How It All Goes Down
Calenture
- The ghost girl salvages some invitation cards and writes to Mau, inviting him to the Sweet Judy. She signs the card "Ermintrude Fanshaw (the Honorable Miss), even though she hates her name.
- Back on the beach, Mau wakes up to the voices of the Grandfathers (they want beer) and finds the card.
- There's a cute little picture on it with a stick figure and an arrow pointing to a boat, which Mau interprets as "You must throw a spear at the big wrecked canoe" (3.20).
- This is not going well.
- Mau makes beer for the Grandfathers, singing to it first so that it doesn't turn into poison, then he heads into the woods to the wreckage of the Sweet Judy.
- The meal between the orphaned boy and the shipwrecked girl goes about as well as you'd expect between two people with two cultures and two languages, and some really nasty cakes.
- Ermintrude starts calling herself Daphne. We'll honor her wish for this new identity and call her that from now on.
- Daphne had watched Mau bury his people at sea, and she wants him to do the same for poor, dead Captain Roberts.
- As Captain Roberts floats to the bottom of the ocean, his hat bobs to the surface once before sinking down with the Captain's body. Daphne thinks Mau should have it and dives after it. Problem: she can't swim that well, and she's not wearing water wings.
- Mau has to dive down super far to save her (wet girl clothes get really heavy), and for a brief second he considers giving up and letting them both drown.
- Thankfully for the book, he comes to his senses and finds enough strength to drag Daphne to the surface and resuscitate her.
- Feeling he cheated Locaha, the god of death, Mau taunts him: "Does not happen!" (3.141).
- To which the universe (or at least the parrot that survived the crash of the Sweet Judy) responds, "Where's my grub, you vinegar-faced piss pot?" (3.153).
- While Daphne sleeps off the ordeal, Mau silently stands guard over her until morning. What a gentleman.