Maybe that’s enough for him, thought Bean. Maybe that’s his whole vengeance.

  Bean happened to be curled up behind a newsstand when several bullies began a conversation near him. “He’s full of brag about how Achilles is going to pay for what he did.”

  “Oh, right, Ulysses is going to punish him, right.”

  “Well, maybe not directly.”

  “Achilles and his stupid family will just take him apart. And this time they won’t aim for his chest. He said so, didn’t he? Break open his head and put his brains on the street, that’s what Achilles’ll do.”

  “He’s still just a cripple.”

  “Achilles gets away with everything. Give it up.”

  “I’m hoping Ulysses does it. Kills him, flat out. And then none of us take in any of his bastards. You got that? Nobody takes them in. Let them all die. Put them all in the river.”

  The talk went on that way until the boys drifted away from the newsstand.

  Then Bean got up and went in search of Achilles.

  3

  PAYBACK

  “I think I have someone for you.”

  “You’ve thought that before.”

  “He’s a born leader. But he does not meet your physical specifications.”

  “Then you’ll pardon me if I don’t waste time on him.”

  “If he passes your exacting intellectual and personality requirements, it is quite possible that for a minuscule portion of the brass button or toilet paper budget of the I.F., his physical limitations might be repaired.”

  “I never knew nuns could be sarcastic.”

  “I can’t reach you with a ruler. Sarcasm is my last resort.”

  “Let me see the tests.”

  “I’ll let you see the boy. And while we’re at it, I’ll let you see another.”

  “Also physically limited?”

  “Small. Young. But so was the Wiggin boy, I hear. And this one—somehow on the streets he taught himself to read.”

  “Ah, Sister Carlotta, you help me fill the empty hours of my life.”

  “Keeping you out of mischief is how I serve God.”

  Bean went straight to Achilles with what he heard. It was too dangerous, to have Ulysses out of the hospital and word going around that he meant to get even for his humiliation.

  “I thought that was all behind us,” said Poke sadly. “The fighting I mean.”

  “Ulysses has been in bed for all this time,” said Achilles. “Even if he knows about the changes, he hasn’t had time to get how it works yet.”

  “So we stick together,” said Sergeant. “Keep you safe.”

  “It might be safer for all,” said Achilles, “if I disappear for a few days. To keep you safe.”

  “Then how will we get in to eat?” asked one of the younger ones. “They’ll never let us in without you.”

  “Follow Poke,” said Achilles. “Helga at the door will let you in just the same.”

  “What if Ulysses gets you?” asked one of the young ones. He rubbed the tears out of his eyes, lest he be shamed.

  “Then I’ll be dead,” said Achilles. “I don’t think he’ll be content to put me in the hospital.”

  The child broke down crying, which set another to wailing, and soon it was a choir of boo-hoos, with Achilles shaking his head and laughing. “I’m not going to die. You’ll be safe if I’m out of the way, and I’ll come back after Ulysses has time to cool down and get used to the system.”

  Bean watched and listened in silence. He didn’t think Achilles was handling it right, but he had given the warning and his responsibility was over. For Achilles to go into hiding was begging for trouble—it would be taken as a sign of weakness.

  Achilles slipped away that night to go somewhere that he couldn’t tell them so that nobody could accidentally let it slip. Bean toyed with the idea of following him to see what he really did, but realized he would be more useful with the main group. After all, Poke would be their leader now, and Poke was only an ordinary leader. In other words, stupid. She needed Bean, even if she didn’t know it.

  That night Bean tried to keep watch, for what he did not know. At last he did sleep, and dreamed of school, only it wasn’t the sidewalk or alley school with Sister Carlotta, it was a real school, with tables and chairs. But in the dream Bean couldn’t sit at a desk. Instead he hovered in the air over it, and when he wanted to he flew anywhere in the room. Up to the ceiling. Into a crevice in the wall, into a secret dark place, flying upward and upward as it got warmer and warmer and . . .

