failed to notice a jagged piece of rusted metal jutting out of the truck. Biting his lip to ignore the pain as the metal sliced into his skin, Lucas rolled roughly into the grass cursing himself once again for being unable to get the pieces of sugarcane Jose was unable to get. The truck stops and the drivers pick up the loose stalks as they laugh at each other — knowing the games that children like to play. The engine starts once again and the truck speeds off into the azucarera. Jose found Lucas wincing in pain as the blood flowed from the fresh wound into the hard ground of the plains. Jose rips off a part of his shirt and wipes the wound of blood before tying it around the wounded calf. Jose helps his brother up and begin their journey home, enjoying their hard- won bounty of five short stalks of sugarcane. The sun began to set as the two brothers limped into the lonely barangay in the middle of the plantation. They stopped at the karinderya to ask for water so as to clean the wound and redress it. The manangs asked what happened more out of curiosity than care and, while the brothers explained that he had been wounded in the nearby creek, the bundle of sugarcane stalks betrayed the truth of their mission that afternoon. Lucas reveled in the stinging pain of his new wound as he was excited to see the scar that would form in its wake. He was eager to show it off to his friends at the barrio and make wild and outlandish stories as to how he got it. Jose took a cup of water and cleaned the wound of his little brother, afraid of the punishment he would get when he got back home. 28