The girl broke the meat pie and shoved half in her mouth. She closed her eyes, chewed noisily, her face smeared with gravy, bits of food falling out and her dirty hands stuffing it back in.
“That’s mine,” Bear Boy said.
“Huh,” she grunted, opened her eyes and chewed with increased vigor. She took a bite from the pie’s other half, then threw the remainder to Bear Boy.
He ate as fiercely. Swallowing, he said, “I’ll have you thrashed. You stepped on our dance. The Players will do it. I’m with them and they don’t let any sodding rotter crowd us. They’ll beat that pie right out your bunghole.”
The girl made her eyes wide. Was she mocking him? “You had a fit,” she said and chucked a pear his direction, rolled another to the bear.
“I did not.”
“You bawled like a calf taken from his mam,” said the man who walked into their ring of stones. “A pisspot of trouble you are, my Bear Boy. I have to fetch you myself because none of your craven fellows dare come here.”