  He woke in darkness. A cold breeze stirred. He needed to pee. He also wanted to fly. Having the dream end almost made him cry out with the pain of it. He couldn’t remember ever dreaming of flying before. Why did he have to be little, with these stubby legs to carry him from place to place? When he was flying he could look down at everyone and see the tops of their silly heads. He could pee or poop on them like a bird. He wouldn’t have to be afraid of them because if they got mad he could fly away and they could never catch him.

  Of course, if I could fly, everyone else could fly too and I’d still be the smallest and slowest and they’d poop and pee on me anyway.

  There was no going back to sleep. Bean could feel that in himself. He was too frightened, and he didn’t know why. He got up and went into the alley to pee.

  Poke was already there. She looked up and saw him.

  “Leave me alone for a minute,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Don’t give me any crap, little boy,” she said.

  “I know you squat to pee,” he said, “and I’m not looking anyway.”

  Glaring, she waited until he turned his back to urinate against the wall. “I guess if you were going to tell about me you already would have,” she said.

  “They all know you’re a girl, Poke. When you’re not there, Papa Achilles talks about you as ‘she’ and ‘her.’ ”

  “He’s not my papa.”

  “So I figured,” said Bean. He waited, facing the wall.

  “You can turn around now.” She was up and fastening her pants again.

  “I’m scared of something, Poke,” said Bean.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what you’re scared of?

  “That’s why it’s so scary.”

  She gave a soft, sharp laugh. “Bean, all that means is that you’re four years old. Little kids see shapes in the night. Or they don’t see shapes. Either way they’re scared.”

  “Not me,” said Bean. “When I’m scared, it’s because something’s wrong.”

  “Ulysses is looking to hurt Achilles, that’s what.”

  “That wouldn’t make you sad, would it?”

  She glared at him. “We’re eating better than ever. Everybody’s happy. It was your plan. And I never cared about being the boss.”

  “But you hate him,” said Bean.

  She hesitated. “It feels like he’s always laughing at me.”

  “How do you know what little kids are scared of?”

  “Cause I used to be one,” said Poke. “And I remember.”

  “Ulysses isn’t going to hurt Achilles,” said Bean.

  “I know that,” said Poke.

  “Because you’re planning to find Achilles and protect him.”

  “I’m planning to stay right here and watch out for the children.”

  “Or else maybe you’re planning to find Ulysses first and kill him.”

  “How? He’s bigger than me. By a lot.”

  “You didn’t come out here to pee,” said Bean. “Or else your bladder’s the size of a gumball.”

  “You listened?”

  Bean shrugged. “You wouldn’t let me watch.”

  “You think too much, but you don’t know enough to make sense of what’s going on.”

  “I think Achilles was lying to us about what he’s going to do,” said Bean, “and I think you’re lying to me right now.”

  “Get used to it,” said Poke. “The world is full of liars.”

  “Ulysses doesn’t care who he kills,” said Bean. “He’d be just as happy to kill you as Achilles.”

  Poke shook her head impatiently. “Ulysses is nothing. He isn’t going to hurt anybody. He’s all brag.”

  “So why are you up?” asked Bean.

  Poke shrugged.

  “You’re going to try to kill Achilles, aren’t you,” said Bean. “And make it look like Ulysses did it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Did you drink a big glass of stupid juice tonight?”

  “I’m smart enough to know you’re lying!”

  “Go back to sleep,” she said. “Go back to the other children.”

  He regarded her for a while, and then obeyed.

  Or rather, seemed to obey. He went back into the crawl space where they slept these days, but immediately crept out the back way and clambered up crates, drums, low walls, high walls, and finally got up onto a low-hanging roof. He walked to the edge in time to see Poke slip out of the alley into the street. She was going somewhere. To meet someone.

  Bean slid down a pipe onto a rainbarrel, and scurried along Korte Hoog Straat after her. He tried to be quiet, but she wasn’t trying, and there were other noises of the city, so she never heard his footfalls. He clung to the shadows of walls, but didn’t dodge around too much. It was pretty straightforward, following her—she only turned twice. Headed for the river. Meeting someone.

