Peter gets back into his own bed. Takes his glasses off. Stares at the broken support.
"You are allowed to defend yourself," says Uncle Ben, his voice as loud as it is silent.
"You were wrong, Uncle Ben," Peter whispers.
Uncle Ben doesn't reply.
Now that Arnold is here, there are five boys at the halfway house, including Peter. Justin is tall and black and almost eighteen, and as such he doesn't talk much—staying out of trouble until his birthday, according to Felipe. Ryan is nearly as silent, though white, and as broad as Justin is tall. But where Justin's silence is brooding and solitary, Ryan's seems to be a result of extreme stupidity, and is punctuated only by an occasional random fist, if one is unlucky enough to catch him alone in the hallway, or the living room. The first thing Felipe did when Peter arrived at the house was warn him to stay out of Ryan's way, so that's the first thing Peter does for Arnold as they walk down to breakfast the next day.
Sure enough, Ryan scowls as the three of them troupe into the kitchen, and Arnold hurries to take the seat furthest from his at the table. Justin is nowhere to be seen, but Mr. Leonard is there, and Karen is leaning over the stove, and she smiles as the younger boys take their seats.
"Good morning, boys," says Karen, while Ryan remains silent.
Karen and Mr. Leonard are the Monday-Wednesday-Friday day shifters. Mr. Leonard mostly stands in the corners, staring at his phone, but Peter likes Karen. At nineteen she is almost as short as Peter, black, and a little chubby. Karen wears a constant smile and is the only provider who doesn't talk to the boys like they're sewer scum. She's the one not-horrible part of living in the halfway house, which has been Peter's home since the Arlingtons surrendered custody.
Even though they decided not to press charges—after the officer in charge of Peter's case cited the average court fees for a case like Peter's, interestingly enough—just the accusation of felony assault (which, according to the Arlingtons, was what Peter committed) can't be expunged from his record until he's eighteen. The lack of a conviction makes no difference.
There are very few foster families who want to take fourteen-year-olds as it is, but there are even fewer willing to take fourteen-year-olds who have been accused of shoving women down flights of stairs.
So they sent Peter here.
If someone had told him just two months ago that he would miss living with the Arlingtons, Peter would have laughed in their face. But that was before he'd been introduced to halfway-house living.
There are no more excursions to see Ned. There are no more excursions period, because the boys aren't allowed to leave the premises, except for chaperoned "field trips" every other weekend, which usually means that the boys who have outgrown their clothes go to Goodwill with one of the providers. Peter doesn't even know if Ned knows where he's gone, because besides the homeschool website, which they visit in turns, the internet is fully blocked on the ancient computer in the attic. And even though they get two supervised phone calls on the house phone each week, Peter never memorized Ned's number like he did Ben's. And May's.
(He called her again, once, his first week here, only to discover that her number had been reassigned. Peter hung up before the old man who acquired it could finish telling him he had the wrong one, then spent the next two weeks biting his knuckles against the shame of having made the same mistake again.)
Somehow, the isolation and the boredom and the confinement aren't the worst parts. The worst part is—
"Is this it?" Ryan grunts as Karen places a plate on the table in front of him.
Loathe though Peter is to agree with Ryan, today's breakfast is especially pitiful: it consists of a single hard-boiled egg and a half piece of wheat toast, unbuttered.
Karen grimaces.
"Sorry, guys," she says, sounding genuinely apologetic. "They haven't adjusted for the new guy yet, it might be slim pickings for a couple of days."
Peter glances at Arnold, who is clearly trying not to cry as he looks down at his own egg, and then at Felipe, who has an expression to match Peter's thoughts: this has nothing to do with Arnold.
Peter lowers his head. Pokes at his egg.
He's done defending himself. What good does it do?
What good has it ever done?
("Ese," Felipe said Peter's first night, while both of them lay awake with growling stomachs, Peter biting back regret at ever having complained about the meals at the duplex, "that's just the way things are.")
The jangle of keys makes everyone look up: a Pavlovian response. Except instead of food the boys—and Karen, who is sitting at the coffee table, playing go-fish with Peter and Felipe and Arnold while Justin skulks in the ratty armchair in the corner—are greeted by the sight of Ms. Charlise, emerging from her office for the first time today.
They call Ms. Charlise the headmistress, but Peter has yet to work out the logic behind the title. For one, this stuffy brick oven of a house is about as far from a school as it's possible to be. For another—and more importantly—Ms. Charlise doesn't do anything, as far as he can tell, except stay in that so-called office, which doubles as her bedroom, shouting muffled curses into her telephone and emerging three times a day to check the locks on the doors, the windows, and, of course, the refrigerator. The only reason he can come up with is that Ms. Charlise is the only staff member who stays on the premise at all times, and that she might possibly own the house—but this last is just a guess, because Ms. Charlise does her best never to speak to them unless she absolutely has to.