A soldier bursts into the room. ‘Sorry, got held up.’ Grinning like a little boy. Something under his arm. Everyone looking.
‘What is that?’ Pin’s father.
‘A doll.’ The soldier laughs. ‘The kids had it. It must have dropped on the floor.’ He tosses Motl’s doll across to the captain, who catches it by a leg, strides across to Mouse, and kicks him.
‘Fool,’ he hisses, ‘idiot.’
As if your world has stopped.
At your boy.
What he has done.
His mad sacrifice.
One shall be taken and the other left.