I saw the contest announcement and thought this would be just right for it. It isn't a holiday but it is transgender and it is set on an island.

This is a version of the first chapter of a story I began long ago in the Carboniferous when I was just a frond. The story was intended to be perhaps 6-8 chapters but, you know, life happened. Here's how it all began.

Life on the Beach

by Penny Lane

Dreams are peculiar things. Some are beautiful, some are boring, some are truly frightening and some are just peculiar. Of course, whatever happens, the dreamer usually has no choice in what they dream. Sometimes, though, a dream is just plain weird.

It was nice just lying there. The soft breeze blew over her bare legs and arms, but the shade of the pegna prevented the full glare of the sun from burning her body while allowing the warm air to lull her to sleep. A short distance from her feet, the sea washed ceaselessly against the white coral sand of the beach, adding to her desire to close her eyes.

And why not? Almost every man, woman and child of the village was doing the same thing she was, almost the only thing they could do in the raw heat of early afternoon. One or two remained awake as lookouts, it is true, but they were secreted high up on the ridge of rock which ran along the spine of the island. The sun would have to move a fair distance before anyone thought of rousing and continuing their normal activities.

Normal. Such a strange word in the current context. She supposed that what she was experiencing was the only normality these people would ever know and it was her normality now. But she wasn't one of them and she sometimes wished that she could waken from this strange dream and return to the reality of her previous existence.

But only sometimes. For her to return would involve penalties, anguish and stress of a kind which would never hamper her while she was here. Unfortunately, there was usually only one reason people didn't wake from sleep and that would inevitably mean the end of her dream as well. After all, dead people don't dream, do they?

Some time later, pain woke her with a start. With a hiss of indrawn breath she twitched her left foot from where the moving shadow of the tree above had exposed it to the direct sunlight.

Damn! I keep forgetting the sun moves the other way in this crazy dream of mine! Damn, that's going to hurt in the morning!

She looked down at her foot, seeing nothing obviously wrong yet but knowing that it would shortly be showing an angry red. Heaving a sigh of regret that her siesta was over, she climbed to her feet and headed for the ocean. The white coral sands of the beach were hot and reflected the sun's light so strongly she could barely keep her eyes open.

Quickly she skipped to the tide line and kept on into the sea, only stopping when she was waist deep in the crystal waters. Taking a breath, she ducked under the surface to properly wet herself all over before rising and swimming the few strokes back to the beach. She skipped back to the shade of the pegna tree, cursing that the hot sand stuck to her wet feet but knowing she could do nothing about it. Reaching her blanket she scrubbed her feet on the rough cloth, removing most of the sand.

"Harriet! Harriet? You awake?"

With a sigh she turned. "Yes, Suberan," she called. "I burned my foot again."

"Again? You've been with us long enough that you should have learned not to do that by now."

"I know, Suberan. I keep forgetting."

"Come up here and I'll put some chirid oil on it for you."

"Yes, Suberan."

Harriet walked up to the open-sided shelter where Suberan was standing.

Suberan smiled at the younger woman. "What happened? Found the wrong place to lie under the pegna?"

"I did. You'd think I would have learned by now. I'm going to go and rinse myself off under the waterfall before I do anything else."

"Watch yourself. I saw some of the boys headed up the hill earlier. I don't know why they can't rest like the rest of us, it is far too warm to be up to their tricks while the sun is so high. Anyone would think they liked getting sunburned!"

Harriet shrugged. "They are teenage boys, what do you expect? Their brains are still between their legs, all they think of is outdoing one another. A little sunburn is just something else to brag about."

Suberan rolled her eyes. "You imagine that any of them will be better when they are older? They are still competing with each other even when they are too old to walk properly." She looked at Harriet's feet. "There's no point putting oil on that foot right now, if you're going to rinse yourself off. I'll do it when you come back."

"Thank you, Suberan."

With a brief wave Harriet walked out of the back of the shelter and was almost immediately hidden from sight by the lush tropical forest. As her eyes adapted to the relative darkness she began walking along one of several paths that climbed the slopes of the ridge that ran along the length of the island. It was cooler here, for which she was thankful.

She recalled that walking about had been painful when she had first arrived here, since her feet had not been used to going without any kind of footwear. The tough volcanic soils of the island had scraped them raw and she had been forced to wrap them in rags until some simple sandals had been fashioned for her. By now, though, constant immersion in the sea, walking along the beaches and scrambling around the hillsides had toughened the soles of her feet so that protection was no longer necessary.

