10
THE PENGALI DID FINALLY come down to the dining room, and they did eat some fish, but they were very quiet. I told them several times that no one was asking them to bring food to make amends, and that people in the hotel understood that things broke when children played with them, but they kept talking about fishing.
“People here don’t have that custom,” I said to Abri.
“I am an elder. I must do the right thing, or I will lose karrit if I don’t.”
And that was an important consideration for Pengali.
There was no way around it except to take the Pengali fishing.
First, though, we had another problem to solve, and maybe we could walk past a fish shop to see if they had ponds where people could catch their own trout or lobsters. I didn’t know if the shops around here were big enough.
