Which was the truth; what was also the truth was that Davey himself was deep into a good vein of greens. So Davey could snitch his own sparklies, if he chose. It just might have been a trap.

Well, if Davey thought that turning away would make Mags beg for the chance to get what he was offering, he could think again. He’d played that game years ago, to get the donkeys into harness, showing a wisp of grass and then turning away with it. The donkeys would go for it, every time, and Mags was pretty sure he was smarter than a donkey.

He thought about turning the tables on Davey, going to one of Cole’s boys and saying “That there Davey offered stuff if I’d snitch him a sparkly an’ give it him afore he flits.”

But Davey had never harmed him before this. There were a lot of unspoken rules among the kiddies, and one of them was, you didn’t be the one to do the bad first.

If the offer was genuine, and not a trap, then Davey wasn’t being the one doing the bad first. And maybe because he was about to flit, the Pieters boys were watching Davey too closely for him to snitch any of his greenies, so he was coming to Mags, who wasn’t being watched so closely.

And anyway, that was tellin’, and the one thing a kiddie didn’t do was tellin’ on another. Davey’d have to do him a mort of bad before he’d go so low as tellin’. Tellin’ something like this could lead to terrible things, things there were only rumors of in the dark before sleep took them all. Things like tales of kiddies getting’ “caught” in the hammer-mill and crushed to death, or knocked down the well by the bucket-chain and drownded, or goin’ to take a pee and the shaft roof come down so hard there was no getting ’em out, ’cause there weren’t nothing to get out. Things that was supposed to be accidents, but everyone knew they weren’t.

So he kept his nose on his business, sending the gravel down the sluice when it was panned out, concentrating on the weak warmth on his back as a counter to the cold numbing of his hands and arms, and watching in that peculiarly unfocused state that let him spot the tiny sparks of color and light that others missed. The little wooden dish at his side filled steadily—though he was careful, all things considered, to keep it on the side away from Davey. Just in case. ’Cause if Davey was angry he hadn’t agreed to the snitch, then Davey could be malicious and knock his dish into the water, and he’d have little to show for his shift at the sluice.