How long exactly is it that I've been here? It seems like months and months and months. I know time can get compressed in dreams but I don't remember doing so much when I've dreamed before.

She frowned. I remember a stormy season, when the island was lashed by high winds and torrential rain, but then it's a tropical island, isn't it? That must have been... months ago? Really?

The path led higher and crude steps had been chopped into the reddish-orange volcanic soil to assist climbers. As she rose in height the cover gradually became less lush but there was still a considerable thickness of leaves on the surrounding plants and trees, shading her from the fierce sun.

Harriet turned a corner and was faced by a thin stream of water that flowed over a higher lip of rock. She stood under the natural shower and rinsed herself off, paying careful attention to her hair. She had learned the hard way that salt water was not good for hair in the long run, especially when it had become as long as hers. The water was cool, even though it had flowed over the rocks above and it was the hottest part of the day. It also eased the stinging sensation that had started irritating her left foot.

Going back down the slope was easier, of course. On the way her body and hair dried, as did the single garment she wore, which was a simple shift reaching to mid-thigh and made from the skin of some marine animal. As she walked she ran her fingers through her hair to try and prevent tangles forming as it dried. Reaching the shelter at the back of the beach she rejoined Suberan.

"Good," the older woman said with satisfaction. "Now, let me have a look at that foot of yours before I get on with cooking."

The oil had been mixed with a starch from one of the edible roots to make a thick paste and Suberan smeared a thin layer over both of Harriet's feet. The older woman's eyes flickered over the rest of Harriet's body, seeing if she had any other areas needing attention before she put the pot away.

"Hold still," she said, "the tip of your nose is peeling."

Harriet held still while her nose was treated.

"Thank you, Suberan. Like I said before, my fairer skin will be damaged more easily by the sun than any of yours so it makes sense to take care of it, doesn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know. It seems to me that your skin has darkened a lot since we first found you. Somebody from one of the other islands would never know you hadn't been born in the village."

"That may be so now but my tan isn't permanent like yours. I still have to be more careful than the rest of you."

"I have heard it said," Suberan commented as she plugged the pot and returned it to the basket which held the village's medicines, "that we had paler skins when we first came to these islands. That was many, many years ago, of course. Living out here in the middle of the ocean has changed us in many ways since then."

"You could be right," Harriet agreed. "People do adapt to where they live, as I understand things. That doesn't help me, though. I just have to be careful." She remembered a thought from earlier. "Suberan, how long have I been here? Time just seems to pass in this place and there's no obvious way of counting the days."

The older woman looked at her. "You think so? We count everything we notice, Harriet, even though most of the things we record make no difference to our lives. Let me see, it must be eight large moons, yes, and perhaps two middle moons and... four days since you were found on the beach. But I forget, you still insist that you are dreaming."

Harriet stared at her. "How do you do that? Is your memory that much better?" Suberan nodded as Harriet said, yet again, "This all has to be a dream! This can't possibly be real because there's too many things wrong for it to be real. Too many moons, for a start. The sun going round the wrong way. That big nebula in the sky at night." She reddened. "Other things. My body, for one. This definitely is not my real body!"

"But you told me that you preferred this to what you call your real body."

"And that makes it even worse!" Harriet gestured at her body with both hands. "This body is a dream come true for me so it can't possibly be true!"

"What can't be true?"

The new speaker was an older man who had been walking towards them from out of the tropical vegetation. He entered the shelter and gave Suberan a kiss.

"Endris," Suberan greeted her husband. "Harriet and I were having the same old argument."

"Child," Endris addressed her, "you are a puzzle to us. You both accept your life with us and yet you completely deny it at the same time. We are grateful for what you have shown us since you have been here but it seems you do not learn from your own experiences. You are here, you must live the life you now have. Other lives can wait until you return to them."

Harriet felt rebuked. "Yes, Endris."

The man changed the subject. "Now, what are you going to do this afternoon? Still working on your dinghy?"

"I had thought to, yes. Some of the lines are not as long as they could be and I wanted to lengthen them." She frowned. "I might have a small leak as well. When I last took it out there was more water in the bottom than I was expecting."

Endris nodded. "It still surprises us that you have as little water coming in as you do. Do you want to patch it with resin or..?" He raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps you will tell us another way to do it."

