At first the boy was distracted, and did poorly. Sister Carlotta could not understand how he could fail even the elementary parts of the test, when he was so bright he had taught himself to read on the street. It had to be the death of Poke. So she interrupted the test and talked to him about death, about how Poke was caught up in spirit into the presence of God and the saints, who would care for her and make her happier than she had ever been in life. He did not seem interested. If anything, he did worse as they began the next phase of the test.

  Well, if compassion didn’t work, sternness might.

  “Don’t you understand what this test is for, Bean?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. The tone of his voice added the unmistakable idea “and I don’t care.”

  “All you know about is the life of the street. But the streets of Rotterdam are only a part of a great city, and Rotterdam is only one city in a world of thousands of such cities. The whole human race, Bean, that’s what this test is about. Because the Formics—”

  “The Buggers,” said Bean. Like most street urchins, he sneered at euphemism.

  “They will be back, scouring the Earth, killing every living soul. This test is to see if you are one of the children who will be taken to Battle School and trained to be a commander of the forces that will try to stop them. This test is about saving the world, Bean.”

  For the first time since the test began, Bean turned his full attention to her. “Where is Battle School?”

  “In an orbiting platform in space,” she said. “If you do well enough on this test, you get to be a spaceman!”

  There was no childlike eagerness in his face. Only hard calculation.

  “I’ve been doing real bad so far, haven’t I,” he said.

  “The test results so far show that you’re too stupid to walk and breathe at the same time.”

  “Can I start over?”

  “I have another version of the tests, yes,” said Sister Carlotta.

  “Do it.”

  As she brought out the alternate set, she smiled at him, tried to relax him again. “So you want to be a spaceman, is that it? Or is it the idea of being part of the International Fleet?”

  He ignored her.

  This time through the test, he finished everything, even though the tests were designed not to be finished in the allotted time. His scores were not perfect, but they were close. So close that nobody would believe the results.

  So she gave him yet another battery of tests, this one designed for older children—the standard tests, in fact, that six-year-olds took when being considered for Battle School at the normal age. He did not do as well on these; there were too many experiences he had not had yet, to be able to understand the content of some of the questions. But he still did remarkably well. Better than any student she had ever tested.

  And to think she had thought it was Achilles who had the real potential. This little one, this infant, really—he was astonishing. No one would believe she had found him on the streets, living at the starvation level.

  A suspicion crept into her mind, and when the second test ended and she recorded the scores and set them aside, she leaned back in her chair and smiled at bleary-eyed little Bean and asked him, “Whose idea was it, this family thing that the street children have come up with?”

  “Achilles’ idea,” said Bean.

  Sister Carlotta waited.

  “His idea to call it a family, anyway,” said Bean.

  She still waited. Pride would bring more to the surface, if she gave him time.

  “But having a bully protect the little ones, that was my plan,” said Bean. “I told it to Poke and she thought about it and decided to try it and she only made one mistake.”

  “What mistake was that?”

  “She chose the wrong bully to protect us.”

  “You mean because he couldn’t protect her from Ulysses?”

  Bean laughed bitterly as tears slid down his cheeks.

  “Ulysses is off somewhere bragging about what he’s going to do.”

  Sister Carlotta knew but did not want to know. “Do you know who killed her, then?”

  “I told her to kill him. I told her he was the wrong one. I saw it in his face, lying there on the ground, that he would never forgive her. But he’s cold. He waited so long. But he never took bread from her. That should have told her. She shouldn’t have gone off alone with him.” He began crying in earnest now. “I think she was protecting me. Because I told her to kill him that first day. I think she was trying to get him not to kill me.”

  Sister Carlotta tried to keep emotion out of her voice. “Do you believe you might be in danger from Achilles?”

  “I am now that I told you,” he said. And then, after a moment’s thought. “I was already. He doesn’t forgive. He pays back, always.”

  “You realize that this isn’t the way Achilles seems to me, or to Hazie. Helga, that is. To us, he seems—civilized.”

  Bean looked at her like she was crazy. “Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?”

  “You want to get out of Rotterdam and go to Battle School so you can get away from Achilles.”

  Bean nodded.

  “What about the other children. Do you think they’re in danger from him?”

  “No,” said Bean. “He’s their papa.”

  “But not yours. Even though he took bread from you.”

  “He hugged her and kissed her,” said Bean. “I saw them on the dock, and she let him kiss her and then she said something about how he promised, and so I left, but then I realized and I ran back and it couldn’t have been long, just running for maybe six blocks, and she was dead with her eye stabbed out, floating in the water, bumping up against the dock. He can kiss you and kill you, if he hates you enough.”

  Sister Carlotta drummed her fingers on the desk. “What a quandary.”

  “What’s a quandary?”

  “I was going to test Achilles, too. I think he could get into Battle School.”

  Bean’s whole body tightened. “Then don’t send me. Him or me.”

