eel warm. Do I have a fever? Can you check?"
I heard the shuffling of feet as one warden moved away from the door. The other guard must've continued holding it open, though, obviously signaling his desire for Weevil to leave so they could go inside.
With hands pressed against my aching side, I crept to the open door. I couldn't see through it to know whether the warden holding the door was looking at Weevil or not, but I had to take the chance that he was.
"You're not warm," the warden said. "Now go away, grub, you shouldn't be down here."
I snuck out the door and backed away from it. Almost instantly the other warden walked around the door to enter the barracks. He spotted me.
I looked at Weevil as if I had just come from the opposite direction. "There you are! I already told you that your head wasn't warm. You didn't need to bother these nice wardens about that."
Weevil frowned at me. "I just wanted to be sure, since I know that sometimes you tell me what I want to hear, instead of what's really going on."
I grabbed his arm and started to pull him away. Looking back at the wardens, I said, "Sorry he troubled you. Boys can be such babies about deadly diseases, don't you think?"
The wardens didn't laugh, but they did let us go. And as soon as they went inside, I found myself leaning more heavily on Weevil's arm.
He stopped walking, and when he did, I closed him into a hug, clasping my hands around his neck so he wouldn't know how bad they were shaking. "Thank you, thank you."
He pushed me back, clearly angry. "You'd better have a good reason for doing that."
"I thought they'd have more powerful medicines, ones I could share with Della and this old woman I saw in the prison today, and everyone here who probably needs more than what the governor gives us. But I didn't find anything. Where are the wardens' medicines?"
"Maybe they don't have any!"
"They have to! Why aren't the wardens sick? Or the physician who tested me for the Scourge? Or the governor, who sat in the testing room with me? They know how to keep from getting sick. Whatever that secret is, the wardens must have it in their barracks!"
He sighed. "You checked everywhere?"
"I only had time to check three of the twelve trunks. And there were probably other places I could have looked too. Next time I go in--"
He grabbed my hands and looked me directly in the eyes. "No, Ani, you cannot keep doing this! Eventually, you are going to push things too far, to the point where nobody can save you."
"What I just did is the first actual rule I've broken. The rest are just bad circumstances."
"Maybe, but why do all the bad circumstances involve you? You're always in the middle of everything that goes wrong!"
"That's my point. Something is wrong in this whole Colony, Weevil, very wrong! Everything I see brings up more questions with answers that don't make sense. If we melt in with everyone else, pretending not to see the problems, do you think they'll just go away?"
"We don't have to make the problems go away! All we have to do is get you better and then find a way to escape this island. That's our only job. But if you go sneaking into the wardens' barracks, getting yourself banned from mealtimes, and making enemies with people whose help we might need to escape, you won't last here for a week. Don't you understand how dangerous this is? They will find a way to get rid of you."
I understood perfectly. Getting rid of me was, in fact, their plan for tomorrow.
But I couldn't tell Weevil that. So instead, I lowered my head. "You're right. From now on, I'll be the model Scourge victim of this Colony."
Weevil brushed his knuckles across my arm. "I doubt you could do that, even if you tried. Just ... try harder. Now come on--we've got to find those caves before it gets dark."
That was what I loved about my friend. No sooner had Weevil gotten me to agree that I would not break any more rules, than he was proposing that we hurry and break yet another rule.
When we returned to the Colony square, Della immediately found us. Her hand was shaking when she reached for me, as if the muscles had already given up. The Scourge was taking her, far too quickly. She needed a stronger medicine. If I had discovered even a single sip of something that might help, the risk would absolutely have been worth it.
"Here," she whispered. "This is for you."
She pressed two rolls into my hands. They weren't enough to cover the hunger I felt, but they were something.
"Why?" I asked, giving one to Weevil.
Her eyes filled with tears, then drifted to the prison walls. "When we first met, I blamed you for stealing my boat, just to keep myself out of trouble. But today you took the blame for me. You could have used me to keep yourself out of trouble. Why did you do that, Ani? Why would a River Person do that for me?"