  Bean had two guesses. It was either Ulysses or Achilles. Who else did she know, that wasn’t already asleep in the nest? But then, why meet either of them? To plead with Ulysses for Achilles’ life? To heroically offer herself in his place? Or to try to persuade Achilles to come back and face down Ulysses instead of hiding? No, these were all things that Bean might have thought of doing—but Poke didn’t think that far ahead.

  Poke stopped in the middle of an open space on the dock at Scheepmakershaven and looked around. Then she saw what she was looking for. Bean strained to see. Someone waiting in a deep shadow. Bean climbed up on a big packing crate, trying to get a better view. He heard the two voices—both children—but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Whoever it was, he was taller than Poke. But that could be either Achilles or Ulysses.

  The boy wrapped his arms around Poke and kissed her.

  This was really weird. Bean had seen grownups do that plenty of times, but what would kids do it for? Poke was nine years old. Of course there were whores that age, but everybody knew that the johns who bought them were perverts.

  Bean had to get closer, to hear what they were saying. He dropped down the back of the packing crate and slowly walked into the shadow of a kiosk. They, as if to oblige him, turned to face him; in the deep shadow he was invisible, at least if he kept still. He couldn’t see them any better than they could see him, but he could hear snatches of their conversation now.

  “You promised,” Poke was saying. The guy mumbled in return.

  A boat passing on the river scanned a spotlight across the riverside and showed the face of the boy Poke was with. It was Achilles.

  Bean didn’t want to see any more. To think he had once believed Achilles would someday kill Poke. This thing between girls and boys was something he just didn’t get. In the midst of hate, this happens. Just when Bean was beginning to make sense of the world.

  He slipped away and ran up Posthoornstraat.

  But he did not head back to their nest in the crawlspace, not yet. For even though he had all the answers, his heart was still jumping; something is wrong, it was saying to him, something is wrong.

  And then he remembered that Poke wasn’t the only one hiding something from him. Achilles had also been lying. Hiding something. Some plan. Was it just this meeting with Poke? Then why all this business about hiding from Ulysses? To take Poke as his girl, he didn’t have to hide to do that. He could do that right out in the open. Some bullies did that, the older ones. They usually didn’t take nine-year-olds, though. Was that what Achilles was hiding?

  “You promised,” Poke said to Achilles there on the dock.

  What did Achilles promise? That was why Poke came to him—to pay him for his promise. But what could Achilles be promising her that he wasn’t already giving her as part of his family? Achilles didn’t have anything.

  So he must have been promising not to do something. Not to kill her? Then that would be too stupid even for Poke, to go off alone with Achilles.

  Not to kill me, thought Bean. That’s the promise. Not to kill me.

  Only I’m not the one in danger, or not the most danger. I might have said to kill him, but Poke was the one who knocked him down, who stood over him. That picture must still be in Achilles’ mind, all the time he must remember it, must dream about it, him lying on the ground, a nine-year-old girl standing over him with a cinderblock, threatening to kill him. A cripple like him, somehow he had made it into the ranks of the bullies. So he was tough—but always mocked by the boys with two good legs, the lowest-status bully. And the lowest moment of his life had to be then, when a nine-year-old girl knocked him down and a bunch of little kids stood over him.

  Poke, he blames you most. You’re the one he has to smash in order to wipe out the agony of that memory.

  Now it was clear. Everything Achilles had said today was a lie. He wasn’t hiding from Ulysses. He would face Ulysses down—probably still would, tomorrow. But when he faced Ulysses, Achilles would have a much bigger grievance. You killed Poke! He would scream the accusation. Ulysses would look so stupid and weak, denying it after all the bragging he’d done about how he’d get even. He might even admit to killing her, just for the brag of it. And then Achilles would strike at Ulysses and nobody would blame him for killing the boy. It wouldn’t be mere self-defense, it would be defense of his family.

