Now all of them have turned my way. As if they have been expecting me. That, too, is good. Though I do notice something a little sour in the expression on Gayusoli’s face, almost as if he is smelling something bad with that long nose of his.

“How are you all?” I ask as I walk toward them.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

And so on. Which is not bad, though I notice that only Yugi says not Osda, but Osdadu. That emphasis on the end of his phrase meaning “really fine” is a much more friendly way to respond.

I am being too sensitive.

Yugi gives me a friendly push on my shoulder. “So,” he says, “are you ready to lose all your clothing today?”

He is referring to the fact that wagers are often placed on games of chunkey and that people may not just lose their earrings and bracelets, but even their shirts and shoes if they are not that good at sliding their chunkey pole next to the stone.

“Hah,” I say as we grasp each other’s wrists in a friendly handshake. “Maybe you are the one who will return home naked today.”

Of course that will not happen to either of us. For winnings in our friendly chunkey games we just use small painted sticks, each of us with a dozen or so to bet on the outcome of our contests.

“Who will play first?” Yugi asks.

Equgugu steps forward. “I challenge Ugama,” he says. “Unless he is tired of always losing to me?”

“Hah,” Ugama says. “It is the other way around. It is always your turn to lose to me!”

Yugi chuckles. “It is decided, then. Ugama and Equgugu.”

The two friends face each other, each with his right hand behind his back.

“Odds or evens?” Yugi asks Ugama.

“Odds,” Ugama says.

Yugi begins to count out loud. “Sa, ta . . .”

At the count of four, the two will hold out their right hands. If the total of fingers shown is an odd number then Ugama will be the one to roll the stone.

“. . . tso, nu!”

The two thrust their hands forward.

Ugama has chosen to hold out three fingers and Equgugu one. A total of four.

“You see,” Equgugu says, “my luck is still better than yours.”

“Hah,” Ugama replies. “This just means I will begin winning your sticks that much faster.”

Equgugu, who is the strongest of us all, hefts the heavy chunkey stone and then rolls it as easily as if it were a white man’s coin. It travels a long way down the middle of the playing ground, almost to the very end of the field before it falls over.

“Uu! Ahhey!” Yugi shouts. I agree.