Harriet smiled. The battle between herself and the island's boat-builders had at times been bad-tempered, but the older men had finally accepted that she did know what she was talking about, even if some of the things she told them sounded crazy. Her dinghy, created from wreckage found on the south shore some months ago, had been ample proof of that - once she had convinced them to build it in the first place.

"Not this time, Endris. Once I find out where it is getting in a dab of resin will be enough, I think."

The older man nodded. "I think we can spare you that," he said with an answering smile. "It isn't coming in around that centreboard, is it? You know that was one of our areas of concern."

"I have looked carefully and that area is where most of the resin was put anyway," she replied. "I rather think it is where the transom is attached. I know you are not familiar with making boats that way."

* * *

The island - which was just called The Island by all its inhabitants - was a long, thin ridge lying roughly east-west. The ridge ran the entire length of the island and the climate was completely different on each side. On the north, there was a warm tropical lagoon fed by equatorial currents which came from the north-west; on the south side the currents were cold and came from the south-east. Where they met, between the islands of the chain, there were fearsome currents, strange eddies, rich nutrients and occasionally, unbelieveable storms.

Three villages were spread out along the north side, each separated from the other by small headlands. Their diet was mainly the fish which teemed in incredible abundance just beyond the reef which defined the lagoon, supplemented by vegetables grown on the north-facing hillsides above the villages. The vegetation here was sub-tropical and to Harriet the place seemed just like an island in the Caribbean... if it hadn't been for those pesky moons and all the other anomalies.

Once over the central spine toward the south the vegetation changed abruptly, almost as though one had stepped across onto an island a thousand miles further south. The poorer sunlight and the cold ocean waters contributed to that. The trees here were mostly hardwoods of different kinds, useful for building shelters - and boats. Storms came here from the south, pounding the coast and the vegetation and occasionally bringing the villagers valuable wreckage to scavenge.

Most of the wreckage was from vessels of kinds no-one had ever seen afloat in that region, most of the wood heavily weathered and splintered beyond any hope of identification. However, masts, planks, ropes and ironwork could be and were reworked as the villagers needed. On one morning Harriet had been with a group of beachcombers, scanning the southern beach after a particularly nasty storm, when they had found a small wrecked boat, or at least part of one, possibly once a tender to a larger vessel. Teeth marks could clearly be seen on the edge of the half that had survived.

"A pity," one of the men said, "None of that is big enough for us to make use of in our own boats. We might be able to make something out of the planks for the Refuge, though."

"You could make a boat out of that," Harriet demurred. "It won't look anything like the boats you use for fishing but there's certainly enough to make a good-sized dinghy."

The men looked at her sceptically. One asked, "What is a dinghy?"

"It is a small sailing boat, often used to teach children how to sail," Harriet explained. "I learned to sail in a boat about that size myself." She tried to use her charm, something she hadn't had much practice at doing before. "Do you think you could use that wreckage to make one for me? It wouldn't take you anywhere near as long as building a full-sized fishing boat and I can tell you how to try out some new ideas which may help your own boats in the future."

"Out of the question," one man immediately said. "There isn't enough wood to shape the stern and we would have to rework all the planks to make it into a proper boat which would be too small even for you."

"No you wouldn't," Harriet disagreed. "You wouldn't need to do anything much except make that rear end square and then fit a transom. I'm sure that wouldn't take long with one of those big saws you use."

"What is a transom?"

"Just a single piece of wood that just goes from side to side. It would be a bigger version of the flat piece going across the bow there. If you can't find a big enough plank down here on the beach you can always use several planks just like you do for the sides. Then I can fit a mast, a rudder and a centreboard and show you," she grinned at the reluctant men, "how to really sail a boat around here!"

There had been some significant resistance to her proposal but in the end they had given in, mainly because most of the boat already existed. It needed some repairs and some tidying up but everything except the stern was there and mostly watertight. Even adding a mast and sails seemed a sensible idea.

Then she said that she wanted a centreboard to help control it out in the lagoon, and the arguments started all over again...

* * *

"Harriet! Harriet? Can you hear me?"

She put down the rope she had been working on, replaced her obsidian knife in its sheath and stood. Her working place was beside her dinghy, now canted on the sand not far from the water's edge, and about fifty paces from the shelter where Suberan stood. Despite the fact that the mast was almost horizontal she had hoisted the sail to provide herself shelter from the sun while she spliced ropes.

