Fire Country Read Free Page B

victim. My s’posedly nonexistent muscles are all twisted up, as if a hand is inside my skin, grabbing and squeezing and pounding away. Each shovelful gets smaller and smaller, until there’s almost no point in scooping so I stop, try to jab the shovel in the blaze so it stands upright, but I don’t do it hard enough and it just falls over.
    Circ stops, too, and looks at me, a smile playing on his lips. “You look like blaze,” he says, full on laughing now. I feel like blaze, too, but I won’t say that.
    Instead, I get ready to tell him the same thing, but then I notice: although his legs are spattered and dotted with brown gunk, from the knees up he’s spotless; he’s dripping beads of sweat like the spring rains have come early, but he doesn’t look tired; his tanned arms and chest are machine-like in their perfection. He doesn’t look like blaze at all, so I can’t say it, not without lying, and I won’t lie to Circ.
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean—I was just joking around,” Circ says.
    My eyes flick to his. How does he know what I’m feeling? Does he know what I see as I look at him, that I see him as perfect? I realize I’m frowning.
    “No biggie,” I say, my lips fighting their way against gravity and exhaustion into a pathetic smile. “I was joking, too.”
    Circ studies my face for a moment, as if not convinced, but I look away, scan the pit, try to determine our progress. “Ain’t much in it,” I say.
    I feel Circ’s stare leave me, like it’s a physical thing touching my cheeks. “We did more than you think. Another thumb of sun movement and we should be nearly there,” Circ says.
    Another thumb of sun movement? Ugh. Maybe I’m a shanker—but that long might kill me. I think I make a face ’cause Circ says, “Don’t worry, we’ll do it together. Let’s rest for a while and then we’ll start again.”
    Rest: I like the sound of that. There’s nowhere to sit in the pit, unless you want to sit in a big ol’ pile of blaze, so we climb back out, slipping and sliding on the slope. Once I almost fall, but Circ grabs me by the arm and keeps me upright. My head’s down when we near the top and I hear a voice say, “Having fun yet, Scrawny?”
    I look up to see three Younglings staring down at me. Hawk’s in the middle.
    Stopping, I let Circ pull up alongside me. Caught by surprise, I’m tongue-tied, unable to find the right words to send these blaze-eaters packin’. Circ, on the other hand, always seems ready for anything. “Get the scorch out of here, Hawk. We’re working.”
    “Mmm, shovelin’ blaze. And from the looks of it doin’ a pretty grizz-poor job of it.” One of his mates, a guy they call Drag, coughs out a laugh.
    “Like you’d know anything about it,” Circ says, taking a step forward.
    “You’re right. I dunno a searin’ thing about blaze, other than it comes out from between my cheeks about a day after I eat a load of tug meat. And then you get to shovel it.” He laughs. “But the only thing I don’t understand, is why you’re here, Circ. Wasn’t the punishment for Scrawny?” There’s a gleam in Hawk’s eyes that makes me shiver, despite the oppressive midafternoon heat.
    “I don’t abandon my friends,” Circ says calmly, although I see his fingers curl into fist s. “And don’t call her that.” Another step forward, just one away from the lip. Hawk’s friends take a step back, but Hawk doesn’t move.
    “But that’s what she is, right? I mean, look at her. She’s skinny, not an ounce of muscle on her—”
    “Watch it.” Circ’s voice is a growl.
    “—she’ s got legs that are wobblier than a newborn tug’s—”
    “Shut it!”
    “—and her chest is flatter than the Cotee Plains.”
    Circ moves so fast I almost slip again just watching him. I don’t even see the step or two he takes before he’s on top of Hawk, pounding away with both fists. Hawk’s doing his best to block the blows, but he’s making a strange high-pitched noise