"Liam!"
Benjamin’s shriek brought Isabella running back from across the field. When she reached the shade of the tree, she found her elder brother pinning their younger brother to the ground, his hand going into Liam’s mouth again and again while Liam strained backward to keep away from it.
Isabella stared: "What on earth are the two of you doing?"
Benjamin’s face had gone pale, and there was a tremor in his voice: "Help me hold him down. He just ate a worm raw!"
Isabella’s expression went from astonishment to horror, and she moved in at once to help her brother. But the two of them were slightly too late. Liam had already finished eating it.
Benjamin scooped Liam up bodily, with Isabella running along behind, fumbling at her smart watch as she went. She looked to be about to call for emergency services.
Liam said hurriedly: "I’m fine! I really am fine! That worm isn’t poisonous..."
Benjamin’s face darkened: "You say it isn’t poisonous and that makes it so, does it? How can you go eating any old thing like that? If you were hungry you could have told us. I’d sell myself before I let you go hungry!"
A wave of warmth rose from the bottom of Liam’s chest. Perhaps, he thought, the decision to open his heart to these two had been the right one. He shook his head and laughed: "That isn’t it. I’ve eaten them before, back at the Hall house. Really! That worm isn’t poisonous."
Benjamin’s steps slowed a little, and Isabella’s finger hovered over the call button. Both of them looked at Liam with disbelief written across their faces. Liam blinked at them, the picture of innocence.
In the end Isabella did not press the emergency call. But the two of them dropped their work in the fields all the same, and sat at home staring at Liam. He had only to knit his brows for the pair of them to fly into a panic.
Watching the two of them, Liam’s eyes turned faintly damp. All at once he was terribly homesick. He missed Uncle Lucas, he missed Aunt Lucy, he missed Justin and his nephew Henry. He had no idea whether, once he came here, the original owner had gone there to take his place.
And if he hadn’t, how much pain must his family be in...
Seeing Liam suddenly crying, Isabella and Benjamin fell into an immediate panic. They crowded around him, asking over and over whether something hurt. Benjamin was on the point of putting him into the medical pod he and Isabella had bought when they first arrived on the planet.
Liam shook his head, put his arms around the two of them and said thickly: "I’m all right. I was just touched, that’s all. The two of you are so good to me."
Benjamin and Isabella glanced at each other, the same thought in both their minds. Could it be that the Hall family had treated Liam badly? Was that why he had walked away from all that wealth and comfort to come out here and suffer alongside them?
The two of them reached out and patted their younger brother gently, promising themselves that from now on they would treat him better still.
Liam sniffed and said quietly: "Brother, sister, I want fried worms. It’s been such a long time since I’ve had any..."
The two adults’ faces stiffened. They had not expected Liam to still be thinking fondly of that grass worm. And besides, were worms actually edible?
How badly off could the Hall family possibly have been, that those hideous insects ended up in someone’s mouth?
Doubts and all, their younger brother had said he wanted them, and as his elder brother and sister they could hardly refuse the boy.
And so Liam was pressed down into a chair at the foot of the tree, and sat watching his brother and sister toil away peeling leaves to get worms for him. Every so often the two of them would glance up, confirm that nothing was wrong with Liam, and only then bend back to their work.
They worked fast, and before long they had half a bucket of worms. Liam looked at those wobbling, quivering things and badly wanted to put a few in his mouth. But Benjamin and Isabella were watching far too closely, and he had no further chance at a raw one.
Liam sighed with regret. But then, imagining how fragrant and rich the worms would be fried, the regret stopped biting quite so hard. It would be like fried silkworm.
By now it was almost noon, and the heat rising off the ground was starting to make Liam uncomfortable. Benjamin and Isabella stopped working too. Benjamin picked up the bucket of squirming worms with an expression of open loathing and sent Liam back to the house ahead of him. Isabella carried the husks of the thorny weed leaves, seeds and all, off to one corner and burned the lot.
Once back inside, Liam washed his hands and face first to take the burn out of his skin, then went downstairs to show off his cooking.
He tipped the grass worms into a basin and rinsed them once through. That done, he set a pot of water on to boil with lime leaves, ginger, lemongrass and salt. He had to be grateful that this civilized world had held on to a fair number of culinary herbs, or all the knowledge in his head would have been no use to him at all.
Once the water boiled, Liam dropped the live worms in, let them cook for about two minutes, then lifted them out into a colander to drain. With the worms boiled, he fetched the cracklings left over from the night before, and two more eggs.
First Liam set a deep wok on the stove and put in a little star-beast fat. When the fat was hot he added half the boiled worms and stirred them through. Once the worms had dried off, in went the cracklings along with the seasoning. He kept them moving until both the cracklings and the worms were dry and wearing a glossy coat of oil, and then turned off the heat.
Liam turned the worms out onto a plate and scattered shredded lime leaves over the top. Next he finely chopped the remaining boiled worms together with shallots and tipped them into a bowl. He cracked in the eggs, added seasoning, beat it all together and fried it in the flat pan. This time he did not roll the egg but spread it out into a thin, even sheet. When it was golden on both sides he lifted it onto a plate, and fried two more batches before the egg was used up.
He cut the egg into bite-sized pieces with a knife, then called Isabella in to carry the food out.
The two Martinez siblings had been drooling down their chins for some time already. They could not believe that those revolting worms could smell this good once fried. Liam put the dirty cooking things into the automatic washer, wiped down the stove and washed his hands.
He had meant to stir-fry a vegetable as well, but was afraid his brother and sister would drop dead of heart failure on the spot, so lunch would have to be these two worm dishes and nothing else.
Even after Liam sat down, the other two still had their chopsticks in hand and did not dare touch anything. Liam had no choice but to be his own test subject, and picked up a piece of the worm omelet.
Fragrant and rich, better even than meat. He took a chopstickful of the worms fried with cracklings, a few shreds of lime leaf along with them, and put it straight into his mouth. Oh, that taste. Better than fried silkworm.
"Mm, that’s wonderful. Hurry up and eat, it won’t be good cold."
Isabella drew a deep breath, stretched out her chopsticks and took a piece of the worms fried with cracklings. She raised it to her mouth, hesitated for several minutes, then shut her eyes tight, held her nose and pushed it in. Benjamin held his breath and stared at her. Her tightly shut eyes suddenly flew wide open, and something shot out of them that Benjamin could not begin to interpret.
Then, with Benjamin still staring at her, Isabella began shovelling worms into her mouth one chopstickful after another. His jaw dropped, and he looked at his sister in complete disbelief.
Liam spoke up, amused: "If you don’t eat faster there won’t be any left."
Only then did Benjamin snap out of it and shout: "Isabella! You have to leave some for me!"
Benjamin hurriedly piled Liam’s bowl full of egg and fried worms, and only then set about fighting Isabella for the rest. The two dishes on the table were carved up between them in no time at all.
Liam smiled and ate his own bowlful at his leisure.