I sit there and watch everyone get breakfast. I stare intensely at the egg bowl and the toast platter, urging someone to not eat all of it so I can have some too.

"Alphonse, why aren't you eating like the rest of the family?" Oliver asks me. I look at him like he's crazy. I mean, he is, but I don't usually look at him like that.

"Because I'm not supposed to?" I say. Oliver's eyes flash a little. They shine when he's happy and the colors seem to swirl together when he's really mad. They flash when he's trying not to get upset. I look down at the empty plate in front of me.

"Oh, Alphonse, that's nonsense! Have some eggs, maybe toast?" Seems like Christophe or Jacob said something about me not being allowed to eat with everyone else last night. I bet it was Jacob. Christophe doesn't care enough about us to do something like that. Jacob seems pretty friendly from what I've seen. Eccentric, but friendly. I take some eggs and a piece of toast gratefully.

"Jacob, love, would you like some sausages?" Oliver asks. According to James he's been like this ever since last night, fretting over Jacob like this.

"No, but thanks for offering." Jacob says. Oliver starts to offer me some, but I shake my head,

"I don't eat meat anymore, remember?"

So for the first time in four years, I eat with the family. I'm expecting to get dragged back off to that torture room of a basement any second, and I haven't eaten for an entire day now, so I don't really focus that much as Oliver puts a glass of milk in front of me. That is, until I try it. It's weird and sweet and thick, so I ask him what sort of milk it is.

"It's fresh." is all he says. I've never really had fresh milk since we get it at the marketplace, so I shrug it off as something that fresh milk tastes like.

"Hey, Jacob, wanna come see the town with us?" I ask him. Today Jacob is wearing blue, knee-length, schoolboyish pants and a blousy-looking white shirt. I'm sorta glad he decided to wear normal clothes today. I do kinda like the kid, but I don't wanna be seen with the boy who wears dresses, y'know?

It's a strangely warm winter day, so I figure we'll go to the nearby beach for a while. Then I notice a bunch of guys running dark berry juice through their hair and putting harbor mud on their skin to make it darker, and dressing up in Indian clothes. Looks to me like a nice little protest, and I do like those things since they can cause a bunch of chaos, so I slip away from the other two to see what's up.

"Hey!" I call out and they all look me over. Of course, it's a bunch of white guys. Seems like there aren't even a lot of slaves here in Boston. It ends up being there's not a whole lotta people who look like me.

"Go home to your master, boy." one of them says. Another protests that I could be an Indian, since I'm 'a little light-skinned to be a Negro.'

"Aww, but I don't wanna miss out on the fun!" I say. "We're gonna show those redcoats who's boss, right?" They all sort of mumble agreements. They're still kind of put off by my appearance. "Also, what are you doing, dressing like that?"

"We're protesting the new taxes on tea." one of them says.

"By dressing up like a bunch of savages?" Jacob, who has shown up asks.

"We're doing this so the English don't blame and shoot us colonists, and instead think it was the savages who broke into their ship and dumped their crate of tea." the leader one explains. I grin, and start taking off my black hand-me-down shirt from James.

"Let me come along. I know a thing or two about those cheap locks. I used to hang around the smith who makes 'em. You don't even have to mix up more dye or anything, 'cuz I'm already kinda dark." I say, and one of them goes,

"What are you, anyway? Black or Indian?"

I just laugh and say, "I'm whatever you'd rather have your daughter go to bed with." which makes a couple of them snort and even gets a couple to also laugh.

I put on the clothes I'm offered, which are leather pants and a beaded vest over my bare chest to hide the lighter scars which I brushed off as a "fringe colony thing." I also take a headband with a few feathers tucked in it, and I look exactly like an Indian.

"You boys, too?" one of them asks James and Jacob. Jacob shakes his head, smiling gleefully and James just says,

"We're just going to sit back and watch our brother here make an idiot out of himself."

"You'd be too obvious with that eye patch anyway." the man says, and then we're off towards one of the boats- it says Dartmouth on the side.


Well, if you've read in history books, you know all about the Boston Tea Party. Soon, there are redcoats swarming the place, and me, James and Jacob get outta there. I kept the outfit, though. Never know when that can come in handy. We slow down as we get to the patch of woods that's a shortcut to home. Jacob starts laughing.

"I don't think that Father would believe that I just ran from the authorities who suspected me of the destruction of East India Company property!"

"Running from the redcoats is pretty much the daily routine for Al." James says and I can't even argue with that. Instead, we stop and James takes his satchel off and opens it up and pulls out the dinner he'd packed us from Oliver's pantry. James is Oliver's baby. He can get away with anything. I think it's because James is a lot bigger than Oliver.

"I don't like sweets." Jacob says, and James shrugs and gives me the spare red cake. I'm hungry, and I eat all of it, except the sandwiches.

"Jamie, how can you eat that stuff, knowing what it is?" I ask him, licking some of the icing off of one of the cakes. He looks at me, thinking for a moment about how to answer.

"I just sort of think about it being real meat, like I used to eat when Christophe still lived with us, before Oliver went..."

"Crazy?" Jacob offers, and James nods.

"Yeah. I just block out the thoughts that it's people, and imagine I'm eating cows and pigs and chickens."

I shudder. "I could never get the thought that it's other people out of my head. That's why I don't eat it." I look over at Jacob. "What about you?"

"Oh, Christophe told me all about what happens here, so I just sort of refuse everything that psycho makes, just in case, y'know?"

"How would you put a human body in a cake?" I ask, snorting. I take another bite of the reddish cake. "I mean," I continue with my mouth full, "it's kinda hard to do without someone noticing, wouldn't you think?"

Jacob nods, but he doesn't even accept a bite of the cake. I ask him, "How much meat do you eat at home?"

"Oh, lots. I love it, and our cook makes the best steaks and everything!" he answers.

"You have a cook?" I ask, and Jacob answers that of course he does, and I snort, "Spoiled little rich boy" at him.

"I know, I know... I wanna always be like this, so I never have to make my own foods and never have to drive my own buggy, and everything."

"Maybe you should'a been born a noble." I suggest, and then my happy feeling fades and I sigh. "I'll never be rich. Nobody wants me. Blacks don't want someone who wasn't raised black and whites don't want anybody but themselves." I sulk and pull my knees to my chest. "I guess he's right. I am just a worthless mistake."

"Who's right?" Jacob asks, a strange fire in his light purple eyes.

"Ollie. He always, when I'm bad, carves words into me with his knife." I take off my vest and show the scars. Jacob gets up without another word and storms off in the direction of home.

James and I look at each other and then gather up our things and follow him. I don't know what he's gonna do, but I think I might wanna pack up a satchel and run as soon as I can.