"Gotcha!" shouted Sabine from the undergrowth. She emerged victorious with a kali'weya held firmly in her grasp, sting pointed carefully away from her body.
"I still don't see why we couldn't ask for some from the smurfs," griped Sharon. She still had a thing about creepy crawlies with stingers and too many legs, but she had insisted on coming along into the forest to keep Sabine safe. In her opinion, despite her many fine qualities, Sabine had the situational awareness of an off cut. Her focus on the task at hand was generally to the exclusion of everything else – more like a dick swinger rather than the slit she was. Still, if you had a sucking chest wound, Sabine was the right woman for the job. Nothing would distract her from keeping you alive.
Horses for courses, thought Sharon.
"We need to be able to gather the ingredients for Uniluke ourselves," replied Sabine. "The Omaticaya have been very kind, but they have their own lives to live." She dropped the pseudo-scorpion in a clear plastic sample box rather than the traditional pottery crock, and quickly sealed the lid. It scurried about the box, trying to get out. Sabine frowned at it, wondering why it wasn't calm. Ninat had told her that once it was contained there would be no problems.
"I think the sucker needs to be in the dark," suggested Sharon.
"You might be right," admitted Sabine, studying the critter in the box. "Here, hold it while I take off my backpack."
Very reluctantly Sharon took the sample box in her hands. The monster-sized yabbie with a stinger was trying to poison its way out. Just as well the air holes were far too small for the scary bugger to escape, or for the stinger to penetrate – she hoped. Nevertheless, Sharon had made sure her hands were not covering any of the air holes. "What are you doing about brewing the tirea'tutee?" she asked cautiously. Sharon had almost rotted her brains with an unfortunate jungle juice episode in Borneo during the Caliphate Insurrection. She was not eager to repeat the experience.
"I've already mixed up three batches and run a few chemical analyses against a sample I got from Ninat," said Sabine, unzipping her backpack. "Each one was a perfect match. They tasted pretty good too."
"You tried it?" demanded Sharon incredulously. She had thought Sabine had been a little distracted the last couple of days.
"Only a sip," admitted the Hell's Gate C.M.O. "I had to make sure the tirea'tutee was safe to use, so we can celebrate Uniluke tomorrow. It only took around an hour and a half for my head to stop buzzing."
Sharon shook her head in amazement. "You're madder than cut snakes."
Sabine retrieved the sample box, shoved it in her pack and quickly zipped it up. "You can talk," she retorted. Constant exposure to Sharon's highly idiosyncratic version of English had made understanding her much simpler, although Sabine thought that cut snakes would be angry rather than mad. "After what you've told me the past week, I can't believe you're still alive."
Sharon grinned, "Game as Ned Kelly, and unlike him, I'm going to shuffle off through old age."
"More likely murdered by a jealous lover," laughed Sabine. She held the backpack to her ears, listening for the scrabbling from the kali'weya, and heard nothing but silence. It seemed that Sharon had been right – the little beast was much calmer in captivity when it was dark. Perhaps she should transfer it to a traditional pottery crock rather than keeping it in the sample box.
"Are we done?" asked Sharon. "If we go now, we can be back at base in time to fang in at the fatcans for elevenses, unless the tucker fuckers have fitted the nosh into a scranbag. Sometimes I reckon they could turn jack rats into canteen medals without any intervening steps."
Then again, Sabine still had trouble understanding Sharon when she really cut loose. However, she had the vague impression that she was keen to return to Hell's Gate for lunch. "Ok, darling," she agreed, wondering exactly what she was agreeing to. "As long as fish isn't on the menu." What the cooks had done with the kxitx'payoang fillets was criminal.
Maweypay was humming happily as he checked his ikran's harness. It seemed he was looking forward to going to the tawtute place, or more to the point, seeing Tsa'peen.
Alìmtaw, on the other hand, was feeling distinctly ambivalent about the whole affair. The prospect of flying over the multitude of weapons at Hell's Gate left him more than a little nervous. However, what was worrying him more was the attitude of his mother. Rather than trying to run his life as she usually did, instead she was standing back with an amused smile on her face. It was almost as though she was expecting him to fail and break into a thousand pieces. No doubt she would enjoy telling him exactly what he had done wrong, just like she always did when she came in to put all the fragments back together.
Yes, she would really enjoy that.
