ERIC C. HARTLEP

THE SEVEN BEDS

Advertisements for our school appear in all the better magazines.

 *

Hope is more than the name of our ship.
Hope is the name of your dream.
For your son.
For yourself.

And:

 *

The Hope Pelagic School
Giving young men discipline,
training and self-assurance.
Giving their parents peace of mind.

I have never known my own parents. Unlike most aboard Hope I wasn't born with a
silver spoon in my mouth, and didn't try to spit one out the first thing. The
ads make me laugh when I run across them in Tutor's library; I've learned not to
mention thorn to the other boys, however.

It must be quite a shock to find a copy of Town & Country or Sunset on your
mother's bedside table one afternoon, open to the back pages, with several such
advertisements circled.

How long before you go? Years?

With me it was much different. No parents to worry over me -- or plot how to rid
themselves of me, in a respectable way. That brings up the question of who is
paying for my schooling and why.

I don't know and I don't ask. I like it here and I'm not about to mess things up
with a lot of foolish questions.

One thing I do know is how to answer questions to please my teachers. Living in
orphanages -- while similar, I gather, to being sent away --develops a different
mindset, from what I've seen. I do better than most of the better-schooled boys
simply because I have a motivation to do so. It upsets them, and I'm ostracized
to some degree, but I can take that. Why trade in a free cruise and good food
for the luxury of acting spoiled? I don't fancy myself a Holden Caulfield.

The ability to concentrate my energy on any task I'm given has made me a Class I
boy. There are rewards, believe me. The top of Hope, with its broad roof
covering the main deck, is where the Class I boys room. There are not many of
us; I should say less than forty. When time allows we sit in lazy groups on
deck, discussing the classics, joking, enjoying the sun when we like, taking
shade beneath the striped awning if the heat becomes too intense, and when our
meals are served us. After the dark, cramped, and landlocked quarters at Oak
Tree I can't complain.

Ignacio is another matter. He despairs. Ignacio is my only close friend here.
He's far more intelligent than I am, but he doesn't apply himself. I think he
wants to fail. That must be why Tutor made us roommates; he hopes my behavior
will rub off on Ignacio. I do nothing to dispel that belief, any more than I
would break the superstitions of my classmates. For instance, the one against
touching the fifty-foot circle in the center of our deck.

Our helicopter, which at other times is parked on the aft deck, lands on our
circular pad with officials from whatever countries we are passing at the time
-- usually about once a week. I came on that helicopter three months ago on a
blistering day. Class I boys wearing navy blazers and white slacks gathered
before its rotor blades had stopped turning, shading their eyes to see who was
inside.

They ignored me as I came down the steps, as most have ever since. Instead they
craned their necks for anyone else aboard. I walked past them with my bags to
get under the awning. When no one else got off, the boys looked at me. They saw
nothing that interested them. My clothes were not fine. I don't possess the
bearing of their social stratum; I don't look strong or influential.

So they walked away.

All but Ignacio. He has a way of staring. He is small and wiry, not much of a
threat in a physical way; but his eyes are piercing.

"Are you my welcoming committee?" I said, trying for a joke.

"Tutor will look after you," he said.

"Who is Tutor?"

"You don't know?" He seemed wary and tipped his red-topped head to one side in a
quizzical way.

"No."

"You must have met him. With your parents."

I shook my head.

"You don't sound Texan," he said.

"I'm not." The ship was off the coast of Texas at the time.

"Going to school there, then?"

"No, I flew down last night from Wisconsin."

"You're my new roommate. You came from an orphanage."

"What? How did you know that?"

"I'll go get Tutor. He'll want to see you right away."

"Wait a minute," I said. But it was too late: he disappeared through a doorway
and I was alone. Alone except for the helicopter pilot, though soon he left as
well. His machine's engine coughed to life, its blades became a blur, and I
covered my ears and shut my eyes until the wind and noise had gone away. When I
looked up the copter was just a speck receding toward the horizon.

