"It's a lot of hard work. You're going to pull your own weight around here, and some other's. Don't think we won't notice if you're slacking off."

Send me home. Send me home, I want to go home.

"The first few days will be tough on you. It's better if you get the hang of things as quickly as possible. We can't make time especially to train you. Pick it up as you go along, watch the others. You should be able to do everything within the week."

I want to go home. I don't belong here. This was a mistake. Send me home.

"You can get familiar with the patchwork but don't let us catch you talking during hours. You're here to work, not socialize. It's important you work with the others when we call an effort chain. Other than that, it isn't required."

This isn't right.

"The harder you work, the better off you'll be. We have a rewards system. I don't know if Libby uses it... You're better off not making her angry, anyway. Keep her happy by doing your job. You have a few days before she comes back, so you'd best know what you're doing by then."

We stopped and he looked down at me. He'd been reciting mostly from memory.

"Do you have any questions?"

If I opened my mouth I'd only let out a croak. My throat felt squeezed, so I tried to ask him through my eyes. He didn't read me.

"All right then. This is where you'll bunk." He unlocked the door with a key and pulled it open for me. "You start work tomorrow. Get some sleep."

This would have been the opportunity to run away. His arms were long, though, and thick. I didn't want to feel them yanking around my stomach. I went in under his watch and stopped just past the threshold. The door shut behind me and locked. For a moment I could only see black.

I reached back and felt at the door while my eyes adjusted. There was a latch handle, and I gave it a squeeze, but it didn't give. I really was locked in. Now I could see some of the walls around me. A short and narrow staircase led down from where I stood to the bunks below.

It smelled like wet stone. I touched the railing once and it felt moist, smooth. Further down I could see where the stairs spread out to the floor. A light was on somewhere in the room. I stayed against the door. Backed into this notch, I could have spent the night.

The slide of bare feet rubbed across the floor. For a moment an elongated shadow poked out from inside the room, an egg-shaped head. Then two sets of toes pushed it along, and it was broken up on the stairs. Their knees were dirty, and the rest of them I couldn't make out. They couldn't see me very well either.

The light in the room was blocked out. I squeezed the door handle again, holding on. If they started to come up the stairs I would break the latch, and if that didn't let me out I would scream. Maybe the stairs would creak as they climbed up. I couldn't tell how tall the ceiling was. It didn't seem likely I would be able to jump over them and land on the ground. The person turned around and scuffed their feet back into the room, speaking loudly. It was a girl.

"It isn't Libby. Just some new kid."

Several voices muttered. Spring beds squealed and metal scraped back and forth. Somebody tried to laugh.

"Boy or girl?"

"I don't know, I couldn't see."

"It doesn't matter. There aren't any bunks free anyway. We're already sharing."

"Maybe they'll bring in a new bunk."

"Yeah, right."

There were so many voices, they all mashed up into one constant rabble. The quiet had been a cover, for what I didn't know. I didn't want to intrude any further, to make a sound. If the stairs did make a noise when they were stepped on, they would all fall silent again to listen to it. That's what I thought at least. Now that they knew I was here, though, it seemed pointless to keep hiding by the door. Someone in the room felt the same way, and rose their voice enough that I could hear them.

"Whoever they are, they shouldn't block the door all night. It opens inwards anyway. They'll get pushed down the stairs." Someone laughed in agreement. I tested the first step. It squeaked a little, but the rabble covered most of it.

Ten metal-framed bunk beds were arranged in a semicircle. Most of them were on a slightly lower level from the rest of the floor, a step down into a shallow pit finished in cement. That was where they all sat together, leaning against their beds and talking. A couple stayed on their top bunks and dangled their arms and legs. There were at least twenty of them that I could see, dark skin outlined with lamplight, light skin shady and grey. The room had one lamp sitting on a box. There was no other furniture.

For the longest time nobody turned to look at me. I could see how every bed was occupied. Blankets and clothes hung off all of them, draped the frames like curtains. They had formed a solid ring in the middle of the pit. It was dim even around the lamp, but I could see now. Boys and girls around my age, mostly older I thought. They were absorbed in their meeting. I still couldn't pull their voices apart.

