Another week passed. Kate and Maddy both hung around the inland camp to find out what was going on with the plans for a ruling council. Wisely Sawyer kept out of sight on the beach so as not to rile anybody up. Also, his arm had healed enough that he was able to tend to the fire without much pain even though he still couldn't chop the wood.

The three of them gathered again by the fire when Kate found out who they were planning on putting on this so-called council. Jack as the leader, with Michael, Locke, Shannon ("Of all people," Sawyer said.), and the Korean woman.

"Turns out she speaks almost perfect English," Kate said.

"What's her name?" Maddy asked. "Her and her husband's were the only two I could never catch."

"They're Jin and Sun. She's Sun," Kate said.

"When is this supposed election gonna take place?" Sawyer asked.

"Within the next couple of days."

"Do they plan on trying to include us in it?"

"Yes."

"We've got to do something about that."

"I'll make a speech. I'll ask that we be left alone. It's our best shot. Maybe our only shot. After all, they don't know Maddy and they hate you, Sawyer."

All three of them knew that Kate was right.

The next day Kate and Maddy again went up to the inland camp. The meeting of the whole camp was convened in a large, open field. Kate and Maddy purposely did not sit together.

Jack presided over the meeting. He called on people one at a time to speak. Most people ended up saying the same things:

They thought things were getting a little unfocused.

They wanted to build permanent shelters.

They were nervous about supplies running out.

Those were all things that Maddy was pretty much expecting to hear. Then someone said something that surprised even her: People were bored.

To Maddy the complaint of being bored meant that people weren't as worried about their survival as they claimed to be. Well, once they started building shelters there'd be plenty to do, she imagined. People would have to gather up the materials to make them, help put them up, and surely there was someone with enough arts and crafts experience to make nice decorations out of plants and trees. Ikebana, maybe even, Maddy thought. Not that there are any vases, of course.

All of this seemed fairly benign, until someone said that they had to start dividing up the clothes evenly because it wouldn't be right if some people had massive wardrobes while others only had basically what they were wearing on their backs. It's not like clothes lasted forever. Also, the person continued, the same goes for toiletries and other daily necessities. And we know who has a lot of it—Sawyer.

That's when the murmuring of assent started. Nobody particularly wanted to give up their stuff but they wanted to force Sawyer to give up his. They'd seen that poor girl Shannon with her asthma attack and Sawyer not willing to give up her medicine. Okay, sure it turned out he didn't have it, but maybe he had other things.

Maddy was getting terribly nervous, but once she saw Kate stand up, she knew everything would be all right. People trusted Kate. They would listen to her.

"Everybody, I understand what you're saying and you're not wrong. If we're going to survive this, we're all going to have to pitch in and help each other. But I also think you're trying to make Sawyer into your enemy, and he's been making it easy for you. I don't know if he's been particularly nice to any of you and I do know how mean he's been. But I also know that when Jin attacked Michael, he didn't hesitate, he ran to help save Michael. He wouldn't give up the asthma medicine—because he didn't have it. That's the real truth. You all think that Sawyer has some kind of secret stash that if you only you got your hands on it, everything would be all right. But it's not true. He simply doesn't have it. What he has is his own bravado, his own belief in sort of the thing that you do—that his survival is in his own hands. But he's being naïve. He'll come around when he realizes he can't do it alone. But meanwhile I'm asking you to put Sawyer out of your minds. He's not worth your efforts. The real enemy here is the island. Put your energy into fighting that," Kate said.

Maddy could see that Kate's words were having a mixed effect on the people. Most people seemed to believe her.

"But I saw Sawyer scavenging with my own eyes," Jack said.

"You saw him in the wreckage of the plane looking around. Did you specifically see him take anything?" Kate said.

Jack hesitated and thought back. He couldn't picture Sawyer with a bag full of stuff but he was sure he had it. Well, pretty sure.

Kate took Jack's silence and ran with it. "You see, we've convicted Sawyer without a proper investigation, without any proof. And now is not the time to start a witch hunt. Now is the time to start building a tolerant community. Hopefully it won't last for too long since Sawyer and I and Maddy are keeping the bonfire lit day and night. We believe someone will rescue us soon. But in the meanwhile me must learn to live in peace."

Everyone was quiet. Even Jack knew that arguing with such an impassioned speech would be foolish. But Maddy could tell by the murmurings that had started when Kate mentioned her name that they were wondering about her. She stood up and walked over to Kate, who introduced her.

"This young lady is Maddy. She's younger than most of you and she's alone. She's frightened, but she's not giving up. She sits up every night until two in the morning tending the fire. How many of you would rather not have a single night of rest? She'd doing what you don't want to do."

Maddy blushed. It was nice to get such a compliment from Kate in front of everybody. Though she wondered how sincere it was—after all, she'd lied about Sawyer. Maddy knew that Kate knew what Sawyer had socked away and she'd lied for him. Or had she? Maybe she'd been sincere in saying that if everyone got themselves worked up over Sawyer it would be worse then letting him just keep his stuff. She was a little confused, but it was something to think about later. Now she had to do what she'd gotten up to do.

"Hi, everybody," Maddy said shyly. "I was heading home from my vacation in Australia. There are two things that I bought there that I've decided to donate to the camp."

She pulled something out of a pocket in her cargo pants, which she'd put on specifically for this. It was a bottle of soapy water for blowing bubbles. She held it up so everyone could see it.

"I know you guys are going to think that we're better off using this for soap, but there's other stuff in it and believe me, you try to wash your hair with this stuff and you'll be sorry," Maddy started. "Anyway, I bought this in Sydney and one day I sat on my balcony in my hotel room and blew bubbles and watched them float away. I'm going to leave it here so that anyone who's feeling a little down can come and blow some bubbles. You'll look up and see those beautiful trees above your heads and the clear blue sky and try to remember that you're alive and that it's simple things that can make you happy."

Maddy put the little plastic container down on a tree stump. Then she pulled out another item from her pockets and held it up. Most people couldn't see what it was, but as she twisted her hand back and force, they could see the effect of it—it was a prism, and the colors it produced arched like a rainbow over the group.

"I bought this in a New Age store in Melbourne. I know what I'm going to say is all Biblical and I'm not a religious person—maybe none of you are, or maybe some of you are mad at God for allowing this to happen—but it seems like when you're in a situation like this, you need to think about things that are bigger than you, whether you call it God or the universe or spirits, or whatever.

"So, in the Bible, after God saved Noah from the flood, he made a rainbow, and that symbolized that he would never destroy the world again the way he did with the flood. To me this is like our situation. It was like our world was destroyed when we crashed here, but the rainbow that's created with this prism means that we will get through whatever is coming and that there won't be any more tragedies like the crash."

Maddy paused and put her hand to her mouth, realizing just how much she was talking. People were quiet but she suspected maybe they were falling asleep. It was easier to spy on people when you didn't have to pay too much attention to what you, yourself were doing. She knew it was time to finish up. She nodded at an older woman sitting toward the back of the gathering. It was Rose, the black woman who wasn't convinced that her husband was dead. She stood up and started to sing in a clear, emotional alto:

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see . . ."

Maddy looked around and saw that people were crying. I did good, she thought. Kate gave her a look that said, When did you have time to arrange that? and she just shrugged.