Later, after I had met Tutor and Ignacio showed me our room, the helicopter came
back. The other boys walked out to greet it again, while Ignacio took the deck
chair beside mine. The copter disgorged a homogeneous group: men in suits, women
in suits. They could barely contain their excitement at seeing the Class I boys.

"You don't have to worry, since you're new," Ignacio said. "They won't question
you. Or me either."

"What are they here for?" I said.

Ignacio looked amazed. "Were you born under a rock?" he said. "This is a school.
Those people are recruiters. What did you expect?"

I shrugged and felt stupid.

"Well, most of them are," Ignacio said, being more conciliatory. "One will be
from the accreditation committee, checking up on conditions. But you never know
which. I'll tell you what they will say, if you like. And what will happen. It's
always exactly the same. A little play we put on to amuse ourselves."

I stared at him and he smiled the largest smile I have ever seen from him. He
knew I didn't believe him. But in time I found he was right about the
recruiters. First they ask the same basic questions. Are we well cared for? Well
fed? What do we want to become when we reenter the "real" world?

It might seem, hearing those questions repeated every week, we would answer them
perfunctorily. But of course we knew better. "You must understand," Tutor always
says at breakfast the day they are to arrive. "To those people the questions are
of the utmost importance. Please respect that, and answer accordingly."

We nod yes in unison, then return to our meals.

The second round of questions is just as predictable, though more difficult. Our
visitors get eager, thirsty looks, and ask probing questions on languages,
political science, the arts, computers, psychology, chemistry, physics, higher
math. Our school has a strong reputation. They look, we know, for boys with
certain qualities. Some represent technical schools; some colleges; some are
from corporation looking for a prodigy in, say, computer science: a mind that,
with proper training, will give their company the edge in research and
development. Perhaps a mind that large doesn't integrate well into so-called
normal society; if that is so, the best place to look is on a ship of misfits. I
have heard rumors of other ships -- some with boys, others only with girls. But
I have: never seen one.

In any case, once satisfied, the recruiters make notes on their clipboards and
prepare to leave.

Then the final round of questions comes. Someone in the group l usually a woman,
and probably from the accreditation committee) asks if they can see other boys
on other decks. Tutor smiles and says, "Yes, of course you can. But there are
six more decks and three hundred boys to see. Do you have time for that?" The
woman will hesitate, watching Tutor closely. Suddenly he smiles broadly and
says, "Come along then! We have much to see and little time to. . ."

And here the helicopter pilot clears his throat. Tutor stops, dismayed. The
pilot explains there will not be sufficient fuel to reach land safely if they
stay aboard much longer. Because during the interviews Hope kept sailing toward
its next port of call. . .

"She was very' brave, while it lasted," Ignacio says each time, sarcastically in
my ear. "Of course, it is better not to know an unpleasant thing if there is the
least chance one might be stuck with it,"

This is as much a dig at me as at the woman, because I doubt his stories.
Ignacio says he wanders the ship at night while the rest of us sleep, and has
told me what he sees. Or claims to have seen. Below the dormitory levels are
crews' quarters; this is well known. But also below decks, Ignacio says, is a
sort of prison -- he calls it The Seven Beds -- where violent or subordinate
children are caged like animals.

"If that's true," I once said, "why not study harder and get away?"

His answer was not very convincing: "No, my only chance to get away is not to
study." That made no sense, so I put it out of my mind.

Tutor has given us our assignments. Mine is to write a five-thousand-word essay
on the role of education in "primitive" versus "advanced" societies. Ignacio's
assignment is a survey paper on techniques of value in training the incorrigible
in an institutionalized setting. He does not relish his subject, and the morning
has been a total waste.

Our main library is small, and often too crowded with other boys for good
studying. But Tutor has been good to us -- to Ignacio and me. He lets us use his
private office. It has more books than I have ever seen, and a marvelous view
from its huge curving window. We have spread our periodicals on his heavy oak
desk. But the viewpast the bow, where waves shudder and fall into clouds of
spray as our ship sails westward, distracts us from our work.

