Circ gives me a look. “Don’t be such a shanker—you know it’s not full yet.”

“I’m not a shanker!” I protest.

“Well, you sure sound like one,” Circ says, grinning. Now I know he’s trying to get me all riled up.

Determined to prove him wrong, I roll up my dress and tie it off at the side, and then clamber down the side of the pit, feeling the blaze squish under the tread of my bare feet. Gross. Some even slips between my toes. Cockroaches scuttle out of my path. The smell is all around me now, a brownish haze rising up as the collective crap of our entire village cooks under the watchful eye of the hot afternoon sun. Not a pleasant sight.

Gritting my teeth, I start shoveling. The goal is to even it out, move the blaze that’s around the edges to the center. You see, people come and dump their family’s blaze into this pit, but they’re sure as scorch not gonna wade down into the muck and unload it in a good spot; no, they’re gonna just run up to the pit as fast as they can, dump their dung around the edges and then take off lickety-split. That causes a problem: the blaze keeps on piling up around the edge, usually the edge of the pit closest to the border tents, until the pit is overflowing despite not being even close to full. Then a lucky shanker like me—not that I’m the least bit shanky—gets punished, and hasta use a shovel and old-fashioned sweat and grit to move the blaze around. Or if the pit is full, you get to cover it with durt so people can start using the next one. That’s what I was hoping for earlier.

Anyway, I get right into it, heaping the scoop of my shovel full of stinky muck and tossing it as far toward the center as I can get it. Some of it splatters my clothes, but that’s inevitable, so I don’t give it another thought. Clothes can be cleaned, but the job’s not gonna get done without us doing it.

A moment later Circ’s beside me, and within two scoops, his bare chest is glistening with a thin sheen of sweat that reflects the light into my eyes like thousands of sparkling diamonds. Every once in a while, one of us gags, our throats instinctively closing up to prevent any more of the blaze haze from penetrating our lungs. Can a person die of excessive blaze fume inhalation? With three more Shovel Duty afternoons to come, I’m certainly gonna put that question to the test.

Scoop, shovel, gag, repeat.

It goes on like that for a while, neither of us talking, not ’cause we don’t want to, but ’cause we can’t without choking. At some point I become immune to the smell, but I know it’s still there, like an invisible force lying in wait for its next victim. My s’posedly nonexistent muscles are all twisted up, as if a hand is inside my skin, grabbing and squeezing and pounding away. Each shovelful gets smaller and smaller, until there’s almost no point in scooping so I stop, try to jab the shovel in the blaze so it stands upright, but I don’t do it hard enough and it just falls over.

Circ stops, too, and looks at me, a smile playing on his lips. “You look like blaze,” he says, full on laughing now. I feel like blaze, too, but I won’t say that.

Instead, I get ready to tell him the same thing, but then I notice: although his legs are spattered and dotted with brown gunk, from the knees up he’s spotless; he’s dripping beads of sweat like the spring rains have come early, but he doesn’t look tired; his tanned arms and chest are machine-like in their perfection. He doesn’t look like blaze at all, so I can’t say it, not without lying, and I won’t lie to Circ.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—I was just joking around,” Circ says.

My eyes flick to his. How does he know what I’m feeling? Does he know what I see as I look at him, that I see him as perfect? I realize I’m frowning.

“No biggie,” I say, my lips fighting their way against gravity and exhaustion into a pathetic smile. “I was joking, too.”

Circ studies my face for a moment, as if not convinced, but I look away, scan the pit, try to determine our progress. “Ain’t much in it,” I say.

I feel Circ’s stare leave me, like it’s a physical thing touching my cheeks. “We did more than you think. Another thumb of sun movement and we should be nearly there,” Circ says.

Another thumb of sun movement? Ugh. Maybe I’m a shanker—but that long might kill me. I think I make a face ’cause Circ says, “Don’t worry, we’ll do it together. Let’s rest for a while and then we’ll start again.”

Rest: I like the sound of that. There’s nowhere to sit in the pit, unless you want to sit in a big ol’ pile of blaze, so we climb back out, slipping and sliding on the slope. Once I almost fall, but Circ grabs me by the arm and keeps me upright. My head’s down when we near the top and I hear a voice say, “Having fun yet, Scrawny?”

I look up to see three Younglings staring down at me. Hawk’s in the middle.

Stopping, I let Circ pull up alongside me. Caught by surprise, I’m tongue-tied, unable to find the right words to send these blaze-eaters packin’. Circ, on the other hand, always seems ready for anything. “Get the scorch out of here, Hawk. We’re working.”

“Mmm, shovelin’ blaze. And from the looks of it doin’ a pretty grizz-poor job of it.” One of his mates, a guy they call Drag, coughs out a laugh.

“Like you’d know anything about it,” Circ says, taking a step forward.

“You’re right. I dunno a searin’ thing about blaze, other than it comes out from between my cheeks about a day after I eat a load of tug meat. And then you get to shovel it.” He laughs. “But the only thing I don’t understand, is why you’re here, Circ. Wasn’t the punishment for Scrawny?” There’s a gleam in Hawk’s eyes that makes me shiver, despite the oppressive midafternoon heat.

“I don’t abandon my friends,” Circ says calmly, although I see his fingers curl into fists. “And don’t call her that.” Another step forward, just one away from the lip. Hawk’s friends take a step back, but Hawk doesn’t move.

“But that’s what she is, right? I mean, look at her. She’s skinny, not an ounce of muscle on her—”

“Watch it.” Circ’s voice is a growl.

“—she’s got legs that are wobblier than a newborn tug’s—”

“Shut it!”

“—and her chest is flatter than the Cotee Plains.”

Circ moves so fast I almost slip again just watching him. I don’t even see the step or two he takes before he’s on top of Hawk, pounding away with both fists. Hawk’s doing his best to block the blows, but he’s making a strange high-pitched noise that tells me plenty of Circ’s punches are getting through. Drag and the other guy, Looper, seem so stunned at first that they just stand there, but then they finally get their act together and jump on top of Circ, each grabbing one of his arms from behind, pulling him away from Hawk.

Circ struggles, but they’ve got him so tight he can’t get his arms free. I’m frozen, as if the coldness of ice country has suddenly descended from the mountains, gluing my feet to the sludge beneath me.

Hawk stands up.

They’re going to hurt him—

Hawk steps forward, wipes a string of blood from his nose, his mouth all screwed up.

—all ’cause of me—

The first punch is below the belt and Circ groans, doubles over, unable to protect himself.

—I hafta do something.

My feet finally move, come unstuck, as if someone else is controlling them. I’m not Scrawny anymore, not a Runt, not Weak, not any of t’other names I been called my entire life. I’m Siena the Brave, and Circ is my friend, and he needs me.

Hawk sees me coming and moves to cut me off, but he’s too slow. My muscles ache from the shoveling, but I block it out, block everything out, ’cept for getting to the guys holding Circ’s arms; if I can just unloose one of them…

I trip. Maybe on the lip of the blaze pit, maybe on a random rock I don’t notice, maybe on my own feet for all I know—it certainly wouldn’t be the first time—but regardless, I start tumbling headfirst, out of control, my arms and legs flailing and flopping like an injured bird as I try to regain my balance.