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Nation Today Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • The scene shifts to a modern-day, parallel-universe room with a seismograph in it. It appears that we've been listening, along with two children, to an old man tell the story we just read.
  • The kids can't believe the ship just sailed away with Daphne on it. No happy ending!? What is this, The Sopranos?
  • Well, there's more. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan, visited the island in the following years.
  • We're told that Daphne came back about a year later for a visit, but she didn't stay there. She went back to England to marry a European prince.
  • But there is kind of a happy ending: when she died, her coffin was sent back to the island to be buried at sea there, where Mau had been laid to rest just two months prior.
  • Hm, okay, not so happy.
  • The story over, the man shows the kids a telescope, and they view Jupiter even though it's broad daylight.
  • After the kids leave, the man steps outside to view the lagoon. He sees a dolphin leap into the air, and the man smiles.