"Kaltxi, ma'itan," said a voice from over his shoulder, making him leap into the air. It then stated, "You are going to the tawtute place."
How did she do that? She always appeared when he was having uncharitable thoughts about her, leaving him with a guilty expression on his face, so she always knew when he was planning to do something the way he wanted to, rather than doing it her way.
"Yes, mother," he replied. There was no point trying to hide the truth. She could see right through him.
"Good," she replied. "I hope you have a fitting gift for this Zharr'n woman. A gift such as her surfboard must be replied to with one of equal value."
He nodded. "Yes, I have." No doubt she was going to insist on seeing his response, and tell him that it was inadequate.
"I am glad," replied his mother. She paused for a moment, adding to his surprise, "I am proud of you, ma'itan. You bring great credit to our People."
Alìmtaw's mouth fell open. His mother had never said anything like that to him in his life. She stepped forward, placed a finger under his jaw and gently closed it. "Just keep your idiot cousin from standing in front of an angry palulukan," she added, and kissed him on the cheek. "Eywa ngahu."
"Eywa ngahu," he replied, a strange mix of feelings in his breast.
The two ikran landed smoothly on a roosting place, the tallest of the tawtute buildings. Alìmtaw was not surprised to see an armed uniltìranyu appear to ask in very bad Na'vi, "I See You, warriors. Who do you seek?"
"We wish to see Zharr'n," said Alìmtaw.
"And Tsa'peen," added his cousin.
"Spoons and the Doc," said the uniltìranyu mysteriously. "They went out into the forest this morning – no, wait. They are coming in the main gate. I'll let them know you are here." He placed his hand to his neck, muttered softly to himself and cocked his head slightly to one side, as though he was listening to something. "They will meet you at the base of this tower." He pointed to a steel ladder fixed to the side of the building.
"Irayo," said Maweypay, and raced to climb down the structure.
Alìmtaw moved to follow his cousin, when the uniltìranyu said, "Wait." He hesitated briefly, when the stranger said, "Your name is Alìmtaw, right?"
"Srane," replied Alìmtaw, wondering how this man knew his name.
The stranger pursed his lips and made a long descending whistle. He said. "You are a braver man than anyone I know."
Now he really was curious. "Why?" asked Alìmtaw.
"You're the one who has interest in Spoons," replied the man. Alìmtaw must have had a puzzled expression on his face as the man added, "You like Zharr'n."
Did everyone know of his interest in this woman? "Yes," confirmed Alìmtaw.
The man shrugged. "She is a...um." It appeared that he was struggling for the right word or phrase. "Difficult woman," he finished, although he did not look satisfied with his choice of words.
"No more than my mother," answered Alìmtaw, thinking that Zharr'n could not be nearly as difficult as the woman who had birthed and raised him. The man muttered something in the tawtute language in a commiserating tone, clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly manner and wished him well.
As Alìmtaw slid down the ladder, he wondered what a porr parr'star't was.
Sharon smiled as Sabine ran towards Maweypay. Her lover had it bad for the male Na'vi. Curiously enough, Sharon wasn't jealous – well, only a little bit jealous. "Hey, you'll frighten the horses!" she yelled out in Na'vi as Maweypay grabbed Sabine, and spun her about, feet dangling in the air.
The embrace at the base of the control tower suddenly ended. Maweypay looked puzzled as he asked, "There are pa'li here? I did not know the uniltìranyu rode pa'li."
"No, skxawng," said Sabine affectionately. "It is just a saying of the uniltìranyu."
"Oh," replied Maweypay.
A familiar figure slid down the control tower external ladder as though he had been doing it all his life, and Sharon's heart fluttered briefly, before she told herself to stop being so girly. "Oel ngati kameie, Alìmtaw," she said gravely.
The Na'vi warrior dipped his head slightly, and made the gesture of greeting in reply. "It is good to see you, Zharr'n," he said.
The two people gazed awkwardly at each other, both clearly uncomfortable and not knowing what to say. It had been different on the beach. Maweypay coughed meaningfully, "Stxeli."
Alìmtaw glanced gratefully towards his cousin for the less than subtle reminder. "Zharr'n, I have brought you a gift," he said, slipping the bow off his torso. "This is for you."
Sharon took the bow from Alìmtaw, holding it by the haft. It was different to any of the bows that she had seen Na'vi carry before, when she remembered something from her school days. It was the same shape and form as a Mongolian compound recurve bow, like those that Genghis Khan had used to conquer half the world.
