(part one)

Dish Detail. I have Dish Detail tonight, and I can't stand to look at the food on my plate because I know soon as I've finished it, I must begin Dish Detail. Lucien grimaces at me from across the table. He knows I have Dish Detail. They all do.

"Gage, come over here a minute," Pam says.

I'm standing on the hilt of a massive spade I've managed to partially bury into the soil by jumping onto it repeatedly and from loftier heights each time. We're on crew in the garden, or what will be the garden after they've bled our young bodies dry working the petrified mud. I haven't been to classes since Friday before last. None of us have. In an odd coincidence, all of our lessons for the next few weeks share the common theme of Nature. Write about working in the garden for English. Figure the area of a flowerbed for Maths. Research the French-Intensive planting method for Science.

The spade sways rigidly, just once and back, as I hop down. A drop of perspiration dribbles down the bridge of my nose. As I duck my head to wipe it on my shirt sleeve, I catch a glimpse of Hillary and Carl. Her mouth is moving; he is nodding. They are watching me.

"Huh," I ask as I reach Pam, "what?"

"Come talk to me a sec," she says. She motions me to follow her round the side of the shed.

I shuffle along behind her, head down. Part of me insists that she's just displeased with my shoveling efforts, and is going to assign me some other task. The voice, though, that tells me all this, is the high-pitched, breathless one I use when I'm cornered and panicked. The rest of me knows — knows beyond any hope of dissuasion — that Pam's about to lay into me. What does she know? What could I have done? My mind replays the events of the morning. And what do Hil' and Carl have to do with it?

Pam slows at the porch steps, sits and regards me for a moment. "Do you have your cigarettes on you?" she asks.

My mind lurches to halt. Blank. "Duh, yeah," I say, reaching into my breast pocket. I hand her the pack. What's this? Pam doesn't smoke.

"Hillary and Carl expressed some concern," Pam begins, as she flips open the lid of the box, and peers at the pack's contents. "They said you smoke half a cigarette, sometimes, and save the other half for later." She pulls out a half-smoked Marlboro Light 100. "Like this."

"Well, yeah. It takes me like ten minutes to smoke a whole thing, and break's only, like, five..." I trail off.

"So, I talked it over with Josh and Marni, and we feel that it's unacceptable to do this, as outlined in the ‘No Smoke Rings or French Inhaling' item."

"What? What are you talking about?"

Pam purses her lips at me. "Really, Gage. You should read the rules..."

"But I don't even have a copy of..."

"...and obey them." She pockets the half-smoked cigarette and hands the pack back to me. "Okay?" she asks, standing up, dismissing me. She starts back toward the garden.

"Are you even listening to me?" I ask her retreating form.

She spins. "You know, Gage, I tried to be the nice guy, here, and you're giving me shit. I was just going to have a little chat with you, and let it go with a warning."

"Pam!" I say, slamming my fists down against my thighs. "Did you hear me? I do not have a copy of the rules. I've mentioned this I don't know how many times. And you expect me to follow..."

"If you don't have a copy, then that's your fault, too. You are required, as outlined in the rules you were given the day you arrived, to keep..."

"I was never given..."

She holds up her hand, motions me to stop. "I'm not going to stand here and argue with you about what you were or were not given. My guess is, you've lost them. If you'd just come clean and say that, things'll go much more smoothly for you here."

I open and shut my mouth several times. "Whoa... Did you just call me a liar?" I finally manage to ask.

"One more word," she says, "and you'll have dishes."

I fold my arms across my bosom. "I hereby demand a copy of the rules I was never given."

"You've got a night of dishes." Pam tells me and stomps away.