“Boys,” he was saying, “a girl dodged past the guard and went back there where the fire is burning its fiercest. What she wanted I don’t know, but from what the guard tells me I’d say it was this big girl, Florence. You all know her.”
“Yea—yea—yea,” they all agreed.
“I’ll say we do!” Mike muttered.
“She’s the realest thing on the island!” the Captain exclaimed. “If we all were like her there’d be no more fire. I don’t know her reason for going in there but it’s bound to have been a good one.
“Thing is,” his tone was sober. “Wind’s shifted since she went in. If she loses her way—”
“And she will,” Mike broke in. “I know dat place. It’s bad.”
“Some of you boys must go in and bring her out,” the captain challenged abruptly. “Who’s it going to be?”
“Me and Tony, eh, Tony?” Mike volunteered.
“Sure t’ing,” Tony agreed.
The captain looked at them squarely. “Seems to me I heard that she ducked you two,” he said.