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“You have to take it slow,” Sanjit said.
“Don’t tell me how to take it.”
Sanjit did not back down. “You aren’t the first starving people I’ve seen.”
“Someone else from Perdido Beach?” Caine demanded sharply.
Sanjit exchanged a look with the younger boy, Virtue. He’d told Diana that was his real name.
“So it’s pretty bad on the mainland,” Sanjit said.
Caine finished his cereal. “More.”
“A starving person eats too much all at once, he gets sick,” Sanjit said. “You end up puking it all up.”
“More,” Caine said with unmistakable threat in his voice.
Sanjit poured him a refill, then did the same for the rest of them. “Sorry we don’t have any Cap’n Crunch or Froot Loops,” Sanjit said. “Jennifer and Todd are into nutrition. I guess it wouldn’t do for them to be photographed with fat children.”
Diana noted the sardonic tone. And as she gulped the second bowl she noted, too, that her stomach was cramping. She made herself stop.
“There’s plenty of food,” Sanjit said gently just to her. “Take your time. Give your body time to adjust.”
Diana nodded. “Where did you see starving people?”
“Where I grew up. Beggars. Maybe they’d get too sick to beg sometimes, or just have a run of bad luck, and then they’d get pretty hungry.”
“Thanks for the food,” Diana said. She wiped away tears and tried to smile. But she remembered that her gums were swollen and red and her smile wasn’t too attractive.
“I also saw scurvy sometimes,” Sanjit said. “You have it. I’ll get you each some vitamins. You’ll be better in a few days.”
“Scurvy,” Diana said. It seemed ridiculous. Scurvy was from pirate movies.
Caine was looking around the room, appraising. They were at a massive wooden table just beyond the kitchen. It could have seated thirty people on the long benches.
“Nice,” Caine said, waving his spoon to indicate the room.
“It’s the staff table,” Virtue said. “But we eat here because the family table is kind of uncomfortable. And the formal dining room…” He petered out, fearing he’d said something he shouldn’t.
“So, you’re like superrich,” Penny said.
“Our parents are,” Virtue said.
“Our stepparents,” Sanjit corrected.
“Jennifer and Todd. ‘J-Todd,’” Caine said. “That’s what they were, right?”
“I think they preferred ‘Toddifer,’” Sanjit said.
“So. How much food do you have?” Caine asked bluntly, not liking that Sanjit wasn’t quivering with fear.
It had been a long time since anyone had faced Caine without fear, Diana realized. Sanjit had no idea what he was dealing with.
Well, Sanjit would learn soon enough.
“Choo? How much food do we have?”
Virtue shrugged. “When I figured it out, it was enough for the two of us to last maybe six months,” he said.