"Hometrees do not grow in the forest near the sea," said Alìmtaw. "The Ikran People must use other materials to make our bows."
He continued to talk as Sharon studied the bow, describing how it was made of laminations of wood, bone and cartilage, held together with windings of sinew and glue made from the swim bladder of the kxitx'payoang that she had killed – or more to the point, had nearly killed her.
Sharon interrupted him by asking, "You made this?"
"Srane," he replied, dipping his head slightly in acknowledgement, partly to hide the darkening of his face.
"It is beautiful," she whispered, her eyes bright, but then her face fell. "I do not know how to shoot."
"Come," he said. "I will teach you."
Strangely enough, there was an archery range at the tawtute place. Alìmtaw had not expected this.
Zharr'n saw his surprise, and told him that the olo'eyktan of the Uniltìranyu brought a bow from 'Rrta, and used it to practice.
"The tawtute use bows?" he queried.
"Only for sport," she replied, unslinging the tawtute firearm from her shoulder. "For many years we have used only guns for hunting and for war." Zharr'n lent the weapon against a young tree. "What now?" she asked.
Alìmtaw made a gesture to her clothing. "You must take your garment off," he requested. She flicked up an eyebrow and chuckled, somehow making him feel embarrassed. "The upper one, only," he amended. "The lesson will go quicker if I can see if your muscles and stance are correct."
Zharr'n removed her shirt, displaying her flesh. She was wearing the colourful breast garment that she had worn on the beach under the ugly tawtute clothing. Dressed thus, she looked much more beautiful than she had in the ugly tawtute clothing. Without asking, he took her arm and quickly laced up a leather bow-guard on her right forearm. "To protect your skin from the string," he told her, trying to ignore the sweet fragrance of her scent. "I hope you do not mind. I made it from the skin of the kxitx'payoang you slew. Much of the bow was made from its bones and cartilage also."
"I would rather wear its skin that it wear mine," she quipped, making him smile.
She listened seriously as he told her how to hold the bow, in a firm but not rigid grip. Alìmtaw made a subtle adjustment to her grip on the haft, and told her to repeat it several times. Before long he moved on to the drawing of the string.
Zharr'n was an excellent student. Unlike many of the young of the clan he had taught, she did not dispute any of what he said, instead doing exactly as he showed. The questions she asked were intelligent, often anticipating what he was about to show her. When he queried her on this matter, she smiled and told him that she too was a teacher, a teacher of combat with hand and foot. The first thing she had to master as a teacher was how to learn. He nodded in understanding. This woman was indeed wise in things other than the riding of waves.
Sharon was enjoying the lesson, even though she had not fired a single shot as yet, and they had been at the range for well over an hour. She knew that it was important to learn and understand the basics of technique for any complex skill such as archery.
"Good," said Alìmtaw. He unslung the quiver from his shoulder, extracted an arrow, and leaned the quiver against the tree, next to her assault rifle.
When she took the arrow from him, an involuntary small shiver rippled through her body. The arrowhead looked all too familiar to her – it was a large razor sharp triangular-shaped tooth.
Alìmtaw nodded, understanding her surprise. "The teeth of the kxitx'payoang are highly prized as arrowheads. They are strong, hold an excellent edge and rarely shatter."
"You made these shafts also?" she asked. There were at least twelve in the quiver. When he nodded, she realised what he had been doing in the weeks since the adventure on the beach. It must have been an enormous investment in time for him, and Sharon felt her heart grow warm.
Perhaps it was not so surprising. She wouldn't take her shirt off for just any bloke.
"For a beginner, you do not shoot badly," teased Alìmtaw, remembering her words on the beach. After her first few shots, Zharr'n began to get the feel of the bow, and hit the target every time. Slowly, they moved back along the length of the range until Zharr'n was shooting from the backmost marker of the range.
She had fallen into a classic action without needing to have been told or corrected, each single shot like a line of a song. After she had shot off three rounds and fetched back her shafts, Alìmtaw became aware that there was a small audience of a very large uniltìranyu male and a young Na'vi woman – he thought she was of the Omaticaya by the markings on her loincloth. They were both carrying bows.
"Zharr'n shoots well," commented the large male quietly, so as not to disturb the shooter. "A credit to her teacher."
"Irayo," replied Alìmtaw. "You are too kind." He wondered who this man was as he watched Zharr'n make another shot.
