A rotten smile spread across the Admiral’s face.
“Oh, it don’t take any guessin’. ’Tis a dark tale, to be sure.” The Admiral leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Between you and I, a lot of these boys don’t really deserve to be here. A belt and a bellow would suffice for most of them, I’d say. But you, Jonathan Grisby. You do deserve to be here, don’t you?”
Jonathan swallowed and sniffed. He shifted from foot to foot. Then he looked up into the Admiral’s obsidian eyes. And nodded.
“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I do.”
The Admiral slurped half a sausage into his mouth and nodded. His eyes narrowed to dark reptilian slits and his smile widened. He chewed slowly, his black eyes burrowing like beetles into Jonathan’s.
“I’m going to take a personal interest in your education here, Jonathan Grisby. A boy like you will require more focused attention, I believe. So troubled. So … evil. We’ll begin your education right after Morning Muster today.” The Admiral swallowed and then gulped a mouthful of coffee. He waved his hand dismissively at Jonathan. “That’ll be all. Don’t just stand there like a dead chicken.”
Jonathan retreated numbly to the kitchen, where all the other boys were busy sweeping and scrubbing and cleaning up. A great cauldron bubbled on one of the stoves, and his nose sniffed hungrily at the smell of oatmeal.
Jonathan’s growling belly was interrupted by a sharp shove from behind. A tall kid with scalp-short black hair glared down at him. His nose was broad and flat, like a tiger’s. It was bumpy, like it had been broken before. More than once.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the kid demanded. “You don’t help, you don’t eat.”
“Oh … I … what …” Jonathan stammered, panicked at the thought of missing breakfast. “What do you want me to do?”
The kid scowled and looked around. He pointed at a pile of logs by the wall.
“Add more wood to the stove. It’s about burned down.” He bent over and opened the iron door at the bottom of the stove. A wave of heat blasted out. Jonathan looked at the glowing red coals, the licking red flames, the flickering, hungry fingers of fire.
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“What?”
“No, I—I can’t. I don’t like fire.”
“You don’t like fire?” the kid snorted.
“God, Sebastian, leave him alone. It’s his first day.” The voice came from Tony, the kid who’d been flipping pancakes. He lifted his chin in greeting at Jonathan and then grabbed a couple of logs from the pile and tossed them into the stove. He kicked the door shut with his foot and brushed past the broken-nosed kid and back to the pot he’d been scrubbing.
“Name’s Tony,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Welcome to Slabhenge, kid.”
Sebastian scrunched his broken nose at Jonathan before turning away.
As the cleanup got done, the boys lined up behind the cauldron of oatmeal. Walter pulled Jonathan and Colin into line with him.
“This place stinks, man,” Walter said. “No joke. But you’ll get used to it.” He smirked and cocked his eyebrows at Colin. “If short stuff here can make it, I’m sure you’ll be all right.”
Colin smiled back, for just a flash. He pursed his lips and pulled on one ear, his eyebrows screwed up thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said. “There’th no bookth, though. That’th the wortht part. I mith bookth.”
Colin looked so small and sad and quiet, standing there pinching his own ear. He looked nothing like a hardened delinquent in need of reform.
“What did you do?” The question blurted out of Jonathan’s mouth. “Why are you here?”
Colin ducked his head further. His eyes flitted up to Jonathan’s and then back down.
“I’m a klepto,” he whispered. Then he kind of giggled.
“A what?”
“A kleptomaniac. I thteal thtuff. Loth of thtuff. I can’t help it.”
Walter shook his head.
“Man, why don’t you just say ‘thief’? It’s what your mouth wants to say.”
Colin smiled, just a little bit.
“I’m a thief. A thneaky, thneaky thief.” Jonathan smiled back at him. “Why are you here?”
Jonathan opened his mouth and shut it. He swallowed. Then the line started moving.
They filed past the great pot of oatmeal, where Benny stood, dolloping a ladle of the steaming gray glop into each of their bowls.
Jonathan grabbed a bowl from a pile on the counter and held it out when he got to the front of the line. Benny scooped his ladle into the pot and held it out toward Jonathan’s bowl.
“No, Benny,” Sebastian’s voice said from behind him. “No breakfast for the new kid. He didn’t do a thing to help clean up.”
Jonathan spun around. “I’m starving, please—”
“Keep talking.” Sebastian cut him off, leaning in close. “And it’ll be no lunch, either.”
Tears sprang to Jonathan’s eyes. If there’d been anything in his stomach, he would have thrown it up.
He felt a gentle hand grab his elbow.