  “Do you really think . . .” Her voice trailed off. “You think he’d try to kill you there?”

  “Try?” His voice was scornful. “Achilles doesn’t just try.”

  Sister Carlotta knew that the trait Bean was speaking of, that ruthless determination, was one of the things that they looked for in Battle School. It might make Achilles more attractive to them than Bean. And they could channel such murderous violence up there. Put it to good use.

  But civilizing the bullies of the street had not been Achilles’ idea. It had been Bean who thought of it. Incredible, for a child so young to conceive of it and bring it about. This child was the prize, not the one who lived for cold vengeance. But one thing was certain. It would be wrong of her to take them both. Though she could certainly take the other one and get him into a school here on Earth, get him off the street. Surely Achilles would become truly civilized then, where the desperation of the street no longer drove children to do such hideous things to each other.

  Then she realized what nonsense she had been thinking. It wasn’t the desperation of the street that drove Achilles to murder Poke. It was pride. It was Cain, who thought that being shamed was reason enough to take his brother’s life. It was Judas, who did not shrink to kiss before killing. What was she thinking, to treat evil as if it were a mere mechanical product of deprivation? All the children of the street suffered fear and hunger, helplessness and desperation. But they didn’t all become cold-blooded, calculating murderers.

  If, that is, Bean was right.

  But she had no doubt that Bean was telling her the truth. If Bean was lying, she would give up on herself as a judge of children’s character. Now that she thought about it, Achilles was slick. A flatterer. Everything he said was calculated to impress. But Bean said little, and spoke plainly when he did speak. And he was young, and his fear and grief here in this room were real.

  Of course, he also had urged that a child be killed.

  But only because he posed a danger to others. It wasn’t pride.

  How can I judge? Isn’t Christ supposed to be the judge of quick and dead? Why is this in my hands, when I am not fit to do it?

  “Would you like to stay here, Bean, while I transmit your test results to the people who make the decisions about Battle School? You’ll be safe here.”

  He looked down at his hands, nodded, then laid his head on his arms and sobbed.

  Achilles came back to the nest that morning. “I couldn’t stay away,” he said. “Too much could go wrong.” He took them to breakfast, just like always. But Poke and Bean weren’t there.

  Then Sergeant did his rounds, listening here and there, talking to other kids, talking to an adult here and there, finding out what was happening, anything that might be useful. It was along the Wijnhaven dock that he heard some of the longshoremen talking about the body found in the river that morning. A little girl. Sergeant found out where her body was being held till the authorities arrived. He didn’t shy away, he walked right up to the body under a tarpaulin, and without asking permission from any of the others standing there, he pulled it back and looked at her.

  “What are you doing, boy!”

  “Her name is Poke,” he said.

  “You know her? Do you know who might have killed her?”

  “A boy named Ulysses, that’s who killed her,” said Sergeant. Then he dropped the tarp and his rounds were over. Achilles had to know that his fears had been justified, that Ulysses was taking out anybody he could from the family.

  “We’ve got no choice but to kill him,” said Sergeant.

  “There’s been enough bloodshed,” said Achilles. “But I’m afraid you’re right.”

  Some of the younger children were crying. One of them explained, “Poke fed me when I was going to die.”

  “Shut up,” said Sergeant. “We’re eating better now than we ever did when Poke was boss.”

  Achilles put a hand on Sergeant’s arm, to still him. “Poke did the best a crew boss could do. And she’s the one who got me into the family. So in a way, anything I get for you, she got for you.”

  Everyone nodded solemnly at that.

  A kid asked, “You think Ulysses got Bean, too?”

  “Big loss if he did,” said Sergeant.

  “Any loss to my family is a big loss,” said Achilles. “But there’ll be no more. Ulysses will either leave the city, now, or he’s dead. Put the word out, Sergeant. Let it be known on the street that the challenge stands. Ulysses doesn’t eat in any kitchen in town, until he faces me. That’s what he decided for himself, when he chose to put a knife in Poke’s eye.”

  Sergeant saluted him and took off at a run. The picture of businesslike obedience.

  Except that as he ran, he, too, was crying. For he had not told anyone how Poke died, how her eye was a bloody wound. Maybe Achilles knew some other way, maybe he had already heard but didn’t mention it till Sergeant came back with the news. Maybe maybe. Sergeant knew the truth. Ulysses didn’t raise his hand against anybody. Achilles did it. Just as Bean warned in the beginning. Achilles would never forgive Poke for beating him. He killed her now because Ulysses would get blamed for it. And then sat there talking about how good she was and how they should all be grateful to her and everything Achilles got for them, it was really Poke who got it.

  So Bean was right all along. About everything. Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives.

  Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. Chose him and then died for it. She was like Jesus that Helga preached about in her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did.

  The important thing is, stay on the good side of God. That’s what Helga teaches, isn’t it? Stay right with God.

