My name is Michael. I’m 12 and I live in an old church with five other kids. Frankly, I hate it here. Its dark, drafty, dusty, and the sister in charge is all kinds of weird. She’s super strong in a fight and is supposed to be looking after us, but she’s otherwise kind of useless.

“Aaah! I did it agaaaain! I’m such a failureeeee!”

Today she’s once again bawling her eyes out while clinging to me. I have to pat her head while going ‘there, there’ or she’ll never stop whining. I feel like this should be the other way around, but deep down, I’m scared of it. The last time she tried to pat my head, I passed out from her gorilla grip.

“Uuuu! Michaaael! You’re so nice! Marry meeeee!”

Absolutely not. First of all, you’re old enough to be my mom even though you’re such a crybaby. It’s weird. Secondly, you’re a nun. Isn’t marriage kind of not allowed for you? Thirdly, aren’t couples supposed to do this and that? I don’t know the details, but I’m certain I would be dead in a week. Sister Agatha is super strong, yet she can’t control herself at all. I can hardly breathe from how hard she’s clinging to me, and just yesterday I saw her put a door-sized hole in the wall because she tripped while carrying water, spilled it everywhere, got upset, and punched it in frustration. She’s an absolute disaster in many ways. Well, I guess she fixed it up right after, but I’m still leaving the instant I turn 16 and can find work on my own. Naturally, I’m taking everyone else with me when I go. It’ll be hard, but it has to be better than carrying on like this.

“Sure, sure, once I get older.”

For now, I lie brazenly with a smile since she would have a meltdown if I told her any of this.

“Don’t cwy, Sistew Aggy. Hewe, hab sum tea!”

Lulu joins in the consolation campaign with a perfect assist. Even though she’s only 6, she seems to know exactly what to say to lift everyone’s spirits. The cutest girl in the universe. If I’m going to marry anyone here, it has to be her. Certainly not that absolute failure of a person who’s supposed to be in charge. Also, I’m the one who actually made the tea and poured it out just before that Scumperor showed up and ruined everyone’s day. It’s been autumn for a while so the tea already got cold, but Lulu is the cutest, so her gesture is super effective.

“Ahh! My sweet little angel!”

The sister finally stops throwing a tantrum and lets go of me just as Mr. Klein walks in. As expected of the useless sister, she completely forgot about the clothes she was supposed to get. Thankfully, Mr. Klein is reliable in many ways and brought them in. I hope to be as cool as him when I grow up. He puts down the box and beckons me into the other room with a nod. Obviously, I follow.

“Sorry about today, Michael. I’ve been trying to step up patrols and improve security, but it’s difficult.”

“No, no, please don’t worry about it. Don’t you have a bunch of other things to do? You can just leave scum like that for the sister to deal with.”

She’s a disaster in many ways, but she’s strong in a fight.

“Michael, that is the one thing I absolutely cannot allow. As I’ve said many times, Sister Agatha must avoid violence or aggression as much as possible. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I whine a little despite myself.

“… Clearly you do not,” he sighs. “That’s fine. This is a problem for us adults to worry about. Just keep trying your best to de-escalate things if anyone causes trouble.”

It’s the usual exchange, and frankly, I’m getting a bit tired of it. I really wish Mr. Klein would stop associating with that disaster before she costs him his job. I mean, I have no idea what he actually does, but I know the suit and armband means he’s someone important with a lot of duties. I’m sure looking out for us orphans is already putting him through a lot of trouble, and that sister absolutely isn’t helping. Things would be a lot better for everyone involved if he found someone else to run the place, but he always shoots me down when I bring it up, so I stopped trying.

“Though, I suppose stirring things up now and then is a good way to track her progress. She held back quite a bit today, but… Ah, apologies Michael. I need to think about this some more, so please go distribute these clothes.”

“Yes, sir!”

He was mumbling some complicated things again, but when he asks for my help I grab the box with enthusiasm. I’m always lending a hand around here – actually, it’s more like I run the place since the sister’s such a mess – so I’ve gotten pretty strong for my age. Even so I still struggle a bit to get the box up the stairs. If it’s so heavy, then those papers I found a few days ago really were valuable. Either that or Grandpa Gunther gave the sister another discount. She’s such a disaster that he often gives her special treatment out of pity. Or so I think. I’ve never seen him and the other adults say he’s a ‘profiteering shyster.’ I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like a type of scumbag, yet we often get extra stuff from him. For Sister Agatha to move his heart, just how pathetic is she, really?

