Chapter II

It was Sunday, and he knew they would come. Today, the shelter was empty. Caregivers took kids (those who behaved well) to explore the city. They rewarded “Good behavior” with Sunday trips.

During these trips, they introduced children to city landmarks. Thousands of people flocked to the port. Michael smelled the fish and something else, though he couldn't identify it.

It was exciting to watch the people move about. However, this was not the reason he loved going there. Michael enjoyed looking at massive ships with billowing sails, floating peacefully on the water, enhancing the unique beauty of the harbor, beginning with basic fishing boats and finishing with regal frigates. He could not even tell what he liked most, probably everything from broken oars to the sails dancing in the wind. The beauty of the road started with pain and hard work and ended with freedom and dreams. Perhaps it did not end at all but continued.

Perhaps that's what made the port so attractive to him. It turned his life and dreams into one world. He dreamed about the frigates being there and fleeing away, and that is why he could stare at them for hours. Often imagined himself as captain, thinking about crossing the hazardous ocean together with his fearless crew, fighting the sea monsters and other captains trembling upon hearing his name.

Even though he lived with lots of children, he had no friends there. He had told no one that he loved gazing at the ships. The kids differed from him; they dreamed about different things.

They were always waiting for the day when someone would arrive and take them to the noble neighborhood and make their life carefree forever. Michael never dreamed about finding his parents, let alone living in a Noble District. He was not interested in his parents. Probably in the same way they did not care about him.

Michael rarely thought about them, especially on Sundays, when he knew “they” would come and he could do nothing but wait. He hated waiting. That was the worst part about Sundays. Everything else always happened quickly. They beat him up when no one was around to interfere.

Deep in his mind, Michael had always planned to run away and hide, and if they still found him, he still would not resist. This way, he would not get beaten up that painfully. But, at the last second, he always remembered that fearless captain who had never backed down and stopped fighting. He felt, if he admitted defeat, he would lose something, something that was more important than avoiding the pain of the battered body.

Michael was lying on the upper bed of the bunk bed, waiting. This time, it would be different. He was mentally prepared and determined from the beginning not to give up and not to get beaten so easily. It didn’t take too long before he heard the footsteps. He swiftly jumped down from the bed. Standing with his back to the door, he leaned against the post of the bed, looking at the piece of a mirror standing on a windowsill. Michael could see the door open slowly and felt his heart throbbing so fast and loudly that it seemed to him the whole shelter could hear his heart beating.

In the mirror’s piece, he could see first Derek, then Simon, Jamey, and a stranger enter the room. “He must be the new member of the team and they are testing him on me”, Michael guessed. Directed by Derek’s gesture, the new boy moved towards him. Michael preferred any other guy to lead the fight, but he could change nothing now. He was leaning onto his bed, staring at the mirror, watching the opponent approaching him. He might be nervous, even scared, but he was still approaching. Others were waiting in the farthest corner of the room, smiling. “How slow the time passes,” thought Michael. His heart was about to jump out of his chest. The boy was getting closer and closer. In the mirror, Michael could see him lift his right hand, clenching the other. Michael clenched his fist, wrapped in the pillowcase. (Time flow was even slower now) The new boy stretched out his right hand, but before he could touch Michael, he slipped on the oil, spilled deliberately on the floor, and fell. Michael quickly turned around...

That night, the wind was howling. Michael was on the verge of vomiting. Watchman took kids back to the shelter, but from where they did not remember. Only the vomiting sensation remained. After that night, Michael dreamed an old dream. There was a woman in the harbor.

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“Boy, boy,” - she whispered. “Do you want fortune-telling?”

The caregiver was not looking, and Michael nodded. “Yes.“

“Come to my shop then,” she whispered and turned around. The grass was everywhere in the shop and dried flowers. She unfolded the strange cards on the table.

“Give me your blood!” demanded Hag and took out a knife from the counters.

Michael almost backed down, but still extended his hand.

“Hahaha! you seem a fighter but you lose always. You will win soon...”

