Pantomime by Laura Lam

adults' box. I widened my eyes. I had never smoked before. I did not expect anyone else in the group had, either.
      "Aren't they going to notice they're missing?" Cyril asked, delightfully scandalized.
      "They don't count," Oswin scoffed. It must be nice to have his parents. My mother would have counted.
      He passed them around. I held mine gingerly. It looked like the body of a dragonfly, and the smell reminded me of my father's study.
      "Is the lady not wishing to smoke?" Oswin teased.
      "Of course I will, you daftie."
      "Genie isn't like the other girls," Damien said. I snuck a look at him and then stared intently at my cigar.
      "Aye, it's almost as if she's one of the boys," Oswin said. Was that a jibe?
      "Don't make me paint you with mud again, Oswin Hawthorne!" I joked to cover the flutter of nerves in my stomach.
      Cyril laughed. "I hope you spirited away a light as well, Oswin."
      "What do you take me for? An amateur?" He took a book of matches from his pocket. He bit the edge of his cigar and spat it onto the ground. We all followed suit. It tasted terrible, and I did not know if I had bitten off too much or too little.
      Even Oswin did not like it. "I would have stolen a cigar cutter, but there's only two."
      Oswin began to light the cigar, self-consciously puffing and rotating it into the flame. It was the first time he had tried, and he was aping his father. He passed the matches around and first Damien and then Cyril lit theirs. I did not want to smoke. It smelled awful, and I did not see the point. But I knew that if I declined, Oswin would tease me for being too feminine.
      And so I lit the cigar. I had to try a couple of times, and I did not think I lit it properly. I inhaled and immediately began to choke. My eyes watered and my lungs were on fire.
      "You're not meant to inhale, you silly girl!" Oswin said. "You're just meant to hold the smoke in your mouth and then blow it out."
      "What's… the… point… in… that?" I gasped in-between chokes.
      Damien laughed and Cyril patted me on the arm.
      When I recovered, we were all silent as we smoked. These were cigars of the finest quality, from Temne, Linde, or Byssia, but I still thought they tasted wretched. The tobacco was strong and overwhelming. I held the smallest amount of smoke in my mouth and blew it out quickly. Mostly I stared at the ember on the tip. It was beautiful, soft and orange as a coal in a fire.
      When the cigars had burned down to stubs, we crushed them beneath our feet. I had the feeling that no one enjoyed them much, even Oswin. My head was swimming a bit from the fumes, and I felt dreadfully thirsty. The smoke seemed like it had permeated every pore and hair follicle. As soon as we returned, our parents would know exactly what we had been doing. We wandered further into the forest and drank water from the stream, lovely and sweet, far nicer than the medicinal taste of the water in the city.
      Cyril decided that we should all play a game before the light dimmed beneath the trees and the adults wondered where their offspring were.
      "Charades?" Damien suggested.
      "We don't have pen and paper, idiot."
      "Statues?" Cyril asked.
      "I hate that game. I always lose," Oswin said.
      "And I always win, which is why I suggested it," Cyril joked.
      I was chosen to be the sculptor, and I posed them all in funny shapes. I made Cyril hold an arm high above his head and stand on a foot, with the other hand posed to make him look as if he were about to pick his nose. In a fit of wickedness, I made Oswin put his head between his knees. His mouth worked furiously as he struggled not to laugh. Whoever laughed or moved first after they had been posed lost, and so I had to pose them very quickly so that there was not too much of a time lapse. I felt very nervous posing Damien. In the end, I made him rest an ear on his shoulder and stuck his arms and legs akimbo, with his feet facing