I heard the chatter from down the hall grow as I put baby Gabbi back into her crib. With a yawn, I reached across the bed and shook Pheobe awake.

“Morning already?” She laughed, her eyes still closed.

“Yep.” I threw on a sweatshirt. “Come on, the little ones are getting rowdy.” I heard her roll off the bed as I walked down the hall to the kids' room. Tiny mattresses covered the floor leaving only a small pathway to walk.

“Good morning, everyone!” I made my way to the window to pull open the shades while the kids all grabbed at my legs.

“Okay, everyone. Take a seat on your bed.” Pheobe had appeared behind me. 

As Phoebe rounded up the few stragglers who had yet to sit down, I felt a tug on my pant leg.

“Daphne, please go take a seat on your bed.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause I don’t want to!”

“Daphne. Is something wrong?”

“I just don’t want to,” she said, a little bit calmer this time. 

“Okay, what can you do instead?”

“I…” This little eight-year-old contemplated my offer. “I can sit here,” she said with a stern look on her face. 

“Okay.” God, it’s too early to be making deals with eight-year-olds. 

“Nice bargaining skills, Ms. Lawyer,” Pheobe whispered into my ear and shook her head at me like I was crazy.

“Big kids first, line up in front of Pheobe.” I walked over to the walk-in closet where the kids’ clothes, ripped and grungy as they were, were stacked in perfectly straight piles. Phoebe sent them over one by one, and I handed them a set of clothes to dress in. Last was a small five-year-old boy who hadn’t yet been a part of the big-kid line.

“Jonny? Are you sure you can get dressed on your own?”

“Yes! I’m a big kid!” he said, puffing his chest out.

“Okay, if you’re sure. But, if you have trouble, remember even big kids need to ask for help okay?” I searched through his clothes for something with as few buttons as possible.

“Okay, Alexandria.” He tottled away happily.

‘Everyone else, come on up,” Phoebe said. 

The little ones were scattered around the room, creating all the noise their little lungs could muster. Phoebe herded them against the wall with some stern glances. She had almost corralled them successfully when two toddlers slipped through her legs. She whipped around and snatched them up in her arms. She slowly walked them over towards the closet, and we worked on getting each of the younger ones dressed.

“Alexandria, can you ask around and see if anyone has any chores the kids can help with today?”

“Of course. I bet Ry and his team could use some more wood and sticks. I’ll check with him and make sure, but even the little ones can do that.”

“Alexandria,” Katie whined.

“Yes, Katie?” I looked up.

“My shoes are too small.”

“Okay, I’ll find you some new ones, but you’re going to have to wear those for today, okay?”

She wined, but her sister came over to show her how she had dressed up their favorite doll and she was distracted for now.

“Where are you going to get her new shoes?” Phoebe asked me.

“I’ll figure something out.” I hope. 

As I finished getting the last little one dressed, a few of the older girls bombarded me.

“Alexandria, can you put my hair in a ponytail?”

“Alexandria, can you braid my hair?”

“Alexandria, my hair's all knotted!”

“Girls. Calm voices, please. Jacquelyn, have Phoebe put your hair in a ponytail.”

“But, it hurts when she does it.”

“Please have Phoebe do it today. I’ll do your hair tomorrow. Haven, sit down next to me and brush your hair out with your brush.”

“But it hurts!”

“Start by brushing out the ends of your hair. Okay?”

“But it’s going to hurt!”

“I’ll be right here. You need to brush it out now though.”

“Fine.” Haven huffed.

“Gianna, sit down in front of me, and I’ll braid your hair.” She did so and handed me her brush. 

“Alexandria, when will my mommy and daddy be back?” Haven asked.

My heart dropped. It had been almost a year since the adults were taken. 

“Someday, they’ll be back. But until then, we have to survive as best we can without them.” I gave her a comforting smile and buried my feelings even deeper. 

Her eyes filled with tears. I put an elastic on the end of Gianna’s braid and put my arm around Haven. 

“It’s okay to be sad. They love you very much.”

“I want them to come home now though.” She looked up at me.

“We all do.”

Mid-morning, I ran into Ry, who was cutting the rot off of the last of the potatoes. A couple of other middle school-age kids were checking expiration dates on cans and milling about the kitchen.

“Hey Ry, Pheobe was wondering if the kids could help collect firewood for lunch or dinner today?”

