Lex Thomas - Quaranteen

“We made a great haul today,” someone said.

Lucy peeked her head around the cluster of desks and saw Mort limp through the basement doors, backed by the twins.

They wove their way through trash piles to the heart of the camp, which was hidden behind the largest pile in the room.

They each carried trash bags and dumped the contents out on chairs for the other Scraps to see. Mort’s bag contained food. Both the twins’ bags contained dirty laundry. Belinda, bucket in hand, scooped up an armful of laundry. Will poked through the food and held up a bottle of vinegar with a puzzled look to Mort.

“Vinegar? Seriously? What, does the military think we’re pickling eggs in here?”

Lucy smiled. Thank God for Will. He’d been there for her every day, reminding her of stories from their trip in Utah together. He was so sweet. He helped her remember that before the Pretty Ones, she was a girl who was adventurous, who liked to laugh, who thought for herself. It had all been so easy to forget. She was so attracted to Will back then, but he never made a move.

A kick ball rested on the ground near Will, inside the chalk outline of a four-square court. Nelson had found the ball in the trash. He’d organized a four-square tournament that had really helped to bring people together. The only precaution was being sure not to make too much noise when they played.

That went for every aspect of their life down here. They’d managed to keep their little camp secret so far by hiding in the boiler room whenever the Skaters rolled in and dropped their trash at the end of their runs. The Skaters never had any reason to venture this far back into the trash.

Lucy stepped out of her quarters. So far, she’d opted out of group activities like kick ball because she just needed time to herself after what had happened with Brad. She could only get away with that for so long. It was time for her to join the gang. Belinda was washing a sweater in a mop bucket. She wrung it out. Lucy approached her.

“I can hang stuff if you just want to wash,” Lucy said.

Belinda ignored her, hung the sweater on a turned-over chair, and turned back to her sudsy bucket of gray water. Lucy bit her lip.

“Would that help at all?” Lucy said.

Belinda slapped down the wet laundry in her hand with a huff.

“Or… not?”

“A little late now, don’t you think?” Belinda said.

“Late?”

Belinda grumbled down into the bucket, “Just because the little princess finally wants to help-”

“Excuse me?”

Belinda looked up and jutted her jaw. “You heard me. Just because David thinks you’re so special doesn’t mean we do

… Pretty One.”

Lucy was mortified. This was worse than she’d expected.

She wanted to say something to defend herself, but nothing came. She was sick at the thought that everyone thought she was slacking off. She should have been working harder to build friendships.

“Hey, Haunches, you got a problem with Lucy?” Will said.

Lucy turned to see Will. He wore a cocked sneer, and his eyes were squeezed to slits. Something about the way he was holding his head, his shoulders back, made Lucy notice how muscular he was now. He had a nice body. Belinda must have noticed too, and she backed up with a startled whinny.

“Will, don’t… It’s okay,” Lucy said.

“No, it’s not okay. You’re trying to help,” he said, and turned to the rest of the room. “Hey, listen up, anybody that’s got a problem with Lucy has a problem with me. Got it?”

“Will, stop…,” Lucy said with a blush. She tugged on his sleeve, and he put his arm around her and gripped her hip. It felt good. The rest of the Scraps stared at her.

The door to the Boiler Room swung open, and David stepped out. Lucy felt hot all of the sudden. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress.

“What’s going on?” David said. He looked perturbed.

“Nothing,” Lucy said. “It’s fine.”

She didn’t want him upset with her.

“He called me Haunches,” Belinda said.

David looked at Will and sighed, “What are you doing?”

“She’s trying to freeze Lucy out of the group,” Will said.

“Hey,” David said, projecting his voice for everyone to hear.

“Let’s try to get along, okay? All we got is each other. So let’s make it work.”

David clapped his hands and strode back to the boiler room. Will walked after him, taking Lucy’s hand and pulling her with him.

“That’s it? She was a total bitch to Lucy,” Will said.

David grabbed Will’s arm and pulled him into the room.

Lucy stumbled along with him. The door shut behind her. The giant industrial boiler took up half of the room; a tangle of pipes led off the top and sides of it and reached across the ceiling. Raw heat pressed in all around Lucy.

“Do me a favor, Will,” David said. “Just play nice. We need a hundred and ten percent from everybody right now, and if you’re calling people bitch, it’s gonna fall apart.” David looked pained. He massaged his jaw. She wanted to massage it for him.

“It’s going to fall apart because we live in a trash pit, man,” Will said.

“I’m working on that.”

“Maybe it’s just better if me and Lucy split.”

“No,” Lucy said, a little more forcefully than she meant to.

She couldn’t leave David. It made her nervous to be far from him.

“But they don’t understand you,” Will said. “They’re calling you a Pretty One, and you’re not. They’ve got no respect. It just makes me want to-”

Lucy put her hand on Will’s arm to calm him.

“It’s okay,” she said, then looked to David. “I can change their minds. This is where I want to be.” Relief eased the wrinkles in David’s forehead. He gave her a little nod of thanks and focused on his brother. It warmed her to know she’d done well by him.

“Don’t bail on me yet, okay?” David said. “I can still make this work. If we can bring in more Scraps like us, we’ll have something. You’ll have a gang, man.”

“You gotta pick up the pace,” Will said, and then turned to Lucy. “Let’s go.”

“Bye,” Lucy said to David before she followed Will out the door.

“Bye,” he said. They held eye contact until the door closed between them. Whoa. She wondered if the look meant that he secretly wished she wasn’t leaving. The idea that they could be more than friends made Lucy’s stomach flutter.

Every head in the camp turned and stared. Mort and Nelson were in the midst of stashing the new food out of sight. An idea gave her a little rush.

“Will, I know what we need to do,” she said, gripping his hand in both of hers. She jumped a little, getting herself excited. When Lucy moved to Pale Ridge, she’d been bummed about being in a new town, in a strange house. She didn’t like her new bedroom, but it was that first meal with her family that made the place feel like home.

“We need to get out of here,” Will said. “I was serious in there. If just you and me went back to the elevator, we’d be fine on our own. You don’t belong in this nastiness. This is David’s thing.”

Lucy frowned. “Will, you just promised your brother you’d stick by him.”

“I didn’t promise anything.”

“He’s your brother. He loves you. You promised. And we’re not going anywhere.”

Lucy eyed a large sheet of plywood.

“Help me with this,” she said, and pulled him toward it. Dorothy, the ex-art Geek, pushed her stringy hair off her face and poked her little beak of a nose toward them.

“I’ll help,” Dorothy said.

“No, thanks,” Will said.

Lucy gave him a soft punch and waved Dorothy over. “We’d love it.”

David paced in the heat. He was slick with sweat. He hadn’t left the boiler room since he’d spoken with Will and Lucy.