“On a scale of one to ten, how mad are you at me?”
I dragged my hands up and down my face as I laid on the thin plastic covered mattress. He had asked me this question at least twenty times a day for the past three months. And every time, it was a different answer. ‘10’, ‘6’, very few times a ‘2’. He always asked after a heist. Even more so when they got caught. It was okay, at first. But now, it was getting annoying.
“Dude, I’m not answering you again.”
“C’mon, why not?”
I stared at the ceiling hovering several inches above my nose. During the day, the stucco plaster was painted the same stark white as the rest of our shared cell. At night, the white churned into a dark grey paste that looked eerily similar to concrete. We were allowed to hang pictures of girls and our favorite bands out of good behavior, but if we did anything that would piss of the Warden, we had to take it all down and stare at blank walls until we were on good graces again.
After today, not only the walls were bare, but all forms of entertainment were taken away too. The only items left in our cell were our beds and two bare particle-board desks standing back to back on the opposite wall. I was sure we would never be on the Warden’s good graces ever again.
“Because you ask me that same stupid question over and over again. Let it go.”
“Seriously, though, how mad are you?”
“Right now, somewhere in the 30’s.”
“Really?”
“If you don’t shut up in the next ten seconds, yes.”
The door to our cell slams open. Standing in the bright yellow light was a woman dressed in a long thin nightgown hanging by her knees, her hair in multi-colored curlers, and dark circles under her eyes.
“Preston! Oliver! Go to sleep! Now! Or I’m extending your grounding to next Friday!”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
L.J. LaBree 