"Ren'zhore speaks truth," growled the woman. "You should not be so modest."
Alìmtaw turned in surprise at hearing the man's name. "I am sorry," he said. "You are olo'eyktan of the Uniltìranyu, and I did not recognise you." Zharr'n had told her of this man, and how much she admired him.
"There is nothing to forgive," replied Ren'zhore, his voice kind.
"Trooper!" called out a familiar voice in English.
Sharon swore softly under her breath. She had been having such fun, but the Boss was the Boss. Easing the bow string and lowering her bow, she turned towards the CO. Hmmm, she thought. The chippie was with him as well. Amala had been sticking to the top brass like scran stuck to a date roll for the last couple of weeks. Sharon lowered her bow and turned towards her audience. "Yes, Boss?" she asked.
"I hate to interrupt your archery lesson," he said, "But you are expected at the playhouse for a run through in five."
"Shit!" she snarled. In her pleasure at seeing Alìmtaw, her promise to arc-up with the playhouse shitheads today had been entirely forgotten. Sometimes she had less brains than a pack of ponties.
Renshaw grinned at her and said, "I'm sure your guest would love to watch you in action."
Sharon replaced the arrow in the quiver, and almost flew down the range to retrieve her shafts. On her return, she grabbed Alìmtaw, nodded in acknowledgement to the CO, and ran for the playhouse, almost dragging the Na'vi along with her.
When they arrived, one of the Ranger xongabongers called out, "Hey, Spoons! Good to know you're not going commando on us! Is the downstairs like the upstairs?"
Fuck. She had forgotten to grab her shirt. "You'll never know if I freeball or not," she snapped. All the gear was laid out on the tables, and most of the pogos had almost finished belting up. Sharon removed her bow and quiver, laying them on the table. She grabbed a vest and hauled it on, quickly doing up the buckles.
"Spoons, catch!" called a Spetznatz veggie, tossing three blue-taped mags at her.
Sharon plucked them out of the air, quickly thumbed the rounds out and started reloading them. Good, they were all blanks. She was pleased to note that none of the shitheads challenged her on checking her mag loads, even though she was late.
"What is this?" asked Alìmtaw curiously, looking over her shoulder as she reloaded.
"Battle practice," she answered. "There are two hostages somewhere in that building." Sharon pointed to the roofless playhouse. "It is the blue team's task to get them out alive without casualties. The red team will try to prevent that."
"You are doing this with real weapons?" he asked.
Sharon ejected the magazine in her assault rifle and cleared the action twice. The round up the spout flew into the air, and she plucked it out of the air to show him. "This is a live round," she told him, showing him the cartridge. "The ones we use in the playhouse do not have a bullet. They just go bang."
"So this a practice challenge, between groups of warriors," said Alìmtaw, nodding his head. "So no-one gets hurt."
She laughed. "That's the theory," she told him. "In practice, however...some of the players do not play well with others."
"Spoons!" called out one of the soldiers with blue tape around his helmet. "Pull the lead out!"
Quickly, she removed the live magazines from her trouser pouches and replaced them with the blue taped magazines. "Alìmtaw," she said, pointing to a rickety looking structure. "Go sit up there with the umpire. He will explain what is happening." Absent-mindedly she kissed him on the cheek and gave him a gentle shove, before she donned her knee and elbow pads, and slung on her helmet.
"Glad you could join us, Spoons," said the Ranger xongabonger, sarcastically. "Who's the local?"
"None of your fucking business," she snapped, a little on edge. It had been almost two weeks since she last celebrated Uniluke, and like most of his kind the Ranger was a real fuckwit. Sharon loaded a mag and cycled the action. "Are we doing this, or what?"
Alìmtaw's cheek was tingling as he climbed the scaffolding. Had Zharr'n really just kissed him?
Tsa'peen grinned at Maweypay and handed him two soft yellow things that looked more like grubs than anything else. "Put these in your ears," she advised him. "It will get very loud soon, and your ears will ring for many days if you do not use these."
Maweypay looked a little doubtful, and wondered what the hell he was doing here, sitting in the corner of a room in a strange roofless tawtute building. A faceless uniltìranyu soldier wearing one of their helmets told him in heavily accented Na'vi, "I have to tie you up now." Something like razorpalm leaves went around his ankles and thighs. He saw Tsa'peen lean forward so her hands could be tied behind her back, so he did likewise.
