He sat there, somewhat lightheaded, and tried to push the blasted thing off. It was stuck.
He blinked but couldn’t see anything but the dark interior of the brass hookah. He raised a hand and felt around the opening. The water pipes were tangled around his neck like tentacles of an octopus.
He spat a healthy curse on the descendants of the idiot who invented the hookah, only to have his words come back at him in an irritating brass echo. He reached up and grabbed the brass handles and tugged.
His head was stuck in a hookah.
He sat there, hardly realizing that the bottle had ceased its wild motions. He had other problems.
He pulled and pulled. It wouldn’t budge.May Allah banish the cursed thing to the hottest and most desolate desert!
But first, he thought, let him get his cursed head out of it.
14
“Smitty! What the hell are you doing?”
Margaret adjusted Annabelle on her hip and looked up. There was a wall of black smoke between them and the sound of Hank’s bellowing voice. “I hear you, but I can’t see you.”President Cleveland could hear him.
“Dammit, woman!” Hank was suddenly beside her, grabbed her arm, and pulled them away from the smoke to an area where the air was clear. “Are you trying to burn down the whole island?”
Annabelle started to cry. Margaret started bouncing her on her hip and scowled up at Hank. “Stop shouting.” She looked down at the baby. “It’s okay, Annabelle, he just doesn’t think before he shouts.”
Annabelle continued to sob. Hank scowled at the baby, then looked at Margaret as if he expected her to shove the baby at him as she had in the lifeboat. He stepped back, out of reach, and glowered at the fire as if he were trying to make sense of it.
Theodore stepped closer to her and tugged on her skirt. “I found a genie.”
Annabelle was still fussing loudly. Margaret brushed her tears away and continued to bounce the baby on her hip. “I don’t know anyone named Jeannie, Theodore.” Margaret stepped around him.
“His name is Muddy.”
“No. It’s not muddy, dear.” Margaret gave him a pat on the head. “The sand soaks up the rain.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Stand back, Theodore. The fire’s spreading.”
Hank kicked sand on the flames. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Cooking.”
He looked down and scowled in the smoking pot. “It’s blacker than lava rock in there.” He straightened and turned back to her. “Are you cooking or burning?”
Margaret raised her chin a notch. “Mussel shells are black.”
“I know that, Smitty, but they don’t smoke.”
“That’s steam. I’m steaming them.”
“Steam is white. Smoke is black.” He used his shirttail to pick up the handle on the hot pan—something she couldn’t do because the fire had been a little bit bigger than she’d planned. He turned the pan upside down and shook it, then looked up. “Stuck like tar.”
She had two choices: to continue her argument, which she knew was fallacious at best, or to capitulate. She stared at the fire. Cooking hadn’t been so easy.
Before she could say anything, Hank dropped the pan and bent down. He picked up the empty whiskey bottle, looked at it for a very tense second, then faced her. “What happened to my whiskey?”
“I needed fuel to start the fire, so...” Her words just hung there.
“You used my whiskey to start a fire just so you could burn a pot of mussels?”
“No. I used the whiskey to make a flame that would burn long enough to light the wood—which was a shade damp from the rain—sothenI couldsteama pot of mussels.”
He was looking at the empty bottle as if he wanted to throw it somewhere, perhaps at her.
