Thirteen Pearls by Melaina Faranda

natural silence rose between us. It felt comfortable. I scanned the night sky for Orion’s Belt. Tash’s family called it ‘The Saucepan’.
    â€˜Why did you come up here?’ Kaito asked.
    â€˜Money,’ I said bluntly. ‘I need four grand to finish building my boat and that’s just to get it seaworthy for day trips in the bay. If I want any fancy equipment or a half-way decent satellite system, I’ll have to try and get sponsorship. But then I’ll need to set some sort of world record.’
    Leon whistled. ‘Where are you planning on going?’
    â€˜I want to circumnavigate the globe solo, like Jesse Martin and Jessica Watson. Only I don’t want it to be non-stop like their trips. I reckon I’d go mad. I want to cruise past all the islands and hang out with the people.’
    The boys nodded and I felt a flare of pride. They were taking me seriously. When I tried to explain my dream to people in Cairns I got a lot of ‘yeah rights’, as if no one believed I’d get it together to really go. Tash was clearly bored out of her brain whenever I raved about reefing points and running rigging. But Leon and Kaito seemed to take it for granted that I was going.
    â€˜What sort of boat is it?’ Kaito asked.
    â€˜A twenty-nine footer Norwalk Islands Sharpie ’ ‘And you built it all yourself?’ Leon sounded doubtful.
    I nodded. ‘Yeah. I learned how from the internet. Nah, seriously, my dad taught me how to read plans and use tools. He’s a stickler for getting it right so if I stuffed up he’d make me start all over. I’m helping him live his dream too. He always wanted to do something big, have adventures, but he met my mum when they were young and they had me and then he got sucked into her PhD vortex.’
    I stared back up at the stars – they were huge and thick and twinkling, spilling all the way to the inky horizon. ‘Dad taught me celestial navigation too. So even if the GPS system packs it in, I’ll always know where I am.’
    â€˜This guy’s named after the stars,’ Leon said, slapping Kaito’s leg.
    Kaito nodded. ‘My name in Japanese is a joining of the words for ocean and Ursa Major. I learned how to navigate by the stars too. My father likes all the old ways of doing things.’
    â€˜His old man lives in the dark ages,’ Leon agreed. ‘Spewed when Kaito said he wanted to go to uni. Didn’t he?’
    â€˜He doesn’t think it’s necessary,’ Kaito said. ‘He thinks that I’ll learn better by working on the pearl farms. That’s partly why I’m doing this. So he ’ll keep paying my fees.’
    â€˜Yeah, tell the truth mate,’ Leon teased. ‘It’s cause you’re gonna get a pearl empire at the end of it. You’ll be a rich head-honcho employing lowly guys like me.’
    â€˜How does it work?’ I asked. ‘I mean the whole pearl industry thing. I always thought people just found them wild. I’d never even heard of a pearl farm until Uncle Red called.’
    Kaito’s dark eyes gleamed in the candlelight. ‘We ’ve got a long tradition of wild pearling in Japan. My great grandmother was an ama.’
    â€˜What’s an ama?’
    â€˜The ama are Japanese women divers. They’ve been diving for two thousand years, without air tanks or masks or flippers. They dive deep in cold waters and gather pearl oysters and abalone from the arame seaweed beds.’ Kaito smiled. ‘People said they were like mermaids; they used to wear only a loincloth.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t mind seeing that,’ Leon butted in.
    â€˜Man, this is my great grandmother we’re talking about. She was still diving when she was eighty-five.’
    Leon frowned. ‘Maybe not then.’
    I was intrigued. ‘How come women? Was it only women?’
    Kaito nodded. ‘Women have more body fat to keep