Cherly

Peter was startled. No one had said anything for quite a while, and then suddenly there was this new voice. He looked up.

A girl was standing on the stairway across from him. She was slender and tall. Her face, with its small chin and rather prominent nose, was not exactly pretty; but her serene expression, and the pale, shining hair falling to her waist, made her beautiful.

"I … heard your voices," she said, looking back and forth between them, a tentative smile hovering around her thin lips. "And I've been looking for you for awhile. I was so glad. For a long time I thought I was … all alone here."

"Uh … glad to see you," Hanna said. "Come on down."

"Okay," said the girl, sitting down on a step and tossing her hair back with her hand. Her gray institutional dress, which would have looked dreary on most people, was somehow flattering on her.

"I'm kind of disappointed, actually. When I first heard voices I thought it meant I would be able to get out, or at least find out what was happening. But then I heard what you were just saying, about nothing making sense here, and I guess … well, you probably don't know any more than me."

"Right," Hanna said.

"But what were you saying about …" Her face twisted into a rather humorous, quizzical expression, "about sticking out your tongue, and making it work?"

"The food thing," the fat girl said, pointing at the floor. "See? I found it first," and she shot Hanna a chilling glance, "and I figured out that if you stuck your tongue out at that screen, food would come out. Good food. But then she came along—and him too—and she kept being mean, and then it stopped working."

"But how strange that it should work that way," said the new girl, smiling around at the three of them.

"Why…?"Hanna shrugged her shoulders. "Who knows? You hungry? Maybe it'll work again."

"No, no thanks. Not now." There was a silence as the three of them stared at the newcomer. She shifted uncomfortably. "Well, um, what are your names? Mine's Cheryl."

"Hanna," said Hanna. "And this is Peter. And you?" She looked at the fat girl.

"Blossom," the fat girl said, rather reluctantly but with a haughty toss of her head, and Hanna snorted.

"Blossom Pilkington," she went on. "And you can just shut up! I knew you'd do that."

Hanna turned to Cheryl. "You an orphan?" she asked.

Cheryl nodded. "I never knew my parents. I've always lived in state homes. But how did you know?"

"Me and Peter are just the same."

"I knew my parents," Blossom said. "They died about a month ago. And before they died we lived in a real—" Suddenly she stopped, and then sighed.

Hanna studied Blossom for a moment, then said, "And me and Peter are sixteen."

"So am I," said the others together.

"Well, so now we know everything," Hanna said, standing up and stretching. "But I wonder how many more sixteen-year-old orphans are gonna show up? If any."

"It does seem sort of strange, that there's a boy here," Cheryl said, looking at Peter. "You'd think they wouldn't put us in here together."

"Why?" said Hanna. "After all, nothing in this place makes sense." She put her hands on her hips. "But I'm getting tired of just sitting here. I wonder if there's any other things like this?" She touched the screen with her foot. "And there's a couple of other things I'm beginning to wonder: Is there any water around, for instance; and is there a toilet?"

"That's right," said Cheryl.

"Yeah," said Hanna. "You can have all the food you want, but you can't live if there's no water. And we are gonna have to go to the bathroom sometime. We could always just do it off the edge—" (Blossom pursed her lips and looked down at her lap.) "—but that might get kinda messy after a while. And I bet there is a toilet somewhere, if we can only find it. This place is all so sparkling clean and pure; whatever it's for, going on the floor isn't part of it. I'm gonna look around. Anybody coming? … No? … Okay."

She turned and ran lightly up the stairs.

"Whew! Am I glad she's gone," Blossom said, the moment Hanna was out of earshot.

"Why?" said Cheryl. "What's wrong with her?"

"I guess you didn't notice. For some reason she was trying to be nice to you, but she was horrible to me. Wasn't she?" she turned on Peter.

"Um … I don't know."

"But you heard the things she said," Blossom insisted. "They were mean, you've got to admit it."

What could he say? She was right in a sense, and he longed to agree with her, just to get her to leave him alone. But he did feel a vague loyalty to Hanna, a reluctance to speak against her. Finally, however, with both of them staring at him, he gave in. "Yes, she was mean, I guess."

Did Blossom really smile slightly, or was it only a little twitch in her puffy cheek as she turned back to Cheryl? "See?" she said. "He thought she was too."

Cheryl seemed rather embarrassed. "Oh, all right. But you can hardly blame anybody for acting funny in this place. It's so scary, not knowing why we're here, or what's going to happen to us."

"But you … you don't seem frightened," Peter said. "Even … even when you first found us, you were so …calm about it."

"Was I?" Her pale cheeks flushed slightly. "Well, I am frightened, but I guess I don't … I'm just the way I am."

"Well, I'm not that frightened," said Blossom. "I mean, somebody's going to come and get us out pretty soon, of course. This is all just a big mistake. It has to be."

Cheryl 's eyes met Peter's for a moment. There was really nothing to say, Blossom was so positive. Peter wanted to believe her, it would be so nice if he could. But he knew they didn't make mistakes like this.

"You've been in state homes all your life?" Cheryl asked him, breaking the silence that followed Blossom's outburst.

He nodded. "And you?" he asked, trying to turn the conversation away from himself. "What … what kind of place were you in?"

"Oh, it was okay. I guess I've been lucky. It wasn't one of those huge ones. It was kind of small, and the teachers were nice, and I have some good friends."

"You mean you don't hate it?" Blossom sounded incredulous.

"No."

"But there must have been some teachers that were horrible, and some creepy kids that you hated."

"Well, yes, there were, I guess."

"Well, you don't have to sound so snooty about it," said Blossom. "What's wrong with hating somebody? 'Loathing is endless,'" she quoted in her high-pitched, nasal voice. "'Hate is a bottomless cup. I pour and pour' Did you ever hear that? It's from some ancient play or something."

"No." Cheryl seemed embarrassed again.

"That was the only good thing about being in the place I've been since my parents died." She spoke of their death easily now, as though they had gone for a holiday at a resort development. "There were so many people to hate, that's what was good about it. But I had friends too, good friends, at the school I went to before my parents died." She paused. "Do you … do you want to know something? Something about my parents?" She looked eagerly back and forth between then, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "I probably shouldn't tell you, I know I'm not supposed to talk about it, but … well, since they did put me in here with you, and everything is so strange, maybe it's okay." She folded her arms. "Anyway, I want to tell. I bet you won't believe it. But it's true, it's really true."

Suddenly Peter wanted to know what she was going to say. There was something strangely compelling about the eagerness in her voice; and Cheryl, who had been staring into her lap, was now watching Blossom just as intently as he.