The Troop

They hiked in silence around the eastern hub of the island. The trail deteriorated until it was nothing but a strip of loose shale edged by chickweed and stinging thistles. It led around a rocky outcropping facing out over the gunmetal sea.

“This the way?” Newton asked.

“Where else?” Kent said challengingly. “Tim didn’t send us on a granny walk.”

They worked their way up. The shale sat upon a base of solid granite holding the same pink hue of the outcropping. Loose stones kept pebbling away under their boots. The path—which had seemed quite solid at the outset—soon became a series of treacherous collapsing footfalls.

And it then narrowed at the midpoint of their ascent. They could barely crowd both their feet together on it. Below them lay a steep slope carpeted with the same soft shale. It was not so sheer that they risked free falling, but steep enough that they would slide painfully down, boots pumping and hands clawing for purchase. If they couldn’t stop in time, they’d hit the cold, gray sea.

Ephraim said: “Whose smart idea was this again?” When nobody answered—they lacked the energy or inclination, focused entirely on their task, which had abruptly turned very grim—his gaze zeroed in on Kent, clumsily edging his bulk around the rock face.

You big dumbfuck, Ephraim thought. You stupid shit, you.

The boys turned their faces into the outcrop, edging along the rock face with hesitant stutter-steps. Newton cried out, his nose scraping on a pitted extrusion of granite, peeling off a layer of skin. Straggly weeds grew off the bare rock, the tips of their withered leaves frosted with sea salt. How could anything survive in such a place, tilted crazily over the water?

The boys’ fingertips hummed over the rock like bugs, searching desperately for handholds. “Grab here,” Ephraim told Shelley, pulling the boy’s hand to the right spot. “That seam there. Feel it? There.”

Next Ephraim pivoted his hips and kicked one leg out, making an X with his body: one hand gripping the rock while the other was outflung in space; one leg safely moored, the other kicked out over the waves crashing a hundred feet below.

“Top o’ the world, Ma!”

“Stop it!” Newton shrieked, sagging jelly-kneed against the rock face.

“Come on, Eef,” said Max, his fingers hooked like talons into the stone.

Ephraim’s eyes narrowed, a look indicative of future devilry, but he only swung himself back against the cliff. “Keep your skin on, Newt. Don’t give yourself a heart attack.”

Ephraim became aware of the sound of his breathing as it whistled madly against the stone. The waves crashed rhythmically into the cliffs below, the water sucking back out to sea with a foamy gurgle. His arms trembled. The long tendons running down the backs of his calves jumped.

We could die—this thought cleaved Ephraim’s mind like a guillotine blade. One of us could start to fall, and someone will try to help—Scout Law number two: A Scout is ever loyal to his fellows; he must stick to them through thick and thin—then another and another until everyone gets pulled down like a string of paper dolls.

From his vantage at the head of the pack, Kent now realized this couldn’t be the right route. But whose fault was that? Tim’s, for sending them out alone. Dull metallic anger throbbed at Kent’s temples. It was stupid Tim’s fault that Kent’s mind was now paralyzed by fear. Stupid stupid stupid…

The trail widened on the other side of a tricky ledgeway. Kent held out his hand to help Ephraim across, then Shelley, then Newt and Max. They walked silently along a shallow upswell, sweating and breathing heavily. The trail emptied onto a flat rocky expanse overlooking the ocean.

Ephraim set both hands into Kent’s chest and pushed. The bigger boy staggered back.

“Great idea, brainiac.”

“It wasn’t— I didn’t do it on purpose,” Kent said, his neck bright red.

“Nobody better give you the keys to an airplane, man.” Ephraim’s chin was angled up, nearly butting into Kent’s. “With your sense of direction, you’d fly everybody into the sun.”

Ephraim’s hands curled into fists. Kent knew Ephraim wasn’t shy about throwing them. Eef had been in fights. Kent, not so much. Sure, he’d shoved other boys down and put them in headlocks—but he’d never squared off with another boy and thrown real punches. He’d never had to. Being bigger had acted as both threat and deterrent.

But here stood Ephraim, a creature of coiled muscle and quick rage, challenging him. Kent’s hair was plastered to his forehead with clammy sweat. His blood beat a hi-hat tempo inside his skull. He pictured Ephraim’s fist clocking him on the chin, saw himself falling with one leg twisted painfully beneath him. The image caused bitter saliva to squirt into his mouth.