He fol­lows her out­side, bleary-eyed and slightly wor­ried that his prank went awry. She’s furi­ously scratch­ing her entire head, shak­ing her hair as if it were on fire.

Gil tries to main­tain an expres­sion­less face.

She turns to him and points her fin­ger like a light­ning bolt.

He finally cracks up.

As soon as he does, Kiddu bar­rels into his mid­sec­tion with a force so sav­age he’s lifted bod­ily off the ground. He tum­bles back­wards down a slope of loose sand, and they roll towards the main camp.

Before he can get up, Kiddu is on top of him, strad­dling his stom­ach with her big legs. She holds one of his arms to the ground and with her free hand she slaps him across the face.

With his free hand, he tries to push her off, but she smacks it away. She piv­ots her knee to pin his loose shoul­der down—

She grabs his nose, painfully, and pushes his head flat against the sand so he can only see straight up.

In the periph­ery of his vision, he sees sev­eral pairs of feet.

Then some­one grabs Kiddu by the wrist and jerks her away. She shrieks. Before Gil can get up, strong hands haul him to his feet and push him into the mid­dle of an assem­bling crowd.

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