He smiled, showing teeth yellow from cigarette smoke. He looked at his desk diary, then at her papers again. "Mmm... a hundred pesos a month. Why, that's one thousand two hundred pesos a year. Surely, you can afford to buy me a forty-peso dinner!"

How can Marina say no? How can she refuse the Chief's next request? He is an evil man, but she needs her promotion...

Bookworms World Stories collect stories written in English from around the world. This volume has stories from Tonga, the Philippines, Papua new Guinea, and New Zealand, by writers Epeli Hau'ofa, Denise Whittaker, F. Sionil José, David A. Kulu, and Graeme Lay.

Word Count 12.589 (B1)