  Achilles was just too damn smart. And patient. Waiting to kill Poke until there was somebody else who could be blamed for it.

  Bean ran back to warn her. As fast as his little legs would move, the longest strides he could take. He ran forever.

  There was nobody there on the dock where Poke had met Achilles.

  Bean looked around helplessly. He thought of calling out, but that would be stupid. Just because it was Poke that Achilles hated most didn’t mean that he had forgiven Bean, even if he did let Bean give him bread.

  Or maybe I’ve gone crazy over nothing. He was hugging her, wasn’t he? She came willingly, didn’t she? There are things between boys and girls that I just don’t understand. Achilles is a provider, a protector, not a murderer. It’s my mind that works that way, my mind that thinks of killing someone who is helpless, just because he might pose a danger later. Achilles is the good one. I’m the bad one, the criminal.

  Achilles is the one who knows how to love. I’m the one who doesn’t.

  Bean walked to the edge of the dock and looked across the channel. The water was covered with a low-flowing mist. On the far bank, the lights of Boompjes Straat twinkled like Sinterklaas Day. The waves lapped like tiny kisses against the pilings.

  He looked down into the river at his feet. Something was bobbing in the water, bumped up against the wharf.

  Bean looked at it for a while, uncomprehending. But then he understood that he had known all along what it was, he just didn’t want to believe it. It was Poke. She was dead. It was just as Bean had feared. Everybody on the street would believe that Ulysses was guilty of the murder, even if nothing could be proved. Bean had been right about everything. Whatever it was that passed between boys and girls, it didn’t have the power to block hatred, vengeance for humiliation.

  And as Bean stood there, looking down into the water, he realized: I either have to tell what happened, right now, this minute, to everybody, or I have to decide never to tell anybody, because if Achilles gets any hint that I saw what I saw tonight, he’ll kill me and not give it a second thought. Achilles would simply say: Ulysses strikes again. Then he can pretend to be avenging two deaths, not one, when he kills Ulysses.

  No, all Bean could do was keep silence. Pretend that he hadn’t seen Poke’s body floating in the river, her upturned face clearly recognizable in the moonlight.

  She was stupid. Stupid not to see through Achilles’ plans, stupid to trust him in any way, stupid not to listen to me. As stupid as I was, to walk away instead of calling out a warning, maybe saving her life by giving her a witness that Achilles could not hope to catch and therefore could not silence.

  She was the reason Bean was alive. She was the one who gave him a name. She was the one who listened to his plan. And now she had died for it, and he could have saved her. Sure, he told her at the start to kill Achilles, but in the end she had been right to choose him—he was the only one of the bullies who could have figured it all out and brought it off with such style. But Bean had also been right. Achilles was a champion liar, and when he decided that Poke would die, he began building up the lies that would surround the murder—lies that would get Poke off by herself where he could kill her without witnesses; lies to alibi himself in the eyes of the younger kids.

  I trusted him, thought Bean. I knew what he was from the start, and yet I trusted him.

  Aw, Poke, you poor, stupid, kind, decent girl. You saved me and I let you down.

  It’s not just my fault. She’s the one who went off alone with him.

  Alone with him, trying to save my life? What a mistake, Poke, to think of anyone but yourself!

  Am I going to die from her mistakes, too?

  No. I’ll die from my own damn mistakes.

  Not tonight, though. Achilles had not set any plan in motion to get Bean off by himself. But from now on, when he lay awake at night, unable to drift off, he would think about how Achilles was just waiting. Biding his time. Till the day when Bean, too, would find himself in the river.

  Sister Carlotta tried to be sensitive to the pain these children were suffering, so soon after one of their own was strangled and thrown in the river. But Poke’s death was all the more reason to push forward on the testing. Achilles had not been found yet—with this Ulysses boy having already struck once, it was unlikely that Achilles would come out of hiding for some time. So Sister Carlotta had no choice but to proceed with Bean.