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Stanley let out a short laugh. He wasn’t laughing at Zero. He was just surprised. All this time he had thought Zero was reading over his shoulder. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know how to teach.”
After digging all day, he didn’t have the strength to try to teach Zero to read and write. He needed to save his energy for the people who counted.
“You don’t have to teach me to write,” said Zero. “Just to read. I don’t have anybody to write to.”
“Sorry,” Stanley said again.
His muscles and hands weren’t the only part
s of his body that had toughened over the past several weeks. His heart had hardened as well.
He finished his letter. He barely had enough moisture in his mouth to seal and stamp the envelope. It seemed that no matter how much water he drank, he was always thirsty.
19
He was awakened one night by a strange noise. At first he thought it might have been some kind of animal, and it frightened him. But as the sleep cleared from his head, he realized that the noise was coming from the cot next to him.
Squid was crying.
“You okay?” Stanley whispered.
Squid’s head jerked around. He sniffed and caught his breath. “Yeah, I just … I’m fine,” he whispered, and sniffed again.
In the morning Stanley asked Squid if he was feeling better.
“What are you, my mother?” asked Squid.
Stanley raised and lowered one shoulder.
“I got allergies, okay?” Squid said.
“Okay,” said Stanley.
“You open your mouth again, and I’ll break your jaw.”
• • •
Stanley kept his mouth shut most of the time. He didn’t talk too much to any of the boys, afraid that he might say the wrong thing. They called him Caveman and all that, but he couldn’t forget that they were dangerous, too. They were all here for a reason. As Mr. Sir would say, this wasn’t a Girl Scout camp.
Stanley was thankful that there were no racial problems. X-Ray, Armpit, and Zero were black. He, Squid, and Zigzag were white. Magnet was Hispanic. On the lake they were all the same reddish brown color—the color of dirt.
He looked up from his hole to see the water truck and its trailing dust cloud. His canteen was still almost a quarter full. He quickly drank it down, then took his place in line, behind Magnet and in front of Zero. The air was thick with heat, dust, and exhaust fumes.
Mr. Sir filled their canteens.
The truck pulled away. Stanley was back in his hole, shovel in hand, when he heard Magnet call out. “Anybody want some sunflower seeds?”
Magnet was standing at ground level, holding a sack of seeds. He popped a handful into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, shells and all.
“Over here,” called X-Ray.
The sack looked to be about half full. Magnet rolled up the top, then tossed it to X-Ray.
“How’d you get them without Mr. Sir seeing you?” asked Armpit.
“I can’t help it,” Magnet said. He held both hands up, wiggled his fingers, and laughed. “My fingers are like little magnets.”
The sack went from X-Ray to Armpit to Squid.
