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there."
    "Fine," Nathan replied. "Run on home to your mama. She got your baby bottle all ready."
    "We're just gonna look at the camp where there aren't any guards," I explained. "Nothing can happen."
    "I don't know—"
    "Do it say in the Bible, 'Thou shalt not look at the camp'?" Nathan asked.
    Henry laughed. "I reckon not. I'm with y'all."
    We came back to the camp halfway along its left side as you faced it from the road. The corner guard towers were pretty far away, and no one was watching the fence. We walked right up to it and looked inside.
    Two prisoners were stringing a clothesline from the corner of a barracks to a pine tree. Others were digging a ditch. From a shower house came three men with wet hair, towels draped over their shoulders.
    We walked toward the far corner of the camp and ducked into the woods to avoid the guard tower. Then we came around to the back, where a large space had been cleared and several prisoners were playing soccer.
    A couple of men watching the game noticed us. "Hallo!" one shouted.
    "What now?" Henry asked.
    "Say hey back," I said.
    "We won't get in trouble?"
    "You can't get in no trouble sayin' hey to somebody," Nathan said.
    The prisoner who'd said hallo started talking to the others. Then the soccer stopped, and in a moment, several of the men were looking at us and talking to each other.
    "Come on," Henry said.
    "Yeah," Nathan agreed. "They lookin' at us like we monkeys, even if
they
the ones in the cage."
    As we went, I heard, real clear in the middle of all the German I didn't understand, one word I knew: "niggers."
    Nathan and Henry heard it, too.
    The soccer players started back to their game.
    "Let's get out of here," Henry said.
    "Wait," I said, searching for a rock. Nathan did the same. In a moment, I had three.
    "What you gonna do, Caleb?" Henry asked.
    I ran to the fence and let fly. "Hey!" I shouted.
    "Go kiss Hitler's ass!" Nathan yelled. "But mine first!" Quick as anything, he dropped his pants and flashed his behind at the camp.
    I threw another rock, and by a miracle it went through both fences and hit a prisoner in the head. Some others started for the fence, yelling.
    "
Now
it's time to go!" I cried. "Come on."
    Nathan gave the men his middle finger. I did the same. Some of the Germans returned the favor, so they knew exactly what we meant. Then, laughing, I ran back to the woods, Nathan and Henry right behind me.
    "We showed 'em!" Nathan crowed when we stopped for breath. "That was a mighty lucky shot."
    "You did your part!"
    "I meant it, too. Any time they want to line up, I'm ready."
    "Y'all shouldn't of done that," Henry protested.
    "Why not?" Nathan cried. "They insulted us."
    "We suppose to turn the other cheek."
    "I
did!
Both of 'em! Jeez, I was obeyin' God without even knowin' it!"
    "You better not take the Lord's name in vain."
    Nathan turned on him. "Listen. If you want to get all holy, okay. I can put up with you bein' a pain in the ass for a while. But don't go tellin'
me
how to be, understand?"
    Henry lowered his eyes. "All right. It just that I'm worried about you."
    "About my soul, I reckon," Nathan said wearily.
    "Yeah."
    "Look. I can take care o' myself. Caleb, too. So just relax, okay?"
    "All right."
    We went through the woods, Nathan and me joking about how we'd insulted the Germans. Then, after we came back to Brinson's Mill Road, I heard the wagon. The sound came up behind us pretty quick, like the driver was in a hurry. "Move," I told Nathan, touching his shoulder. I didn't want to get run over.
    When I turned to see who it was, something hit me right in the face—hit me hard. I touched my mouth and found blood.
    "What the hell?" Nathan cried.
    The wagon pulled up beside us. It was the Hills: Lonnie and Orris, the ones we'd met in town on Saturday, and their big brother, Dolan. They were laughing like the jackasses they were.
    "You got him good." Lonnie gave Dolan a congratulatory slap. "Right in his big black mouth."
    "Why'd you do that?"