‘Thank you for saving me,’ said Dinu after a moment. ‘You are good friend.’
I snorted. ‘I’m not your friend, Dinu.’
‘Maybe not. But at least you always bring me crisps.’
I stared at him in astonishment and then had to look away. Lollia’s sapphire palla made his Cleopatra eyes look almost as blue and beautiful as hers. It was unnerving.
‘You’re not my friend,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘You’re a bully. You steal my crisps.’
From the corner of my eye I saw him cock his head. ‘No. You bring them for me because you are nice.’
‘Are you crazy? I bring them for me. I only give them to you because you’ll beat me up if I don’t.’
‘Beat you up? Have I ever beat you up?’
I thought about this. ‘No. But you stand about a foot taller than me and twice my weight, and say, “Give me your crisps.”’
Dinu nodded happily. ‘And you give because you know my mother cannot afford breakfast.’ He patted my back. ‘You are a good friend.’
I glanced at him. ‘You don’t have breakfast?’
‘Never. We cannot afford. School lunch is my only meal.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘No supper either?’
‘Just mamaliga. Romanian cornmeal mush. We eat big pot of it with salt and butter. Sometimes sour cream if we can afford.’
‘It sounds a bit like mushy warm tortilla chips.’ I said. ‘Non-crunchy nachos. I could live with that.’
‘But that is all we have every single night,’ he said. ‘And then nothing till school lunch. I get so hungry by break time.’
My face felt hot, and not just from the steam. ‘So my crisps are your only breakfast?’
‘Yes! You are so kind to give them to me.’
I frowned. ‘So you haven’t been mugging me?’
‘Of course not.’ Dinu slung an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. ‘We are friends.’
The steam made it too hot for a bro-hug so I shrugged him off. Then I rounded on him. ‘If we’re friends, why did you steal my phone?’
He gave a sheepish grin and wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘I was coming to say hello, but then I saw phone and wanted to borrow it.’
‘So you just borrowed it?’
‘Yes. To see what it is like having phone.’
‘And then ran away.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s not borrowing. That’s stealing.’
He sighed. The steam had made his dripping face very pink. ‘All right. Maybe I did steal. I am sorry. I will give it back.’
‘You’ll give it back?’
‘Yes. When we get home.’
‘If we get home,’ I muttered. ‘And if I don’t suffocate first.’
‘Quickly!’ Lollia ran into the steam-room with Plecta close behind. ‘Some women are coming.’
‘Women are coming!’ I translated to Dinu.
But Lollia had already grabbed his hand and was pulling him after her through a thickly curtained arched doorway. ‘Hurry!’
My first thought was, Why is Lollia holding HIS hand?
Plecta took my hand and tugged.
My next thought was, Why is Plecta holding MY hand?
‘If they find boys in here, they will tear you apart like Pentheus!’ said Plecta, her brown eyes wide with fear.
I wasn’t sure who Pentheus was but I understood ‘tear apart’.
My final thought was, RUN!