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shook the dwellings and drove the rain inside; the cisterns overflowed.
    Sorry could tell when a big summer storm was approaching. The air became hotter and stiller. Ripples began to appear in the lagoon, though he couldn't feel a breeze. The sun disappeared behind haze before the sky turned blue and black. Then the surf would begin to sing in a deeper voice.
    The rainy season usually ended with a last storm in early November. Until it arrived again the next summer, Bikini might have a few light squalls, the rain shimmering through sunshine, barely dampening the sand. The sun would quickly dry the island.
    No typhoon came roaring out of the west that year. Perhaps the albatross and the
tournefortia
tree had been wrong.
    Â 
In 1943, on a long mesa extending from the Jemez Mountains, near Santa Fe, New Mexico, work began on the production of an atom bomb. The Los Alamos laboratory was instantly the most highly guarded, secretive place in America.

9
    Two months after the albatross, Sorry's uncle, his
rikorān,
Abram Makaoliej, his mother's brother, sailed into the lagoon unexpectedly. By himself, he'd steered an eighteen-foot outrigger canoe from Eniwetok, about 170 miles away—a voyage full of risk. He'd been away a long time. Sorry's mother had thought her brother was dead.
    Abram had brought his personal possessions in a canvas bag, as well as white people's games and other gifts for the family. He'd also brought a guitar wrapped in a yellow raincoat.
    "Aha! You thought I was dead!" he shouted, standing in the wet sand of the lagoon shore like an actor onstage. "But I do not die so easy!"
    His grin was as bright as the sun; his square face was carefree. His hair was South Seas curly, black as sea urchins.
    Sorry was openmouthed.
    Abram had "jumped" an American merchant ship in Eniwetok harbor, left it without permission, and then "borrowed" the canoe. He could be put in jail for leaving the ship, as well as for stealing the outrigger. He seemed not to give either act a thought.
    Sorry's mother had talked about him many times. "A wild man," she said. "Fearless!"
    "A crazy man," Jonjen had said, with a laugh and a shake of head. "He once wrestled a big octopus, underwater, at Lomlik. I saw him do it. He was not much older than you, Sorry."
    And here he was, of medium island height and weight, heavily muscled. He had intense eyes, darker brown than his skin, and that wide, shining
al
grin. He was thirty-two years old.
    "Where is Badina?" he asked.
    Mother Rinamu blinked and swallowed. "He's dead. Four years ago. He disappeared along the barrier reef. He was spearing."
    Abram took her into his arms and held her a moment. "He was a good man."
    She nodded.
    "And who is this?" he then asked, looking at Sorry standing in awe by the prow of the stolen outrigger, water lapping at his toes.
    "Our
manje,
Sorry." The firstborn.
    Abram extended his hand in a hard grip. To Sorry it was like touching lightning. "We will have fun,
manje,
you and I," Abram promised.
    Lokileni, as well as almost every villager who was not out fishing, was also there, having been summoned by Jonjen and the
Ah-hoooo!
of his conch. A son of the island had returned, alive and well.
    "And you are the sister," he said to her. "So pretty you are."
    Thin-legged, dark-haired Lokileni, in her oversized faded Mother Hubbard dress, lowered her head and smiled at the sand.
    Sorry saw Tara watching the stranger with interest. In turn, Abram's eyes lingered on her.
    Then he took a look around. "A few more houses, a few more palms, a few more pandanus. It hasn't changed, this island, has it? But what's that wooden one?" He nodded north, up the beach.
    "That's where the Japanese lived," Sorry said.
    Abram frowned widely. "They were here?"
    "Yes," Chief Juda admitted.
    "And you didn't kill them?" Abram was frowning at everybody in disbelief.
    "We thought about it," Jonjen said. "We talked about it..."
    "How many?"
    "Seven."
    Abram snorted. "Only seven? I'm sorry I wasn't