Snakehead

shapeless, short-sleeved shirt, and for a moment his chest and stomach were exposed. He too had a scar—but it was much worse than Alex’s, a distinct line of white, dead skin that snaked across his belly and down below the waistline of his trousers. Ash turned away, buttoning up the shirt, but he was too late. Alex had seen the terrible injury. It was a stab wound. He was sure of that. He wondered who had been holding the knife.
    “Come and sit down, Alex,” Mrs. Webber said. She had produced a tarp, which she had spread underneath a chair. “Let me deal with your hair.”
    Alex did as he was told, and for next few minutes he heard only the click of scissors and watched as uneven clumps of his hair tumbled to the ground. From the way she worked, he doubted that Mrs. Webber had received her training in a London salon. A sheep-shearing farm was more likely. When she had finished cutting, she opened one of the tubes and smeared a thick, greasy ointment over his head. Finally, she stepped back.
    “He looks great,” Ash said.
    “The teeth still need work. They’d give him away in a minute.”
    There was another tube of paste for his teeth. She rubbed it in, using her own finger. Then she produced two small plastic caps. They were both the size of a tooth, but one was gray and one was black.
    “I’m going to glue these in,” Mrs. Webber warned him.
    Alex opened his mouth and allowed her to fix the fake teeth into place. He grimaced. His mouth no longer felt like his own.
    “You’ll notice them for a day or two, but then you’ll forget them,” she said. She stepped back. “There! I’m all done. Why don’t you get dressed and take a look at yourself?”
    “Cloudy, you’re damn good,” Ash muttered.
    Alex pulled on a faded red T-shirt and a pair of jeans—both of them dirty and full of holes. Then he went back into the bathroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror. He gasped. The boy he was looking at certainly wasn’t him. He was olive-skinned, with hair that was short, dark brown, and matted in thick strands. Somehow the clothes made him look thinner than he really was. He opened his mouth and saw that two of his teeth seemed to have rotted and the rest were ugly and discolored.
    Mrs. Webber came in behind him. “You won’t need to worry about the skin color for two weeks,” she said. “Not unless you bathe…and I don’t think you’ll be doing that. You’ll have to check on the hair and teeth every five or six days. I’ll make sure Ash has plenty of supplies.”
    “It’s amazing,” Ash muttered. He was standing at the door.
    “I’ve got some sneakers for you,” Mrs. Webber added. “You won’t need socks. I doubt a refugee boy would wear socks.”
    She went back into the hotel room and produced a pair of sneakers that were stained and torn. Alex slipped them on.
    “They’re too small,” he said.
    Mrs. Webber frowned. “I can cut a hole for your toes.”
    “No. I can’t wear them.”
    She scowled at him, but even she could see that the sneakers were far too small. “All right.” She nodded. “You can hang on to your own. Just give me a minute.”
    She dug back into the suitcase and produced a razor, some old paint, and another bottle of some sort of chemical. Two minutes later, Alex’s own sneakers looked like they’d been thrown away ten years before. As he slipped them on, she set to work on Ash. He too had completely changed. He didn’t need to dye his skin, and his beard would have suited a Hazara tribesman. But his hair had to be hacked around, and he needed a completely new set of clothes. It was strange, but by the time she had finished, Alex and Ash really could have been father and son. Poverty had brought them closer together.
    Mrs. Webber packed again, taking all the clothes that Alex and Ash had been wearing with her. Finally, she zipped her bag shut and straightened up. She jabbed a finger in Ash’s direction.
    “You look after Alex,” she commanded. “I’ve already had words with Mr. Brooke. Sending a boy this age into the field, I don’t think it’s right. Just you make sure he comes back in one piece.”
    “I’ll look after him,” Ash promised.
    “You’d better. Take care, Alex!”
    And with that, she was gone.
    Ash turned to Alex. “How are you feeling?”
    “Grimy.”
    “It’s going to get worse. This grime is fake. Just wait till the real dirt gets stuck to you. Are you ready? It’s time we left.”
    Alex moved toward the