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seemed to know more about George's kind than a soft one had any business knowing.
Joe tore a hunk from the carcass on the rickety kitchen table and stuffed it into his mouth. Around it, he mumbled something that might have been yes and might have been no. It was Joe's favorite stratagem, and it was responsible for the round belly that bulged out beneath his skinny chest.
Joe tore away more than half of the meat and made for the door. "Woodrow wants to meet with me again this morning. Don't wait up for me tonight!" He left the cottage and set off toward the tram-stop.
Bill rolled over on his bedding and said, "I don't like this at all."
George kept quiet. Bill's voice surprised him, but it shouldn't have. Bill was clever enough to lie still and feign sleep so that he could overhear Joe's conversations, where George would have just sat up and started talking.
"Orville should know about this, but I can't tell if it would make him angry. If it made him angry and he punished Joe, it would be our fault for telling him."
"Then we won't tell him," George said.
Bill held up his hand. "But if we don't tell him and he finds out on his own, he may be angry with us."
"Then we should tell him," George said.
"But Joe and this Woodrow may not get along after all, and if that happens, the whole thing will end on its own."
"Then we won't tell him," George said.
"But if they do get along, then they may do something that would make Orville angry," Bill looked expectantly at George.
"Then we should tell him?" George said, uncertainly.
"I don't know," Bill said. "I haven't decided."
George knew that this mean that Bill would have to think on it, and so he left him. He had to catch the tram to make it to his shift, anyway.
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The soft one with the six-to-noon shift left as soon as George arrived, without a word. George was used to soft ones not having anything to say to him, and preferred it that way. He was better off than Bill -- soft ones always wanted to talk to Bill, and he hated it, since they never had anything to say that Bill wanted to know. The weather needed no discussion, Bill said. And as for the complaints about the shift's Lead, well, one soft one was just about the same as any other, and Orville had told them that at the end of the day, they worked for him, not for any Lead.
Joe liked talking to the soft ones. Joe liked to talk, period. He told the soft ones lies about their childhood in the shack with their father, and told them about how his brothers tormented, and even talked about the weather. When he got back home, he told his brothers all over again, everything he'd told the soft ones.
George had memorised the SOP manual when they came to the Island, five years before. It clearly said that the floor of the booth would be disinfected every three hours, and the surfaces polished clean, and the pots and machines refilled. The soft one with the six-to-noon shift never did any of these things, which could get him disciplined by their Lead, but George didn't complain. He just wiped and disinfected and re-stocked when he arrived, even though he had to be extra careful with the water, so that he didn't wash any of himself away.
Boys ran up and down the midway, baking in the mid-day sun. They reminded George of the boys he'd gone to school with, after the social worker had come to his father's shack. They'd teased him to begin with, but he'd just stood with his hands at his sides until they stopped. Every time he started a new grade, or a new kid came to the school, it was the same: they'd tease him, or hit him, or throw things at him, and he'd stand strong and silent until they stopped, even if it took months. His teachers quickly learned that calling on him in class meant standing in awkward silence, while he sat stoic and waited for them to call on someone else. The social worker could make him go to school with the soft ones, but she couldn't make him act like one.
George watched the boys carefully, as carefully as he had when he stood silently in the schoolyard, not seeming to watch anything. He was better at spotting a donkey than any of the soft ones. When a boy was ready to turn, George could almost see the shape of the donkey superimposed on the boy, and he radioed a keeper to pick up the donkey come morning. He got a bonus for each one he spotted, and according to