A further distraction is the nonacademic magazines Tutor has. When alone, we
pour over the advertisements, seeking familiar faces. Initially I found the
small back-page ads the most interesting: Relax at Paradise Island Resort;
Sherpa Guides Offer Adventure!; Take the Orient Express to Lake Baikal.

Then one day I saw Ignacio staring at the photo of a woman in an ad for perfume.
His pupils expanded and contracted as his eyes flitted over the photograph --
memorizing I suspect, the flawless cream skin, red hair and green eyes of the
woman, each emphasized by her blazing white dress. After several minutes I shook
him by one shoulder and asked what he was doing.

"Searching for my mother," he said, without taking his eyes from the picture.

I ignored that comment at the time. But since, seeing him lapse into trances on
several occasions, I too began to search the glossy ads. I look for that
combination of triangular chin, aquiline nose, blue eyes, and smooth, pale
forehead topped by dark hair to match my own.

Ignacio's interest in features and colors quickly became my own; because of
that, I suddenly saw Tutor as a colored man. Before he had been only. . .Tutor.
His features were African, but his skin tone -- even his hair tone --was an
orangy red. He looked as though someone had sprinkled him all over with ground
paprika. Yet Ignacio never seemed willing to turn his curiosity loose on Tutor's
appearance. I wonder if he had, would he have seen the resemblance I did between
the two of them? Indeed, their features were so similar, they could have been
father and son. The only clear differences were age, size, and Ignacio's caramel
skin. And their eyes, of course. While Tutor's eyes were chocolate brown,
Ignacio's were a ghostly green.

In midafternoon I felt a presence behind us. It was Tutor. When I turned he
smiled and came to our desk, the leather soles of his alligator shoes and the
rubber tip of his cane creaking as everything does aboard ship. He wore, as
always in warm seas, an impeccable white linen suit and a black bow tie. The
splotchy red freckles on his face were supplemented by a dappled light that
penetrated the weave of his wide straw hat. I assumed he had just been on deck.

"How are your papers coming my sons?" he said, doffing his hat. He often
referred to the boys on board -- at least the Class I boys -- as "my sons." We,
as often, called him "Father."

"Fine, sir," I said. This was in no way true. I had spent the whole morning as
had Ignacio, paging through a stack of magazines, seeking clues to my past. But
Tutor took me at my word and turned to my somber friend.

"Ignacio? Are you making progress?"

When Ignacio looked up at Tutor, his face was streaked with tears. This caused
such a look to come over Tutor I felt ashamed to see them, and quickly looked
out the picture window.

As I concentrated on the waves crashing against the bow, I heard a small broken
version of Ignacio's voice ask: "Father? Will this be the year that I can
leave?"

Tutor said, "Come with me!" in a tone that made me jump involuntarily. But there
was something in his voice besides anger. Utter sadness?

Ignacio's chair scraped across the floor as he stood up, and they left me in
Tutor's cabin looking out to sea.

An hour before sunset we acquired six more boys. These came by launch, from a
gleaming harbor city half hidden by a range of coastal mountains.

A dozen of us stood at the rail of the upper deck. Amesbury, a tall blond with a
stout neck, whose jacket always seemed too small on him, said something nobody
could make out. His voice was that deep: if he didn't yell you couldn't
understand him. Somebody told him to repeat it.

"Portuguese. I said Portuguese."

"Good lord, Amesbury, you can't even see them yet," Takemura said, in a
purposely bad imitation of snobby English. "You may have caught their odor,
however, with that fine, skyscraping nose of yours."

Amesbury mumbled something that ended with "stupid slant."

We all straightened up quickly when Tutor tapped the railing twice with his
cane. He'd come up from the deck below and had Ignacio with him. My smile had no
effect on either of them, so I turned my attention to the launch.

Two men aboard her pitched lines that seemed to hang in the air, reluctant to
reach us. Yet our crewmen caught them, and tied them securely on deck. The
launch raced her engines, churning the water to keep a safe distance away.

