Edris looked no older than 6, but when asked how old he was, he counted his fingers and said 22. What grade was he in? “This much,” he said, showing the fingers of both hands: “22.”

“He is here all day, and he goes home with us in the evening,” Ajmal said. “When his family changes him into new clothes, he doesn’t like it. He changes back into dirty ones and comes out here.”

Nearby, a boy named Imranai suddenly smacked one of his cousins in the face. Chaos erupted. Several children tangled up in a fight in the dirt, cursing one another’s mothers and sisters, some crying.

“I told him to go to work and stop wasting your time, and he cursed my sister!” Imranai said, explaining the reason for what would be one of several fights that evening. He wore bright yellow sweatpants, and fixed a stylish kerchief around his neck.

“I have worked 60 afghanis today. How much have you worked?” the cousin shot back. Imranai, bent on keeping up the intimidation, jumped at the boy again. The younger cousin dropped his bucket, water splashing everywhere, and picked up two small rocks, assuming a firing position.

“They curse their own aunts, their own mothers — as if they are not all from same family,” Ajmal said, happy to look down at them. He was interrupted again. He wrinkled his nose up and sniffed the air.

“Is that weed?” he said, stretching the word out over several beats as he scanned the graveyard to see who was smoking it.

At the end of the day comes the most important ritual. The children lay out all their bills on a dry grave for sorting. Their fathers are either poor, or abroad for labor. Ajmal’s father is a gatekeeper at a university, for example. Jamshid’s is a gardener.

Khushnuma, 6, is one of youngest of the group, and she comes to the cemetery with her sister, who is even younger. She said her father was in their hometown in Laghman, an eastern province, and would return soon. The boys said she did not know that her father was actually in Iran.

“He is bringing me a Galaxy phone,” she said. A dirty apple, an offering from some mourning family, bulged out the pocket of her pink jacket.

Khushnuma has a go-to tactic that never seems to fail. “If they don’t pay her, she just starts crying,” Ajmal said.

Khushnuma smiled. “I have worked 80 afghanis today” — about $1.20 — “all on my own,” she said, clicking her tongue in satisfaction.