“Did. More than.” He was struggling to set his feet on the ladder. “But she took off with some ape named Ace. What kind of idiot calls himself Ace?”

I guffawed. Sure, now I could laugh about it.

“Why’s that so funny?”

“Not you, dude, don’t worry.” I watched his upward progress. “You gonna make it okay?”

“I’m fine.” When he said it so huffily, he usually wasn’t, but he managed to hoist himself the last few rungs and tumble flat onto his bunk. “Ahhhhh . . .” After a moment, he said, “There’s all this talk of the shots fired at the raid. You hear any shots fired?”

“Fake news, according to Jake.”

“Mmmm. Well, the lads are pissed. Calling for reprisal.”

“Just what we need.” I squinted at the wall clock down at the end of the tier. “Got four hours till reveille. You want a wake-up?”

But he was already asleep. Like I wanted to be. But I was too wired, too confused, and way too pissed at Peeto, even with no proof it was him who’d ripped me off.

Times I laid awake, I’d grab one of my two books off the dado shelf. Didn’t matter which one. I knew them both by heart. If pages were missing, I made up the in-between, a new story each time. Reading soothed me, the dance of word and narrative.

But wait, I had a new one, with both its covers and the pages not all smudged or stuck together. Why not give it a try? I retrieved the old book, unwrapped it, and lay back, to begin at the beginning.

First thing up was the date: 22nd February, 1849.

Yes, this book was old, all right. I turned it into the brightening daylight, working to decipher the writer’s scrawl and old-fashioned language:

“The following record made from time to time is not designed as an accurate or definite log showing the Latitude & Longitude of every day, but to merely give a few of the incidents which took place in the voyage to California around Cape Horn.”

That whole long trip by boat? No air travel in 1849, I knew that much. I called up a mental map to imagine the route, then realized I didn’t know where it had started.

“After the usual trifling hindrances always consequent upon a start on such a long voyage, we came at last to the parting with friends and acquaintances, a time long to be remembered by me & by every other in our little band of adventurers. It was a singular feeling mixed up with joy, sorrow, hope & fear. It certainly is a consolation to know we have those friends that take so much trouble to be with us in the last hours of our stay in the land of our childhood. God bless them.”