Island of the Sequined Love Nun

was it? I wasn't busy?"
    "Face it, kid, you were flying with full flaps down. You know that saying? "The devil makes work for idle hands."
    "Yes."
    "It's true, but only if he gets there first. He didn't even want you, so I showed."
    "What about Kimi? Why?"
    "He always wanted to be the great navigator, now he is. Don't feel too bad for him, the kid died for love."
    "So are you going to screw up the rest of my life?"
    "You ain't got it so bad. It ain't like you have to go into the desert for forty years. What are you worried about?"
    "Yeah, I'm happy now, but is it finished?"
    Vincent butted his cigarette in the sand. "That kind of depends on what you believe, doesn't it, kid?" He began to fade as he walked down the beach. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
    Tuck watched as a sailing canoe materialized on the beach. Kimi was at the tiller and waved as Vincent climbed into the front of the canoe. Tuck waved back even as the canoe dissolved to mist, then he walked home to have breakfast with Sepie. He stopped at the door to wipe his feet and Roberto landed with a thud against the screen, digging his claws in to keep from slipping.
    "Boy, I'm glad all that supernatural stuff is over," the bat said.

Afterword and Acknowledgements
    My approach to research has always been: "Is this correct or should I be more vague?" A quick word search of one of my books reveals that I use the term "kinda-sorta" more than any living author. My readers, who are the kindest and most intelligent people in the world, understand this. They know that using my books as a reference source is tantamount to using glazed doughnuts as a building material. They know that these pages serve the masters of goofiness, not those of accuracy. So…
    While some of the locations in Island of the Sequined Love Nun do exist, I have changed them for my convenience. There is no island of Alualu, nor do the Shark People exist as I have described them. There are no active cargo cults in Micronesia, nor are there any cannibals. The position of mispel did exist in Yapese culture but was abandoned almost a hundred years ago. A strict caste system still exists on Yap and the surrounding islands, and the treatment of Yapese women is portrayed as I saw it. My decision to make the "organ smugglers" Japanese was dictated by geography, not culture or race.
    Most of the information on cargo cults comes, secondhand, from anthropological research done in the Melanesian Islands. I have found since finishing Island of the Sequined Love Nun that the "Cannibal-Spain Theory" was first postulated in Paul Theroux's book The Happy Isles of Oceania, and I must give a jealous nod to Mr. Theroux for that twisted bit of thinking. The information on Micronesian navigation and navigators comes from Stephen Thomas's wonderful book The Last Navigator. My depiction of the shark hunt comes from a story told to me by a high school teacher on Yap about the people of the island of Fais, and I have no idea whether it is accurate. The day-to-day life on Alualu, with the exceptions of the religious rites and outright silliness, comes from my experience on the high island of Mog Mog in the Ulithi Atoll, where I had the privilege of living with Chief Antonio Taithau and his family. Many thanks to Chief Antonio, his wife, Conception, and his daughters, Kathy and Pamela, who saw that I was fed and who pulled me out of the well that I fell in after too much tuba at the drinking circle. Also, thanks to Alonzo, my Indiana Jones kid, who followed me around and made sure I didn't get killed on the reef or eaten by sharks and who I forgive for letting me fall down the well. Many thanks also to Frank the teacher, Favo the elder, Hillary the boat pilot, and all the kids who climbed trees for my drinking coconuts.
    I also owe a debt of gratitude to those people who helped me get to the outer islands: Mercy and all the Peace Corps Volunteers on Yap, Chief Ingnatho Hapthey and the Council of Tamil, and John Lingmar at the Bureau of Outer Island Affairs on Yap, who educated me about local customs, gave permission, and made arrangements. Also to the people of Pacific Missionary Air, who got me there and back and answered my questions on flying in the islands.
    Thanks to the Americans I met on Truk: Ron Smith, who loaned me his diving knife, and Mark Kampf, who gave me his sunscreen, Neosporin, and duct tape, all of which saved my life. (Research Rule.1: Never go to an undeveloped island without duct tape and a big