Page 31 of Totally Shipped
“Me and Daisy have a gift for you, Uncle Leander!”
Key and I had decided joint gifts was the way to go for us. There’s only so many presents that could be made on a deserted island.
Leander slowly approaches the tree as Key eagerly points out his parcel, hopping up and down in her role of Santa’s helper.
“Maybe you should hand all the guys our gifts?” I suggest.
Everyone was getting the same thing. Key and I had carefully cleaned and polished some halved coconut shells, then heated the end of the screwdriver and burned the outside to personalize them.
Finding that old toolbox in the plane wreckage has made our lives so much easier, even if Leander did manage to lose the box-cutter knife.
Carefully, Keyara hands out the parcels, and all the guys pull the vine-twine from the banana leaves to reveal their gifts.
“Wow! I love it!” Leander says, pulling Key into a hug. All the guys ooh and ahh over their gifts, which is sweet because they really are not very impressive.
Leander has a crown on his bowl—for being the ‘wet-wipe prince’.
Killian’s ‘bowl’ is decorated with a shamrock. Gray has a hammer—it’s supposed to look like Thor’s hammer, but looks more like a toilet plunger.
And finally, Rex’s bowl is decorated with an anchor. Key and I had gone backwards and forwards for ages about what to put on Rex’s bowl. We’d settled on an anchor, because he anchors us together, and, as Key put it, ‘he likes boats’.
One by one, the guys give me and Key a hug.
“I’ve got a present to give you,” Killian says. Picking up something long that is wrapped in a leaf, he hands it to Keyara.
“Ooh, what is it?” she asks, holding up a piece of bamboo.
“It’s a flute—shall I show you?”
He presses it to his lips, and somehow a breathy Irish jig comes out. I can’t believe it, it actually works. “You guys are so creative!”
Killian passes the flute back to Key and she happily starts making tooting noises.
“Good thing it only produces a soft noise, I’ve got a feeling we are going to be hearing a lot of that,” Leander laughs.
Killian comes over and tells me to close my eyes. “This is for you, my love. Sorry it’s not wrapped. You can open your eyes now!”
In my palm is a string of beads. There are all kinds of blue and green pebbles that are strung together on some sort of cord. “Oh! It’s so lovely!” I run my fingers over the delicate necklace, making the stones clink together. “How on earth did you make it? It’s perfect.”
I was so sad to have lost my turquoise beads.
“A lot of trial and error! I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it? I love it—and you.”
Leander calls Keyara over. “Wanna give Uncle Killian his special pressie?”
“Ooh yes!”
Leander and Key formally give Killian the cigarette case, complete with three cigarettes, that was found in the plane cabin.
“These can be our cigars for when our baby is born!” He laughs and picks out a smoke. It crumbles between his fingers slightly. “Oop. Going to have to handle these with care. Also, never start up smoking, Key. You may be able to quit, but you’ll never be able to forget.”
We continue on gift giving. Rex (with some help from Killian) has made a bat for Key to play kilikiti with. For me, he shyly pressed a piece of sea glass into my hand. It’s shaped like a heart.
“Thought it was pretty,” he says, gruffly.
Sweet Rex.
