“Is this a Scouts thing?” asked Mara, mildly impressed.

“No,” Kyle said. “I read about it. When I’m not scouting, I like to read.” He sounded almost defensive. “And see? It pays off.”

He fished a worm out with his finger and laid it on a piece of bark, where it pulsed, trying to burrow. Then he pressed the knife to the worm’s rubbery middle and pressed down. It fell into two pieces, which each kept squirming. The cut as clean as jelly. Kyle sliced one of the halves in half again and put an inch-long section in his mouth.

For a while he sat there with his lips pursed. If the piece in his mouth was wriggling as much as those on the bark, Mara thought it must feel very weird indeed. She wondered how long before he spit it out.

Kyle squeezed his eyes closed, and swallowed. It was a hard swallow, judging by the way his throat bulged. But after a few seconds, he grinned.

“Actually,” he said, “it’s not bad. Worms are an excellent source of manganese. So I think we should all have some.” Mara had never seen him so perky. As if manganese had been a top concern.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll give it a go.”

“Really?” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d go first.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. You just seem cynical.”

“I pick flowers!”

“I know,” he said. “It’s not really what you do. It’s who you are.”

Mara had been called cynical and naive over the course of two days, words that seemed like contradictions, which went to show that both of them were wrong. She felt oddly relieved. Naive had stung, although she would never admit it. She thought that maybe when Kyle said cynical, he meant sad. In that case it was sometimes true. She could tell because it wasn’t true right now.

The worm felt like rubber and tasted like mucus. Like clearing a wad of phlegm from your throat, but if the phlegm had textured segments, and skin. A burst at the end, sour like vinegar, with a hint of a bitter kick. It was not a monstrous sensory experience, but still unpleasant, although Mara had eaten horrible things before and surely would again.

The trick was to stop yourself from thinking. To let your mouth and your throat take over, to chew and swallow like they already knew how to do. Or better yet, to swallow whole. When Mara was done, she ate a second piece, just to show off. Kyle beamed.

“My turn,” said Ashley, sitting up. She lifted a piece of worm in the air, above her face, and squinted as if peering through a glass. Pinkie out. Then she swallowed it. She blew a kiss to the camera in the doorway—Mara had not noticed it was back—and laughed. Mara realized she had held her breath since the moment Ashley sat up.

They all turned to Bullfrog.

“I don’t even eat vegetables at home,” he said.