6. Hunger

HUNGER

For three days the boy cleaned banisters, safety rails, doorknobs, coffee tables, more doorknobs, Rummikub sets, book spines, outdoor tables, indoor tables, outdoor chairs, indoor chairs.

The bleach stung his eyes, scraped his throat, and stole his appetite. The baloney sandwich his aunt packed him went uneaten. He would've thrown it away except he couldn't bring himself to throw away food.

By the end of each day, he had a bleach headache plus a hunger headache. With each throb of his head he cursed that stupid Maya hyphen Jade.

For three days he rode the 54 bus to Shady Glen, battled germs all day, and rode the 54 bus back to his aunt's house, swearing that was it! He would not go back!

On the fourth day, he woke with a headache and arrived at Shady Glen in an extra-cross mood. That morning his aunt had found his uneaten sandwiches in his backpack, and, after a long lecture about food not growing on trees—he'd had to keep himself from correcting her that she meant money didn't grow on trees, because plenty of food did indeed grow on trees—she had sent him to Shady Glen with yesterday's sandwich.

He worked all morning, and at eleven thirty he took his lunch out of his backpack and went to sit in one of the comfy chairs outside the dining room. Meals were the only times the zombies weren't occupying the plush chairs, and if he sat here he could smell what was being served and pretend that he was eating it too.

His recycled sandwich resembled a rubber band squashed in lint. And the smell from the dining room? Garlic, tomatoes, cheese. It was an even yummier smell than the social worker's burgers.

He stood up and poked his head around the corner of the dining room. Immediately, he spotted Maya-Jade at a table next to her grandmother. To make matters even worse, the food emitting that delicious smell, the food that Maya-Jade was eating, was lasagna.

He loved lasagna more than anything. One year his mom had asked him if he wanted a birthday cake and he'd asked for lasagna instead. He loved it so much that his mom taught him to make it. By the time he was eight, he knew how to boil the ridged noodles a few at a time so they didn't stick together in the pot. How to grate the mozzarella cheese and mix it with the ricotta and parmesan. How to layer noodle, sauce, cheese, noodle, sauce, cheese like an edible art project. He always made a giant pan, enough to last a few nights, but it rarely survived the second day, with the boy and his mom sneaking bites the way that his aunt snuck bites of the Sara Lee cakes she kept in the freezer but never served on account of his uncle's cholesterol.

The boy looked at the soggy sandwich in his hand. He closed his eyes, took a bite, and tried to pretend it was lasagna, the way that he and his mom would sometimes pour steak sauce on their scrambled eggs and pretend they were having prime rib. He chewed and chewed and chewed, but he could not seem to swallow. The smell of the lasagna felt like a slap in his face. Here he was, "volunteering" at the world's grossest job with the world's grossest zombies, eating the world's grossest baloney sandwich, while Maya-Jade got to boss him around and make him bleach-sick while she lounged and ate freshly cooked lasagna. It wasn't fair! Nothing was fair.

The residents started to filter out of the dining room. The boy could hear the clatter of the servers clearing the meal. Through the door he saw the bus tubs, full of plates, many of them with nearly full portions of lasagna on them!

It wasn't a decision. The same way what had happened with Toby Crawford hadn't been a decision. One minute the boy was balling a baloney sandwich in his fist, and the next minute he was darting into the dining room, snatching a piece of lasagna out of the bus tub.

And, oh! That explosion of tomato and garlic, the ooze of cheese, it erased the smell of bleach that had scorched his nostrils; it filled up the hollow emptiness that yawned in his belly.

"Is he stealing our food?" he heard someone say. That someone was Vivian Spears, Maya-Jade's grandmother and one of my tablemates. Vivian was a former opera singer who projected loudly, so everyone heard her say again, "He is. That boy is stealing our food!"

Though he had been at Shady Glen since Monday, this was the first time that I noticed the boy. Except for meals, when I had no choice but to come to the dining room and eat at my assigned table with my assigned tablemates, I preferred to stay in my room. There was nothing wrong with the place. I had moved here by choice, after my best friend, Adek, died. I had also chosen to stop talking then, not for any particular reason beyond that after a hundred years, you get a little tired of being the last one left in a conversation. You get a little tired of everything, really.

When Vivian hurled her accusation, I didn't so much see the boy—at 107, my eyes were also pretty useless—as feel him. And what I felt in him was a kind of hunger that I had not experienced in more than eighty years.

"What boy?" asked one of my other tablemates, whose name was Minna Waxman. If Vivian was all bark, Minna was all whimper. A quiet worrier. I liked her. If I had been going to talk to anyone at Shady Glen, it would've been Minna.

"That kid over there?" asked Sid Bellows, my fourth tablemate.

"Isn't he the one who was so rude to you, darling?" Vivian asked Maya-Jade.

Earlier that morning, Maya-Jade had been complaining about the boy to Vivian, rather theatrically, dramatic flair being something she'd inherited from her diva grandmother. It had been about 98 percent fun, gossiping about the boy with Vivian, and maybe 2 percent crummy because deep down she knew she was being mean. Seeing him eat food from the garbage made her own stomach lurch, and her appetite disappeared. "You can have my lasagna, Nana," Maya-Jade replied, pushing her plate to her grandmother, whose own meal was only half eaten.

"That's not the point. We pay good money for this food," Vivian said, her voice rising to operatic levels. "He can't steal off our plates like some sort of criminal."

Criminal.

Everyone heard it. I heard it. Even Arnold Myerson, who was nearly deaf, heard it. And the boy heard it.

Criminal.