Page 25 of Totally Shipped
The others look at me like I’m nuts, but I’m not—I’m just fucking resourceful.
We have to face it: there is nothing ahead but more island life, so we gotta keep making things better and better here.
“I’m with you, Leander. One hundred percent,” Daisy says from the far side of the fire.
In your face, rest of the crew.
For the last few weeks, Daisy has been really sensitive to smells. And the smells of us guys are apparently the worst thing ever. Poor Daisy. She looks continually exhausted; cooking a baby is hard work.
And she’s been a little bit snappy with us all, but you can’t blame her for that. Baby-baking, remember?
“I think Christmas would be fun,” she adds.
Ha! IfDaisy’son board with making a special Christmas for Keyara, the others need to pull their thumbs out of their asses.
Last year, we went to Nanda’s house over the holidays. It was probably the best Christmas I’ve ever had. Samoa is a very Catholic country, so there are lots of carol singing, church services, stuff like that. And also a lot of family meals, gatherings, and gift-givings.
“Can we play kilikiti?” asks Key. “We always play kilikiti on Christmas.”
“Well, duh,” I reply. “What else would we play? Hopscotch?”
She giggles as Daisy makes a puzzled face.
“What’s kilikiti?”
“Kinda like cricket,” I tell her.
If only any of us knew how to playcricket.
“And we have to'ona'i?” Key continues. This time I don’t know what she’s talking about.
“What’s that, noodle?”
“It’s a feast, Uncle Leander. We can do umu again!” Then she leans closer to me and whispers, “We can give Uncle Killian the cigarettes!”
Key decided to keep the cigarette case we found on the airplane to give to Killian on a special occasion. I’d promptly forgotten about it, but apparently Keyara hadn’t.
Daisy squeezes my arm as we see Keyara bubbling with happiness. Around the campfire, Killian, Gray and Rex are also grinning.
“What does your family do around Christmas, Killian?” I ask him.
“Well, decorations always go up on December 8th. And the pudding will have been made in November, gotta make Christmas pud at least six weeks in advance.”
Irish people are very odd. I tend not to like my pudding old and stale.
“Mam will have started trying to persuade Dad to watch Tom Hanks films with her. He’ll only do that at Christmas; it’s his gift to her. My sister ignores most of the Christmas stuff. She’s just interested in Nollaig na mBan.”
Killian looks around at us, knowing we want to know what he’s talking about.
“Sister?” says Daisy,
“Null-ug na Mon?” says Key.
“Good pronunciation, young Key! It’s on January 6th, and it’s known as Women’s Christmas. All the women get to have a blow out and all the men have to wait on them hand-and-foot. My sister and her friends go crazy for it—like a yearly bachelorette party.” He turns to Daisy. “I guess I haven’t told you about my sister, Molly? You’ll like her, Macushla. She’s a rare craic.”
The longer Killian talks about his home life, the more Irish he sounds, to the point where I’m struggling to follow anything he’s saying.
“Hmm, that’s nice. Maybe we’ll do a null—a noll—a Women’s Christmas for these two girls?” I say, making Daisy smile and Key nod enthusiastically.
