Paddy unzipped it. There were a few bits of clothes, a toothbrush, a flashlight, and three cans of spray paint.

Achilleus sat looking at it all in silence for a long while. Then he picked up one of the cans.

“Was he a friend of yours?” said Paddy.

“Freak? Nah. Not really.” He tossed the can to Paddy. “Look after this for me. And the others. The rest you can dump.”

“Okay. I’m not supposed to be your slave, though,” said Paddy. “More of a servant, I thought. I do things for you and you do things for me. Like teaching me to fight.”

“We’ll see.”

“You said . . .”

“Don’t bug me, little man.”

“Sorry.”

Achilleus took a sip of tea. It was too hot. He put it back down.

“Blow on that for me, will you?” “I will not.” “You want me to teach you to fight, you blow on my tea.” “You teach me, I’ll blow on it.” Achilleus stood up and stretched. Looked at Paddy. “You really want to learn bad, don’t you?” “I sure do. So can we start?” “What, now?” Paddy shrugged. Achilleus waited a moment, then pushed him down on the carpet and laughed. Paddy looked angry and hurt. “What did you do that for?”

“First lesson,” said Achilleus, holding out his hand to pull Paddy up, “be ready for anything. At any time. The best fighter in the world can be taken out if he ain’t ready. Look at what happened to Just John. Twice now I’ve had him. Once back at the camp, once out there. He was a better fighter than me, mos’ def, but he’s none too smart, and both times I caught him napping.”

Paddy grinned. “I’ll be ready next time.”

Achilleus hauled him to his feet, but halfway up he let go and Paddy fell back down with a thump. Achilleus laughed at him, and the little boy looked even more pissed off this time.

“Thought you said you was ready,” said Achilleus. “That was just stupid,” said Paddy. “Ah, but you’re learning, padawan. Don’t trust no one.” “So how do you know you can trust me?” said Paddy, getting up by himself this time. “Maybe I’m a spy in your camp.”

“You think I haven’t considered that?” said Achilleus.

“I ain’t, though,” Paddy said quickly, throwing a pleading look at Achilleus like a cute puppy. “Don’t chuck me out. Please. I don’t want to go back to the camp. It’s cold there and wet. I kept asking John why we couldn’t just live in the houses like everyone else, but he said we was different. Special. I never understood half of what he used to go on about. He said we was like gypsies. But we never went anywhere. We never did nothing, neither. It was boring there.”

“You think it’s gonna be any better here?” said Achilleus.