Al Calavicci struggles with an impossible choice – liberty or loyalty.

BOTH OR NONE – Part One

You had to use your handkerchief, that was the secret. If you spent the whole meal mopping your brow, wiping your nose and picking at your ears with a faded scrap of flannel, they were too busy watching your flying right hand for signs of hoarding to notice the quick, subtle snatches of your left hand as it snuck morsels of food from your plate to your pockets.

Of course, the real trick to not getting caught was not to try for a second helping. Some of the others tried that, and they almost always got caught. But Al Calavicci knew better. You could try to get more than your share, or you could try to save your rations for later. If you were stupid enough or greedy enough to try both at once, well, you got what you deserved.

The potatoes were boiled today, not mashed. He was glad: boiled potatoes were easier to transport. The dry, woody string beans could be folded into the coarse bread. With a little maneuvering the mashed carrots could be balled up and wrapped into a corner of your shirt. Only the thin beef broth with the barley floating in it could not be snuck out of the dining room. Which was just as well, because his stomach was growling. He drank the fluid, which was tepid now, then scooped up the soggy grains and chewed them slowly. He picked up his tin mug of water and sipped at it. The war was over now, and the little ones had milk with their suppers again, but the bigger students still had to make do with water. There was butter on the bread on Sundays now, too, if you weren't being punished. Sometimes there were even pastries for dessert on Sundays. If you weren't being punished.

Al was smaller than the other boys his age, and the bench was just a little too high for him, so that he couldn't quite put his feet flat on the floor. By the end of a meal they always felt heavy and tired. He swung his right foot so that it kicked the crossbar that ran the length of the bench.

Andy McGinnis kicked him in the shin. "Don't do that, you're shaking the table," he said. McGinnis was the biggest boy in the sixth grade, and he was a bully.

Al winced a little at the pain, but didn't cry out. Instead he stuck out his tongue, quickly and furtively so that Sister wouldn't see.

"I guess that's my business," he said boldly. He was a little afraid of the bigger boy and the way he could hit you in the stomach so it knocked all the wind out of you but never left a mark, but he would never admit it.

"Yeah?" McGinnis grunted. "Well, I guess you don't know what's g—"

The sharp clap of Sister Agnes's hands signalled the end of supper and cut him off mid-sentence. The quiet hum of a dozen conversations died instantly. Talking was not encouraged during meals, but it was strictly prohibited afterwards, when everyone was expected to rise in an orderly fashion and carry their dishes to the low counter that separated the main room from the kitchen.

Al got to his feet and picked up his dishes, then glanced furtively at the Sisters watching the proceedings, and darted between Norma and Dot Winters' elbows and under the fourth-grade table. He slid over to the crowd of little second-graders. Billy Cox was trying to gather his cutlery single-handed, hampered by the bigger bodies jostling around him. With a quick, assertive motion Al reached over the child's shoulder and grabbed them. The plate was next, then the dented tin mug. Billy looked up, and his smile was payment for the trouble the big boys were going to give him about this later.

"Al!" he said thickly, the frozen side of his face hampering his diction.

Al shook his head as the word carried a little too far in the quiet. He put a finger to his lips, then grabbed the dishes with both hands and ducked back the way he had come. He shuffled into the line moving towards the basin, and watched out of the corner of his eye while Billy moved towards the door, slowed by his crutch and his twisted foot.

The biggest girls began to herd the very small children off towards the dormitories, lining up the four- and five-year-olds and lifting the toddling three-year-olds into their arms. Ana Fefner started to cry. She wasn't three yet, and should have been with the babies in Sister Dorothy's care, but she had been promoted to the big room with half a dozen others who could walk and talk and use spoons. There were just too many little ones now.

Al froze at the sound of her sobs, watching to see if anybody would go to her. He wasn't sure what he would do if no one did, because to go after a little girl was the height of taboo, but the problem never arose. Elsa Dombrowski picked up the child and patted her back consolingly. Elsa was going to be eighteen soon, and it was the general consensus that she was going to become a novice. Al secretly thought that that was a waste of a pretty, soft body that looked like it would be fun to feel and squeeze. She was surprisingly round under the shabby charity dress, and very mature. She looked like Ana's mother as she cuddled the little girl, quieting her cries.

A sharp elbow caught Al in the ribs.

"Move it along, Calavicci!" Tony Dinelli hissed. Al trotted ahead four steps to close the gap in the line.

As each group disposed of their dishes they moved off towards their chores. The little girls, the ones in the first through fourth grades, had gathered the little ones' plates. Now they got wet rags and started to wipe down the tables. Their male contemporaries headed for the doors: it was their job to tidy the school rooms for the next day. The girls in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades went to the kitchen to wash and dry the dishes. There were three dozen of them, so the job didn't take long. The biggest girls were putting the smallest children to bed, and the biggest boys tramped out to the yard to do what needed to be done out there-—not much now that autumn was almost over.

The middle boys went up and down the rows of tables in pairs, hoisting the benches onto them, upside down so that the legs stuck up into the air. Because he was being punished for something---he was currently serving six consecutive sentences for a variety of crimes extending from hiding Sister Agnes's ruler to sneaking into the biggest girls' dormitory at one in the morning—Al picked up one of the heavy straw brooms and started sweeping as his peers finished with the benches and started to leave.

Andy McGinnis did not go right away. Instead he snickered and started working his way towards Al. "Having fun, Calavicci?" he asked.

Al didn't answer him. He wanted to fight him, but Sister Agnes had said if he got into another fight he wouldn't be able to be in the play at Christmas. So Al kept sweeping.

"I said, having fun, Calavicci?" McGinnis repeated. "You deaf?"

"I have more fun brushing my teeth than you're gonna have your whole life," Al retorted, quietly so that Sister couldn't hear.

"Think you're funny, don't you?" McGinnis asked.

Al kept his eyes on the broom. As a matter of fact, he did think he was funny, and a lot of other kids did too. But if he said anything McGinnis would hit him, and then he'd have to hit him back, and he'd be banned from the Christmas play. He moved the broom methodically. He was an efficient sweeper, and his quarter of the room was Already reduced to an ever-compressing heap of dust. McGinnis poked him painfully in the ribs.

"Calavicci!" he said. "I said, you think you're funny!"

Angered by the sharp pain in his side, Al didn't try to talk himself out of cutting back with an acerbic, "I think I know how to spell my own last name."

Some of the boys watching from a safe distance snickered, and Al felt a flush of pride. He'd scored a point against McGinnis.

"You saying I'm stupid, Calavicci? Hey? You saying I'm stupid?" the big boy demanded.

"Don't have to say things as obvious as that," Al retorted.

McGinnis looked angry enough to spit or even to hit Al in the mouth. But a cough from the front of the room told the boys that Sister Agnes had them in her sight. So the burly Mick shuffled right through the neat pile of dust Al had just finished making, scattering it in every direction.

Al bit his lip against the anger rising in his throat. He wanted to hit McGinnis with the broom, but Sister was watching and he couldn't miss out on the Christmas play. He had a big part this year, bigger than anybody but the high school kids. So he gripped the thick wooden handle until his knuckles turned white while McGinnis and his gang moved off, chortling nastily. When they were gone he started over again.