The words of the song echoed in her head,

“London Bridge is broken down, broken down.

“Off to prison you must go, my fair lady.”

“Unfair! Unfair!” she declared in absolute rhyming indignity and even stamped her foot. Careful to keep from waking the babies. She might be mad, but that didn’t make her stupid.

For the moment, Toni played with a hollow aluminum tube, sitting on his butt on the floor. He held one end to his mouth, making hooo hooo sounds that echoed down the tube. Then he’d break into giggles. Next to him, Kayle sat in his diapers, drool running out of his mouth. Kayle was teething, and went wide-eyed each time Toni sounded his horn-tube. It was stupid, but what did little boys know?

The babies, Vetch and Saleen, were miraculously asleep in their blankets on the cushions. Their faces were slack, the little arms raised, tiny fists half clenched. The good news was that they’d both nodded off after Sheena had fed them from the formula bottles. The bad news was that sometime soon they’d crap themselves awake. When they did, Sheena would have to change them both.

Space scuz. That’s what it was. She was wiping up baby shit, and Felix was building a torpedo. Unfair. Unfair!

She would have shouted it out, but it would have awakened the babies. If the babies awakened, they’d crap. Sheena couldn’t even shout her frustration. And that just made it worse.

With no other recourse, she knotted her fists and jumped up and down, letting her feet pound the floor. Jump. Jump. Jump.

Toni watched, fascinated enough to stop blowing on his tube horn. Kayle swiveled his not-so-steady head around to look, and his brown eyes narrowed, unsure of what this meant.

That was when the door opened, and Felicity came in. She was wearing her yellow dress, the one made of some kind of packing Iso had found while they were setting up the Pod. Sheena had wanted a dress like Felicity’s the first time she saw it. The colors were, like, really, really bright. Yellow made Felicity’s black hair, eyebrows, and dark eyes look super good.

“Not your color, dear,” Mom had said. “You need a teal or turquoise with your red hair and blue eyes.”

Didn’t make sense. Yellow made Felicity pretty, but it wouldn’t make Sheena pretty? What kind of thinking was that? She thought it was just as dumb as making her watch babies while Felix built a torpedo.

“’Bout time you got here,” Sheena greeted, propping her fists on her hips and frowning.