We Leave Together, стр. 19

Calipari laughed. “How else?” he said.

The boy with the rat looked over at Dog. “He makes ’em if you bring him something.”

“What?”

“He won’t make anything unless you give him something. You rolling him for it?”

“No,” said Nicola.

The boy pulled his dead rat off the fire with two scraps of wood. He picked at it with his bare hands like a hairy chicken wing.

“Where you from, mudskipper?” said Nicola, to the boy.

He shrugged. “Ma said we were from a farm, once.”

“Where’s your ma?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Just you, then?”

“I got two brothers. I don’t know where they are, but they’re around.”

“You know a fellow name of Turco?”

The boy smiled. “I knew the fellow. He’s been gone a while.”

“We know,” said Nicola. “We were looking for him.”

The boy snorted. “You check the water, king’s man? You check the bay?”

Jona nodded at Calipari. Calipari got thoughtful. He looked at the sleeping heap of a man on the floor.

Nicola, deep in thought, snapped his hand at the soldier in the Pens.

“Sir?”

“Go get me some demon weed, soldier.”

“Sir?”

Jona rolled his eyes. “You heard the sergeant. You need me to come along and hold your little hand? If we’re going to be waking this Dog, we’re going to need to feed his appetites or we’re in for a tustle, and you ain’t ready for a tustle in this pit. You don’t even know what else is hiding around here in the dark, and neither do I, and I don’t want to find out.”

The new kid looked away from Jona with no hate in his eyes. “Why?” he said.

Nicola took a deep breath and spoke slowly, calmly. “We’re going to need him to make as many crowns as he can,” said Calipari, “This kid’s eating rats and talking about his missing ma, and if we don’t do something, kids like this roll into the river. So we need more crowns. As many as we can get.”

The kid swallowed a chunk of his rat. “What’re you talking about, king’s man? I don’t need a thing from a thing, and I don’t need a thing from you.”

“Never you mind, mudskipper,” said Calipari, “How’s that rat?”

“Good,” said the boy, “You bring me one I’ll cook it for you. Don’t charge for it, either, on account of us being friends.” He spit out a bone in the general direction of Calipari.

Nicola smiled at the kid. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

***

When Dog rolled awake and peeled the clumps of mud off his skin and gummed his pipe like it was full and lit, Sergeant Nicola Calipari was there, with the weed. Calipari said, “Just because you can’t speak, don’t mean you’re dumb. We got this problem, and we need to talk about it. You understand?”

Dog nodded.

Calipari told Dog that the smugglers were going to come down on the boys with crowns if the boys didn’t stop wearing them, or otherwise if the smugglers figured the boys weren’t really a gang at all and the crowns were just a thing everybody’s wearing these days.

Dog shrugged.

Calipari asked Dog if he could stop the boys from wearing crowns.

Dog shrugged, again.

Calipari asked Dog if he could make lots of crowns.

Dog held up his pipe.

“You’ll get paid for your time,” said Calipari, “But we need you clear enough in the head to make lots of crowns. Lots of them. I want you to show my boy here,” Calipari pointed up at the new private, “how you make them, so he can make them, too, when your head is all demon weed cheese.”

Dog shoved his pipe between his gums. He didn’t have any matches. He didn’t seem to notice that he didn’t have matches for his pipe. He grabbed a burnt-out husk of a splinter and flicked it like it was a new match. He held it up to the edge of his pipe. He breathed in like he was going to smoke weed that wasn’t burning, because it wasn’t a match, and he didn’t seem to notice or be in a pantomime. He really didn’t realize what he was doing. He looked at Calipari—straight at Calipari—like Dog was looking beyond Calipari, and beyond the old brewery and beyond the mess of buildings and ships. Dog was staring off into the sunset of his life in a windowless room.

Calipari held a new match out for Dog. Dog didn’t notice it.

The boy that had cooked the rat jumped up to snatch the match from the air. The boy pocketed it like a coin. Calipari tossed the boy a box of matches. Calipari snapped his fingers at Jona. Jona produced a fresh match for the blacksmith’s pipe.

***

Crowns rolled out into the Pens from the scrap forge. Jona peeled off his uniform and scrambled with the mudskippers for scrap metal in just his white undershirt. They brought it back to Dog and the new private at the forge. The new private had stripped to the waist. Dog started crowns, but he couldn’t finish them. He took a few whacks, then he took a few puffs of his pipe, and then he forgot why he was holding the hammer and the tongs.

Then, Dog sat with his feet in the river. He smoked until he ran out of weed in his pipe. He stood up long enough to start a new crown that he couldn’t finish, because new demon weed found its way into his pipe.

Calipari distributed crowns to mudskippers. He told them to get everyone they knew, and anyone they didn’t know to wear a crown all over the Pens. He gave them notes, too. He had carried quills and ink in his pockets in cases, and he had a metal cases full of paper and writing salts. He wrote out all his favors in ink on the scrap paper. He told the kids where to go with the paper, and who to give it to, with crowns for everyone.

Calipari paid the kids