Obviously, I prefer a top bunk. Anyone would. Top bunks establish status in a group, ensure less distractions for a good night’s sleep, and offer more privacy. The thing is, even if I started in one, more often than not I would end up in a lower one when a new kid came, or siblings who wanted to be near each other moved in. Because kids coming in were always leaving their actual family, their own house, apartment, car they’re living in, whatever, and maybe it was bad there, maybe not so much, but it was home, and coming to a strange bunk bed house with strange adults and unknown strange other kids was scary for them. I had no idea what that was like. They needed all the help they could get. So I surrendered the top. Or both, and went to a bottom bunk in another room.

“Muiriel,” Zola whispered in the dark to me from the top bunk of a MYDAL I had assembled that morning, two weeks into a stay that seemed destined to be permanent for her. She might never go home, and she knew it. “Are you ever scared?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Are you going home?”

I reached under the bottom bunk for the tool kit I’d stashed there in case of any loose bolts, stepped on the ladder, and held an Allen wrench up in the moonlight. “Do you know what this is?”

She shook her head.

“What do you think it does?”

“Nothing. It’s broken.”

“No,” I whispered. “This is exactly how it’s supposed to be. Little bent piece of metal. This thing is magic. It can make chairs and tables and bookshelves. It made this bed; it’s the only thing that could. Would you ever have guessed that?”

She shook her head. We were quiet for a while, listening to the breathing of the three other sleeping kids.

“Different isn’t necessarily broken,” I whispered. “Sometimes small and bent is the only thing that can make something big and new and safe.”

“Don’t you want to go home?” she said.

I put the Allen wrench in her hand. “I’m okay,” I said. “I have lots of homes.”

She held on to the Allen wrench and turned to the window, her back to me.

Chapter Eight