"I'm here, Suberan! Do you need me for something?"

"Could you go up to the second grove and pull another greva'th for me? One of those you pulled this morning is rotten inside. I need to get dinner started soon if we are to eat at our usual time."

"Yes, of course, Suberan."

Harriet walked up to the open-sided shelter where Suberan was standing. The older woman handed her the vegetable she had been preparing, showing the slime she had discovered in the centre.

Harriet grimaced. "I'm sorry, I didn't notice that when I pulled it, it looked perfectly good."

Suberan shrugged. "It isn't your fault. It just happens sometimes." She smiled at the younger woman. "But there won't be enough for all of us unless you fetch another one. How's your foot?"

Harriet waggled her foot for Suberan's inspection.

"Red, much as we expected," she reported. "The oil seems to be doing a good job, though. There is barely any discomfort and no pain at all."

"Good," Suberan said with satisfaction. "Do you need any more?"

"Thank you no, Suberan. I don't want to use up all your oil on a silly burn that is my own fault anyway. I'll go and get another greva'th for you."

Harriet moved to the back of the shelter and picked up a wooden tool from a pile leaning against one of the support posts before walking out of the shelter and into the forest. She followed her earlier route until she reached the waterfall. Passing it, the way led still higher until the brightening ahead indicated that she was approaching one of the cleared patches where the village grew what few crops they needed.

Bursting into the open she concentrated on the rows of plants, noting that some rows would soon require replanting. Although there were seasons of a sort on the island, that fact didn't really make a difference to the local vegetation. You planted whatever seeds or cuttings were needed and in six or so weeks most could be harvested, no matter what time of year it was.

She looked over the rows of greva'th, trying to remember which she had pulled that morning. If rot had affected one then it could affect those around it as well. Seeing the gap she peered closely at those remaining around the area but nothing seemed amiss. Shrugging, she selected another one of about the same size and heaved on the tuft of leaves protruding from the top. As usual, it required a little assistance from her trowel before it reluctantly gave up its grip on the soil. She smelled it but it just smelled earthy.

Going back down the slope was easier, of course. She had just reached the waterfall when she noticed voices coming from a distance along another trail. The voices seemed excited, with cries interspersed with rough language and whoops of victory. Sighing, she decided to go and find out what was happening.

Boys! Just my luck. They don't usually make as much noise as this, though. Wonder what they are up to, up here all by theirselves?

This was a narrower trail that led steeply up to the dividing ridge. For that reason it was not much used and she had to push her way through vegetation that threatened to eventually block the path. The trail reached the pathway which ran the length of the ridge and she caught sight of movement ahead, the unbleached loincloth that was all most of the island males usually wore. As she came in sight the boys stopped whatever they had been doing and stared at her.

"Look, it's Bossy Know-it-all," one sneered. "Go away, freak, this is boy business. Nothing to do with you."

All five of them had sticks, each about a yard long and worn smooth with long use. Normally they were used for beating back the vegetation but occasionally they were needed to beat off other, nonhuman inhabitants of the islands. Very occasionally they were also used to settle arguments, but it was unthinkable that any of them would use one against Harriet. In general she had found that the men of the island treated the women with respect and violence between the genders was unknown.

Still, Harriet had not been brought up on the island and so was wary of five teenage boys with sticks.

"What are you doing? I could hear you shouting from down by the waterfall."

"It's a Diver nest." The oldest was a son of Endris and thus a foster-brother, at least in theory. He explained patiently, "You know very well that Divers are dangerous and we get rid of any nests we find, to stop them taking over the islands. They nest on Diver Rock and that's fine, we just don't want them here as well."

"She didn't need to know that, Kikri," the first one grumbled. "It's our job, not hers. She probably knew all that anyway. Go away, freak."

Harriet glanced down at the path between them, taking in the scene for the first time. There was a pile of disturbed vegetation, leaves, twigs and moss, scattered over the path. Among the remains of the nest were broken eggs, soft elongated shapes like those of reptiles, and small, pink and grey lifeless bodies lying where they had been smashed out of the eggs. One flapped feebly, still alive, and a boy jabbed the blunt end of his stick at it, mashing life from the tiny body. Harriet started forward, shocked.

