The mattress is rather crowded. This is surprising. The mattress owners used to regard them as essentially their beds, never sharing them with just anybody. It’s completely different now. There are five or six bodies on each one, and the owners are in a state of almost frenzied excitement—they giggle, they shift about, they roll their eyes. This is as close to group sex as they dare to get. The boys, even though not fully aware of what’s going on, still can’t avoid the nervous energy being radiated and also lose their heads.
Wedged between people rubbing against each other and breathing passionately, Rat imagines herself to be invisible. They are playing charades. Every time someone gets a word right, they all applaud with exaggerated enthusiasm, hug and kiss. Rat’s badges begin to mist up.
Elephant, on the sofa with his face to her, is gumming the rubber giraffe. He takes it out of his mouth and then tries to applaud with the others. The giraffe falls in her lap. A very wet and chewed-up animal.
Rat hands the toy back without looking up. Elephant shrinks away. Hides his face in Horse’s jacket and whines softly.
Horse takes the giraffe, thanks Rat, and says to Elephant, “There, there, what’s this, you’re a big boy.”
Then he delightedly explains to all and sundry that Elephant is terrified of Rat.
“You are afraid, aren’t you, Ellie? You shouldn’t be. She’s a nice lady.”
“Scary,” Elephant mumbles, digging his face deeper into Horse’s shoulder and almost pushing him off the sofa.
The girls on the mattress giggle. Owl joins in the fun. They choose the next word.
“She has knives on her fingers . . . Sharp knives,” Elephant whispers almost inaudibly. “Only you can’t see them.”
Rat stands up and offers her hands for Elephant’s inspection.
“Look, no knives. Where would I hide them, those knives of yours?”
There’s no one else reflecting in the badges except herself. Upside down. Hair over her left eye, lips distorted in a sad grin.
Elephant screws his eyes even tighter, determined not to look at the scary knives that are being thrust at him so persistently.
Rat is curious what it is that Elephant actually sees when looking at her. Pity Elephant can’t explain it properly. Then again, if he could, he wouldn’t be Elephant, and therefore would not see knives, or anything like that.
The left mattress failed to get the word. The right mattress is overjoyed. Owl and Bedouinne are snogging full-on. Rat watches them with great interest. Is this supposed to be pleasurable? Licking the insides of another person’s mouth? What if one of them had a cold and a stuffy nose, could they do this? Or are you not supposed to kiss then? Bedouinne, out of breath, leans back on the jacket she rolled up, wipes her mouth, and takes a pack of cookies out of the inner pocket of her vest.
“Wanna bite?”
“Oh, yes,” Owl responds passionately, not looking at the cookies at all.
Bedouinne sighs and tears open the pack.
Rat leaves.
The hallway is very quiet compared to the Crossroads, almost deserted. Only Red loiters near the door to the Second, as if waiting for someone.
“Hey,” he says to Rat. “Where you going?”
“To my place.” She shrugs. “Why?”
“Nothing. You don’t look so good. Want to come in? I have this great liqueur. I think you could do with a drink.”
And as Rat is trying to decide if she wants to have a drink in the company of Red, she’s already being pulled into the Second. She immediately almost trips over the thing Rats call a table.
Red pushes apart the sleeping bags obscuring the view; slaps them, in fact, so they slide along the wire to which they’re clipped, like drying skins. One is still on the floor, and its occupant is snoring. The stench of old socks is unbearable.
Rat sits down on the floor in front of the crate-table, leans against its surface, and gets stuck.
“Shit,” she hisses, rubbing her now-sticky-sweet elbows. “How do you manage to live in all this?”
“That’s just the way it is. It’s not always this dirty. Wednesday is the cleanup day. And today is Tuesday, unfortunately. You have caught us at the very point of decadence. On the dirtiest day of the week.”
“And how many Wednesdays have you skipped? I mean, truthfully.”
Red takes a flask out of his backpack, pours out a capful, and transfers it directly to Rat’s hands, bypassing the table.
“Tangerine-peel liqueur. Strong stuff.”
“Your own creation?”
He laughs.
“Nah. Don’t fret. Bought it off Little Pigs. Made to the highest standards of hygiene. Pheasant brew, imagine that.”
There’s a pair of bugged-out glasses reflecting in Rat’s badges, and nothing else. Then the flask gets in the way.
“How’s PRIP doing?” Red says, wiping off the liqueur mustache.
“Great. His two Persians and both of his mutts are also good. One of them, Millie, had a spot of diarrhea, but she recovered, thanks for asking.”
“Oooh, you mean your daddy likes animals?” Red says.
“Adores them.”
Rat’s voice is so grave that it dawns on Red to stop exploring the topic. He’s frantically searching for another one when Rat continues.
