I raised my brows.

“Thank you for being honest,” Clancy said. “Can I ask you why?”

The boys were silent for a few minutes. Finally, through some coaxing, Clancy got the truth again. “Pete has been really sick and hasn’t been able to come to meals. He didn’t want anyone to know, because he thought he’d get in trouble for not coming to Cleaning Duty this week, and he—he didn’t want to let you down. We’re sorry, we’re so sorry.”

“I understand,” Clancy said. “But if Pete is really sick, you should have told me.”

“You said at the last camp meeting that the med stuff was low. He didn’t want to take any medicine, in case someone else needed it.”

“It sounds like he needs it, though, if he’s too weak to come to meals,” Clancy pointed out. “You know that when you take food from the garden, there’s a chance that it could throw off the meals we have planned for everyone.”

The boys nodded, looking miserable. Clancy looked up at the kids gathered around us and asked, “What would you like them to do in return for taking the fruit?”

The girl in charge opened her mouth, but an older boy stepped up and leaned the rake in his hands against the simple fence surrounding the garden. “If they’re willing to help weed for a few days, a couple of us will take turns sitting with Pete and making sure he gets meals and medicine.”

Clancy nodded. “That sounds fair. What does everyone else think?”

I thought the girl in charge was going to stamp her foot in anger when everyone else agreed on that “punishment.” She was deeply unhappy with the outcome, if the red in her cheeks was any indication. “This isn’t just a one-time problem, Clancy,” she said, walking us out of the garden. “People think they can just come in here and take what they want, and it’s not like we can lock it like the storeroom!”

“I promise I’ll put it on the agenda at our camp meeting next month,” Clancy said with one of his smiles. “It’ll be right at the top of new business.”

That seemed to satisfy her, at least for now. With one curious look flung in my direction, the Empress of Vegetables turned on her heel and marched back into her domain.

“Wow,” I said, “she’s a real gem.”

He shrugged, absentmindedly fiddling with his right ear. “She has a valid point. If we start running low on food in the storeroom, we have to lean on the gardens, and if that’s been picked over, we’re in trouble. I think everyone here has come to understand how interconnected life is at East River. Hey—do you mind if I stop by and visit Pete?”

I smiled. “Of course not.”

The little boy was buried under a mound of blankets—if the bare mattresses around it were any indication, the other boys had gladly donated theirs to his pile. When his flushed face finally emerged from the covers, I said hello and introduced myself. Clancy stayed to speak with him for a good fifteen minutes, but I waited outside in the fresh air, watching the comings and goings of the camp. Kids waved and smiled at me, like I had been there for years, not a few days. I waved back, something tightening in my chest. I don’t know when it had dawned on me, or if it had been a slow, creeping realization, but I had begun to understand that black—the color that I had trained myself to fear and hate—was the same thing that allowed these kids to feel a small measure of pride and solidarity.