Last Summer of the Death Warriors Read Free

death. That was about the extent of it. He hoped Mass was not a daily requirement, but he would deal with it if it was. He had plenty to think about while the priest did his thing up at the altar.
    The bureau had a cupboard for hanging clothes next to four drawers. Pancho put all his clothes in the drawers. He hadnothing to hang. The desk drawer had a key attached to it. He sat down, opened the drawer, and put his sister’s album, the wedding rings, and the medals inside. He took out the wallet with the twenty-dollar bill that Mrs. Olivares had given him and threw that in there as well. He locked the drawer and looked for a place to hide the key, but there was no place to hide anything.
    “Hey!”
    He looked up, thinking that someone from the next stall was speaking to him. Then he turned sideways and saw the boy in the wheelchair. He was still wearing the blue cap and black sweatshirt, even though it was hotter inside than it was outdoors. Up close, the boy seemed older than he was, but it was hard to tell by how much.
    “No one ever steals anything around here,” the boy in the wheelchair said.
    Pancho put the key inside his pants pocket. “Yeah, sure.”
    “If it’ll make you feel better, you can get a chain from Lupita and hang the key around your neck.”
    “Who?”
    “Lupita. She works in the front office.”
    Pancho stared at the wall behind the desk. He found it hard to look at the boy directly: the dark eyes sunk in their sockets, the yellowish skin, the cracked lips, the long, thin strands of blond hair poking from underneath the cap. Looking at the boy made him feel ill. He pushed his chair back and stood up. The mattress had a dark stain where someone had once wetted it. Two white sheets, a pillowcase, and a gray blanket lay at the foot of the bed. He put the pile of bedding on the chair and then extended onesheet over the bed. He hoped his silent movements would make the boy roll back to wherever he came from.
    He had to walk around the wheelchair to get to the other side of the bed. He was stuffing the pillow into the case when the boy spoke again. The voice had a raspy, exhausted quality to it, like there was a limited quantity of sound in there and it would soon run out. “The Panda asked me to help you sort out the papers in the storage room.”
    The flat, skinny pillow filled only half the pillowcase. He threw it on the bed and sat down next to it. The Panda? It took him a few seconds to see the resemblance: Father Concha’s white face, the dark circles around his eyes. He almost smiled, then he caught himself. “What’s wrong with you anyway?” He stared at the kid’s ankles. They were the width of broomsticks.
    “I’m training for the Olympics.” The boy tried to laugh but began to cough instead. When the coughing fit ended, he said, “My name is Daniel Quentin, but everyone calls me D.Q. You’re Pancho.”
    “That’s my name. So is everyone here like an orphan?”
    “In one way or another.”
    “What?”
    “Technically, an orphan is someone whose parents have died. Some kids have parents who are still alive but who might as well be dead. You see?”
    He saw. “I always figured orphanages were for little kids.”
    “If the little kids don’t get adopted, they have to end up someplace.”
    It crossed Pancho’s mind that these were the kids no onewanted. He looked around. People were entering the dormitory in twos and threes. One of the walls held a white clock. It was too early to go to sleep, but he wished he could just lie down and close his eyes.
    “You want me to show you around?” D.Q. asked.
    “What’s there to see?”
    “Bathrooms and showers are at the other end, where that orange light is. There’s a TV room, a game room, a library, computers.…”
    “Can we go outside?” He looked at the door marked exit.
    A strange look came over D.Q.’s face. “This isn’t a jail,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a home. There are procedures for telling people where