Island of the Sequined Love Nun

but that he had spoken in her language. Although the words were clipped, the way someone from Iffallik or Satawan might speak.
    "He's right here," she said. "Your friend stinks. You should take him outside and wash him in the sea."
    "That's not Roberto. That's Tucker. Roberto is shorter." Kimi crawled over to Tuck and laid his hand on the flyer's forehead. "He has bad fever. You have medicine?"
    "Aspirin," Sepie said. Malink had given her a bottle of the tablets to crush into the flyer's broth, but after he gagged on the first dose she had stopped giving it to him.
    "He is more sick than aspirin. He needs a doctor. You have a doctor?"
    "We have the Sorcerer. He does our medicine. He was a doctor before the Sky Priestess came."
    Kimi looked at her. "What island is this?"
    "Alualu."
    "Ha! We have to get doctor for Tucker. He owes me five hundred dollars."
    Sepie's eyes went wide. No wonder he wears such a fine dress. Five hundred dollars! She said, "The chief says I have to be secret about this man. Everyone knows he is here. The boys get drunk and talk. But I can't get the doctor."
    "Why are you taking care of him? You are just a girl."
    "I am not just a girl. I am mispel."
    Kimi scoffed. "There are no mispels anymore."
    Sepie threw down the rag she was using to wipe the floor. "What do you know? You are a man in a dress, and I don't believe you have five hundred dollars."
    "It was a nice dress before the typhoon," Kimi said. "Wash-and-wear. No dry cleaning."
    Sepie nodded as if she knew what he was talking about. "It is a very pretty dress. I like it."
    "You do?" Kimi picked at the crushed pleats around his legs. "It's just an old thing I picked up in Manila. It was on sale. You really like it?"
    Sepie didn't understand. Among her people, if you admired someone's else possession, manners bound them to give it to you. How could this silly man speak her language and still not know her customs. And he wasn't even looking at her that way all men looked at her.
    "What island do you come from?"
    "Satawan," Kimi said. "I am a navigator."
    Sepie scoffed. "There are no more navigators."
    Just then the doorway darkened and they looked up to see Abo, the fierce one, entering the bachelors' house. He was lean and heavily muscled and he wore a permanent scowl on his face. The sides of his head were shaved and tattooed with images of hammerhead sharks. He wore his hair tied into a warrior's topknot that had gone out of fashion a hundred years ago.
    "Has the pilot awakened?" he growled.
    Sepie looked down and smiled coyly. Abo was the one boy in the bachelors' house who didn't seem to accept the communal nature of her position. He was always jealous, enraged, or brooding, but he brought her many presents, sometimes even copies of People that he stole from the men's drinking circle. Sepie thought she might marry him someday.
    "He is too sick for this," Kimi said. "We need to take him to the doctor."
    "Malink says he must stay here until he is well."
    "He is dying," Kimi said.
    Abo looked at Sepie for confirmation.
    "Well, he smells dead," she said. The sooner they sent the pilot to the Sorcerer, the sooner she could get back to spending her days swimming and preening. "Malink will be angry if he dies," she added for good measure.
    Abo nodded. "I will tell him." He pointed to Kimi. "You come with me."
    Kimi got up to leave, then turned back to Sepie when he reached the doorway. "If Roberto comes, tell him I'll be right back."
    Sepie shrugged. "Who is Roberto?"
    "He's a fruit bat. From Guam. You can tell by his accent."
    "Oh, him. I think Sarapul ate him," Sepie said casually.
    Kimi turned and ran screaming into the village.

    Malink looked up from his breakfast, a banana leaf full of fish and rice, to see Abo coming down the coral path toward his house. Malink's wife and daughters shuffled to the cookhouse at the sight of the fierce one.
    "Good morning, Chief," Abo said.
    "Food?" Malink answered, gesturing with his breakfast.
    Abo had already eaten, but it would have been rude not to accept. "Yes."
    Malink's wife poked her head out of the cookhouse and saw the chief nod. In a second she was giving her own breakfast to Abo, who neither thanked her or acknowledged her presence.
    "The pilot is sick," Abo said. "Very bad fever. Sepie and the girl-man say that he will die soon without the Sorcerer's help."
    Malink suddenly lost his appetite. He set his breakfast on the ground and one of his daughters appeared out of nowhere to take it to