"Look at those striped shirts," Takemura said in a stage whisper. "Portuguese.
Definitely, positively, Portuguese."

The short boy with glasses standing between us -- I think his name is Danvers
--said, "Shut up, all right?"

"Yes, sir!" Takemura said, raising a mock salute.

Our crew activated a small crane, lowering a platform to the deck of the launch;
there it was piled with boxes, and hoisted back aboard our ship.

Ignacio came up and bumped me. He nodded toward the launch and I noticed one of
the boys was in tears. The other five looked at the crying boy with a mix of
fear and embarrassment, and for a moment no one moved, as though posing for a
portrait painter.

"You won't see those six on the top deck anytime soon," Ignacio said quietly.
"They'll go straight to the lower decks."

"Well, what of it?" I said. "If they lack the right education, they'll have to
work their way up to Class I."

"No, look at their clothes --they're rags. I mean they'll go to the lowest
decks, the ones you don't believe in."

"That's right. I don't believe it. Why waste space on boys you can never teach?"

"They're paid to take them."

"It can't be that simple."

"Let me put it this way: if they didn't take them, the recruiters wouldn't be
sent aboard. No recruiters, no recruitment. No recruitment, no reputation. No
reputation., no Hope."

"Who are they, then?"

"Dissidents. Troublemakers. Whoever they are, they're wanted out of the local
prisons."

"I don't believe it."

"That's up to you."

The crane's platform was lowered again, empty. Suddenly a rough looking man came
forward. He barked an order at the boys, but the sound of waves and the distance
kept me from hearing what he said. Slowly, showing no emotion, the boys stepped
onto the platform and were hauled skyward.

Already our crew was untying the launch, edging it out to sea with long poles.
Before it had made much headway, a chorus of high-pitched yells turned my
attention to our stern. Apparently the crane's mechanism had frozen. There were
the boys, swaying eight feet above our aft deck, clutching at the platform's
rigging. To get down, all six were compelled to leap to the deck, one after
another like sheep. It was a long jump; one turned his ankle badly.

"Christ, I think he broke it," Takemura said.

"No way," Danvers replied. The crane operator hopped down and two other crewmen
ran to help.

"That's one less to worry about," Ignacio said, so only I could hear it.

"What do you mean by that?" I said.

"Why nothing, good and trusting sir." Ignacio had pulled his eyes into a hideous
imitation of Takemura doing his imitation of Amesbury. Now he stuck out his
teeth. "You no believe me nohow."

"Cut it out," I said.

"So sorry!"

At sunrise we awoke and put on our gym clothes.

Each morning before breakfast the Class I boys march down to the aft deck for
calisthenics. These workouts have been my favorite ritual here; they were my
least favorite at the orphanage. When Tutor noticed how much I liked them he was
pleased. I suppose he thought it signaled a positive change in me -- I'd been
rather gloomy ashore. But in truth I simply found exercise less strenuous in the
open air, with dashes of salt spray cooling my back, than I had in the stuffy,
dark gymnasium at Oak Tree.

Ignacio caught up with me on the first landing.

"How are you feeling today?" he said.

I hadn't expected him to talk to me after yesterday. "I'm fine," I said. "How
are you?"

"All right."

Takemura and two other boys passed us on the stairs. Takemura held his hands up
like puppets facing each other. "And how are you today?" one of Takemura's hands
said. "I'm fine; and how are you?" said the other. He dropped his hands.
"'Really, gentlemen. Such scintillating conversation so early in the morning may
damage your brains."

Ignacio and I stopped on the second landing to let Taketours and his giggling
friends go ahead. It was nice to be with my friend and not worry about things --
just enjoy the weather and the open spaces. The early light turned the sea, the
ship, and our faces a deep red; the light breeze and the sun's warmth felt
wonderful.

We said nothing for some time, and I noticed Ignacio was looking at the fantail
of the ship. The sunlight tinged its surface the color of blood, and a party of
boys was running mops over the metal deck in preparation for our arrival.

"What are you looking at?" I said.

"Nothing. We'd better go down."

