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cabinets, all four of them, start calculating how to mount them, in which corners of the room. The wood of the cabinets matches the tables. Once again, I am stunned by what
    a genius he is.
    "But," I hear myself saying, "will they work?"
    "Who knows?" He grins. "But I think they might!"
        "Let's fnd out!" says Ginko, while the others let out a cheer. It's like a musical midget football team, psyching themselves as they take the feld.
         I guide them to their respective corners, clear tables out of their way. I'm the tallest person in the room, so I come in kinda handy. The gillikins have brought their tools, which makes mounting the speakers a snap. For the frst time, I really look at what the speakers are. I start laughing.
        "Popo shells?" I say.
        Mikio nods. I shake my head. Popo's a lot like cocoanut. I use it for certain dishes. But I've never seen popo shells chopped in half, scooped out, and mounted in speaker cabinets. He's got a big one on the bottom—his bass popo shell—then a smaller one for midrange, and a dinky popo tweeter.
        All of these are wired together in a fne twiney matrix of gibberdeen vines, assorted charms and fetishes (including a plastic Elvis nightlite), and… "Are those language bush branches?" I ask, fnally getting the picture.
        "Exactly," chirps in the gillikin girl, who has picked up on my boner for Mikio. Clearly, she has one, too; competition now, rearing its adorable head.
        "That's why I think it will work," Mikio sez, completely oblivious to gurl-politics (yay!). "It's so simple, it has to. That's just how Oz is."
        He certainly has a point; and I fnd myself thinking, why didn't I think of that?; and that's when he says, "Why don't you get your C D player and, you know, pick out something perfect?"
        It's in that moment that the panic begins to claim me. My pulse soars. My breastbones squeeze. Little blobules of sweat start to knock at my pores. I realize how much I've already emotionally invested in this experience, even though it's patently absurd. A stereo made of nuts and kindling? Am I fucking joking? Is he putting me on?
        "You're not putting me on, right?" I ask him sincerely. "Because if you are, I will just cry…"
        "…no…"
        "…cuz this would mean so much to me…"
    "…um, Aurora…?"
    "…I'm sorry, I'm freaking out. I'm just so excited…"
        "Aurora," says Mikio, taking me gently by the shoulders. "Just pick a song you want to hear."
        At which point the door fies open, and in struts Señor Poogli, the six-armed chef. He is swarthy and squat and hyperbolic, brandishing his new faux-Mexican mustache with Pancho Villa swagger. When he gestures, he gestures large.
        Behind him, Pim and Bom and little Cheeba sneak in.
        "AND WHAT," Señor Poogli demands, "IS THIS?"
        "It's music," says the gillikin girl. "And I would like some wavos rancheros."
        "Hmph!" Poogli says, with a gesture that suggests that it doesn't look like music to him. All the same, the frst order of the morning is in, and he is nothing if not duty-bound. With a last caustic glance at the lot of us, he goes tromping off into the kitchen. The g-girl smiles, then looks at me. We size each other up.
        Her face is cute and round. Her hair is bobbed and purple-brown. They don't need dyes to get those shades. It just happens. But it's great. Her eyes are purple-violet too, intense and determined. She would make an excellent terrorist. Four foot two, intensely buxom, with just enough waist between bosom and hips to imply an hourglass exploding.
        I wonder if Mikio's fucked her yet, can only imagine he will. I see her thinking the exact same thing, and we catch each other there.
        "Pinky? Pim?" Breaking the spell, returning to the power-spot that is my job. "I think we've got some hungry people here. Bom? Get these tables set up? Little Cheeba? Go help Senor Poogli,