#vannak

It was gray. Everything around her was gray. Plain and gray and ugly. Mama would have hated it, and so would Grand-mère. A room needed to serve a purpose, they would say, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be pretty, too. Though, as she looked around the plain, gray, ugly room and counted the beds - just enough for all of the kids who looked around just like her - she decided that it must have had a purpose. Even if she wasn’t quite sure what that purpose was yet. 

Someone had changed her clothes, and they were ugly and plain and boring too. All of them were dressed the same, she noticed. The other children looked around - some still slept, but others rose to either sit on the beds or wander around. Probably to search for a reason why they weren’t in their own beds in their own homes, too. Hadn’t that been where she went to bed? She couldn’t quite remember. Her brain felt heavy when she tried to remember; like when the dentist gave her a shot to make her mouth feel buzzy and thick when she had a cavity filled. She hadn’t liked the feeling then. She still didn’t like it now, either. 

Stranger than the plain, gray, ugly room and the buzzing feeling in her head, she didn’t know why she was there in the first place. Or how she had gotten there - how any of them got there. ‘Everything has a story’ Papa would tell her. ‘Everything has a reason, if you look for one. You have to be willing to search for it.’ But she searched the empty walls of the strange room and could not find a reason written upon them, nor determine a story. 

She thought of the game she played with Papa where they would make up stories while she sat at his big desk and made notes on the big kids’ papers. He would give her new words to use and fit into her stories - last time, the word was peculiar. When she asked what it meant, he said it was used to describe things that were odd; out of the ordinary.  They would only stop when one of those big kids came to ask him a question, and then they’d make them a character in the story, too. When she asked if it was peculiar that some of the big kids wore their pajamas into his office even though it was daytime and they looked like they hadn’t slept at all, he just laughed his big laugh and nodded and said ‘indubitably so’ . He would tap her nose with his red pen and it would make her smile. He would lean back in his chair and ask her to keep telling him her story while he put marks all over another piece of paper. This was peculiar too, she thought. Indubitably so. 

She’d make up a story now, she decided. If she couldn’t find one, then she’d make one. They’d all be the characters. Maybe they’d all been taken by a witch like in her books. She hoped it was a nice witch. One that took little children because she was lonely and wanted a family of her own to love, or who would take them on some great adventure before they would wake at home in their beds like it was all some strange dream. She didn’t like the stories about the bad ones. Papa always skipped them. Maybe this was no different; a witch who took children for reasons that were still unclear to her as she sat on a strange bed in a strange room full of  strange kids in strange clothes. Like the princesses in her stories, they'd all be saved by a brave knight. She gave them a happy ending in her story - she always liked those the best, anyway.

Some looked scared. Some cried and hugged their knees to their chests as they looked around and called for their parents. Others looked calm, even though she was sure that their hearts felt like a rabbit in their chest the same way that hers did. One boy with freckles and brown hair looked around with a face she didn’t see on the others - like he was trying to make a plan before he noticed one of the other boys crying and quietly sat beside them. 

But then she saw him. He sat on the bed right across from her that had a number on it, alone on top of the plain white sheets. His skin was darker than hers, she noticed. It reminded her of Papa’s. Mama’s was like the cream she put into her coffee in the mornings, dotted with the same freckles she gave to her. Papa would joke that Mama was just one big freckle and kiss her shoulder, and she would laugh and say that they were both kissed by angels. She always liked it when she said that. The thought of Mama made her chest hurt - she wanted her here to say something nice and make her feel better like she always did. 

But Mama wasn’t here. So she watched the boy instead. He was bigger than most of the other boys. He sat up on his bed, just watching. She thought it was funny the way he looked over the room like a grown up. Some of the kids cried. But he didn’t. He looked calm. Tough. Like he was challenging whatever this was to do its worst. She thought he was brave not to be afraid. For some reason it made her feel less afraid, too.

He turned to look around the room again and noticed her watching. She looked away when he looked back at her, pretending that she was looking around too and they just happened to look towards each other at the same time. It wasn’t nice to stare, but he didn’t look away, and the way he stared back right at her made her feel nervous. It made her tummy feel strange. She didn’t know if it was a good strange or bad strange. Just… strange. Peculiar. But today was already peculiar enough, so she didn’t think much of it.

“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked. His voice didn’t shake. It sounded just as tough and calm as the rest of him. She shook her head. He nodded. “Me either.”

He moved to the end of the bed and sat on the edge so he was closer. His legs didn’t dangle off the edge like hers. His toes almost touched the floor. He held his hand out, which she thought was polite, “I’m Vannak.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Just stared down at his hand. Meeting new people was never her favorite thing. They always thought she was odd because she was quiet. Papa said it didn’t make her odd; just peculiar. She’d rather think than talk; observe before she engaged. But Mama would want her to be polite, too. Without lifting her face, she took his hand. He squeezed too hard and shook it too rough, but his hand was warm. 