"You can't -"

"We just did," the first boy sneered. "What are you going to do about it?"

She noticed a sliver of white poking out from the edge of the disturbed area and wondered whether it was an egg they had missed. Swiftly bending down, she grabbed the egg - which was whole - and darted two steps back, daring the boys to take it off her.

"Give us that!"

"Why?" she said. "You'll only kill it like you did these others."

Kikri said, "Be reasonable, Harriet. What are you going to do with it? It isn't like a fresh avian egg. You can't eat it, it has a baby Diver inside. What else can you do with it?"

Suddenly, Harriet knew exactly what she was going to do with the egg. It felt warm to her touch and she wondered how long it would be before it would hatch.

"I might have other ideas," she said briefly, not wishing to create yet another source of disagreement.

Two of them came towards her, waving their sticks in such a way that she would find it hard to retreat. She wondered what she could do, with a fragile egg in one hand and the greva'th still grasped in the other.

"Get it off her!" one said. "You hold her and I'll -"

I could always bash one of them with the greva'th, she thought. Only, that would be as bad as if one of them hit me with a stick. I can't use my knife like I did last time, I have both my hands full! I need to put this egg somewhere safe, but where?

The nearest boy lunged for her and she instinctively brought her hand to her chest, slipping the egg into the top of her shift where it nestled between her breasts. Her now free hand flashed down to grasp the hilt of her knife. The boy stopped abruptly.

"You're crazy, you know that? Endris should have thrown you back in the sea."

"I don't need to be lectured by a clown like you."

The word she spoke wasn't clown but had similar connotations. The response was a sneer, but she turned her back on them and began to walk back to the downhill trail.

A voice behind her called, "You'll be sorry! Endris will hear of this!"

Now beginning to shake from the confrontation, she made her way down the hill onto the main path and stopped by the waterfall, gathering her wits and attempting to control her breathing.

Now look what you've done, idiot! Boat-building was one thing, raising Diver eggs is something else completely! What am I going to do now?

Away from the bluster of the boys, her grand idea suddenly didn't seem so grand after all.

Better carry on, I guess. If I keep the egg hidden in here then I have a little time to work out some kind of plan. If the outlook doesn't look so good maybe I could just dump it somewhere.

Her thoughts were those of reason but her instincts had other ideas. As a young fertile woman her first impulse was to shelter and nourish new life of any kind. Dumping the egg would only be a final, reluctant step forced by circumstances.

Reaching the shelter at the back of the beach she held out the greva'th for Suberan to take. She tried to make her voice sound normal.

"It occurred to me that the rot could have affected some of the others, but I couldn't see anything wrong," she reported. "This one is from the next row, though, just in case."

"A good thought, Harriet," Suberan agreed with an approving smile. "I'll ask Endris to have a look at the patch later on just in case there is something we missed. Here, let me cut this one open and see if it is good."

Suberan used one of the village's few iron tools, a broad kitchen knife, to carefully divide the greva'th from top to bottom. Inside, the flesh looked clean and bright.

"Good," Suberan said with satisfaction but her expression changed. "What happened? You look upset somehow."

Harriet briefly thought of inventing something to give herself some time to think but immediately discarded the idea. Until now she had been scrupulously honest and that had earned her the respect of the whole village. If she began to dissemble that would change their relationship with her and she couldn't afford that, not with what nestled under her shift.

"I, um, came across some of the boys on my way back. They were destroying what they said was a Diver nest."

"Oh, were they? That's good, we don't want to see Divers anywhere near the village, it will just encourage more to come back next year and life would become very dangerous for us. Was Kikri there?"

"He was, but all of them were being very unpleasant."

"It is an unpleasant thing to do but, Harriet, it is no different than scooping fish out of the water. You know how the world works."

"Yes."

Something about her tone made Suberan look at her more closely.

"I take it you disagreed with what they were doing?"

"Their whole attitude was bad, Suberan. I understand the need to regulate where the Divers nest but it didn't have to be torn up and flung about that way. There were -" She couldn't say the word bodies. "I meant that they were unpleasant to me. And Chidris called me a freak again."

"He'll learn better when he is older, Harriet. I'll speak to him again when they come back. But that isn't all, is it? What else happened?"

Harriet took a deep breath. "Suberan, I rescued one of the eggs."

Suberan put down her knife and stared at Harriet. "What? What did you do that for? You know you can't eat them, not the way we eat avian eggs. Were they near hatching? What have you done with it?"

