Nation

“Trouserman trousers for trouserwomen, ” Mau explained.

“Silly to have a different name, ” said Pilu.

And that was it. Pilu had a soul to fill him, so he lived happily enough. But Mau looked into himself and found questions, and the only answers seemed to be “because, ” and “because” was no answer at all. Because… the gods, the stars, the world, the wave, life, death. There are no reasons, there is no sense, only “because”… “because” was a curse, a struck blow, it was putting your hand in the cold hand of Locaha —

WHAT WILL YOU DO, HERMIT CRAB? WILL YOU PULL DOWN THE STARS? WILL YOU SMASH THE MOUNTAINS LIKE SHY COCONUTS TO FIND THEIR SECRETS? THINGS ARE AS THEY ARE! EXISTENCE IS ITS OWN “BECAUSE”! ALL THINGS IN THEIR RIGHT PLACE. WHO ARE YOU TO DEMAND REASONS? WHO ARE YOU?

The Grandfathers had never been as loud as this before. Their thundering made his teeth ache and he collapsed to his knees, the box of tools crashing into the sand.

“Are you all right? ” asked Pilu.

“Ugh, ” said Mau, and spat bile. It wasn’t just that the old men got into his head, although that was bad enough, but they left everything in a mess when they went away again. He stared at the sand until the bits of his thoughts came back together again.

“The Grandfathers spoke to me, ” he mumbled.

“I didn’t hear anything. ”

“Then you’re lucky! Ugh! ” Mau clutched at his head. It had been really bad this time, the worst ever. And there was something extra, too. It had sounded as though there had been more voices, very weak or a long way off, and they had been shouting something different, but it had got lost in the clamor. More of them, he thought gloomily. A thousand years of Grandfathers, all shouting at me, and never shouting anything new.

“They want me to bring up the last of the god anchors, ” he said.

“Do you know where it is? ”

“Yes, it’s in the lagoon, and it can stay there! ”

“All right, but what actual harm would it do to bring it up? ”

“Harm? ” said Mau, trying to understand this. “You want to thank the god of Water? ”

“You don’t have to mean it, and people will feel better, ” said Pilu.

Something whispered in Mau’s ear, but whatever it was trying to say was far too faint to be understood. It’s probably some ancient Grandfather who was a bit slow, he thought sourly. And even though I am the chief, my job is to make people feel better, is it? Either the gods are powerful but didn’t save my people, or they don’t exist and all we’re believing in is lights in the sky and pictures in our heads. Isn’t that the truth? Isn’t that important?

The voice in his head answered, or tried to. It was like watching someone shouting at the other end of the beach. You could see them jumping up and down and waving their arms and maybe even make out their lips moving, but the wind is blowing through the palms and rustling the pandanuses and the surf is pounding and the grandfather birds are throwing up unusually loudly, so you can’t hear but you do know that what you can’t hear is definitely shouting. In his head it was exactly like that, but without the beach, the jumping, the waving, the lips, the palms, the pandanuses, the surf, and the birds, but with the same feeling that you are missing something that someone really, really wants you to hear. Well, he wasn’t going to listen to their rules.

“I’m the little blue hermit crab, ” said Mau under his breath. “And I am running. But I will not be trapped in a shell again, because… yes, there has to be a because… because… any shell will be too small. I want to know why. Why everything. I don’t know the answers, but a few days ago I didn’t know there were questions. ”

Pilu was watching him carefully, as if uncertain whether he should run or not.

“Let’s go and see if your brother can cook, shall we? ” said Mau, keeping his voice level and friendly.

“He can’t, usually, ” said Pilu. He broke into his grin again, but there was something nervous about it.

He’s frightened of me, Mau thought. I haven’t hit him or even raised my hand. I’ve just tried to make him think differently, and now he’s scared. Of thinking. It’s magic.

It can’t be magic, Daphne thought. Magic is just a way of saying “I don’t know. ”

There were quite a few shells of beer fizzing on the shelves in the shed. They all had little bubbles growing and bursting from the seals at the top. It was beer that hadn’t been sung to yet. Mother-of-beer, they called it at that stage. She could tell quite easily, because there were dead flies all around it. They didn’t drown in it; they died and became little fly statues as soon as they drank it. If you were looking for the real Demon Drink, this was it.

You spit in it, you sing it a song, you wave your hands over it in time to said song, the demon is magically sent back to, er, wherever, and there’s just the good drink left. How does that happen?

Well, she had a theory; she’d spent half the night thinking it up. The ladies were at the other end of the Place, picking blossoms. They probably wouldn’t hear her if she sang quietly. The spitting… well, that was for luck, obviously. Besides, you had to be scientific about these things, and test one bit at a time. The secret was in the hand movements, she was sure of it. Well, slightly sure.

She poured a little of the deadly pre-beer into a bowl and stared at it. Or perhaps it was in the song, but not in the words? Perhaps the frequency of the human voice did something to the tiny atomic substances, such as happened when the famous operatic soprano Dame Ariadne Stretch broke a glass by singing at it? That sounded very promising, especially when you knew that only women were supposed to make beer and they, of course, had higher voices!

The Demon Drink stared back at her, rather smugly in her view. Go on, it seem to say, impress me.

“I’m not sure I know all the words to this one, ” she said, and realized that she had just apologized to a drink. That was the trouble with being brought up in a polite household. She cleared her throat. “Once my father took me to the music hall, ” she said. “You might enjoy this one. ” She cleared her throat again and began:

“Let’s all go down to the Strand,

(’ave a banana! )

Oh! What a happy land,

I’ll be the leader, you can march behind — ”

No, that sounded a bit complicated for a beverage, and the banana only confused matters. What about…? She hesitated, and thought about songs. Could it be that simple? She started to sing again, counting on her fingers as she sang.

“Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full — ”