Chapter 10: Everyone Gets the Same

They came across at first light, a whole line of them, carrying everything they owned in bedsheets.

Harvey stood at the bridge end saying "Look at the person in front of you" until his voice went hoarse.

Dot stood next to him with a clipboard.

"Sixty-two. Sixty-three. Sixty-four."

Three men in gold lanyards watched from the Landing side with their arms folded, and they did not stop anyone.

"They're letting them go," Teddy whispered.

"They want us to take them," Harvey said. "Every one we take is one more mouth on our spring."

By ten o'clock there were a hundred and forty-two people on the Shelf, and nine more still to come.

Katja had spent the morning in the pines with a card in each hand, not talking to anybody.

It was now much too late for that.

"Warden," Dot said. "They need to be told."

"Told what?"

"Whatever it is you tell people."

Katja looked at her.

"Hon, you're the only one they'll listen to," Dot said. "Say something. It doesn't have to be long."

She climbed the stump.

A hundred and forty-two faces turned up to her, and every one of them wanted something.

Katja had not given a speech since the fourth grade. She had thrown up that time, and she thought about it now.

She took out her marker and then put it away again.

"Everyone gets the same," she said. "Starting now."

Nobody moved.

Then a woman in the front began to cry, and a man put his hand over his mouth.

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