"They were about to hatch, yes." Bodies. "It's in here for the moment." Harriet gently placed her hand on her chest, feeling the shape through the shift.

"What did you intend to do with it?"

"I wondered if I could hatch it out and let it grow. I want to see what these creatures look like, how they behave. So far, all I have seen of a Diver is from a distance as they dive for fish. Where I come from we breed many creatures, some as pets, others as food animals. For a village like yours, it would be the next step along from having a vegetable patch."

"But Divers are dangerous! You have seen them in the skies, you know what those great beaks could do to us. Even if you are right, I doubt that Endris would permit you to keep it. Could you not have found some other animal to foster?"

Harriet shrugged. "I haven't noticed anything else around that I could raise. The egg was there, it was about to be destroyed, I saw a chance. It didn't occur to me until that moment that I could even do such a thing. It was a spur of the moment decision."

Suberan's lips compressed. "You know I cannot tell you what to do or not to do, Harriet. You are not my child. However, we fostered you and you live with me, Endris and our children. If that thing hatches, where will it live? In our shelters, of course, just like the rest of us. Have you thought of that? What will you feed it on? If it is anything like the young of avians, you will spend the next few middle moons feeding it day and night, I'm guessing. And what will you do when it grows too big? It will fly away like all the others, won't it?"

Harriet's heart sank. She hadn't thought beyond the initial impulse to what the inevitable consequences might be. In some ways it would be little better than if she had suddenly discovered an unwanted pregnancy.

"I... I don't know, Suberan. I really hadn't thought that far ahead. I just thought of a young defenseless creature in peril and I had to rescue it from the boys."

The older woman's expression softened. "Of course you did, child. It shows that you are maturing, to think of such a thing. Perhaps, instead of trying to be a mother to a Diver you should be thinking about having your own babies. You are almost of the right age, you know. Perhaps it was your maternal instincts that drove you to save the egg."

"You could be right, I guess. Oh, not about having a baby, I'm not ready for that yet. Perhaps there is more maternal in me than I knew."

Have a baby with one of those boys? Not in a million years. I'm not ready to be a fisherman's wife, not with what I could teach these people. Besides, a baby ties me up for what? Ten, fifteen years? At least a Diver would be full-grown and gone within a year.

She added, "I'm sorry, this is going to cause more trouble, isn't it? Perhaps I should speak to Endris before this goes any further."

Suberan's expression showed approval, now. "Good girl. Perhaps it would be a good idea to tell him now before everybody gets back and prepares themselves for the meal."

She turned and scanned the low shrubbery at the edge of the dense vegetation, finally finding what she sought.

"Oori! Oori! Go and find your father, I have a question for him."

A young girl jumped up from where she had been playing with others of the same age.

"Yes, mother!"

A few minutes later Endris appeared along the edge of the beach, scrubbing sweaty sawdust from his face, torso and arms with a rag.

"Suberan? Oori says you wanted me for something."

"In a way, Endris. Harriet has had another confrontation with the boys." She didn't need to specify which boys. "She found them destroying a Diver nest and making a mess everywhere."

Endris nodded. "As they should, but that is no excuse to make a mess." He turned to Harriet. "Were they calling you names again?"

"They were, Endris. But..." Harriet struggled to find a way to explain what she had done. "I... um, I rescued an egg from the nest."

Endris frowned. "What do you mean, rescued? The eggs should be destroyed along with the nest. It is one of the island rules that keeps us safe from the more dangerous animals."

"She has it, whole, and she wants to let it hatch and raise it like her own child," Suberan explained.

"I do not understand," Endris said. "Divers raise Diver young and women raise babies. How can you raise a Diver hatchling?"

"Where I come from," Harriet began. Endris frowned again, since he knew that she would now explain some new kind of outlandish behaviour previously unknown on the islands. She continued, "We often raise animals of many different kinds for our own uses, Endris. Some we just keep for company, as pets, some have uses like hunting companions," Endris's eyebrows rose at that, "some we keep as domestic animals for meat, eggs, leather and other products. We have done so for thousands of years."

"What is the purpose? How is it that you can do this? Are the animals not wild?"

"They were wild to begin with but because we are always around them they become no longer afraid of us. We can also selectively breed them to make them bigger or lay more eggs or something like that. As for the purpose, imagine having your own herd of animals or avians that you always knew where they were and you didn't have to go hunt for them when you wanted meat or eggs. That gives you more time to do other things."

