A Box of Nothing
“The only times it stopped being horrible were when James was asleep, too unhappy to dream, but even then the guards were likely to come and wake him up and make him stand by his mattress for an hour, for no reason at all. There was only the disgusting dry oatmeal stuff to eat and only the foul soapy water to drink.
None of the prisoners were rats. They were other creatures of the Dump—mice, voles, toads, and such—all grown large and clever in their own ways. Each sort lived in separate huts, the slow, sad toads in one block, the mice in another, and so on. James wasn’t allowed near any of them, but from what he could see the voles were the best. There was something unbeatable about them. Though they were tottery with starvation, they would never give in to the bullying guards. Even at the most terrifying moments there would be a shrill mutter somewhere in the ranks, followed by a burst of scornful vole laughter. The mice tried to please the rats, cringing and creeping.
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