"Are you comfortable?" asked the soldier, his voice filled with concern.
Maweypay thought it was a very strange question to be asking a captive, even if as Tsa'peen said this was play. "Not really," he replied truthfully, surreptitiously testing his bonds.
The soldier laughed, and said, "You'll be fine." The soldier then carefully fitted him with a visored helmet, asking, "Are you good?"
Maweypay nodded, thinking this was the most appropriate answer, and the soldier whacked him on the head, telling him, "A minute or two and all the fun starts. You'll love it."
He wasn't so sure, and took a doubtful glance at Tsa'peen. Her head was resting back against the wall, and a small rasping sound was barely audible through his earplugs and helmet.
Tsa'peen had dozed off.
The uniltìranyu at the top of the scaffolding offered him a hand up. "Irayo," he said as he took a seat, overlooking what Zharr'n called the playhouse.
"You're Alìmtaw?" asked the uniltìranyu. When he nodded in response, the stranger said, "Call me Fingers." There was a slight pause until he continued, "It was good of your cousin to volunteer to be a hostage. Sometimes it is difficult to get people to join the fun."
"I see," replied Alìmtaw, his eyes narrowing. Deep in the maze of the playhouse he could see a bound male alongside a woman, his face obscured by a helmet. His loincloth bore the clan markings of the Ikran People. It seemed that his cousin was already standing in the way of the palulukan. "Maweypay is often helpful," he said. He paused for a moment and said, "Zharr'n said you would explain what is about to happen."
"I'd better do what Spoons says, otherwise I'll be in big trouble," said the man wrily.
"Why you call Zharr'n Spoons?" asked Alìmtaw.
Fingers gave a chuckle. "Zharr'n was playing a hostage a couple of weeks ago, and the blue team weren't doing so well. They were being held in a room designated as a food preparation area. She slipped her bonds, grabbed a soup ladle and disabled the hostage guard – that would be me – and took my weapon, before she shot her own way out, killing everyone on both red and blue teams. She claimed as a hostage she wouldn't be able to tell the good guys from the bad. Ever since then we have called her Spoons."
"That sounds like the woman I know," he replied, thinking of the kxitx'payoang. At least if she accepted his suit, she would not be overawed by Txonya. Alìmtaw was not sure if he would survive such an honour.
"Spoons truly is a work of art," agreed Fingers, and then he proceeded with the explanation. The scenario was that the blue team was to recover the hostages covertly if possible. To make things a little more difficult, they did not know the interior layout of the building, or the room in whcih the hostages were being held.
Sharon's stomach rumbled. In her pleasure of seeing Alìmtaw today, she had managed to skip lunch. Normally, this would not be a problem, except that Sabine had made her get up at oh-far-too-bloody-early to go chasing after the kali'weya for Uniluke, and as a result she had missed breakfast as well.
"Jesus, Spoons," murmured someone anonymously. "Can't you keep it down? Someone over the other side of the perimeter could hear your gut roar."
"Thanks, guys," she muttered. The blue team were against the wall either side of the front door, about to start kicking doors. "One, two, three, go!"
One of the team members shoved a door cracker against the biometric reader. Less than a second later, the door lock clicked open, the door was yanked open and the blue team poured inside.
"Fuck!" swore Sharon. The large room behind the front door had no doors. There went any chance of surprise. She removed a toothpaste tube from the inside of her vest, and quickly drew out a large door shape on the left wall, shoving in a det. "Fire in the hole," she muttered over the vox channel, as the team pressed themselves against the wall.
The sharp crack of the explosion shook the scaffolding. The six blue team members poured through the hole in the wall before the debris hit the ground. Almost immediately, the crack of single shots rang out. It was clear even to Alìmtaw that the blues had flanked the reds, who had been expecting them to push straight into the building..
"She is good," commented Fingers. "Less than a half a second to make a decision to blow the wall, and Spoons is thinking ahead."
"How so?" asked Alìmtaw, curious as to his reasoning. He saw a red team member fall to the ground, convulsing dramatically. Fingers had told him of the training vests - how they shocked the wearer when a fatal or disabling wound was judged to have been inflicted. It looked most unpleasant, but Alìmtaw could see the point. It would discourage warriors from stupid heroics.
"If and when the blue team leave the building, they will be able to depart by the front door without being under direct fire from the interior," he answered.
