Nation

not remember his name but he was hopping up and down like someone who does not want to intrude but needs to, well, intrude.
    “Yes, Hoti?” said Mau.
    “Er…please, they say they are running out of thorns to fence the big field,” said the child nervously.
    “Run and tell them there is a big stand to the west of the Grandfathers’ cave.” As the boy ran off, Mau shouted after him, “Tell them I said to cut the lengths much longer! It’s a waste to cut them short!”
    “You must defend your island,” said Daphne.
    He reacted as if he’d been struck. “Do you think I won’t, ghost girl? Do you think that?”
    “It’s not just your people! You must defend your gods!”
    “What? How can you say this to me?”
    “Not the metaphysical…the ones with the god stones and the sacrifices and all the rest of it! I mean the statues and all the other things in the cave!”
    “Those? Just more stones. Worthless…stuff.”
    “No! No, they aren’t worthless. They tell you who you are!” She sagged a little. Things had been quite busy lately, and “ghost girl” said so sharply had hurt. It did. Of course, they all called her ghost girl, even Mau sometimes, and it had never worried her. But this time it told her to go away, trouserman girl, you are not one of us.
    She pulled herself together. “You didn’t look. You didn’t see what I saw in the cave! You remember Air, Fire, and Water all with their globes? And the headless statue?”
    “I’m sorry,” said Mau, putting his head in his hands.
    “Pardon?”
    “I’ve upset you. I know when you’re upset. Your face goes shiny, and then you try to act as if nothing has happened. I’m sorry I shouted. It’s all been…well, you know.”
    “Yes. I know.”
    They sat in the silence you get when thoughts are too tangled to become words. Then Daphne coughed.
    “Anyway, you saw the broken one? And that arm sticking out of the water?”
    “Yes. I saw everything,” said Mau, but he was watching a woman hurrying toward them.
    “No! You didn’t! The air was getting too foul! The broken statue had been holding something. I found it while you were arguing with Ataba. It was the world. The world turned upside down. Come and see.” She took his hand in hers and pulled him toward the path up the mountain. “Everyone must see! It’s very—”
    “Yes, Cara?” said Mau to the woman, who was now hovering where she was sure to be noticed.
    “I’m to tell you the river’s gone all cloudy,” the woman said, with a nervous look at Daphne.
    “A pig’s got into the east meadows and is wallowing in the spring,” said Mau, standing up. “I will go and—”
    “You are going to come with me!” shouted Daphne. The woman backed away quickly as Daphne turned and went on, “Get a stick and walk up to the valley until you find a pig in the water and prod the pig! It’s not hard! Mau, you are the chief. What I want to show you is not about pigs! It’s important….”
    “Pigs are impor—”
    “This is more important than pigs! I want you to come and see!”
     
    By the end of the day everyone saw, if only for a few minutes. People moving up and down the long cave were shifting the air around, and it was nothing like as foul as it had been, but the lamps were used a lot. Every single lamp from the Judy had been pressed into service.
    “The world,” said Mau, staring. “It’s a ball? But we don’t fall off?”
    The ghost girl seemed to be on fire with words. “Yes, yes, and you know this! You know the story about the brother who sailed so far he came back home?”
    “Of course. Every child knows it.”
    “I think people from this island sailed around the world, a long, long time ago. You remembered, but over the years it became a story for little children.”
    Even down in the dark, Mau thought. He ran a hand over what Daphne called “the globe,” the biggest one, which had rolled onto the floor when the statue had broken. Imo’s globe. The World. He let his fingertips just brush the stone. It came up to his chin.
    So this is the world, he thought, his fingers following a line of gleaming gold across the stone. There were a lot of these lines, and they all led to the same place—or, rather, away from it, as though some giant had thrown spears around the world. And he was my ancestor, Mau told himself as he lightly touched the familiar symbol that told him this was no place built by trousermen. His people carved the stone. His people carved the