“Who cares what they remember? In the morning, I’ll come by and we’ll go out together. If anybody teases you or even looks at you funny, I’ll beat him to a pulp. I’ll . . . tear his arm off and beat him with it. I’ll rip his head off and spit down his neck. I’ll—”

“Enough!” cried Laban. “How do you think it will restore my dignity here, to have my sister beat people up on my behalf?”

“I have to take Mother around and let her know what all the women are doing. And then we have to teach her to read and write. And meanwhile Father needs someone to write for him. We can’t afford to have you stay in your tent.”

“You can do the first two, and Pillel does the last.”

“Laban, I’m going to go off and get married someday.”

“When somebody better than Ezbaal comes along? In thirty years?”

“And when I go—”

“Ha!”

“You will be the heir to everything and someday you’ll have to rule this whole camp. Now, how will you do that if you’re still hiding inside your tent?”

“I won’t be by then,” he said.

“So you’re planning to come out.”

“Someday.”

“When?”

“Someday . . . when the slop jar fills up.”

Rebekah laughed. “So you’ll come out with me tomorrow?”

“Yes,” said Laban. “I take it you’re speaking to Father?”

“Oh, I never stopped speaking. I think I spoke pretty continuously through the whole second half of that marvelous wedding.”

“Several townspeople died of old age, had their funerals, and were buried while you were talking.”

“And you need to get to know your mother. She’s really wonderful.”

“She looks so much like you.”

“Or the other way around. But you look like her, too.”

“Not so much.”

“You’ll like her, Laban.”

“You got to talk to her before the wedding.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know I was talking to my mother. She saw me acting like a self-righteous little prig even before the grand unveiling this morning. And she liked me anyway.”

“Well, that changes everything,” said Laban. “If she likes you, then she’s bound to like me.”

“My point exactly.” She sat down beside him and put her arm across his shoulders.

“Oh, Rebekah.”

“Oh, Laban,” she said, imitating him just a little.

“The choices you make can change people’s lives,” he said. “Father did his best, but everybody in camp has to live in the world he shapes for us.”

“We shape it together.”

“But you and I have been pretty powerless.”

“Up to now,” said Rebekah. “We thought the adults had everything under control. Now we know the truth—they have no idea what they’re doing, either.”

“That’s something. At least we know we’re as qualified as anyone.”

“But I’ve learned something,” said Rebekah.

“A remarkable thing, for someone who never stops talking.”