“’Tis mine!” cried a chubby Indian boy, a red tunic his only clothes, as he yanked the bottle away from a smaller boy, whose dark chocolate skin and deep-set iris eyes were almost blindingly beautiful.
“No, it’s mine, Eence! Don’t touch it again, or I’ll slit your throat!” Wendy flinched at their harsh words. Punches were thrown as the argument took a serious turn, and soon the two were wrestling on the ground, biting and hitting, throwing dirt in each other’s faces and mouths. The bottle was forgotten as their fight escalated, one boy pushing another into the side of the table, which shuddered and spun with the impact. Hunks of meat and piles of fruits went flying to the filthy ground. Eence was on top of the smaller boy now, his hands covering the boy’s face, pushing him down into the dirt.
“You want it? Well, you can’t have it! Peter said I could have it! He said!”
“No, he didn’t! It’s mine because I touched it first.” Blood was flowing from both their noses, dripping onto the dusty ground, mingling with spilled liquor and bits of food. Wendy looked up toward the alcove, but Peter wasn’t even watching the fight. He and the other Generals were laughing and toasting, Abbott’s arm casually around Peter’s shoulder. John stood awkwardly beside them, swirling a glass of wine in one hand and trying to look as though he fit in perfectly and that drinking wine was something he did nightly. Wendy turned back to the fight and the large circle that had formed around them; Lost Boys were six deep, some sitting on the shoulders of others, one frantically pushing past the bigger boys to see.
“Eence is going to kill him, I think!”
Another boy shook his head. “My bet’s on Ahmeh.”
The boys started chanting, “Kill, kill, kill!” as the cloud of dirt around the boys settled into an uncomfortable stillness. With her heartbeats thundering in her head, Wendy pushed through the boys, who parted upon seeing who moved through them.
“Excuse me, boys, excuse me!” Exasperated, she finally snapped, “Out of my way, PLEASE!” Finally, she had made her way to the front, where the two boys were so covered in blood and dirt that they were now almost indiscernible from each other. The wine bottle they had so coveted had been smashed, its contents soaking into the ground, although one shoeless boy was scraping it into his mouth. Wendy stomped her foot.
“Stop it! I said, stop it!” The two boys kept wrestling, and Wendy finally grabbed the nearest one by the back of his neck, now using a maternal voice that she had heard someone use once upon a time, somewhere.
“I said, stop it! Right now, or you’ll both be sent to bed without your suppers! And I’ll make you say a hundred Hail Marys in front of me before I let you go to sleep!”
All eyes turned to her, and the two boys froze, their arms in choke holds around each other’s necks.
“What’s a Haley Marie?” Eence asked, before the other one punched him squarely in the mouth.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop acting like animals! Stand up!”
The two boys rose slowly to their feet. Wendy turned back to look at Peter, who was watching her with amusement, his glass held aloft like a king.
“It’s a Hail Mary, and I don’t think one hundred would even suffice for this lot.” She pointed to the bottle. “Who started this?”
“He did!” the boys answered in unison.
“Of course,” Wendy said. “Neither of you. Well, here is what you are going to do. You are going to pick up these broken pieces of glass and dispose of them. Then you are both going to your hammocks for the night and staying there while you think about what you’ve done. You’ve wasted an entire bottle of wine due to your . . .” her words were coming faster, “irresponsible behavior. Kitoko and Darby gave their lives so that you could have this!” She gestured to the table, now glittering with far fewer bottles than it had before. “And you have wasted it.”
She shook her head. “I’m ashamed of both of you.”
Both the boys stared up at her with wide eyes. She waited for the group to laugh or push her aside to continue with their bacchanalian feast, but they didn’t. Their lips quivered, and then they were wrapping themselves around her waist, their hot tears soaking her hips.
“We’re sorry, Wendy! We won’t do it again! Please don’t send us to our hammocks!”
Wendy felt a rush of affection for them both and laid her hands atop their heads, feeling their dirt-laden locks.
“Don’t do it again, boys. I don’t want to hear any more about your fighting. Eence, go get your Lost Brother a drink.”
Eence nodded and scampered off, pulling a green bottle off the table. “C’mon, Ahmeh.” With a grin, they patted each other roughly on the shoulder and slouched off to a dark corner to drink more wine than any boys their age should. The rest of the Lost Boys were swarming around Wendy now, reaching for her.
“Do it again! Tell me about the Mrs. Hale Marie! Will you yell at me? I’ll go to my hammock! Please, Miss Wendy!”