"You missed a spot!" screeched a horrid voice from outside the room.
Oh great, it seemed Mrs. Bartes hadn't taken a nap after all.
"Michael Portman!" The batty old woman walked into the room. "Grab your broom and sweep up that corner before I smack you right out of this orphanage!"
I grabbed my broom and trudged over to the corner of my dorm. If my parents were dead, couldn't I have at least found a better place to live in? The Boston Discipline School for Boys was not exactly a fun place.
While sticking by broom in the dirty corner I thought about ways to escape the wretched place, without being caught and thrown out into a street.
Come to think of it, a street would be better than this place.
Two plates of slop a day, an old mattress on the ground for a bed, and recess being 20 minutes of getting your butt whooped by older kids. How could a 12 year old possibly survive?
Subconsciously, as I rubbed by broom back and forth, my finger slipped and a sliver of wood stuck into my finger.
"God d-"
But at that moment the bell rang for dinner, and Mrs. Bartes walked into my room, grabbing me and pulling me out.
"I can get to the mess hall myself!" I said, as the matron dragged me down the hallway by my chocolate-brown hair.
"Last time you said that Mr. Compton had to chase you all the way down the street!"
Mr. Compton was one of the orphanage guards.
When we finally reached the mess hall, Mrs. Bartes opened the doors and threw me in. It felt extremely good to not have someone tugging on my hair.
But I really did wish I could've stayed in my dorm.
Most mess halls are called that because food is sometimes dropped onto the floor and it gets messy. That's not why this one was called that.
In this mess hall, if you weren't tough, you were dead.
There was food littered everywhere. Brussels sprouts covered the floors, so it made the room look like one big ball pit. Oatmeal and broken eggs were sliding down the walls, and slime dripped down from the ceiling.
As soon as I walked in, I got a plate of cheesy broccoli shoved in my face.
I threw it on the ground and looked around at all the madness. Why did I have tyo live here?
I sprinted over all the food on the ground and over to a lunch table.
Laying my head down in my arms on the table, I waited for these horrible 10 minutes to just pass by.
And so, I waited.