“Hey! You can come out now! The bad guys are gone and Mr. Klein is here!”

I call out to the other kids as I enter the common room, and they all climb out of their hiding spots. It’s a good thing I taught them to seek cover whenever the sister starts yelling. Doesn’t she know the things she does and says when she loses it could easily traumatize us kids? No, she probably does, even she’s not that dense, but she can’t help it. That’s why they call that ‘losing it,’ right? For now, the others crowd around as I set down the cardboard box and start digging through it.

“Let’s see. Oh, a jacket and gloves! These must be for you, Theo.”

“Nice! I’ve been waiting for these!”

Theodore, or Theo for short, is the second-oldest kid here after me. He’s 10 and people often say we’re like brothers because we have the same brown hair and brown eyes. We’re not actually related, but I do think of him that way. Unfortunately, he’s a bit sickly and catches colds easily, even in the summer. Winters are especially rough on him, so we have to huddle around him when we sleep. It’s stuffy and uncomfortable, but we obviously can’t let him freeze. Hopefully the new jacket and gloves will help. Up next, I find out why the box felt so heavy.

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“Wow, look at all these shoes. All kinds of sizes, too. Alex, go sort these out for me, will you?”

“Sure thing. Dibs on the red ones, though!”

Alexander is the third oldest. He’s also 10, but has his birthday a week after Theo. Thankfully he’s every bit as healthy as me, and really smart to boot. He’s the only one here who can read the small labels on the shoes, so I let him arrange them by size in the corner. We’re all growing kids here, so we need all kinds and are constantly trading them around. He’s the only one who cares about the colors, the rest of us are just glad to have as many as we can get.

“Are there any onesies or diapers for Becca? I think the sister scared the poop out of her again and the ones from yesterday aren’t dry yet.”

“Ugh… I’ll check.”

Rebecca is the tiny girl in Anika’s hands. She’s really quiet for a baby. In fact, I’ve never heard her voice. Mr. Klein said there’s something wrong with her throat and she’ll probably never speak. It’s kind of sad, and makes things difficult. It’s hard to know when something’s wrong with a baby that doesn’t cry. Thankfully, her older sister looks after her very well. The two of them joined us only a few months ago, so they’re still adjusting, but Anika’s strong enough for both of them even though she’s only 9. I would help more if I didn’t have my hands full trying to contain that nun-shaped disaster. That’s totally it. It’s not because I find Rebecca super gross and stinky or anything. Thankfully, Mr. Klein organized the package’s contents and Sister Agatha was just picking it up, so it has all kinds of stuff we might need.

“These ones, right?” I hand over the baby stuff.

“Right. Thanks, Mike. I’ll go get her changed, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll finish putting the rest of these away.”

I start laying out all the clothes on the bed. There’s really a lot packed in here, so it’s taking a while. Alex occasionally swings by to grab more shoes or claim more red stuff while Theo walks around waving his hands. He really likes those wool mittens, by the look of it. I feel like they should be helping me out some more, but at the same time, this is a job Mr. Klein gave me, so I want to handle it properly. That’s why I suddenly get angry when I look back to the mostly empty box and find the church’s other major nuisance curled up inside it.

“Tom, get out of there! Don’t get your nasty fur all over the new socks!”

This dumb cat’s always getting in my way. Is it on purpose? It has to be on purpose. He reminds me so much of that living disaster, so it can’t be an accident. They’ve got the same light-gray hair color and pale-green eye color, not to mention they’re both useless freeloaders. No, that’s not fair to Tom. At least he catches rats and bugs and other pests that sneak into the basement now and then, plus he has his cute moments sometimes. He’s definitely better than the sister, but that’s not saying much. I’d have honestly thrown him out if the girls weren’t so attached to him. It might seem cruel, but we’re in the middle of Broketown and he’s an extra mouth to feed and people have to obviously come before pets. He’s lucky we get plenty of food from Mr. Klein.

Anyway, the girls aren’t here right now, so I roughly dump him out of the box along with whatever’s left inside. He hisses and jumps out of the window, leaving me to shake his loose hair out of the socks and blankets that were at the bottom. Once I put all of those away, I decide to tidy the room up a bit. Standard ‘sister is yelling again’ procedure is to hide under the covers until I or Mr. Klein give the all-clear, so get Alex and Theo to help me make everyone’s messy beds. Ovha says ‘a clean room is a clean mind,’ and though I don’t get a lot of what the sister preaches, I can get behind that one. Honestly, I don’t get how she’s such a bad nun when she knows, like, a million prayers. Sure, she’ll talk for hours about Ovha every chance she gets, but she’s just babbling to herself rather than trying to actually teach us anything, so I end up spacing out for most of her sermons.

