Endless Sea

Chapter 5: The General

May 23rd, 1852

Howard put another piece of the battered covered fish into his mouth, smiling with delight as he sat next to Pete on the curb. The boys often spent time there, right in front of Ed's shop. As Howard finished his food, he turned to look at Pete.

"That was good!" Howard said with a big grin on his face.

Peter laughed. "I told you it was!" he replied. "My paw makes the best-fried fish, sometimes he goes to the market and asks for their old fish because it's cheap or free. But it doesn't even taste that bad!" He paused, "He makes good breakfast too, we always have ham or bacon with eggs."

"Ooh." He said, "we have like, olives, çay, some bread with honey, tea and kaşar." Howard explained.

"What's kaşar? And çay?" Pete asked, appearing curious as he leaned a bit closer to Howard.

Howard perked up at the question, he loved talking about Turkey, including their food. "çay is just tea, like how you guys have tea, we have tea. It's just made a different way- and ours is a bit stronger and no milk."

"No milk?"

Howard shook his head. "And! Kaşar is like cheese, but it's really big. And really tasty!"

"So you don't have eggs or bacon? Or ham?" Peter continued to question.

"I can't have that! Well, I can have eggs, but no pork." He told Pete, who appeared confused. "Anna says it's because pigs eat anything, including poo and stuff. Which is gross, to me. I get it if you like it!"

Peter nodded, understanding.

Howard continued to explain, "And also because pork just has a lot of fat and stuff, and pigs are super useful animals! They kill snakes and stuff, and when the snake bites them nothing happens because pigs are already poisonous!"

"Pigs are poisonous?" asked Peter, furrowing his eyebrows with concern. "That can't be true, I eat pig almost every day!"

"Not kill you poisonous." Laughed Howard, patting his friend on the back. "They just have a lot of sicknesses and stuff like that when they're alive, so anna says they shouldn't be eaten when they're dead!"

Peter blinked a few times, before smiling. "That's cool!" He said. "So no pig?"

"No pig."

He nodded again, "okay! If you ever come over for dinner I will make sure we don't have any." he replied, standing up. "Soon my paw says he's going to get me a job, so me and you will work at the same time and we can spend all our free time together!" He cheered as he helped Howard to his feet.

"Working where?" asked Howard.

"As a chimney sweep, paw says it's good work for a young man like me!" Peter told Howard

Howard frowned. "I heard that's dangerous, Tirbuşon." He muttered. He had given the nickname to Pete a few weeks ago, it meant "corkscrew" and was often used as a sort of funny nickname in Turkey.

"I'm sure it isn't that bad!"

May 30th, 1852

Pete sat on the curb by Howard with a huff, covered in soot as he stared off blankly in front of him. Howard looked over at his shallow-eyed friend. Peter looked like a dead man walking. Howard removed the black cravat tie around his neck, using it to wipe a bit off the black powder off Pete's pale face.

"Are you alright?" Howard muttered, his voice soft and filled with care.

Peter stopped, looking at Howard with a deep sadness in his brown eyes. "I don't know." He muttered. "My elbows and knees are cut open and bruised, I am achy and tired."