Chapter 27
Jabari heard someone making his or her way through the jungle toward the beach and grew quietly alert, gesturing at the others to stop talking. He grabbed a large stick, ready for anything, he hoped. When the person broke through the last vine and stumbled across the sand toward the sea, when Jabari saw that it was Gavi with his sheaf of sun-whitened hair and long limbs, he felt genuine shock. The blood left his face. He fought through the buzzing in his ears to run across the beach, into the water, to his brother.
When Jabari and Gavi were two years old, they shared a baby bed with short walls to keep them from falling out. As the stories went, Jabari climbed out each morning to find Andar, Laylit, or one of the palace nannies, while Gavi sucked his thumb, waiting quietly for
