Read In All Places (Stripling Warrior) for Free Online Page B

anything special. He wasn’t going to tell me just because I was pretty.
    Instead of being insulted, I felt a respect for him blossom inside me. Still, I was about to argue when my eyes flicked to movement beyond Mahonri. One of the other boys appeared to be pantomiming the eating of food, bringing his fingers to his open mouth. Another boy pushed him playfully, and someone else laughed.
    When Mahonri turned to see who dared to laugh in his presence, I inserted a note of dejection into my voice and said, “Nevermind. I will go find Kenai myself.”
    Could it be true? Provisions were on the way?
    I went to Kenai’s camp. He took one look at my face and said, “How do you hear these things?”
    “So it’s true?” I exclaimed, already planning my first meal.
    “Who told you?”
    “Nobody told me.”
    He groaned. “Well, thanks to your wiles, I’m going to have to reprimand a unit of men.”
    “Nobody told me.”
    “Listen, Ket, if word gets out prematurely, it could cause problems.” He made sure to catch my eye. “We’ve got to get everything in and secured and organized for distribution.”
    “Nobody told me,” I repeated, but I had trouble keeping a sly smile from my lips.
    He glanced heavenward and then gave me a stern look. “Just when I thought you had grown up. Don’t breathe a word of the news yet.”
    I thought it would be the kind of news they would want to shout from the highest tower, but when the first of the provisions were distributed in the still small rations, I could see what Kenai had meant.
    Everyone was in a panic for more food —it was all I could think about too—but the rations were still very small.
    “We wouldn’t be able to hold it down if we gorged ourselves on food,” Lib informed me as we fixed our meal together.
    “And besides that, there are now two thousand extra men to share th e provisions with,” Ethanim pointed out.
    That was true. I had only thought of the troops who had guarded the provisions to us as a blessing, not a liability.
    “Remember how we put the Lamanite prisoners on a small ration?” Lib went on.
    “I thought that was because we don’t like Lamanite dogs,” said Reb.
    “It was because their stomachs weren’t prepared to process food again,” said Lib.
    “And because we didn’t want them at their full strength,” added Gideon.
    I thought about this as I portioned out the meal to my unit brothers , about sharing food even with those we didn’t like, about not being ready to receive it, about needing it in order to be at full strength.
    “ Let’s pray,” said Lib, and we all knelt while Corban offered up a grateful prayer.
    And then, on Lib’s advice, we tried to eat slowly.
    With time, our rations increased little by little as we became ready.
    A few days before we planned to march on Manti, Zeke came to my camp to take me for a walk. He had long since stopped asking me to walk with him, and he just waited patiently while I got ready. I had been sitting with the others checking over all our weapons, and I thanked heaven I was sitting between Lib and Ethanim and not next to Gideon.
    The day was warm, though the breeze was cool and carried with it the first hint of the change of seasons.
    “What are you thinking about?” Zeke asked me as we left the camps and walked out onto the terrace.
    He probably assumed my mind was on the upcoming campaign, the march on Manti. We still did not talk much when we walked together. Talking gave us too much opportunity to disagree.
    “I was thinking about the word of God.”
    “What about it?” he asked.
    “Well,” I began, a l ittle uncomfortably. “When the provisions were low I asked Lib to take me to a private place so I could pray.”
    Zeke remained silent, listening.
    “ I wanted so much to find strength in my hunger, to find the meaning in it all.”
    “And did you?”
    He asked this so casually. I had nearly forgotten how comfortable he was talking about the things of God, and I remembered