The Bird of the River by Kage Baker Page B

and his mother dragged him below the moment his toes touched the deck.

    "SO SOME OF THE KIDS here are calling you a greenie?" Eliss shook out her blanket. Alder, shaking out his own blanket, shrugged.
    "Sometimes."
    "Do you want me to talk to their mothers about it?"
    "No!"
    "But they shouldn't be calling you names like that."
    "But they do. There's always going to be somebody calling me names, wherever I go. Haven't you figured that out by now?" Alder crawled inside the tent and wrapped himself up in the blanket. He punched irritably at Krelan's bag. "Hasn't your boyfriend got a place to put this yet? It takes up too much room!"
    "He's not my boyfriend!" Eliss crawled in after him and smacked his arm. "Moron! People from great houses don't marry beggars like us!"
    "Boyfriends don't always marry girls," said Alder, as though she were a half-wit to whom he was explaining something very basic. "Remember all the uncles? And anyway, we're not beggars! Mama was a diver!"
    "We might as well have been, at the end," said Eliss. "And you might as well be a beggar now. I'm working to earn our place here and you just sit and look grumpy all day."
    Alder's face crumpled up as though he was going to cry, but he kicked her instead. She kicked him back. They flailed at each other briefly.
    "What's that?" Mr. Turnbolt, the night watchman, had just come on deck. Eliss and Alder froze, thinking he had heard their fight.
    "That's the last of the sunset," said one of the musicians.
    "Sunset? How much pinkweed have you been smoking? That's in the wrong place for sunset!"
    "I don't know, then, maybe it's sunrise come early."
    "Is something on fire?"
    "The forest's on fire!"
    "Get someone up the mast!"
    Eliss scrambled out of the tent and ran for the rigging, as Mr. Riveter ran up the companionway.
    "What's going on?"
    "I'm finding out!" Eliss cried, conscious of a feeling of self-importance. Her hands and feet easily found the shrouds in the dark, and a moment later she had pulled herself up on the platform and looked away to the east. She caught her breath. A great column of opaque blue smoke stood in the sky, towering, underlit red by flames that leaped up from the forest below. The rising moon lit the upper reaches of the smoke with gold.
    "It is a fire!"
    "How far off?" Mr. Riveter shouted up to her. Captain Glass had come up on deck and stood beside him.
    Eliss looked hard at the flames, trying to get an idea. "Three leagues," she answered. "It looks as though it comes right down to the riverbank!"
    Mr. Riveter looked at Captain Glass. "That must be at Synpelene."
    "Has to be."
    "Should we put out and moor in midstream?"
    Captain Glass shook his head. "Anybody comes downriver in the night, they'd be hard pressed not to hit us."
    Eliss, who had been climbing back down, found the deck with her toes. "Are we going to be all right?"
    "Of course we will," said Mr. Riveter. "Don't worry. We'll know in plenty of time if the fire comes this way."
    "Do you want me to stay up there and keep an eye out?"
    "No. That's what Turnbolt's for," said the captain. "You go on to bed."
    "Yes, sir."
    Eliss went back to the tent. Alder was sitting up inside, but as soon as he saw Eliss he lay back down and rolled up in his blanket. Eliss felt a pang of guilt, wondering if he'd been scared.
    "Mr. Riveter says everything's all right," she said, and she pulled up her own blanket. Alder didn't reply. "It isn't very close. And anyway, how could it burn us up? We're on the river."
    After a long silence from Alder, Eliss sighed and said: "We have a place to sleep."
    Another long silence, until at last: "We have a place to sleep and a warm blanket," recited Alder .
    "We have a place to sleep, and a warm blanket each , and we had dinner tonight ."
    "We have a place to sleep, and a warm blanket each, and we had dinner tonight, and we'll have breakfast tomorrow ."
    "And who knows what, when summer comes?"
    "And who knows what, when summer comes? And summer is coming soon