The boys stood panting, leaning on the wheelbarrow. Their hands were black, and sweat dripped muddy trails through the coal on their faces.
“Well,” Jonathan said, pulling at his shirt where it stuck to the sweat on his body. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Yeah,” Colin responded between coughs. “That wath one. It taketh five to fill it.”
Walter and Colin and Jonathan pulled their mattresses into a corner of the dining room by the kitchen, away from the windows to the courtyard, which let in moonlight and cold drafts and memories of lightning.
Other groups of boys had their mattresses together in clumps, too, here and there around the room. No one wanted to sleep alone.
They laid their mattresses like spokes on a wheel so their heads could be together. They’d each carried a candle when they’d gone together to the old sleeping quarters to claim their beds, and when they lay down, they put the three candles together on the floor in the space between them. Their faces were smooth in the candlelight, their hair dark, with cold blackness all around.
Walter lay on his stomach, watching the candle flames. Colin was on his elbows, quietly folding more paper animals. Jonathan opened the book the librarian had given him. The pages were yellow and fragile and they whispered in the quiet of the room when he turned them.
“What book is that?” Walter asked. Jonathan turned back to the cover.
“Robinson Crusoe,” Jonathan read. “By Daniel Defoe.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Colin said.
“Is it any good?” Walter asked.
Jonathan shrugged.
“I haven’t started it yet.”
“Could you?”
“I was going to.”
“No, man. I mean, like, out loud?”
“Oh. Um, yeah, I guess. If you want.” He licked his lips and cleared his throat and paged back to the first line. “I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho’ not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull,” Jonathan began. Reading was hard in the dim, flickering light; he followed the words he read with a fingertip.
“York? Like New York?” Walter asked.
“No. I think it meanth York in England,” Colin explained.
“Oh.”
Jonathan continued. “He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer.”
“I don’t get it,” Walter complained.
“It’s an old book,” Jonathan said. “It’s written all kind of old-fashioned. Nothing important has happened yet, though, I don’t think.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“And stop interrupting.”
“Okay.”
“But by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name, Crusoe, and so my Companions always call’d me.”
“What is that?” a voice asked over Jonathan’s shoulder. He craned his neck to see Miguel standing in the shadows, the candlelight playing on his curious face.
“Just a book. Robinson Crusoe.”
“You gonna read that whole thing?”
“I don’t know. I’m gonna start, at least.”
“Huh.” Miguel stood in the darkness and hugged his shivering body.
“Do you—uh—wanna listen?” Jonathan asked.
“No,” Miguel answered quickly. “But, whatever. I’ll go grab my mattress.”
A moment later, Miguel reappeared with another boy, both dragging their mattresses behind them. Walter and Jonathan and Colin spread theirs apart to make room.
“I’ll start over,” Jonathan said when everyone was settled in. “He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother—”
“Can I listen, too?” Tony stood just outside the circle of light, a pillow under his arm.
“And me?” another voice asked. Jonathan looked up and saw David standing there.
“Sure.”
The boys already there made room in the circle for two more. Soon, there were seven heads facing one another through the flames.
“I’ll start over,” Jonathan said again with a sigh.
And he did, with six pairs of ears listening to his whispered words. They all listened together to the story of a man trapped on an island, far from his family. The story held them together like the light from their candles, warm and close against the dark stone and shadows.
But out in the darkness that surrounded them, there was the scurrying of rats. And above them, he knew, Sebastian slept with a sharp sword in the Admiral’s bed. And below them, a hungry menace knocked at an ancient door. And even then, surrounded by friendly faces, his dark fears whispered at him, and the flickering warmth of their candles’ light seemed terribly small and fragile.