Was it a true win? Michael never knew, but he and the three boys were standing in front of the desk at Auntie Louisa’s office, on the second floor of the shelter. The new member... he was not there. “I wonder how he is,” he thought. The newcomer turned out to be his namesake. The caregivers standing around the boys stared at them coldly. The head was sitting at the desk, looking at the boys with her frog’s eyes from above, the pair of glasses perched on her nose. That’s how it always happened - before she started talking about the boys’ wrongdoings, she would sit at the desk with her elbows resting on it and glare at the boys without a single eye blink. Michael wondered how she could do that without blinking her eyes for so long.

Auntie Louisa was over fifty, short and chunky with curly brown hair just showing a little touch of gray; with large wooden glasses always perched on her nose, her bulging eyes glaring from above them. The notable detail in her appearance was the thick mustache that she constantly fought against by plucking it vigorously, although the resistant mustache became more and more visible on her face. Michael enjoyed thinking about her mustache on such occasions, especially when Auntie Louisa kept gawking at them without blinking her eyes. Michael imagined the pleasure he would take from plucking her mustache and, in the heat of the moment, her thick eyebrows as well.

The door behind opened when he was trying to stick the plug up his right nostril to stop his nosebleed. The watchman muttered hello and reported that the doctor had arrived. Head stood up with difficulty, “Will talk to you later,” still glaring at the boys, she waddled after the watchman. Michael secretly glanced at Derek, who was standing to his left and was much taller than him. You could still see feathers from Michael’s pillow stuck onto his face. Two other guys were standing next to him. Michael once again wished that it had been these two who started the fight and not the newcomer.

The watchman opened the door again and told the caregivers in his typical hoarse voice to take the boys downstairs and left ajar after him. Others followed him, one caregiver leading the group, while the other stood behind the boys. They passed by the second-floor hall, climbed down the disturbingly creaking stairs, and entered the room where Auntie Louisa had been waiting for them. There were three other people in the room- the night watchman, a slim stranger, and the “new” boy being examined by the stranger.

As soon as the boys entered the room, Auntie Louisa round turned to them and studied their faces attentively.

“Look what you’ve done,” barked she, pointing at the boy. “Look what you’ve done!” Michael looked at the “new” boy while listening to the doctor explaining things to Auntie Louisa. He could feel a burning feeling in his stomach. He wanted to avoid his eyes, but he couldn’t. Michael stood like that for some time, maybe not even for that long... he could not remember, he had lost the track of time. Then the slim man stood up and left. Auntie Louisa turned to the boys and asked each one of them, “Who did this?” Nobody answered. She slapped Derek Simon, too.

She did not slap Michael.

She did not slap Michael.

Nobody said a word. “You will get a severe punishment for that”, Aunt Louisa threatened. “They are arriving soon and you are going to be punished in front of everybody”. Kids were about to come back from a Sunday trip and these guys and himself were going to be publicly and exemplarily punished. He might have contemplated the punishment some other time, but now he couldn’t help staring at the newcomer and that was all he could do.

The cracking of a whip and dreadful screams reached him simultaneously. Derek endured nine whips, but screamed in pain on the tenth one, louder than any other boy before him. Jamie screamed at the first beat, whereas Simon forbore till the sixth, when he screeched and howled, but no one screamed as dreadfully as Derek. Observing all this, Michael could not stop wondering when he would give in and start screaming.

After the twelfth whip, caregivers dragged Derek out of the shelter yard. It was Michael’s turn; the watchman stepped towards him, but Michael approached him first as he did not want to be dragged away like other boys. When he walked up to the pole, he kneeled, and when the watchman tied his hands to it; he wished he could at least endure the first whip. He no longer had nostrils plugged and could already sense the stinky smell of the man. The hatred was a familiar emotion to him, but he did not yet know what to call the feeling he felt for the glass-eyed children staring at him.

The whip slashed through the air, and the pain spread like a stripe on his back. “Screaming won’t change anything, screaming won’t change anything,” continuously repeated Michael, and silently endured the pain caused by the fifth whip. Then he started scratching the wood with his nails from excruciating pain but never made a sound.

“Whip him until he yells,” screamed Aunt Louisa, and the anger guided Michael through the pain until everything faded into the darkness...