“Like this,” she said, demonstrating the push of the broom. The one holding the broom looked and looked, with those wide eyes, and then looked at its companions and grunted, a series of little grunts ending in a high squawk. They squawked back. Ofelia made assumptions. “Yes, I
“And you,” Ofelia said to the mop holder. “Like this.” Since she had no mop, she put her hands over its grip on the mop and forcibly moved it into the right position. “The mop sops up the water,” she said. Even if it couldn’t understand, she felt better explaining aloud. When there were people there, you talked to them. Under her hands, its hands felt big and bony, harder than human hands and oddly constructed. “When its full of water, you wring it out,” she said. It stiffened when she tried to raise the mop to wringing height, resisting her direction. It churred, and the other two grunted in reply. Ofelia looked at its face, and saw that its eyelids were almost closed. Something was wrong. She let go of its hands on the mop handle, and its lids raised. It grunted. Well. Perhaps she could find another broom. She handed her broom to the third creature and pointed to the puddle its companion was more stirring than sweeping. Then she went back to the closet for another broom.
With gestures and nudges, she had them pushing water more or less toward the door, while she herself mopped. She didn’t like mopping, but she also didn’t like wet floors. Outside, the post-storm rain continued steadily.
She was hungry again when the rest of the creatures showed up, and noisily interfered with what “her” creatures were doing. That was what it seemed like, anyway. The newcomers grunted, squawked, and gabbled; the ones holding the brooms dropped them. They all stared at her, and again she felt the pressure of all their attention. She did not like it. She wished they would all kill her, or go away, anything but bother her by looking at her like that.
The floor was merely damp now; she didn’t really need the help. “Go on,” she said, sweeping at them with her arm. “Let me alone, then.” Instead of that, the newcomers came all the way in and dripped; new puddles formed under them. “Idiots!” Ofelia said. “Babies!” She picked up the mop again and pushed it at their feet. Behind her, the ones who had been sweeping gabbled at the newcomers, who gabbled back. The newcomers stood their ground; she had to flop the mophead against their long dark toes with the thick black nails, and push past them to wring it out into the lane. They made no move to help her, or to get out of her way.
Just like them. They would. The complete meaning of that pronoun — the source of her experience — she did not bother to consider When she had mopped the new puddles, she wrung out the mop a last time and propped it by the door. They were discussing something — possibly how she would taste, she thought — and ignoring her. She was still hungry. Down the central hall, past the rooms for machines, was the center kitchen and its pantries. She gave them a last disgusted look and walked away. Behind her, she heard startled noises, and the click of toenails on the hard floor. It took her a moment to think why she hadn’t noticed it before — it had been too noisy during the storm, and she’d been talking to them here.The center pantries held staples: flour, sugar, salt, dried yeast, baking powder and baking soda, dried beans and peas, and freezers less full than they had been of meats and other perishables. Ofelia had turned on the kitchen lights when she came in; now she turned on lights in the lefthand pantry. She was too hungry to wait for dried beans to cook. She looked in the freezer. Every household had contributed some finished dishes, for emergencies: casseroles and stews and soups. She had eaten little of that in these years, because she liked her own cooking. Now she took out a packet Ariane had contributed; it had her name and family name on it, and the contents: lamb stew. Ofelia put the packet in the kitchen’s quick-thaw machine, and rummaged for a saucepan to cook it in. By the time she found the pan, the packet was soft. She opened it and put the lumpy cold contents into the saucepan.