We rounded two more landings. Ignacio kept trying to look past a taller boy who
walked ahead of us; I stood on tiptoes, seeing nothing but seven boys pushing
mops.

"No ballet practice until evening, I'm afraid, Sarmington," Tutor said to me. He
was bringing the rest of the boys down the stairs. They all laughed. I thought
it was funny, too, but Ignacio didn't. His face looked pinched, as though he was
about to cry.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"Shut up."

"What? Why?"

"Let them pass. Let them get past." He gabbed my elbow and pulled me to the
railing.

"Is anything wrong?" Tutor said.

"I'm not sure," I said. "Ignacio?"

"I'm feeling ill."

"You boys go about your business," Tutor said. Those behind him shuffled down
the stairs, glancing at us. Then he said to Ignacio, "Should I call the doctor?"

"No. I'll be all right. Just cramps. Sarmington can take me back up."

"You don't mind?" Tutor said. "Not at all."

"Call for me if he isn't better in half an hour."

"I will."

Tutor went below with the others and I helped Ignacio up the stairs. "Are you
feeling better?" I said when he reached the next landing.

"Didn't you see it?"

"See what?"

He stood up and looked out past the stem. "That body in the water." "You
probably saw a shark," I said.

"There was a shark, too."

"They were probably both sharks -- after the garbage those boys were pitching
overboard."

"No, one was a body. A body in a striped shirt."

"Stop it," I said.

"I saw the shark take him. It swirled, turned upside down and took him by the
head."

I closed my eyes and brought my hands up to my ears, but Ignacio caught them
with his. "It's not possible," I said. "If we took on six prisoners from every
country we passed, we'd be overloaded in a month."

"Not every country, or even the same ones every time. Six is unusual. Probably a
coup attempt or purges."

"Even so, we couldn't keep them all."

"We don't. They go to other prisons in different countries. This ship is just
the go-between. The idea is to get them out of the way, but without
killing--without making them martyrs. They just disappear."

"How do you know all this?" When he didn't answer I shook my head.

"Come with me tonight," he said. "Come belowdecks and I will prove it all to
you."

As we lay in our bunks, rocking slightly with the motion of the ship, I prayed
that Ignacio would fall asleep and forget. My prayers were useless. Not knowing
if he was asleep -- or awake, waiting for me to make the first move -- ate into
me. I hung my head over the edge of my mattress, whispering his name into the
dark below. There was no response. After several minutes I climbed out of bed
and found Ignacio gone.

I dressed quietly and opened our door. Barefoot to keep from waking anyone, I
stepped into the hall. At the end of our dorm I peered through the small square
window into the lighted companionway. The night resident's desk sat deserted. I
slipped out and closed the door behind me.

There was not much choice of ways to go. I followed caged overhead bulbs along
the metal corridor to the first landing. The stairs leading down were well lit
and being seen on them was a real possibility. Though we have no guards on the
upper decks -- Class I boys are left to our own recognizance --I still might be
seen by one patrolling the decks below. I quickly went down one open flight,
then ducked into a hallway darker than the one above.

I hesitated. My palms began to sweat. I had never been on a lower deck before
without permission, and seldom then. Of course I was trapped. I couldn't just
stay there. Every closed cabin door seemed to hide something I didn't want to
see. I decided to go back to my own bed. Then suddenly that acute, prickly
feeling of being watched drove up my spine. I had passed a dark, open doorway a
few yards back. I turned around and saw Ignacio leaning in it. Or I thought I
had, because when I rubbed my eyes the figure disappeared.

That decided it for me. I flew down the stairs and pulled up in the darkened
corridor below. I turned away from the stairs so my eyes would become accustomed
to the dark. As they did I saw another doorway yawning a deeper darkness than
the rest of the hall. Ignacio stood in it, smiling at my attempt to be sneaky.

"Follow me if you want to see something" he said, and disappeared into the dark.
I ran to the opening. Ignacio's footsteps echoed faintly. There was no time to
think: I started down the spiral stairs, halting now and then to catch the
metallic ring of his feet below.