A girl turned her head and glanced up at me. Her face was too dark for me to make out her expression. She looked me up and down. I got the feeling she was unimpressed, that I should say something, but she turned her head away.

"Who's making room for the new girl?"

They stopped talking, voices dropping out one at a time. Most looked at me. I felt their eyes on me, scanning over and over again, not that impressed like the first girl. Only this time I didn't want to say something. I wanted to run upstairs.

"Another girl," one of them said. The pause was hollow. "Just what we needed."

"I'm not sharing," one girl said. She pushed herself up to her knees, then her feet. The dress she wore was crinkled even after she brushed it out. She walked across the circle and climbed into a bottom bunk.

Slowly the others started getting up, crisscrossing without a word to get to their appropriate beds. One by one the beds filled up. Metal wobbled and scraped as they climbed to the top bunks. Some beds held two in them, settling across from each other with their legs meeting in the middle. Most didn't look at me again. A couple of girls in bottom bunks stared at me, and while they didn't show outright contempt I knew I wasn't welcome to join them. Slipping in with one of the boys was out of the question.

I looked at all of the beds, trying not to look at the kids in them, searching for one that was empty. Of course there was no bed that was truly vacant, but the floor was thinning out and I was about ready to cut someone off if necessary. I just didn't want to be standing alone again.

When I started to move towards one bunk or the other, though, the people still walking seemed to hurry their step a bit. When I reached a bunk and touched the railing to climb up, a boy barreled straight up past me and shook the whole framework. The girl in the bottom bunk was watching it all happen. I looked up instead of meeting her eyes. The boy was leaning over to look down at me, eyes like smudges of silver in his dark face. He had a smile on his lips. I think he winked at me before drawing back out of sight.

Ridiculous. I wanted to tell them all, with as clear and firm a voice I could muster, that this was ridiculous. My mouth wouldn't open. A sour sensation was building up in my throat. Would it be so bad, to climb back up the stairs and sit down against the door? Even if it opened inward, even if I got knocked down...

The top bunk at the back of the room looked empty, unless whoever was in it was lying close to the wall. It's blanket was still laid flat, I couldn't see anything bundled on the pillow. As I made my way over everything in the room darkened until I couldn't see it. All I could see was the top bunk, the empty space. Not even the boy sitting on the bunk below it, besides a tuft of his hair, caught my eye. There were no other people watching, this wasn't a big hole in the ground with cement for flooring, no windows. There was only the bed. It felt like it took a long time to get there.

They were watching me. It felt like having ants crawling all over my face. Gripping the railing, I got one foot up before the boy on the bottom bunk moved enough to make the springbed squeal.

"That's Robin's bed," he said. At first it made me pause, break my fixation on the bed to look at him. He wasn't smiling or winking. I looked out around the semicircle of bunks at the other people. Strange expressions, as if they didn't understand what they were seeing. Nobody else said anything. I looked at the boy one more time- his expression was like everyone else's- and got my other foot up. Hefted up about a foot off the ground, I expected to feel the boy grab at my legs to shake me off, but I was left alone.

As I pulled myself up a few more rungs I expected to see a pair of feet and legs at any moment, or a head of hair and staring eyes, something to get in the way of my view of the empty bed. My eyes stung a little from staying open, waiting to take in the apparition that would put me back on the floor. I came face to face with nothing, a clear line straight across the bed to the near wall. After staying balanced on the railing for a few seconds, I pulled myself up and sat down.

They were still watching me in my periphery, but they didn't say anything. I looked at the bed. The blanket was a little threadbare towards the center, its color dimmed with dirt. The pillowcase was off-white, almost grey. I started to lie down but moved the pillow out of the way of my head. It was one thing to use their mattress for the night, but I wasn't comfortable using Robin's pillow. There was no telling what I might get off of it, maybe lice. For the same reason I didn't pull out the blanket to tuck myself in. It might have been because of this reserve that the others in the room didn't come to pull me down. They left me alone the rest of the night and I, after lying in silence with the stairway to my back for some time, fell asleep.