Excerpt from The Bully of Order by Brian Hart, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I'd gotten my whale. It was a finback and it was dead, but I'd wanted to see a whale and I did. Mother saw me and came over and put her arm around me.

"It's terrible."

"You left me." I had yet to catch my breath.

"You're old enough to wake up alone and not be scared."

"But I didn't know where everybody went."

"You found us, that's all that matters."

The bugle player from the band started on some mournful song but someone yelled at him to shut it and he stopped. The big man, Mr. Tartan, was there and he didn't look nearly as sad as everyone else. A few of the drunken soldiers looked like they might weep, like the whale had been their friend, like the holiday was for it instead of them. People were touch­ing the whale's hide, petting it. A group of Indians, three boys and two grown women, were on the hill watching us. Mr. Tartan stood apart from the crowd and watched them back, and then he turned and wandered in the direction of Westport.

I found Zeb at the tail with some other boys digging out the sand from beneath it. I found a stick and joined in. The tail would soon be the roof of our fort. My pants and shoes were soaked through from the seeping sand.

The man that had kicked me found me down in the hole with the other boys. "Did you hear me, boy? I said I'm sorry I was rough with you before."

"It's okay."

"I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No. I'm fine."

"All right." The man joined his friends and as a group they returned to the shipwreck. He was walking with some of the sailors.

"Duncan," Mother said. "It's time we get going if we don't want to be left behind."

"Come on out of there," Edna said to Zeb. "I don't want to hear you complaining about being cold on the way home."

"I won't," Zeb said as he climbed out.

I was right behind him. "What'll happen to the whale?" I asked my mother.

"It'll rot, I'd guess. Maybe if there's a storm it'll get carried out to sea. The birds will be after it as soon as we leave, I know that." She looked up at the Indians but didn't say anything else.

The walk back to the wharf was tiresome and cold and the wind was everybody's enemy. The boy I'd fought with earlier was being helped along by two women. His sister pointed me out to them. Mother and Edna stopped to ask if they needed help and the boy told on me.

"Is this true?" Mother asked.

"I didn't mean to hurt him," I said.

"He started it," Zeb said. "He hit Duncan first." Right then Edna's little baby started to cry so her and Zeb had to keep walking. We'd see them at the wharf. I waved good­bye to him because I was on my own now.

"Don't see how it matters who started it," one of the women said. "His eye's a mess."

"He needs to see the doctor," the other woman said.

"Are one of you his mother?" Mother asked.

"No, ma'am, the Boyertons are in Seattle. We're watching the children for them."

Mother knelt down in front of the boy and pulled his hands away from his face. There was a bruise above his eye, and the eye itself was blood-red and teary. He couldn't hold it open without crying.

"What's your name?"

"Oliver."

"Oliver. And is this your sister?"

"Yes."

"What's her name?"

"Teresa."

"Hello, Teresa."

"Hello."

"Are you going to be all right?" Mother asked the boy.

He shook his head no. "My eye hurts."

"I know it does. I know. Duncan, apologize to Oliver for hurting his eye."

"It was an accident," the little girl said. She was staring at me like she knew me.

I felt the blood go hot into my face. I could tell she wanted to say some­thing else, something mean that would hurt me but she couldn't with my mother there. Oliver had his hands back over his eye and the two women ushered him on.

Excerpted from The Bully of Order by Brian Hart. Copyright © 2014 by Brian Hart. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.