After a time in darkness I lost track of my senses. Distance was meaningless.
Time had no reference point. I stopped but heard no steps ahead. How long had I
been here? And where was that? I pushed my hands firmly against the walls of the
stairwell and took sluggish steps, expecting to suddenly walk off the edge of
the known world.

In so doing I stepped on Ignacio's foot. I jumped back, but his hand took my
shoulder in the dark. "You're going to get us caught, making all that noise.
Hold on to me and don't step on my heels." He folded my fingers into the hem of
his shirt and we walked farther into the darkness.

The steps fell away under our feet and the air grew colder and clammier. Finally
the fresh sea smell gave way to an odor of packed, unwashed bodies that would
have made my quarters at Oak Tree seem a paradise. A deep throbbing sound began
and grew louder. I expected to find a low room filled with the languishing
bodies of ragged boys, wrapped in a hazy darkness. I suppose the idea came from
Ignacio's stories and reading too many Dickens novels.

So suddenly dragged into the bright glow of the engine room, I had to shield my
eyes. Ignacio squatted immediately behind a steel pillar, pulling me with him.
The sound of pistons drummed in my ears like a monstrous heartbeat.

"Let go!" Ignacio said. He pulled my hand from his shirt. Cupping his hands over
my ear he said, "Guards across the room. Stay low. Head for that door."

"What door?" The shock of light and noise had been so great, I was only now
coming to my senses.

"There."

We made our way along the wall without being seen. Once through the door the
engine sound began to die away. But the smell of human excrement was almost too
much. I wanted to turn back. Seeing this, Ignacio held me by one wrist.

"We're almost there."

I closed my eyes and let him lead me, feeling with my feet like I had on the
stairs. I breathed through my mouth to lessen the stench. When he finally
stopped I opened my eyes.

Straight out of Dickens. The room was low and dark. Human shapes lay on the
floor and crouched against steel pillars. Someone coughed repeatedly. But it
wasn't a book. I wish it had been.

"Why aren't there guards here?" I said.

"No need. Everyone is chained. But this is only the main room," Ignacio said.
"We came to see the other part, too, remember?"

Hearing our voices, several boys looked at us. "Take me back up," I said. "I'm
going to be sick."

"Go ahead and be sick. No one will notice. The Seven Beds is over there."

He pointed across the room.

"I won't go in there."

"Yes you will." He started to pull me ahead, but I tore at his hand and ran the
other way. I ran without thinking, back toward the light of the engine room,
then back to the comfort of my room.

"So tell me, Sarmington. What did you make of your little excursion last night?"
Tutor did not seem upset, merely curious, as he settled back in the leather
chair behind his desk.

I was too shocked to reply. I tried to check the sudden stampede of my
breathing.

"Surely you didn't think you could traipse all over a ship of this size
unobserved."

"No one stopped us, and Ignacio said. . ."

"No one stopped you? We are trying to teach you to be self-responsible adults.
Like any society we have rules, Sarmington. You were taught to obey those rules.
So do not say that no one stopped you. You were to have stopped yourself, my
son."

Those two words -- "my son" -- turned my stomach over. Somehow they had a
sickening finality to them.

"You believe that punishment waits for you, don't you, Sarmington?"

I nodded.

"First let me tell you something pleasant. Ignacio will leave us soon. He has
earned the right to go ashore, the one thing he has always wanted. I am proud of
him. He has done well in his studies."

I must have looked totally amazed, because Tutor's voice speeded up suddenly.
"Of course he made errors in the past. That is only to be expected. But he has
overcome his limitations and will be rewarded accordingly."

His voice became an intimate whisper: "His early mistakes were much like your
own, Sarmington."

"How will I be punished, sir?" I said nervously.

"Punishment?" he said in his normal voice. "There is no punishment here for you,
Sarmington. You were brought here to fill a need, and now that Ignacio is
leaving that need awaits. You are to take his place."

"I don't understand."