Alìmtaw shifted forward so he could see more of the action, teetering on the edge of his seat. This warlike play of the Uniltìranyu was fascinating.
The defence of the red team had stiffened, slowing the blue advance to a halt at a bend in the corridor. Sharon wasn't worried though. She had determined the red axis of retreat, and plotted it against her knowledge of the size of the building, and from the quick glimpse she had seen of the corridor. There were no doors down the left side, but there had to be a series of rooms between the outside of the building and the left side of the corridor.
She retreated back from the corner a short distance, and pulled out her toothpaste again. Once she had the shape of the door made out, Sharon muttered a few words. The lead guys nodded, and one of them slid a flash-bang down the corridor. Sharon counted the seconds off, and triggered the det.
The building shook with an explosion, ringing Maweypay's ears, even through the earplugs and helmet. The two soldiers in the room took aim on the door they had entered through, the sound of continuous automatic file coming from beyond.
No-one was looking at the other door, or even heard it being kicked open. But something made Maweypay turn his head.
A female warrior with bare arms and midriff stepped through the open door, fired once, swung her rifle and fired again, shooting both guards in the back. The two guards fell to the ground writhing. She ran in, followed by two males, one of which covered the door. The female bent down, and easily lifted Tsa'peen up over her shoulder. Maweypay was almost too fascinated to notice being slung over the shoulder of the male, and quickly found himself looking at the floor as he involuntarily left the room.
Sabine wasn't getting any lighter, thought Sharon uncharitably. She had no doubt whoever was running the red team defence would notice the two lifesigns of his guards drop off his helmet HUD. At least the motion-triggered flash-bang she had left behind would delay pursuit.
When she regained the corridor, she stepped aside towards the corner where the lead men were still locked up. The bloke carrying Maweypay stepped through – she guessed Alìmtaw would give him a hard time – followed by her rearguard. The crack of the flash-bang she had left behind sounded. "Go, go, go!" she yelled, and without waiting for the lead guys to move back from the corner ran after the rearguard, trusting them to clear any opposition the reds might have slipped in behind them.
Sharon sensed rather than heard the sound of flash-bangs going off in the cross corridors, tossed there by the rearguard to discourage any outflanking moves. She ran past them at the entry room and burst outside, dumping Sabine on her generous backside. Ten seconds later all her men were outside.
"Sixty-eight seconds to achieve extraction, and no blue casualties," said Fingers.
"Is that good?" asked Alìmtaw. The blue team's performance had seemed very impressive to him, and they had been outnumbered three to one.
Fingers grinned broadly. "It's better than good. Spoons is brilliant at door kicking."
Sharon ripped off her helmet, shaking the sweat from her brow. An ex like this one was fucking intense, especially when the red pricks changed the parameters on you. But then again, it wouldn't be a realistic ex if they didn't. Von Moltke said it best.
She bent down and removed Sabine's helmet, who promptly complained loudly, "I've got a bruise on my ass the size of a fist."
"I'll kiss it better," smiled Sharon, after performing the grisly task of plucking out Sabine's earplugs while the red team filed disconsolately out to the good natured mocking of the smaller blue team. She was happy at having achieved the ex objective without any casualties. Apart from the bruise on Sabine's bum.
"What medical value is that?" teased Sabine.
"None whatsoever," teased Sharon right back. "If you like, I can leave you tied up for the rest of today." Perhaps she shouldn't have said that. By the look on her face and the way she bit her lower lip, that prospect appealed to Sabine very much, if certain other conditions occurred. But Sharon didn't move to untie her sister of the tsumuke'awsiteng.
Sabine wriggled over her bound hands, slipping them under her ass and feet, and undid the bonds at her wrists with her teeth. She really was quite flexible. Inventive, too, as Sharon well remembered. "We have guests," said Sabine mournfully.
"Yes, we do," replied Sharon, her eyes twinkling, as she bent down to release the bindings on Sabine's legs.
"I can't hear you!" shouted Maweypay. "Speak up!"
The two women turned around to look see Alìmtaw undoing his cousin's bonds. "What possessed you to do this?" hissed Alìmtaw.
"Still can't hear you!" yelled Maweypay, whose face looked as though he was leaving the earplugs in for a very good reason – namely, to avoid a case of tea and sticky buns from his cousin.
Sharon reflected sometimes dumb insolence was the best defence against a really justified beasting.