The North Annex had six beds and they only needed five.
No one said who the sixth was for. Chawng had swept around it. The broom marks stopped clean at its legs and started again on the other side.
Drake woke first because the iron bed was too short. His feet hung off the end. He had tried sleeping curled and woken with a cramp in his calf. He tried sleeping straight and woken with his heels cold against the iron.
He tried to sit the way he always did, left arm bracing on the mattress.
Left arm didn't answer.
He breathed out through his teeth. Something in the shoulder ground like wet gravel under skin. He shifted to his right hip, dragged his left leg with his hand to get it over the side, braced the shield against the frame instead of his back and levered up.
The shield scraped the floor.
Kara was already up. She sat by the cold stove with the kettle in both hands even though the stove was cold. Her hair was still tied back from sleep. She watched the scrape without turning her head all the way.
"You going to announce it every morning?" she said.
"Until beds get longer," Drake said.
His right hand shook trying to find the buckle on his left side. The strap had twisted overnight and the edge was caught under the shield rim where he couldn't pinch it with one hand. He tugged. It didn't move.
Kara set the kettle down. Stood. Reached over. Unbuckled it. One pull. She didn't look at him while she did it.
Drake nodded once.
Across the room Luna knelt by the window with a chipped bowl. Under the window was a seam of soil as wide as her hand, as long as the sill. The weed from yesterday was still there. Pale stem, two leaves. She hadn't tried to make it grow. She had poured rinse water in last night and the soil had gone dark and then pale again by morning.
She poured again now. A little. The water disappeared fast.
Xander sat on the floor with his back against the timber wall. No datapad. The charred corner of the old one was still in his pocket because he hadn't found a place to put it. Knees up, thumbs pressed together hard enough that the knuckles were white. He was trying to keep them still.
James sat on the edge of his bed with his boots unlaced. He started with the heel lock. Drake's way. Loop under, pull. Halfway up the second boot he stopped. Looked at the knot like it wasn't his.
The timber door opened. Cold air came in with dirt.
Chawng came in. Broom in one hand. No staff.
"Beds made," he said.
Xander stood too fast. His knees cracked.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Pressed his thumbs together again and crouched. He brushed fingers through the dirt that had blown in under the gate and looked at the furrow Drake had made yesterday.
"You never reset the yard," he said.
Chawng nodded to Drake.
Drake looked at the furrow. Two inches deep, wrong place, where he had tried to take the weight in his shoulder instead of his heel. Dirt had fallen back into it overnight.
"Should I," Drake said.
"No," Chawng said. "Step over it."
Drake stepped over it to get to the kettle. He had to swing his left leg a little to clear it. Kara saw and didn't say anything.
Chawng pointed the broom at the beds.
"Make them," he said.
They made them. Five different ways.
Drake could only tuck with one hand so his corners were loose. He tried to fix them with his teeth and gave up.
Kara made hers tight enough to bounce, then yanked it loose again and left it sloppy. She glanced at Chawng to see if that was wrong. He said nothing.
Luna made hers and put her chipped bowl on top of it.
Xander made his last. He pulled the blanket straight, then straight again, then checked the edge against the iron frame.
Chawng walked the line.
He stopped at Drake's bed. Touched the loose corner with the broom handle.
"Foot," he said.
Drake looked down. His left foot was turned in. He turned it out half an inch. The blanket settled.
He stopped at Kara's.
"Kettle," he said.
Kara frowned. Looked at the kettle by the cold stove.
She picked it up and put it on the shelf by the door where the soot mark was. The shelf was exactly kettle sized.
He stopped at Luna's. He didn't move her bowl. He tapped the soil seam under the window.
"Yours," he said.
Luna lifted the bowl off her bed and set it back by the soil. She had a little water left in it. She hesitated, then poured it into the soil. The soil drank it.
That left the bowl empty.
"We have enough for tea if we wash cups badly," she said.
Kara looked at the empty bowl, then at the kettle.
"We wash cups," she said.
"I used it," Luna said. She looked at her bowl like she'd miscounted. "I thought there was more."
"We can just use less," Xander said. "It'll be thin, but it'll work."
Kara rubbed her hands together. Her fingers were still cold.
"We can use less," she said, not unkind, just repeating it because it sounded better the second time.
James was still on his boots. Heel lock. Loop under. Drake's way. He got to the top eyelet and stopped. Fingers stayed on the lace.
Chawng saw.
"Your feet are right," he said. "You borrowed mine again."
"I was trying to do it right," James said.
"Do it wrong," Chawng said.
James stared at the boot. He tried to make his hands do it left over right. They did right over left anyway. He tried again. Same.
He couldn't.
Silence. The gate rattled a little in the draft.
Xander started to speak. Luna's hand was still near his wrist. She didn't have to touch him again. He saw it and kept his thumbs pressed together.
Drake stood over his own furrow, shield off, right hand shaking a little. He didn't hide it.
Chawng swept once. Short stroke. Dirt moved. Furrow stayed.
He leaned the broom against the sixth bed. The one no one used.
He pointed.
"Broom," he said.
Pointed to shelf.
"Kettle."
Pointed to door that didn't sit flush and let dirt in.
"Gate."
Pointed to five made beds, all different.
"Beds."
Then,
"Again."
No one asked what that meant.
They learned it by doing it.
Kara took the kettle to the pump outside. The handle was stiff. She had to use both hands and her shoulder. Cold water spat, then ran. She filled it half, because Luna had used the rinse water, and carried it back careful so it didn't slosh. She set it on the stove.
Drake tried to sweep with one hand. The broom was too long. He braced it against his hip and pushed. It left lines. Chawng let the lines stay.
Luna knelt by her soil and didn't touch the weed. She moved her bowl half an inch to the left, where the light hit it.
Xander was given the gate. He knelt and looked at the gap at the bottom where dirt came in. He put his hand near it to feel the draft. Then took his hand away.
James sat with one boot laced, one loose. He unlaced the laced one and tried again to do it wrong. His hands did it right. He stopped and left them loose.
The stove caught. The kettle made a low sound, then a higher one.
They all looked at it because there was nothing else to look at.
The whistle got loud. Kara lifted it off with both hands even though the handle wasn't hot yet.
She poured. Five cups. Weak tea, because there wasn't enough water and they had washed the cups anyway.
They drank it sitting on beds that were too short or too tight or too loose, in a room with six beds for five people, with a furrow in the yard they were supposed to step over and a gate that let dirt in no matter how many times they swept.
The tea was weak and warm and they drank it anyway.