"Ignacio was my understudy, you might say, though he never wanted the job. It
was his unless we found a more suitable candidate. You like the sea air, that is
obvious. And you are ready to please, if at all possible. True, you strayed
outside the rules, but you would have seen everything aboard eventually. Your
willingness to follow Ignacio shows both loyalty and initiative. Those are
qualities we highly prize."

My hands gripped the arms of my chair. Suddenly this giant ship seemed a
constricting collar around my neck. I breathed loudly through my nose, but Tutor
went on. . .

"Of course, it may be years before you take my place. I pray not too many.
Ignacio does not know it, but one day -- before I die -- I hope to join him on
our southern estate. He. . ."

Tutor's words continued hammering at me until I thought I would burst. I stared
out the wide window at the barren ocean ahead of us: a gray wasteland of eternal
unrest. . .

"Initially your functions may seem like punishment, Sarmington, but only if you
resist them. You must learn every part of the ship, do every job. Tonight you
sleep in your old berth, but tomorrow. . ."

I sprang from my chair and rushed to the door. It was locked of course, though I
clawed at it like a wild animal. Tutor did nothing to stop me. When I finally
faced him, he looked at me sadly and shook his head.

"I had so hoped it wouldn't come to this, Sarmington. I thought you showed such
promise. But perhaps it will be necessary to punish you after all." Tutor
reached under his desk and I heard a bell chime faintly. In a moment I heard
footsteps.

"You wanted to know your punishment." The best I could do was nod jerkily.
"You've seen the boys who swab the decks?" I nodded again. "Good. I assume you
know where they reside. If you make it out of there alive we will talk again."

I have slept in The Seven Beds -- this prison, this death row -- for forty
nights. The smell no longer bothers me. I only know that -- for tonight at least
-- I have hope: I can remember my name. That is how you tell if you're still
alive.

In forty days I have seen the bodies of nine boys fed to the sharks. I have also
seen one boy released, so it can happen! I believe that, no matter what, I will
not be killed. I am needed here.

It is the task of we seven to feed the sharks. Garbage is collected from
throughout the ship, great quantities of it, bagged and dumped during the night
into the room through a hole in the ceiling. We are quite literally the
garbagemen. We must either throw it off the stem each morning or drown in our
own refuse. The first time a body came wrapped in burlap, I screamed until a
guard appeared and struck me unconscious with a length of iron pipe. Now bodies
are bothersome only because they are heavy to move, compared to the other
garbage.

I am determined to live. I am determined to see the light of day and live again
on the top deck. We get little food here, so we break into certain bags that
look promising. Occasionally I recognize scraps that could only come from the
Class I menu.

Besides the food I search for intelligible writing from the upper decks. I
preserve what I find in a small plastic bag I keep tied around my neck.

Each morning we are led upstairs to the aft deck, and Tutor comes to watch us
heave the sacks and corpses overboard. I know he has seen the positive change in
me. He smiles whenever I make a particularly good toss and look toward him for
approval. He nods. Though I may feel tired, just that much recognition from him,
just that little sign of encouragement, makes me surge with energy. I know my
body is getting stronger under this regime of hard labor. I know from Tutor's
looks that I am improving my lot. It is only a matter of time and effort on my
part before I return to the top deck. I know that.

Here is the last bag for today. I snatch it from the hands of another man, who
gladly lets me take it. I look at Tutor. He is still smiling. I look out to sea
and there, perhaps thirty feet away, is the biggest of the sharks.

I spin on my heel, spin and release like throwing the hammer. The fish is ready
(he and I are friends). The bag is arcing. My shark is swirling, waiting. My
placement is without fault. The white nose protrudes above the water, the mouth
sweeps up smoothly, takes the bag and disappears with a swish of his tail.

I look back at Tutor. He is pleased. He waves! I am almost in tears at this
demonstration of confidence in me. He leaves the rail and heads upstairs, where
I wish to go, and a guard approaches me, places a mop in my hand.

The Class I boys will be here soon for morning exercise. We must not leave one
piece of filth in sight. Not one single drop of blood.