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Tomax.”
    Jengi hasn’t called out to Tomax’s mother or to her edge farm neighbours helping. For the first time Tomax sees the brick, in Jengi’s right hand.
    Tomax moves his head slightly.
    â€œGood.”
    Jengi tests the boy’s neck. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” Jengi seems to need to take a moment. Tomax hears Jengi breathing in and out, in and out, rough little pants.
    â€œYou are … fixable.” Jengi says.
    Jengi lets the brick fall from his hand. Tomax looks down at the weapon. The brick is dark with blood at both ends.
    â€œHe’s here.” Jengi shouts behind him, notifying the othersfor the first time.
    â€œI couldn’t tell ‘em before,” he explains to Tomax. “They’re … emotional. Right now. They’d have brought the whole roof down on your head. Amateurs.” He says, dismissively.
    There are loud voices now. Shouts and hollers. Tomax hears his name spoken. Laughter. And then voices getting farther away. Nothing to see here. Drone strikes on the edge farms are so common since the last drought and none of Tomax’s neighbours can afford to be caught in an act of rescue at a bomb site when The Egg Men arrive. That’d be a quick way to die or have your family’s grain rations cancelled, which would mean death too, only a slower one. Jengi checks the sky. Calculates he has less than six minutes left before the Egg Men arrive on the scene. He starts counting down in his head.
    But for Tomax’s mother time will be forever divided this way: There will be who she was before this bomb. Who she was after it.
    Tomax sees his mother turn, fall to her knees on the hard soil. Jengi looks briefly in her direction and then seems to forget her. He identifies the beam which has saved Tomax’s life, pats it like an old friend. Admires the workmanship in the hinges and brackets. He squints down at the small opening he’s made to let Tomax breathe better, relieve the strain on his neck. Now he starts slowly taking rubble from above the beam, using it to stabilise the exposed ends of the wooden beam underneath.
    Bent tin roofs and stacks of broken bricks rise around Tomax. For a time there’s more building than digging, it seems, and Jengi looks grim, intensely concentrating on the work. Looking in the direction the Egg Men’s trucks will come.They have three minutes.
    A little further off, Tomax’s mother is still on her knees, giving thanks to the baobab for Jengi.
    Jengi shrugs. Looks at her from time to time and then quickly away. Wipes the dirt out of his eyes with the back of his arm, and then turning in a long swathe, casting a shrewd gaze over the rubble that lies over Tomax.
    Jengi has dug down to just above Tomax’s waist before he risks pulling him out hard. “We’ll have to make it fast. When I pull on you then the beam will shift left sharply, all this …” and now he indicates the pile above and behind Tomax, “it’s going to come down, crush your legs. So one short heave, yeah? And if you make it out then you run as soon as your feet hit the floor.” Earth falls away from Tomax. Jengi drags him back quickly before the avalanche of sand and rubble, brick. And then a sickening crump as the roof is dislodged.
    â€œHoly dursed baobab, Tomax that was close.” Jengi mops a seam of sweat from his eyebrows. Grins.
    There’s blood. Tomax thinks. There is too much of it. It’s dribbling down from the right side of his face, clouding his vision. “Am I …?” Tomax can’t think of the word. Rubble has started sliding down from the top of the stack.
    â€œLet’s go. Move.” Jengi says. Only Tomax can’t move.
    Jengi drags Tomax rough and fast, by his left arm and right hand.
    The flames climb over the rubble behind them, the heat rises. Flames catch a hold.
    Tomax sees the fire veering up behind his mother. She is still on her knees.
    For