Free The Limit by Kristen Landon Page B

the middle of the night. What if some kid got sick? I found the wall and slid my hand along it, feeling for a light switch. There weren’t any.
    Eventually, I made my way to the big walk-in closet. I found my jeans right off—underneath my sweaty gym clothes—since they were one of the few items of clothing in there and I’d dumped them right in the middle of the floor. The other clothes I owned—the pajamas I’d ordered the night before and the clothes I’d worn to the workhouse—had magically morphed from a dirty pile in my room on the first floor into neatly washed, ironed, and folded bundles I found sitting on the wide shelves of my top floor closet when I first arrived. Even my boxers had been ironed. Talk about freaky. Made me consider throwing out my dirty underwear and ordering a new pair each day.
    My cell phone was easy enough to find in the front pocket of my jeans. Still no signal. Sheesh. You’d think this building was in the back of a cave, or buried a hundred feet underground or something. The phone wouldn’t have lasted long, anyway, since I’d left the charger at home. It did put off enough of a glow to help me find my way to the computer sitting on the desk next to the door.
    The computer wouldn’t turn on either—shut downfor the night like all the lights. Grumbling, I slumped back to bed, where I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours.
    First thing in the morning I shot off some e-mails to Brennan, Lester, Mom and Dad, Nana—wondering what ever happened with the broken ankle situation since the limit crisis sort of took over—and, at the last minute, Lauren.
    It’s a race
, I said to them, even though they couldn’t hear.
Let’s see which one of you is the first to write back.
My bet was on Brennan. He lived on the computer almost as much as I did.
    No one won. Not a single person wrote back the next day.
    Or the next.
    I received messages from Honey Lady, and I sent out more messages to my family and friends.
    By day three I knew there was a problem with the network or the programming or something. The people on the outside might have gone a day or two without answering me, but three? No way. I sent a message to Honey Lady:
    I’m not getting any e-mail from outside the workhouse. I can’t connect to any chat sites. What’s the problem?
    She answered me later that evening:
    That is strange. No one else has complained about having troubles like this. Are you sure the problem is on our end? Some people just don’t like to write. Either way, I’ll have one of our tech people look into it.

    I’d wanted to blame the silence on a computer problem, but Honey Lady’s response put an irritating grain of an idea into my brain. What if my family and friends really weren’t writing to me? What if they were beginning to forget all about me and were going on with their lives like I didn’t exist anymore? I could disappear in this workhouse, and no one outside would even care.

EIGHT A.M. TIME FOR SCHOOL .
    I headed out my bedroom door, my stomach full and satisfied. Biscuits and gravy. Who’d have guessed a warm breakfast could taste so good? Mom was a fantastic cook, especially when our oven worked, but she wasn’t much of a morning person. The most she ever did to prepare breakfast was point the way to the cereal cupboard.
    I’d been experimenting for two weeks now. Every day since I’d arrived at the FDRA workhouse, I’d tried something new and exciting for breakfast. Belgian waffles with strawberries and cream. Breakfast burritos. Stuffed crepes. French toast. Blueberry pancakes. And lots of eggs with bacon or sausage.
    I’d probably weigh three hundred pounds by now if Coop didn’t keep me running around the paddle-wall-ball court or swimming every second after work.
    “Hey, Coop,” I said as I shut my door behind me.
    “Hey, bro.” We didn’t have anything else to say to each other. Nothing new to report since wesplit up last night ten minutes before lights-out. I’d