  I’ll stay right with Achilles. I’ll honor my papa, that’s for sure, so I can stay alive until I’m old enough to go out on my own.

  As for Bean, well, he was smart, but not smart enough to stay alive, and if you’re not smart enough to stay alive, then you’re better off dead.

  By the time Sergeant got to his first corner to spread the word about Achilles’ ban on Ulysses from any kitchen in town, he was through crying. Grief was done. This was about survival now. Even though Sergeant knew Ulysses hadn’t killed anybody, he meant to, and it was still important for the family’s safety that he die. Poke’s death provided a good excuse to demand that the rest of the papas stand back and let Achilles deal with him. When it was all over, Achilles would be the leader among all the papas of Rotterdam. And Sergeant would stand beside him, knowing the secret of his vengeance and telling no one, because that’s how Sergeant, that’s how the family, that’s how all the urchins of Rotterdam would survive.

  4

  MEMORIES

  “I was mistaken about the first one. He tests well, but his character is not well suited to Battle School.”

  “I don’t see that on the tests you’ve shown me.”

  “He’s very sharp. He gives the right answers, but they aren’t true.”

  “And what test did you use to determine this?”

  “He committed murder.”

  “Well, that is a drawback. And the other one? What am I supposed to do with so young a child? A fish this small I would generally throw back into the stream.”

  “Teach him. Feed him. He’ll grow.”

  “He doesn’t even have a name.”

  “Yes he does.”

  “Bean? That isn’t a name, it’s a joke.”

  “It won’t be when he’s done with it.”

  “Keep him until he’s five. Make of him what you can and show me your results then.”

  “I have other children to find.”

  “No, Sister Carlotta, you don’t. In all your years of searching, this one is the best you’ve found. And there isn’t time to find another. Bring this one up to snuff, and all your work will be worth it, as far as the I.F. is concerned.”

  “You frighten me, when you say there isn’t time.”

  “I don’t see why. Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia.”

  “But it keeps not ending.”

  “So far, so good.”

  At first all Bean cared about was the food. There was enough of it. He ate everything they put before him. He ate until he was full—that most miraculous of words, which till now had had no meaning for him. He ate until he was stuffed. He ate until he was sick. He ate so often that he had bowel movements every day, sometimes twice a day. He laughed about it to Sister Carlotta. “All I do is eat and poop!” he said.

  “Like any beast of the forest,” said the nun. “It’s time for you to begin to earn that food.”

  She was already teaching him, of course, daily lessons in reading and arithmetic, bringing him “up to level,” though what level she had in mind, she never specified. She also gave him time to draw, and there were sessions where she had him sit there and try to remember every detail about his earliest memories. The clean place in particular fascinated her. But there were limits to memory. He was very small then, and had very little language. Everything was a mystery. He did remember climbing over the railing around his bed and falling to the floor. He didn’t walk well at the time. Crawling was easier, but he liked walking because that’s what the big people did. He clung to objects and leaned on walls and made good progress on two feet, only crawling when he had to cross an open space.

  “You must have been eight or nine months old,” Sister Carlotta said. “Most people don’t remember that far back.”

  “I remember that everybody was upset. That’s why I climbed out of bed. All the children were in trouble.”

  “All the children?”

  “The little ones like me. And the bigger ones. Some of the grownups came in and looked at us and cried.”

  “Why?”

  “Bad things, that’s all. I knew it was a bad thing coming and I knew it would happen to all of us who were in the beds. So I climbed out. I wasn’t the first. I don’t know what happened to the others. I heard the grownups yelling and getting all upset when they found the empty beds. I hid from them. They didn’t find me. Maybe they found the others, maybe they didn’t. All I know is when I came out all the beds were empty and the room was very dark except a lighted sign that said exit.”

  “You could read then?” She sounded skeptical.

  “When I could read, I remembered that those were the letters on the sign,” said Bean. “They were the only letters I saw back then. Of course I remembered them.”

  “So you were alone and the beds were empty and the room was dark.”

  “They came back. I heard them talking. I didn’t understand most of the words. I hid again. And this time when I came out, even the beds were gone. Instead, there were desks and cabinets. An office. And no, I didn’t know what an office was then, either, but now I do know what an office is and I remember that’s what the rooms had all become. Offices. People came in during the day and worked there, only a few at first but my hiding place turned out not to be so good, when people were working there. And I was hungry.”

  “Where did you hide?”

  “Come on, you know. Don’t you?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”

  “You saw the way I acted when you showed me the toilet.”

  “You hid inside the toilet?”

  “The tank on the back. It was hard to get the lid up. And it wasn’t comfortable in there. I didn’t know what it was for. But people started using it and the water rose and fell and the pieces moved and it scared me. And like I said, I was hungry. Plenty to drink, except that I peed in it myself. My diaper was so waterlogged it fell off my butt. I was naked.”