When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “What’s your name?” 

Mama’s voice echoed through her head like she was whispering in her ear; “Head up, ma fille. Be proud to be seen.” She lifted her head and found that he was looking right at her. His eyes were dark like hers. They didn’t seem tough, though. They were just kind. She said her name quickly, but her voice was so quiet that he had to lean forward.

“ Red? ” His face squished up like he didn’t believe her. It made her belly flip again like it was doing somersaults, but she didn’t tell him that her name was Riz, not Red. “Is that because you have red hair?

She didn’t correct him. She just nodded instead. That serious look returned and he nodded like it was something really important. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Red,” He started to turn away from her when the blonde boy with green eyes in the next bed got up to come to talk to him. Before he turned away, he looked at her again and added, “You have pretty hair.”

Her hand went to her hair to touch her curls, still loose around her shoulders, and felt her cheeks grow hot. That strange feeling got even stranger when he nodded to her and turned to start talking to the boy.

He seemed nice, she decided. In a very serious way, like he didn’t have much patience for silly things. Papa was nice in that serious way, too. She missed him. Did he miss her too? Did they know where she was? When were they coming to get her? She didn’t like it here.

She wasn’t the only one who didn’t like it here. A blonde girl sat on the bed beside her with wide, wet eyes that darted around the room as she sniffled. Each time, she would wipe her eyes and nose with her hands. She assumed that the girl didn’t want the others to know that she was crying; wanted to prove that she was brave like Vannak was, too. The ponytail she wore her hair in had come loose, still half sticking up with the other falling out like she slept with it in. Blue eyes glanced up at her and the girl wiped her face before Riz could see the tears that slipped down her cheeks. They regarded each other for a moment in silence before Riz rose from her bed and sat beside the blonde girl on hers. She watched her warily, as if sizing her up, but Riz sat quietly. His brave had made her feel a little brave, too. Maybe she could share that brave.

“Your hair is falling out,” she said quietly.

The girl sniffled again and rubbed her hand on her pants, which she thought was gross, but she didn’t say so. “I don’t know how to do it,” the girl said. “My daddies always do it for me.”

The girl’s voice caught and Riz looked away so she could wipe her tears. It seemed like the kind thing to do. She didn’t like people watching her cry either, but this felt like something worth crying about.

“Well, maybe I can do it for you until we go home?” she offered. 

The blonde girl looked over at her again like she was sizing her up before she nodded slowly. Riz sat up behind her on the bed and twisted out the elastic in her hair the way Mama showed her so that it wouldn’t hurt. Her hair came down in a thick tangle that made her wish that she had a brush. The pretty glittery one she used every morning. But that wasn’t here, probably because it wasn’t plain and gray and ugly, so she used her fingers to brush through her hair. 

The blonde girl sniffled again, “I’m Kai.” 

“I’m Riz.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“No,” she said. She wished she could say yes. “Do you?”

“No.”

The girl sniffled again when she started to pull her hair back and smooth it with her fingers like Mama showed her. She couldn’t get it tight like she could when she did her own hair, but it was better than being tangly and messy. It made her proud that she could do it herself. Mama taught her to do her hair after Grand-mère taught her because Mama had different hair than hers. Hers was straight and long, but the same color as hers. She would pull her hair up with ribbons or pretty clips, press her cheek to hers in the mirror and they would make faces at their reflections until they laughed. Mama said it was important for her to know how to do it herself in case she wasn’t around to help her. She wiped her own face. If Kai had noticed, she didn’t say anything either. 

Kai stopped crying shortly after, and instead started talking. And talking. And talking. She talked her ear off while Riz tied her hair back. Vannak laughed when Riz caught his eye where he sat on his bed and shook her head like Mama would when Papa did something silly, like they were a team. Kai kept talking and talking and talking, and Riz was pretty sure she didn’t breathe once the whole time. Mama told her it wasn’t nice to say shut up, but she also said that people need to hear hard things sometimes, and Kai needed to hear it, so she told her. 

For a minute, she almost forgot about the scary that didn’t have a story or a reason. Or about the story she made up about princesses and knights and a witch that took them from their beds.

But when the men came into the plain, gray, ugly room in plain, gray, ugly uniforms and started shouting, she knew it wasn’t a witch. She would have liked that better, she thought. Even if it was a bad one.

---

They didn’t go home. 

Instead, she became the knight in her stories as weeks passed. They didn’t call them knights, though. They called them Spartans.

“Team 3: 117, 125, 028, 134 and 098.”

