Excerpt: The Firemen

Turned out that paying back the Akims was easier than Kairat had made it sound. Or maybe Jonas was doing it wrong, he wasn't sure. He did know that he got square meals along with the kids, and a bed to his self (half the boys in the family seemed to have ended up on the floor on that account) and Jandos the Mouse to lead him around by the wrist. He couldn't stay silent the whole week, of course, but Jonas convinced him that being the Mouse meant cutting back his words to five or so at a time, and it was funny watching him think real hard, trying to put everything he wanted to mean into just five words.
They drove the goats out to where Jonas had passed out in the sun, a miserable sandy hillside with altogether too much speargrass. Jandos chewed on a piece of speargrass for a minute before he asked, "You ain't a pistolnik, yeah?" (And counted the words on his fingers.)
"Not a pistolnik," Jonas said. "You didn't find no pistol on me, didja?"
"Didn't find nothing but sand," the boy shot back, then hastily counted the words on his fingers to make sure he hadn't gone over.
"I told you, it's a tragic retelling," Jonas said. "I got robbed. Beat, Insulted. Camel died. You'd weep if I laid it out for you."
"Would not."
"Would too."
"Would not!"
"Would too," Jonas insisted, "for this life is cold and dark and lonesome, and there ain't no justice or peace 'til the grave, and even then it ain't exactly comfortable, what with the worms crawling 'round in your innards. That's the kind of story I got to tell, the kind with worms in it."
"I like worms," Jandos said, and started pulling the speargrass into stripes.