Circe (note: her name rhymes with mercy) couldn’t believe what Ahab was telling her.
Circe says, “You really don’t know how old you are?”
Ahab replies in between bites of his sandwich. “It’s true! Gaheedee tradition is,” chomp chomp, “we don’t really count as people until we return from our first raid.” Ahab pauses for more chomping. Circe loves watching him eat. He obviously enjoys it so much. Then he continues. “And on my first raid, well, you know what happened. I didn’t want to be a bandit. So I ran away.”
Circe can see how mixed up Ahab is over it. He followed his conscience but he feels bad about it.
Today they are doing one of their favorite things — sailing their tiny sailboat around the lake. When the wind died down, they decided to eat the snacks they had packed.
The next night, after dinner, Circe asks Ahab to take out a bag of scraps to the chickens in the backyard.
Ahab steps outside, and the chickens run over to him, excited for tonight’s treats. He grabs handfuls of old carrot tops, apple cores, potato peels, and tosses them. Hewatches the hens race to grab them first.
Ahab makes it a point to throw the scraps in different directions so that hopefully even the slowest hens get at least a few treats.
Ahab is yelling at the one hen that often grabs too much to share with the rest when all of a sudden, lights turn on, and the whole village is there, and they all shout happy birthday.
Ahab is so surprised he threw the basket of food scraps into the air.
That night, Ahab had his first birthday. And he gets a huge stack of presents, which he doesn’t feel good about at first, but everyone explains how they weren’t stolen from anyone else.
Author G. M. Jones 