Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

family and have them all together. I mean, your brother Jeremy is over there.”
    “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
    “No.”
    “Yeah, well, when you do, come talk to me.”
    I chuckled. “You can’t be serious, saying the reason you don’t want to combine tribes is because you hate your brother.”
    “No. I’m just saying that they have their way of doing things and we have ours. It’s a difference of personalities. We don’t mix well.”
    “I think you’re just too close-minded about the whole thing.”
    “You’ll see,” was all she’d say.
    I gave up trying to engage her in conversation. I’m not the most social person on a good day, and trying to get her to say more than a few words at a time was like pulling teeth, for both of us.
    We arrived at the hut to find both Peter and Bodo there. Coli left without saying a word.
    “She’s not very friendly, iss she?” asked Bodo.
    “No, not really. But whatever. We have a meeting tonight at dinner to discuss what our roles will be and also about integrating the tribes. So we need to get our stories straight and figure out what exactly we want before we get there.”
    “Let’s do it now. I’m bored out of my mind,” said Peter.
    “I’m not sure if I have another training session today or not; but I can hang out here and talk to you guys until then, if I do.” I looked over at the shelves. “Is there any food around? I’m starving.”
    “I saved you some. Go sit downwind, and I’ll bring it,” said Peter.
    I rolled my eyes, ignoring his comment about my stench. I couldn’t help it if I sweated when I worked out. I’d long since run out of deodorant. I didn’t know whether to be happy or disgusted by the fact that I’d kind of become immune to body smells. They used to be offensive to me, even though I smelled a lot of stinky guys at the places I worked out; but they weren’t so much anymore. I guess it wasn’t the same for Peter.
    “You can sit next to me, Smellykind.”
    I sat down. “What is that smellykind thing? Is that a real word?”
    “Well, kind is a wordt. It means childt. You use it in English. You know da place, kindergarten. Dat’s a garden where you grow da little childrens. Kinder is more dan one kid. Kind is chust one kid. See dat? Our language is not dat different.”
    “Okay. Say something in German. Let me see.”
    “Ich bin Deutscher, und ich liebe dich, auch wenn du mich manchmal verrückt machst.”
    I laughed. “Yeah, right. I have no idea what you just said and it sure didn’t sound like any English I know.”
    He shrugged. “Dare are many parallels. Maybe I will tich you. Den we can talk about Peter and he won’t know what we are saying.”
    “Like I even listen to you when you’re speaking English,” scoffed Peter, handing me a platter of food and sitting down next to me.
    “You just listened to dat, didn’t you?” challenged Bodo.
    “Did you hear something, Bryn? No? Me neither. Maybe it was the wind,” said Peter, deliberately not looking at Bodo.
    I joined in, smiling. “I think it was Buster. He has gas.”
    “Ha! What does dat mean?” said Bodo in mock offense. “Are you saying dat my wordts are like da fartings of dogs? Because dat is chust mean, Bryn. And after I said dose nice things to you.”
    “What nice things?”
    “Oh, sure, yeah, now you want to talk to Bodo. Okay. I see how things are going to be.” He shook his head. “No, sorry. But you can’t know. It’s a big secret now. Too badt you don’t speak Cherman. You would like dis very much, I am sure.”
    “Tell me,” I said, shoving him lightly.
    “No. Leaf me alone, smellykind.”
    “He’ll tell you later,” said Peter. “He can’t keep a secret.”
    “Oh, yes. I can. I can keep lots of secrets.”
    The way he said it made me think of the things he could be keeping from us. It suddenly made me uneasy.
    “Secrets shouldn’t be kept from family members,” I said, all traces of humor gone from my voice.
    “I don’t agree,” said Bodo, also very serious.
    Peter looked back and forth, from Bodo to me. “What’s going on here, guys? Do we have a problem?”
    “We only have a problem if Bodo is keeping secrets. And I’m not talking about his little German sentence, either. What aren’t you telling us, Bodo?”
    He shrugged. “Nothing you needt to worry about.”
    “Where were you earlier?” I asked, now more suspicious than ever. It made me sick to think about how quickly he’d gone from