“Okay, everyone grab something,” Sebastian ordered. He picked up the sword where he’d left it leaning against the wall. “We’ll move everything into—”
“Sebastian! Sebastian!” It was Benny’s frantic voice, screaming from across the courtyard. He was ramming the door to the dining room with one shoulder and calling back over the other. Sebastian sprinted across the courtyard with Jonathan, the rest of the boys following close behind.
“It’s Colin!” Benny shouted as they ran up. “He’s going nuts!”
They all crowded around the big windows that looked into the dining room.
Colin stood panting in the middle of the room, by the Sinner’s Sorrow. In his hands he was holding the ax they used to chop the wood for the kitchen stove. Jonathan wasn’t sure what he was doing until another boy gasped, “Look at the Sinner’s Sorrow!”
The wooden monster was nearly in ruin. Its top rail was completely gone, smashed and shredded. The dreaded kneeling rail was almost as bad, torn up and splintered by the sharp blade of the ax. Jason stood in the distant doorway to the kitchen, peeking timidly out.
“Stop!” Sebastian shouted, his voice choked with fury.
Colin’s sneaky smile came and went, and he raised the ax high above his head.
“Don’t!” Sebastian roared, but the ax came rushing down and bit again into the Sorrow’s bottom rail. Through the window they heard the heavy thwock as it hit home, taking another bite out of the dark wood.
Sebastian dug through his pockets and pulled out the ring of keys and fumbled with them, stepping to the door. Colin raised the ax and again brought it down.
“You’re dead, Colin!” Sebastian screamed, jingling the keys and trying to find the right one. “Dead!”
The ax flashed again and with a final crack the kneeling rail split and broke in half. Colin dropped the ax and looked toward the window where they all stood watching. His smile flitted to and from his face, shadowy and sad.
Then Colin walked quickly over to the doorway that led into the depths of Slabhenge’s dark labyrinth. By the doorway sat an unlit lantern and a lumpy sack and the Admiral’s fancy hat. He picked up the lantern and the sack, then pulled the hat onto his head and looked back over his shoulder.
“Stop!” Sebastian shouted, finally jamming the right key in the door and swinging it furiously open. But Colin just threw the sack over his shoulder, tossed a two-fingered salute at the crowd from the brim of the Admiral’s hat, and disappeared through the doorway.
All the others came rushing in. Sebastian sprinted to the doorway but stopped at the edge of the windowless darkness.
“Come back, you little jerk!” he hollered into the hallway, but the only answer was his own hollowly echoing voice. His lungs were heaving. He wiped at the corners of his mouth with his arm. “Bring me a lantern,” he barked over his shoulder.
“No,” Jonathan said. “Let him go.”
Sebastian spun around.
“Let him go?! Why?”
Jonathan shrugged, thinking fast.
“What’s the point? Where’s he gonna go? We’re in a prison on an island.”
Sebastian’s top lip snarled like a lion about to roar. He shook his head again, furious breaths hissing through his nose. The Scars all waited in silence.
“Should I get a lantern?” Benny whined.
Sebastian’s jaw clenched. He shook his head and spit angrily onto the floor. “Don’t bother,” he finally seethed. “There’s nowhere for him to run. He’s dead.” He turned his face back to the doorway and shouted at the top of his lungs. “You hear that, Colin? You’re dead! Have fun living with the rats!”
He turned back to the staring crowd. He raised the sword and pointed it at them all.
“No one helps him. No one feeds him. You do, you’re out, too. He’s dead to us. Got it?”
His angry glare scoured the group. No one said a word. His eyes stopped at Jonathan, a scary kind of mad shining in them. Jonathan didn’t lower his gaze, but he didn’t raise his voice, either.
“All right,” Sebastian yelled. “Get to work. Bring all that stuff in here.”
Without a word, they turned and walked outside to bring in the supplies.
They walked past the ruined Sinner’s Sorrow on their way to the door. Every pair of eyes secretly raced over the wrecked and ravaged torture device.
“Way to go, Colin,” Jonathan whispered under his breath.
Jonathan didn’t dare go back to visit the library that day. If he was seen ducking off into the passageways, Sebastian would be sure to think that he was helping Colin.
Sebastian spent the rest of the morning sulking in his room or storming around the kitchen, chewing and slamming cupboard doors. With their leader so ill-tempered, all the boys laid low. Some played cards or hung out on the stairs watching the water, but the Robinson Crusoe group lay on their mattresses and listened to Jonathan read more of the story. By lunchtime, there was only a thin pinch of pages left of the book.
Jonathan was halfway through his peanut butter sandwich when a shadow fell across the table. He looked up to see Benny’s sour face glowering at him.
“Sebastian wants to see you in his room,” he said.