"It is an interesting idea, Endris," Suberan mused. "In some ways, it would be just like our vegetable patches, which save us from having to hunt in the forest for vegetables and fruit."

He asked Harriet, "Do many of your people keep these animals?"

"Oh, yes! Most of our food is provided this way. The only food we still regularly hunt these days is fish, as it happens, and even there we can farm fish if you know how." She suddenly had an afterthought. "Oh! Actually, I say that most of our food is provided this way and it is, but that doesn't mean that everybody keeps their own animals for meat and eggs. We have people who do nothing but look after them much like you have certain people here who can make boats and others who can weave cloth."

"I think I understand. Well, what is it you want from me? This egg, can I see it?"

Harriet was wary. She glanced at Suberan, who nodded. Carefully, she hooked the front of her shift with one hand and felt for the egg with the other. Fortunately her shift fitted closely enough that there was little danger of the egg falling out the bottom. She held it out on her palm for the two adults to inspect.

"Strange," Endris said. "From such a small object a monster will grow, as big as any man. I know little of such creatures except what I have seen while out with the boats."

Suberan said, "I have asked her where she will keep it, what she would feed it with and what will happen when it becomes too big. She had no answers for me."

"I'm not surprised. She has only been with us what, eight moons? How could she know how these creatures live? We have been here many generations yet we have little idea ourselves." He paused, staring at the egg while he thought. "Very well. Harriet, you may keep your egg and see what happens. I find that I am interested enough to find out what happens myself. If this will provide more information which adds to the safety of the viilage then it will be a worthwhile experiment. It is possible that it might not hatch, of course, depending on what happened when the boys disturbed the nest. I do not know.

"At first the creature will be small and helpless, if it is like most other young, and we should be able to control it, prevent it from hurting anyone if it decides to do so. However, eventually it will become as large as the Divers we see out at sea and I will have to decide then if your creature will be a danger to the village or not. If I decide it will be a danger then it will either have to go and join its kin or be killed. Do you understand that, Harriet? This experiment of yours will probably have an unhappy ending for you."

She had not realised that she was holding her breath, waiting for his answer. The relief was huge. Her first action was to return the egg to its place of safety inside her shift.

"Thank you, Endris. And you, Suberan. I know I have strange ideas sometimes but this time I really think it is worthwhile doing. Perhaps raising a Diver wasn't the best choice but it is what I have. Raising some of those big brown avians might have been better, since that would give the village a regular supply of eggs."

Endris held up a hand. "One thing at a time, Harriet! We're still trying to understand your improvements to boat-building, and now you want to have us over-run with animals! If this idea causes no problems then perhaps we can think of what else we could do with it."

Suberan smiled at Harriet. "I'll find you a basket to keep your egg in, dear."

"A basket?"

"Why, yes, the little thing will need its own nest for a while, won't it?"

* * *

The children of the family trooped in, having been down to the water's edge to scrub their hands clean with sand and salt water. Kikri's face was angry as he noticed Harriet waiting for them with their parents.

"Father, do you know what Harriet has done? She -"

"I do know," Endris cut him off. "Sit down and eat. We will speak of this matter after we have finished."

His tone was one the youngster knew well and he subsided onto the mat they used for meals in silence, but his eyes were hot. The others caught the mood and joined him, the whole family sitting cross-legged around an array of 'dishes' arranged on sections of broad tropical leaf. There were no bananas here, but a similar looking tree provided leaves that could be used for meals as well as roofing material, though no useful fruit.

Harriet glanced around at the family who had effectively fostered her. Endris, of course, the man of the house, fisherman, carpenter and boat-builder, and his wife Suberan, both black-haired and dusky skinned. Utti, the oldest son, probably seventeen or eighteen years old and mature enough to spend most of his days with the adult men. Vest, the oldest daughter, maybe seventeen, who spent most of her time making eyes at boys from the village to the east. Kikri, fifteen or sixteen years old with an attitude to match. Oori, the youngest, maybe nine or ten years old.

Then there's me. I was around two months off my sixteenth birthday when this dream began, but if I have been here for eight and a half months then dream-me must be nearly sixteen and a half. I suppose that when I wake up I'll get to live these months all over again, and won't that be fun?

