Sleepers

Chapter 9

The Wilkinson Home for Juveniles held 980 youthful offenders. Housed in 5 separate units.

The Wilkinson Home just recently turned into a unisex detention section before 1958 it was an all boys detention centre, called 'The Wilkinson Home for Boys'




Michael watched the sunlight reflection on the floor of the bus, the patterns it made through the mesh wall between the passengers and the driver. no doubt thinking about Nicole.




Me, sat next to him. I had my head leaned on the side of the window. John and Tommy behind us.

I glanced over at the two police officer armed with guns in their hands, one at the front and one at the back. I didn't dare take a close look around the bus, I thought if I looked at someone they might just kill me.




None of us knew where about Nicole was or how close we'd all be together, or even if we'll see her in the next year or so.




From the outside, the facility resembled what those who ran it wanted it to resemble some kind of nice school or university.




Michael, Tommy, John and I were assigned to the 2nd floor of Group C. We each had a private 10 ft room. I'd been in my room less than an hour when the panic set in. It doesn't take very long to know how tough a person you are, or how strong you can be. I knew from my first day at Wilkinson that I was neither tough nor strong.




Nicole's P.O.V




I had no idea where about Michael, Tommy, Shakes and John were. I'm assigned on the 4th floor of group C, group C contained youthful offenders that had the sentence of 6 months- to a year and a half, so i'm hoping that the other guys were in the same section as me.




I had my own private room, well I say room more like a shoebox, it was tiny. I stared at the folded up clothes placed on the bottom of my bed, I didn't know what to do, was I suppose to wait for instructions to put them on? did I have to wait? I don't know.




Before I can here I didn't know really who I was. But all know now is that I'm a weak little girl, we've been here less than 30 minutes and I'm already falling apart.




You see, although we were in the same detention centre, the boys and girls were separated most of the time, occasionally they were aloud to mix, but were constantly kept an eye on. The dinner hall and the courtyard were separated by mesh wire barb wire on the top.




There was definitely more boys than girls here by a large amount. The 4th floor I was on was an all girls floor, but was run by male security guards as was the whole C section.




"Hello, Miss Martinez" I jump at the sound of my name, only to see two dark eyes glaring through the mesh covered hole at the top of my door. I didn't reply.




The eyes widened and glanced back from the clothes, back to me then back to the cothes.




"Get dressed" He demanded before walking away.




I looked down and began getting dressed, the inmate uniform consist of a plain white (baggy) t-shirt, Grey coloured pants with a cotton light weight grey jacket, not the most attractive thing in the world, oh, and disgusting black pump sneaker things. I took off my jewellery and placed them into a cleared plastic wallet.