She didn’t like being called by a number. She had a name, you know. Names were important; they held power. And she didn’t even like the number 28. She liked the number 9, because it was her cubby number in kindergarten and in first grade, too. But they didn’t ask her, and she didn’t tell them, because she didn’t think they would care, and she had seen what happened when they talked back. Soren had been taught that lesson a lot over the weeks, but he didn’t seem to be learning. But she did. Papa always said she learned by observation, anyway. She learned that if she stayed quiet and listened, then things were easier. So, she stayed quiet, and listened. Mostly, she watched.

As the weeks went on, she watched more and more. She watched what got the others in trouble, what earned the others praise. She watched the other kids when they went through their exercises and kept track of what made them succeed, and extra attention to what made them fail. They called them exercises, but they weren’t like any exercises she knew. It must have been one of those multiple meaning words Papa told her about. She wished she could ask him. She wondered if she’d ever be able to. She stopped telling herself that she would be able to a few weeks ago. It made it hurt less that way .

But she stepped forward anyway when they called the number she didn’t even like and followed the man’s finger to where he pointed. He didn’t say thank you when she did what he asked. Just continued to shout out the numbers that they were made to remember that first day when they made them run and run and shouted at them to identify themselves until they no longer said their names and instead said their numbers.

Vannak stepped forward at his number and stood beside her with that serious look that made his face very straight and tight. They didn’t like smiling here, which was okay. She didn’t feel like smiling much. Kai followed and got yelled at for how bouncy her steps were. The quiet boy with freckles followed too.

The girl in the bed next to hers, Nora, was on their team, too. She guessed that made it a bit better. They sat next to each other in class while Déjà taught them all about history and math and science. It felt like school at home until they had to go back outside or into the obstacle courses where they had to find a way out without being noticed by the men in uniforms who were trying to find them, because they got hurt if they did.  She could pretend that she was playing at recess with her friends, this way. Even if she didn’t really like the game. Kai was already talking to the quiet boy with freckles that didn’t look like he wanted to talk to her, but was listening anyway. She wasn’t sure that they were supposed to be talking, but she learned that it didn’t really matter to Kai. The first time, he got in trouble for not working as a team. He was trying to do better, though. She didn’t mind being on his team. She liked being on a team with all of them, really.  

“Got something to say, 125?” the man shouted. They all snapped straight, standing tall and keeping their eyes forward so that they wouldn’t get noticed either.

“No, sir!” Kai said, keeping her eyes straight. Her ears turned pink when someone else snickered. Riz was glad that they got yelled at, too. 

“Then can it! Team 4: 066, 036, 002…”

They stood quietly as the rest of the teams were divided. Vannak stood with her in the quiet. She liked his quiet. It felt the same as it did when they woke up and he told her that she has pretty hair. Like he was tough. Brave. His brave made her feel brave, too. They listened, standing straight and tall, as the rest of their numbers are called. She was a little relieved that she didn’t get paired with a few of them. So far, everyone had been nice, but there were a few people that were rude. Grand-mère would have said they were acting like connards , but Mama said that she couldn’t use that work until she was twenty, and she was only six, so she had to keep that one in her back pocket until then, like Papa would say. 

The objectives were explained and they were released to devise a plan. Only one minute, they were told, which she had learned was pretty generous. The freckled boy turned to Kai and Nora and started to speak quietly, that same look on his face that she saw when they woke up crossing his face. Nora turned over her shoulder and waved them over.

“Vannak! Riz!” she called. “Come here. John has a plan.”

Vannak turned to her, that serious look broken for just a moment when confusion replaced it instead. “Your name is Riz?”

She nodded, her belly flipping. She didn’t meet his eyes, but he just kept looking at her and she was forced to look up. She was worried he was going to look mad, like she had lied somehow. She just didn’t want to be impolite. But when she looked up, his serious look was soft, and so were his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me I got your name wrong?” he asked.

Her cheeks turned bright red and she shrugged. “It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not,” he said firmly. He talked like things were always one way or the other. No patience for silly things. “Names are important. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

She couldn’t find an answer. She knew that she should have. Maybe she just liked being called something other than a number. But really, she just liked that he called her that, so that’s what she said.  

When she said it, his lips twitched up into a smile. She hadn’t seen him smile yet. It looked nice, and it made her smile, too.

“Can I keep calling you that?” He asked. 

She nodded, her voice too quiet like it always seemed to be around him when she said, “Yeah. I like it.” 

“Okay, Red,” he jogged towards where Kai, Nora, and John all stood huddled and left her behind with that funny feeling in her tummy. He turned over his shoulder like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to say something else, but then added, “I’m glad you’re on my team.”