Crash. Thunk. Scream. Crying.
Flames flickered on as dozens of children woke up to the noises. Tom opened his eyes and saw the uncertain light filter through his open doorway, cast there by hastily lit lanterns. Tom turned over in his lumpy bed trying to ignore the sobs. He heard the matron of the orphanage calling to find out who had screamed. Tom did not care who screamed as long as they would stop crying. He pulled a thin blanket closer to him. It was not even his blanket; another boy had stolen his blanket. His blanket had kept him nice and warm against the winter chill. This one was thin and did not keep the cold from crawling up his arms and legs like frozen fingers.
The crying intensified. Tom scowled. The crier had gotten someone to notice them and cried all the louder as if to brag that someone cared. Tom grabbed his pillow and wrapped it around his head. But it was thin as well and failed to muffle the miserable sound.
"Tom? Are you in there?"
It was the matron. She stood in doorway holding up a lantern.
Tom replied callously, "Where else would I be?"
"Ca-can you come over here so I can see you?"
Tom glowered in the shadows of his room, where she could not see him. He rose from his bed and walked into the circle of light cast by the matron's lantern. The light stabbed at his eyes and cast strange shadows over his dispassionate face. Her hand was unsteady, making the lantern rattle and the light to jiggle at the boundaries between light and shadows.
"You've been in your bed this whole time, Tom?" She asked slowly. Her voice still slightly shook even with the care she took to control it.
Tom did not turn from her firm gaze; it was the only thing she could keep steady. "Where else would I be?" he asked.
She stared at him for the longest moment. Tom glanced back at his bed. A shiver raced up his back. The concrete floor seemed like ice to his bare feet.
The matron said softly, "Do you know who screamed?"
Tom folded his arms and shook his body to try and retain some heat, "No. I was in bed, where it was decently warm. Why would I bother to figure out who is crying? It doesn't concern me."
He hoped she would let him return to bed. She might have been dressed in a heavy nightgown and shawl, but he only had insufficient clothing that grew thinner and more threadbare every year.
"It was George."
Tom stared at her, not saying a word.
The matron must have thought that he did not know who the boy was. She must have reasoned that there were too many boys for a single eight-year-old boy to know. She pressed for some acknowledgement from the boy. "The boy you fought with yesterday?"
He did not reply.
The matron tried again. "You two yelled at one another and he hit you?"
"What does this have to do with me?"
"His bed just collapsed. He got hurt and is going to need to see a doctor."
"So?"
Uneasily, the matron said, "Well, Tom you know how things tend to . . . well . . . happen and. . .I just wanted to-"
"Are you saying that I had something to do with it?" His voice had not risen in anger; instead it had lowered to a tone slightly above a whisper.
The matron quickly said, "No, it just seems to me that things . . . happen to people you fight with."
"Am I being accused?" Tom asked in the same quiet voice.
The matron stared at him; Tom glanced back at his bed again. He was done being scrutinized and standing in the drafty room. He wanted to be asleep in his bed where he had some protection from the chill. Tom shivered from the cold.
"You were here, in this room, the whole night, right?" She asked slowly.
"Where else would I be?" Tom irritably replied.
She chewed her lip then said, "Okay, Tom, you can go back to bed now."
Tom turned quickly and climbed into bed. He tucked the thin blanket around him. It was a cold night. The bare concrete floors kept this place frigid throughout the winter. The cold made him tired and irritable and this blanket did not keep that horrible cold away. Tom wondered briefly how hurt George was. He turned in his lumpy bed hoping that George was sufficiently hurt. George deserved it. He deserved to be miserable for a few days. He had stolen Tom's warm blanket and when Tom tried to get it back, George had hit him. The matron would not believe that the blanket was Tom's, and had sent them both to bed; with George having Tom's blanket.
This injury was indeed lucky for Tom. This way Tom did not have to arrange a suitable punishment for the theft. Fate had arranged it for him. Tom shivered again under the thin blanket. He wished for his warm one. Tom decided to retrieve it tomorrow. A smile curled his lips at that single thought.