“I don’t think that’th how he theeth it.” Behind them, through the door, Sebastian hollered for everyone to gather for the meeting. Colin pinched at his neck and started for the door with his pigeon-toed walk. “He’th only the king if we let him be. And you didn’t let him.”
Jonathan swallowed his apple and gave Walter a questioning look. Walter shrugged.
“The kid’s weird. But he’s smart, you know?”
“Yeah. I think he is.”
In the dining room, Sebastian was sitting on a table, the blade of the Admiral’s sword resting on his shoulder.
“All right, boys,” he said to the last few boys grabbing chairs or a spot on the floor. “Time to get some stuff squared away. Some of us are taking the rooms upstairs. The rest of you can sleep wherever you want. Whenever you want. There’s no all-dark tonight.” There was a low murmur of approval from the group.
“We’re gonna meet together every day,” Sebastian continued. “Like, every night and every morning. To make sure everything’s still fine. We’ll meet right here.”
“Every day? But … when are we going to inform the authorities?” Francis asked. “You said this was just for a couple of days, Sebastian.”
Sebastian tucked the chocolate-stained corners of his mouth down. “Yeah. Or whatever. We’ll see. There’s no rush.” Benny jumped up and hissed something in Sebastian’s ear.
“Oh,” he said. “This is important. Did anyone find a key lying around?”
No one answered. Jonathan’s mouth went dry and he fingered the Admiral’s key through his pocket.
“We can’t find the key to the Admiral’s office,” Sebastian went on. “Benny says the Admiral always carried it with him, but I—checked, and he doesn’t, uh, have it. And the door is too big to break down.” Jonathan thought of his one time in the Admiral’s dark office. He remembered the smell of alcohol and the papers and files that the Admiral had, the papers that held the secrets of the crimes the boys had committed to get sent to Slabhenge. His grip on the key tightened through the fabric.
“Why do you need to get in there?” Miguel asked.
Sebastian shrugged. “There’s paperwork and stuff that Benny wants. Plus, a bunch more of the Admiral’s chocolates. And”—Sebastian smiled and cocked his eyebrows—“the Admiral’s booze, of course. That could be fun.” Some of the boys giggled nervously. “Well, if you find an old key, hand it over. It’s around here somewhere. Whoever finds it gets a room upstairs and a handful of chocolates.”
Sebastian rose to his feet and pointed with the sword toward the kitchen. “Meeting’s over. You know where the food is. Dinnertime is whenever you’re hungry. Same with breakfast. Any questions?”
“What can we eat for dinner?” another kid asked.
“Whatever you want.”
“What are we doing tomorrow?”
Sebastian shook his head in exasperation.
“Whatever you want,” he repeated impatiently. “Look, no more questions. Do what you want. That’s the point. They’re not here anymore. We are. It’s us. Just us. The Scars.”
“We thould have thome ruleth.”
Sebastian clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.
“We don’t need any rules,” he seethed. “We don’t want any rules.” He held his hands out to the group. “Do we?”
There were some shaking heads, some grumbles of agreement, a few loud shouts of no!
“What about food?” Colin persisted.
“What about it?”
“If we all jutht eat whatever we want, we’ll run out. We need to plan it out.”
Sebastian smoldered like a dynamite wick. He opened his mouth to spit out an answer, but Jonathan beat him to it.
“He’s right, Sebastian. The Admiral probably didn’t order enough food for us all to eat like this. We’re gonna run out.”
Sebastian’s eyes clouded with doubt. His dynamite wick sputtered. He licked his lips.
“Well … fine, then. We should—be careful about eating too much, I guess. Don’t go crazy. Hell … go back to eating oatmeal if you want. But I’ve eaten enough oatmeal.” He popped another square of chocolate into his mouth and chewed it loudly to make his point. Benny murmured something to him and he grinned a sticky brown smile. “And the supply boat comes in two days. Then we’ll have plenty of food.”
A thought shot into Jonathan’s head.
“What about the mail boat?” he asked.
“The mail boat, Johnny, comes every day.”
“So it’ll come tomorrow?”
“Yeah. So?”
Jonathan looked around. He didn’t want to make Sebastian look bad in front of the group.
“Well … so … we’ll need something to give to it, right? Wouldn’t it be suspicious if we didn’t?”
Sebastian stopped chewing with his mouth stuck open.
“Oh,” he said after a moment. “Yeah. Right. I was gonna get to that.” He chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds before continuing. “We all still need to write letters every day, just like we were. No one eats dinner until we have your letter.” Benny jumped up again and whispered something to him. Sebastian nodded. “And I’m reading every one. No one says anything about the grown-ups or the lightning or anything. Everything’s just A-okay here at Slabhenge, right? Walter, go grab a bunch of paper and pens.”