None of the boys complain. Even Arnold knows, by the end of his first week, there's nothing to be done.
When Karen is on shift, she does what she can to mitigate the heat. She lets them into the yard, where the air is just slightly lighter than it is indoors, and they all take turns drenching each other with the garden hose and pilfering the little pockets of shade cast by the high, barbed-wire fence and the houses next door. It's just enough to keep them from going insane.
At night, though, there's no escape.
The Friday after Arnold arrives, Peter is lying on top of his covers, unsure if he is half asleep or just torpid from heat and hunger and dehydration. On nights when he can't sleep—which is every night—he recounts the plots of the movies he and Ben used to watch over and over until the words turn into pictures and the pictures to dreams, and in this way he can usually claim a few hours of rest before the wasp-sting of morning sun turns the sodden heat of night into something sharp.
Tonight's tale is It Came From Outer Space. After the Chitauri attack his parents had forbidden Peter from watching it, but their reticence had only encouraged Ben. "If we can't watch cinematic masterpieces like this," said Ben, "then those alien bastards have already won." It never failed to make younger Peter laugh.
Tonight, older Peter watches in his mind's eye as the malformed, cycloptic alien lands.
Just as it does, a shadow looms up over his bed.
First, Peter thinks he's entered the hazy twilight that occurs before sleep, where dreams meld with reality.
Then he realizes Ryan is standing over his bed, and he yelps.
Ryan claps a hand over Peter's mouth, but not before his roommates hear. Arnold shoots up like a geyser and knocks his head on the bunk above his; Felipe scrambles out of the top bunk with a "What the fuck, man!" and grabs Ryan's arm.
Peter fully expects Ryan to hit him. But as soon as Felipe touches him, Ryan releases Peter, hissing, "Shut the fuck up!"
The three younger boys freeze, staring up at Ryan, waiting. For a minute, he lapses back into his intimidating silence, considering each of them in turn. Then he reaches into his pocket.
Felipe and Peter both start forward, but when Ryan's hand emerges it is not holding a weapon but a silver key, which gleams in the moonlight.
"What's that?" whispers Arnold.
"It's a fucking key, dumbass."
"Yeah, but what's it go to, pendejo?" says Felipe.
His tone is irritable, but he looks just like Peter feels: curious.
Ryan narrows his eyes. "Charlise's office."
"No fucking way."
Now Felipe can't keep the admiration out of his voice. Even Peter, whose heart is still thumping uncomfortably, leans forward to inspect the key, ignoring his own discomfort as he enters the perimeter of Ryan's reach.
"How'd you get it?" he says, groping for his glasses. Ryan's scowl, apparently a permanent feature, gains clarity.
"Grabbed it when the bitch hip-checked me in the hall."
"And she hasn't noticed it's gone?"
"She keeps doubles of all of them. This is just the spare."
In spite of himself, Peter starts to feel impressed too. Ryan's fingers must be far more nimble than their thickness would suggest. He wonders if that's why Ryan is in here.
Felipe sits on the bed next to Peter, who has known his bunk-mate long enough now to know when he is affecting casualness. Felipe's shoulders might be slumped, but his fingertips drum on the bedspread, sending vibrations up and down Peter's spine.
"So what?" says Felipe. "You come here to shank us with it? Because I gotta say, my man, when they say size doesn't count they're actually referring to—"
"Justin," says Ryan, "is a fucking pussy."
"What, he didn't follow through when you dared him to kiss you?"
Ryan does punch Felipe now, gives him a charlie horse on the upper arm that's not enough to leave a bruise but is enough to make Felipe yelp.
Peter gets to his feet, stands between Felipe and Ryan.
"Get to the point then, sea-monster," he says. "Not all of us are goons who don't need sleep."
Peter is immediately surprised by his own audacity. In the swarm of adrenaline, the mouthiness he thought he'd lost the night Ben died rises up before he can stop it.
He braces himself for a charlie horse of his own, but Ryan doesn't hit him.
"I need your help," he says.
"What?"
"Help, dickless. Help." He shakes the key in Peter's face. "Justin said no, so I need one of you twerps. And I've heard Karen talk about you. She says you're smart."
Peter glances sidelong at Felipe just in time to see him look at his lap. Peter knows Felipe has a crush on Karen, but Peter doesn't mention it; just swallows and looks back at Ryan.
"What kind of help?"
"Charlise lies about the food."
Peter's boldness transmutes to queasiness in an instant.
"I mean, probably, but—"
"Not probably. She's got a second fridge in her office. I was in there two weeks ago getting written up and I saw it. She left it open and everything. It's full-sized, and it's fucking loaded. She says we got no money in the budget, but she has enough food in that goddamn room of hers to feed the Upper East Side, and she's fucking hoarding it."
There is a moment of sharp silence. Even Arnold scoots closer now, his eyes shining with something Peter hasn't seen in them since he arrived: hope.
"Are you fuckin' serious?" says Felipe.
Ryan nods.
"I'm gonna get in," he says. "On Monday, when she does her errands. But I can't do it by myself. I need someone to distract the providers, and keep lookout." He nods at Peter, pocketing the key. "So. You in?"
For a second, all of Peter's mind is occupied by the thought of a full fridge. Soda, cookies, sandwiches—hell, at this point he would probably sell his own clothes for a fresh salad. He's grown so accustomed to the constant, gnawing hunger he almost can't remember what it's like to feel fully sated. And if Ms. Charlise really is dipping into their budget to buy food for herself—
You're allowed to defend yourself Peter.
The image sloughs away.
"No," says Peter.
Felipe and Arnold's faces go slack, while Ryan's immediately assumes an expression of fury.
"Pedro, what the hell?" says Felipe. "You can't be serious, man."
But Peter sets his jaw, widens his stance, and meets Ryan's eye.
"If we get caught, we all get stuck here even longer," he says. "Ms. Charlise even said it, if Ryan gets written up again he gets a longer sentence. Maybe they even send us to actual jail."
"Peter," says Felipe, gaping. It's the first time he's used Peter's real name. "It's food, ese, it's not like we're robbing the goddamn Queen of England. How can you not want food ? You're the skinniest fuckin' kid here!"
Meeting Felipe's eye is harder than meeting Ryan's, but Peter forces himself to nonetheless.
"Trust me," he says, "it's only going to make things worse. It always does. You stand up for yourself" —
(Peter, lunging toward the gun right as Ben steps in front of him, pushes him back)
(Peter, hands thrown out to stop a descending blow, his lungs empty)
(Peter, handcuffed and alone, head hanging as his social worker appears to tell him he's no longer wanted)
— "and things get worse. They always get worse."
He looks at Ryan.
"I'm out."
Ryan opens his mouth and Peter forces himself not to flinch, certain he's about to get his ass kicked. But before Ryan can respond, Felipe cuts in.
"I'll do it."
Peter's stomach sinks, but when he turns to Felipe, his bunk-mate's eyes are hard and unyielding, and looking not at Peter but at Ryan.
"Fuck the haters," Felipe says, "just tell me what to do."