The Wire Hanger

The Wire Hanger

Chapter One

Last night the sirens on the wall wailed, so I gave up on sleep and made hot chocolate over the stove. It was better when I was a kid – we had more rations then, and Esau swore he heard a rumor that they’ve started cutting the chocolate powder with cornstarch – but it’s warm and it’s filling, and milk is one thing we always had enough of. It’s not cheaper than anything else, but my great-great-grandfather grew up on a dairy farm and my mother believed that milk will keep our bones strong and thus our bodies safe from whatever might happen.

            By the time I had the can opened and the milk poured into the saucepan, Esau had wandered into the kitchen. He was only a few minutes younger than me, and we shared a room up until we were thirteen, when our parents said it wasn’t appropriate anymore. But we still shared a wall and we’ve pushed our beds up against it on either side, and even though it’s not thin enough that we can talk through it, sometimes I would swear I could feel him breathing. I sleep better then.

            “Top of the evening to you,” said Esau. His pajama bottoms dragged along the wooden floor. “Enough for me?”

            “Nope,” I said. “I drank it all.” He bodychecked me, but gently. Neither one of us wanted to wake our parents up. We’re supposed to be in bed by ten, in the house by nine. I glanced out the window to no purpose – it’s pitch black now, all the streetlights get turned out at nine exactly – but it’s a habit, I guess, that we’re always looking over our shoulders. Even though we aren’t watched in the house.

            “Grab me the cocoa?” I asked. He was short but I was shorter, and the tin of cocoa powder was on the top shelf. My parents never use the cocoa powder, so they either haven’t noticed or haven’t cared that the supply dwindles faster than it should according to my mother’s records. I scooped the cocoa into the saucepan in two big spoonfuls, searching for cornstarch granules as I did so, but trying to keep Esau from noticing. I don’t want him to think that he’s gotten to me, childish as that may be. We’re almost sixteen, and not children anymore.

            Esau chattered aimlessly as I stirred, standing close to me and speaking quietly. Our neighbors are on the other side of the kitchen wall, and they are not what you’d call neighborly. Once they called the Protectors on Esau for singing too loudly while he was taking a shower. We were lucky, though, and only got a small fine. He’s always been noisy, with a too-loud voice and too-big hands and feet, knocking into things and smashing plates and never, ever shutting up. He’s gotten better about the smashing as he’s grown up but the talking does not seem to be going away.  

“So Rachel deGroot told Mary Gonzales that she was wearing her scarf wrong, and Mary told Rachel that she was wearing her life wrong, which I think we can agree doesn’t make any sense, so Rachel acted like she was going to fix the scarf but then she tugged it so hard that it came right off her head, and because Mr. Humphreys was walking by Mary got detention for a week, which she said wasn’t fair because she hadn’t meant to take it off, but Principal Stewart says that doesn’t matter, that our intentions and our acts mirror each other, and he gave her another week of detention for questioning authority, and so she says she’s really sorry but she probably can’t come to our birthday party next week. Because she’s probably going to be grounded as well as detented.” Esau took a deep breath.

            “Wow,” I said.

            “Come on, Coby, that’s all you’ve got?”

            “I feel bad for her,” I said, concentrating on pouring the now-steaming milk into the mugs Esau set out for me. “But she probably doesn’t mind all the attention.”