The shell collector was scrubbing l...

The shell collector was scrubbing limpets at his sink when he heard the water-taxi be due [i]or[/i] owing scraping over the reef. He cringed to hear it--its peel grinding the calices of finger corals and the tiny tubes of pipe organ corals, tearing the flower and fern-shapes of yielding corals, and damaging shells too: punching caves in olives and murexes and spiny whelks, sending hydatina physis and Turis babylonia spinning. It was not the first time folks had hired a motorboat taxi to court him out.

He heard their feet splash ashore and the taxi motor along back to Lamu, and the light sing-song