Two Alive, стр. 44
Baker stared down at the boy and looked over at his men watching the steel shutter door. “Just hurry the hell up.”
Miles and Antonio continued washing themselves and only horse played once or twice more. When they finished, they wrapped themselves up in their towels and Baker led them back to the security room. When they arrived, Lesly was waiting with spare clothes for the boys while their outfits were being washed. Carver motioned for the children to go back in the office to get dressed but Antonio dropped his towel and started putting on the gray sweatpants and sweatshirt that was offered. Lesly turned away and covered her eyes to avoid looking at the young men change.
“Oh my god.” Lesly said under her breath.
“You ain’t seen a man naked before? Well you can thank me later.” Antonio laughed and pulled on the hood of his sweatshirt.
Lesly rolled her eyes and made her way out of the room as quickly and as politely as possible. Miles put on a pair of black and red basketball shorts with a long blue Warriors t-shirt. The table was back in the center of the room with empty chairs around it. Empty only because Julia was standing with Carver behind Nadine, watching the display screens of the outside docks, and Martyn had just entered from the store entrance. When the boys were dressed, Julia went to the table to meet them and Martyn made his way over, wearing blue rubber gloves and holding a stethoscope.
“You two aren’t very modest are you?” Julia crossed her legs when she sat. She saw the boys drop their towels but chose to look away as they dressed.
“What’s that mean?” Miles saw Martyn approaching him and he lifted his shirt when the medical doctor asked him to.
“You don’t seem to care where you get naked,” Julia replied.
Antonio laughed. “We ain’t gon get naked in front of a fuck load of lurkers. We been in that room for the past two days and we know y’all probably watchin’ us all day. Y’all probably already saw us naked.” Antonio pulled up his sweatshirt when he saw the doctor making his way over with the stethoscope. “What’s up Dr. Shock-ka-barty.”
Martyn sighed and shook his head. “You can just call me Martyn, Antonio.”
“What you checkin’? Tryna see if we infected or somethin’? Naw we good. No bite marks, no scratches or any of that. You need to check that Major Carver nigga, he always coughing and shit.”
“Watch your mouth Antonio!” Miles shoved his brother, “Watch your mouth!”
Carver’s cold eyes watched the two boys, then he looked to Julia. She made a small smile before she cleared her throat.
“No, actually, Chakrabarti is just giving you a slight physical to check on you two.” Julia said.
“Can I get my phone back?” Miles sat in one of the folding chairs.
Julia waited a beat. “Do you really want it back that bad?”
“Yes. Yes, please.” Miles nearly leapt out of his seat at the possibility of getting his phone back. He had been asking for his phone every chance he got but the major refused to give it back to him, still worried that the device worked somehow and he would use it to contact someone outside.
“I’m still working on that actually.” Julia eyed Carver, who was too busy examining the monitors. “But in the meantime, let’s just finish this quick physical and we’ll give you something to eat in the office. How’s that sound?”
“Huck heah!” Antonio tried to speak with Dr. Martyn’s tongue depressor in his mouth.
“Are you a doctor too?” Miles asked Julia.
“Yes I am,” she replied. “But I’m not a medical doctor like Dr. Martyn or a scientist like Dr. Manson. I have my doctorate in psychology.”
“That mean you like… you like, you know about the brain and can figure people out and stuff?”
She chuckled. “Something like that.”
“I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up.” The small boy’s smile faded. “But I didn’t do enough school. Plus, the world went to shit.”
Julia measured his words. “So how much school did you do Miles? Were you at school when the world went to shit?”
“I don’t know. I made it to classroom twelve with Antonio and the big kids at our school, so I think I did good.”
“You two were in the same class together?” Julia directed her question to Antonio, who was eager to answer after Chakrabarti had finished with him.
“Yeah. We was in a classroom wit hella different ages. I was fifteen and we had people in there who was twenty. You either graduate when you turned twenty-one or you transfer to a different school. Like Frick or O High.” Antonio sat in the chair next to Miles.
“What school did you want to go to?”
Antonio moved his chair slightly to give Chakrabarti space to examine his brother. “I wanted to go to Castlemont. That’s where my cousin went.”
Julia nodded. “Did your cousin make it out of Oakland too?”
Antonio paused and thought. “I don’t know. I ain’t thought about it. We just been on the move so long that… I just ain’t thought about it. Anybody you ain’t seen in a minute probably dead though.”
Julia blinked slowly. “That’s a hard way to look at life. Especially for someone your age.” Her jade eyes went between Antonio and Miles, the statement meant for both of them.
“Well, the world went to shit so life went to shit,” Miles said, before the doctor told him to say ahh.
Julia shook her head and lowered her eyes. She had to agree with the boys’ sentiment. “The world did go to shit. It’s a damn shame.”
Antonio lit up at her response and her