Blue Skin of the Sea by Graham Salisbury

him Jack wanted me to shoot a cat to prove I was worthy to join the gang.
    “Is Keo going along with all this?” he asked.
    I nodded. “He’s already a Black Widow.”
    Dad stood in the yard looking up at me with his hands on his hips, wearing only shorts with shiny dried fish slime by the pockets from wiping his hands on them. “So, you were going to shoot a cat because you wanted to be a member of Jack’s gang?”
    I nodded.
    “Did Keo shoot one?”
    “He didn’t have to. He’s a sixth grader.”
    “What about Jack?”
    “He winged a mongoose.”
    “Everyone shoots mongooses,” Dad said. “But cats?” He paused a moment, then went on. “Why do you want to be a part of this gang, anyway?”
    “For protection. Jack says we’re going to get into a lot of fights with the seventh and eighth graders. He says they carry knives.”
    “You believe that?”
    I shrugged. “I guess so.”
    Dad stared at me, as if trying to read my thoughts. “Do you think your Uncle Harley and I would let you and Keo go to a school where the kids carried knives?”
    I thought about that a moment, then shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” It had never entered my mind that Dad or Uncle Harley ever even thought about what we did at school, except ask us how our grades were once in a while.
    Dad started up the steps, and put his hand on my shoulder as he passed. “If Sonny Mendoza can shoot this cat, or any cat, then I don’t know a thing about my own son.” He nudged my head with his hand. “Take that scrubby rat and soak it in the ocean until all the fleas float off, then you can bring it inside the house.”
    On Monday I left home later than usual and walked slowly so I’d arrive at school just as it was starting and wouldn’t have to talk to Jack until recess.
    I’d made a small dome-shaped pen out of chicken wire and staked it into the yard, a place for the cat to stay while it was getting used to its new home. I figured out that it was a female, and decided to call her
Popoki,
Hawaiian for cat. When I left the dogs were lying on the grass nearby watching her with droopy tongues, panting.
    At recess, Keo came up to me before going outside. “How’s the cat?”
    “Okay.”
    “Jack’s expecting to see it, a
dead
cat. He doesn’t know you have a live one.”
    “So.”
    “So nothing. Just reminding you.”
    Keo stared me in the eye a moment, then strolled off with the same disgusted look on his face he’d given Bobby Otani.
    I stayed in the classroom. Keo went out to join the BlackWidows under
their
tree, a billowing monkeypod that Jack had commandeered as their meeting place. Only Black Widows and invited guests could sit under it.
    Mrs. Lee asked me if I was feeling all right, and I told her that I was. She sat on a desk and studied me. “After as many years as IVe taught fifth grade boys, Mr. Mendoza, you can’t tell me that nothing is bothering you. A boy
never
stays inside at recess unless he’s sick, it’s raining, or he has a problem.”
    I told her a lie and a truth. Everything was okay at school, but I was worried about my new cat. I told her I didn’t want a mongoose to get it, then went outside before she could ask too many questions.
    Keo, Bobby Otani, Jack, and four sixth grade Black Widows sat under the
Tree of Webs,
as Jack had started calling their meeting place, building more into his Black Widow idea every day. Three sixth grade girls sat with them.
    “Hey,” Jack called when I came out into the yard. “Where is it?” The girls and the Black Widows turned and looked over at me. Seeing Keo among the band of taunting eyes made me feel lost, as if I were in a strange school and he was just a boy I’d never seen before.
    “I have it,” I said.
    “Good!” Jack said. “So show us?”
    “It’s at home.”
    Bobby Otani pinched his nose. “Must be getting ripe.”
    Jack stood and puffed up his chest, then strolled over to me, the group following him. “Black Widows!” he called, waving