Each diner had a grilled fish laid out in front of them on a leaf, graded according to the size of the eater. In the centre were grilled clams, heaps of mashed greva'th, some purple roots, green beans, fruits and a pile of boiled seaweed strips. For the adults and older children there were empty chirid-nut shells filled with a fermented fruit drink, the younger two merely had the fresh pressed juice.

There was no cutlery. Everyone used their fingers for pulling the well-cooked flesh from the fish, scooping handfuls of greva'th and selecting from the other foods on the mat. The meal was eaten mostly in silence because of the general atmosphere. From time to time Harriet caught Kikri's hard glance at her, which hardened further when he saw the bulge at the top of her shift.

With everyone reasonably full, the drinks were finished off and the receptacles and leaf sections taken down to the water's edge to be rinsed by Utti and Oori. Although most things grew abundantly enough for such items to be disposed of after each meal, the islanders preferred to re-use them to avoid stripping the trees. Everybody made themselves more comfortable while they waited for the girls to return. Finally everything was cleared away.

"Now," Endris said to forestall Kikri's impending rant, "I will deal with what happened today. Kikri, I understand you and the other boys have been up at the ridge."

"Yes, father."

"You found a Diver nest and destroyed it."

"We did, father, but -"

"Wait. I have been told that you scattered the nest all over the path, making a mess. Is this true?"

Kikri bowed his head. "That is true, father. But nobody has ever said what we should do with any nests we find. We just wanted to make sure the Diver would go away when it saw the destruction."

Endris nodded. "That is so, but did you think that scattering all that material all over the path could prove dangerous? Suppose nobody goes up there for a while and it all rots, and then we have a storm and someone comes running along the path to get to shelter? They are in a hurry, it might be dark because of the storm clouds. There could be a bad accident, all because you boys were not careful."

"Yes, father. We'll go back up in the morning and make sure the path is cleared."

"Now, while you were there, Harriet came along and found an egg that you had not destroyed. She has kept the egg."

The heads of the two girls came up, staring at Harriet with interest.

Kikri protested, "She did wrong, father! We should have found it and destroyed it." He turned sulky. "She threatened us with her knife."

Suberan snorted. "Yes! A single girl, with a greva'th in one hand and an egg in the other, threatening five boys who had sticks! I expected better of you, Kikri."

Kikri's head went down again. "Yes, mother."

"The truth of the matter is," explained Harriet, "two of them threatened me with their sticks. Kikri wasn't one of them, though."

"In any event," Endris said, attempting to regain control, "the egg is here and Harriet wants to find out what happens when it hatches."

"What?" The two boys were outraged. "She can't do that! It isn't allowed!"

"Actually, there has never been a ruling about something like this. That is because it has never before occurred to anyone in the village - or the other villages, come to that - that such a thing was even possible. However, Harriet tells us that it is often done where she comes from."

Utti was incredulous. "You can raise Divers where you come from?"

"No, we don't have Divers where I come from, but we have domesticated many different kinds of animals to provide meat, eggs and other products like leather."

She though it advisable to steer clear of mentioning the dairy industry, since the only source of milk the islanders knew about was from mothers of babies.

"So," Utti asked, "how do you know what to do with a Diver?"

"I don't," she replied simply. "That will be part of the experiment. We know they eat fish but that's about all anyone knows."

"And that is the reason that the elders will allow Harriet to do this," Endris explained. "Even if the experiment is a failure it is more knowledge for the village. We have listened to Harriet and it is possible there may be benefits from doing this."

Kikri said, "You're going to let Harriet do what, father? Let the egg hatch? Here?"

"Here. Now, to begin with, Harriet's days will be taken up with feeding and looking after the hatchling, just as if she had born a child herself. It will be small, you have seen the eggs for yourself, of course, so it will be no danger to anyone. As it grows I have told Harriet that if there is any trouble, or someone gets injured, it will be my decision whether to send the creature back to the others of its kind or to kill it. Harriet will abide by this."

"Ooh!" That was Oori. "Can we have a look at it? Please, Harriet?"

She reached in and carefully lifted the egg out as before, showing it to them all by the last rays of the setting sun.

"I wasn't sure how warm it had to be kept," she explained. "It might not even hatch, especially after being treated the way it was."

Kikri's look at Harriet could have melted lava.

Author's note: There might be more if I was prodded enough.