That aside, I quickly end up with nothing to do and plenty of energy left. I don’t know how Theo does it since he’s always shivering, but the simple meals he makes always pump me up and I’m still feeling that hot lunch in my belly. I decide to spend the rest of the afternoon scavenging for treasures. On my way out I notice Mr. Klein and Sister Agatha are still talking about something in the chapel’s office, which suits me just fine since it makes it easier to sneak out and head into the ruins. I know I’m not supposed to be rummaging in there, but if I don’t do this then we’ll never get anything besides what Mr. Klein brings over every month. I’m not saying I’m ungrateful since it’s plenty for us to survive, but that bare-bones charity isn’t enough for us to actually live.

I want Theo to get stronger, Alex to attend an academy, and for the girls to grow up pretty and kind. They deserve a real future, but they won’t get one if we just coast off what we’re given. I’m not forgetting about myself, of course. I’ll definitely be like Mr. Klein when I get bigger, but for any of that to happen we need clothes, books, and all kinds of other stuff that we won’t get unless we put in the effort ourselves. It’s just me right now, but once the other boys get a bit older I’ll take them with me and show them the ropes, no matter how much the sister complains. What does she know, anyway? All she does is make a mess wherever she goes and occasionally scares away thugs. There’s no way I can trust someone like that to raise six kids, so I need to do everything I can for all our sakes. Yes, even Tom. That furry bastard can go sniff his own butt for all I care, but the girls would be sad if he were to disappear.

Speak of the devil, it seems he followed me outside today as well. It’s a waste of precious energy to chase him off, so I just let him do whatever he wants as I head into the ruined capital. The first fifteen minutes is easy, but after that the streets get super messy and too cluttered to move around easily. Lots of sharp rocks and rusty metal, too, so I’m extra careful as I climb around. I make sure to keep a distance from any of the larger rubble piles. I messed up last year and broke an arm when the mess shifted under my feet and nearly buried me under. The medicine I needed really cut into my profits, so I learned my lesson. Unfortunately, I have to take a few risks since the easy-to-reach places have already been picked over. Thankfully I’m still just a kid, so I can squeeze through gaps that the grown-ups can’t. Oh, and it seems I lost Tom somewhere along the way, which is fine by me.

I find a familiar spot like that after about an hour of… what do they call it? Navigating? Yeah, that. I like to imagine I’m a brave sea captain challenging the stormy seas whenever I climb through the ruined streets. Making the work into a game helps a lot with keeping my motivation up. Ah, but I take the actual digging part seriously since it’s dangerous. I know that much even without the stupid sister telling me all the time, but I can handle myself. I’ve been doing it long before they put me in that church, and I’m quite proud of my skills. Today as well I easily slip into an old half-broken building. It’s quite big and I can tell the inside used to be fancy, so I know there’s some good stuff sleeping in here. It’s where I found that safe with those old papers. A bomb or something had blown the lock off so it was easy to open, though the door was still pretty heavy.

Didn’t have much luck today, though. I spend an hour searching whatever rooms I could enter, but I only find some copper badges and an old service revolver. The gun’s rusty and full of dirt, so it’s basically junk. No bullets, either. Still, it’s solid iron, so the scrapyard will buy it. I tuck it into my bag with the badges and call it quits for now. I’ll give this old police station another few tries over the next week before I give up on it and find some other place. I quickly find my way out and start making my way back, but it seems I underestimated how short the days had gotten lately and it starts getting dark while I’m still in the really messy parts of the city.

Thankfully, I hear some familiar voices and see a campfire up ahead. Sounds like the old guys from Broketown are having a pity party since they didn’t find much worth selling today. I’ll gladly give them one of the badges I got earlier if they help me get back to the church before the sister has another meltdown. As long as I’m not too late I can avoid getting yelled at if I say I took a nap that lasted too long.

As I walk around the corner full of confidence, I am immediately reminded that I am still a child after all.

“Huh?”

“Who the fuck is this brat?”

“Wait, he looks kinda familiar.”

“I know! He was with that hot nun!”

“I swear to Ovha, Jerry!”

This skin-headed gathering of human scum were definitely not the people I thought they were.