The Value

Chapter two

  I must have fallen back to sleep shortly after James, because I woke to the creaking of the door swinging open.  Mrs. Jones walked in, followed by an elderly man and a women with a scrunched up face, who were both carrying large cases. 

  Her sharp bird eyes immediately fell upon the mess on the floor. My heart beat increased dramatically, even though I knew she would do nothing. "Listen up." She snapped these words in an awful screech like tone. "Mr. Rosean and Miss. Kallin are here to prepare you. You must not reject against anything." Her eyes glared at Rex, who simply smiled. With that, she turned and slammed the door. 

  The old man looked kind, but somewhat stern. The woman eyes all of us with discuss. Like we were nothing more than roaches, that should be stomped out immediately. " You first". She said pointing to Jesse. "The rest of you, strip down, Rosean will examine you." The elderly man had a clipboard with him. Every scar we had would be marked down. 

  Kallin grabbed Jesse and let him by the arm to a stool. She began to rumage through her case. The man gave me a nod as to say I'm ready when you are. 

    James had his thumb in his mouth. I pulled it out. "Come on James, do what he says." I was already down to my boxers, so was Rex. He told us to sit on the bed while he searched for his glasses. James grabbed onto my arm. " All he is going to do is record the scars we have, okay? It's not going to hurt." Rex shook his head. 

  "Unlike a piece of art, the more scratches, the value goes up." No one laughed at his, except for Rex. He can laugh at anything, he's safe. 

 The man started out with Rex. His legs were fine, just a few bruises from constantly jumping from the top bunk. Of course, Rex lied about the ones that were not accidents. The old man was obviously not convinced that the cut running across his face was from a dog that had attacked him. Or that the welt on his back was from falling off the bunk bed. 

  It took nearly an hour for the man to look over Rex, he was so beaten up. He quickly looked over me, jotting down the few bruises I had from the staffs hands.  When he reached James, the mans expression softened a bit. " How old are you son?" he asked with his eyebrow raised. "Eleven Sir." "Are you positive?" James nodded his head. He was trembling, and his small rib cage moved quicker with his heavy breaths.  

   "Is this your first time?" He gave a quick nod. "Okay, I'm just going to look over you, and make sure nothing is broken, okay?" James didn't respond. 

   My eyes fell onto the alarm clock, which read 7:14. For the rest of the examination, my eyes darted back to it. I felt like maybe if I could somehow stop the clock, time would stop. Everything would be fine. Perfectly fine.