bit her lip and pondered if it was still a federal offense to open someone else's mail if the letter was neither sealed nor sent through the actual mail.

She finally decided against it and instead called upon her years of stage experience to project her voice as if she were trying to reach the last row of the rear mezzanine of the biggest barn on Broadway.

"MARY ANN!"

Wherever the younger girl was on the island, she clearly heard her and eventually appeared in the doorway of the hut just as Ginger was about to die of impatience. Before Mary Ann could utter a word, Ginger tugged on her arm and pulled her over to her cot, turning her to face her pillow with a firm hand on each shoulder. "Ginger! What –." She froze. "What is that?"

"Open it! Open it!" Ginger bounced up and down in her heels, clapping her hands in delight. "I want to live vicariously!"

Mary Ann sat down on her cot and took the note in both hands. Ginger watched her restlessly, analyzing each slight change in facial expression, hands clasped in front of her face and anxiously biting one finger.

Mary Ann read painfully slowly and when she finally grinned, Ginger couldn't take it anymore. "What!" she exploded, "What did Gilligan write!"

Mary Ann looked up. "How do you know who it's from?"

Ginger rolled her eyes. "Oh, please! Who else would it be from? Besides, I saw him sneak out of the hut earlier. He looked guilty as sin about it, too. So guilty, in fact, that I thought you were in here." Ginger grinned wickedly, but Mary Ann just looked perplexed.

Mary Ann carefully folded the paper again and held it up. "Do you want to read it?" She heard Ginger squeal and in a blur the note was gone from her hand.

That night, as Gilligan was setting the table, Mary Ann appeared seemingly from nowhere, strode up to him purposefully, and abruptly wrapped her arms around him. She stood up on her toes and hooked her arms around his neck, pulling him to her in a tight hug.

Flummoxed, Gilligan stood stock still, arms out with an empty plate in each hand. He glanced around at the other five castaways grouped around the table. Most of them awkwardly went about their business as if nothing had happened, but Gilligan saw Ginger approaching. She took the plates from him and shot him a look that he knew meant that if she didn't free his arms for a good reason, she'd knock him into next week.

Gilligan hesitated a moment more and then folded his arms around Mary Ann's waist. He felt Mary Ann relax against him and sigh a little with relief, as if she had been worried that he wouldn't return the hug. She tightened her arms around him and squeezed, hoping that it would be enough to make up for all the words that she couldn't find.

"Thank you, Gilligan," she whispered.

Mary Ann then closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his cheek, firmly but tenderly, until Gilligan was slightly tingly from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Mary Ann finally released him and set her feet fully on the ground, hands sliding down his shoulders as she detangled her arms from around his neck. She shyly lowered her gaze from his face to stare at his buttons.

Gilligan saw the earrings he made glowing against her dark hair, two glistening pearls swinging from each ear, and he gave her a lopsided smile. "You're welcome."

Mary Ann smiled and laid a hand over the necklace. She turned then and Gilligan's arms fell from her waist as she returned to the fire to finish preparing dinner.

Gilligan stood there for a moment, staring after her, arms still out awkwardly until Ginger replaced the dinner plates in his hands.

The Skipper was worried.