“Yeah, totally. Have her put whatever they collect in the woodpile and make sure it’s all dry.”

“Cool, thanks.” 

“Before you go, there’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about.” He motioned me to an empty room. “The food stocks are getting low. And the only thing left at Market Basket is rancid food. What should we do?”

“Let's just keep this between us for now. I’ll just -- I'll figure something out.” 

“Okay. We were thinking of making a big batch of Spegettios for lunch if that’s okay?”

“Sounds perfect Ry,” I assured him and headed to the backyard. 

“Hey, Lily!” I waved her down. She put down the bucket she was holding and walked over to meet me in the middle of the yard. “How are the plants doing?”

“Fine.”

“When do you think we’ll have crops?”

“Not for at least a few months. Nothing has flowers yet.”

“Oh. Okay.” I sighed. That wasn’t going to solve our food problems. “Do you think we’re going to at least get a good crop this year? Enough to feed everyone?” 

“Maybe. It’s too early to tell. But, it won’t last the winter.”

“Okay. Thank you for letting me know. How are your siblings doing?”

“They’re doing fine. Ella is still not sleeping much, and Billy’s anger is starting to get out of control.”

“I’m sorry. With everything this past year, I can’t blame them. They’re lucky to have you. A lot of the young ones don’t have anyone from before. Well, if you need any help, let me know.”

What was I going to do? They were all counting on me for solutions. We needed to become self-sustainable and fast. I walked towards the front of the house, where all the kids were running around screaming. A few teenagers were watching over them.

“Alexandria! Can you go get everyone from the river? Lunch will be done soon,” Ry said peeking his head through the front door.

“Of course.” 

The river was only a two-minute walk from the house. It would’ve been visible if not for the other houses in the neighborhood. But, two minutes was plenty of time for my mind to try and drag me down every dark pit of thought. And believe me, there were plenty of them. I was only eighteen. A year ago, I had been babysitting one or two kids at a time and would call my parents every time they cried. Now, I was in charge of a full house of kids. And the parents were gone. Ripped from their beds by scary military men a year before. “To protect the children from the pandemic,” they had said. So now, there was no one to call when I didn’t know what to do. 

A putrid scent hit me hard as I approached the woods by the river. My brother, Reed, and his best friend, Melody, were laughing at the shore. They were both covered in soap suds. It was rare to see either of them this happy. When they saw me, their smiles faded. I felt the pit in my stomach grow. As I approached them, I mistakenly looked down into the buckets they were using to wash the clothes. Green chunks floated to the top. 

“Gabbie is still sick, I see.” I sighed.

“Yeah. We’re running out of medicine.” Reed looked at the ground.

“I-” Heat rose to my cheeks. I stopped to compose myself. “I will find more medicine. Do what you can for now.”

“But the pharmacy is empty. Where are you going to find more medicine?” Melody asked.

“I’ll find something, don’t worry.” I have to.

“Okay.” 

They definitely still looked worried. 

“Anyways, the whole reason I came down here was to send you back for lunch.”

Reed nodded. 

“Hey, Alexandria. Reed and I found an old DS when we were in the basement. We were wondering if we could spare any energy to charge it up. I don’t think it needs any internet.” Melody said with a hopeful look in her eyes that I couldn’t bear to ruin. But, after the winter, the gas for the generator was running dangerously low. 

“Gas is a little low, but I’m sure I can figure a way to make that work.” 

“Really!” they shouted simultaneously.

Reed, at almost a foot taller than me, crushed me with a bear hug. But I didn’t mind. I hadn’t gotten too many of those from him recently. And I was glad to see him a little happier, but I knew I may not be able to give them what I promised. I gave Melody a much gentler hug and shooed them off to clean up the laundry they were doing. 

“Idiots! You brats can’t even do nothing right” I heard Pheobe yell as I approached them.

“He touched me!” Bradley, a ten-year-old boy, whined.

“He touched me first!” Nico, his partner in crime, whined in complement.

“I don’t care who touched who. You two just aren’t cut out for hunting.”

“We’ll do better!”

“You better” She gave them a hard glare.

“Hey guys, it’s lunchtime. Ry wanted me to send you all back,” I said.

“Get out of here boys.” Phoebe gestured to the road. Bradley and Nico raced back.

“You know you don’t have to be so hard on them. They’re only learning.”

“And I’m teaching them. If they mess up, we lose a meal.”

“I know but-”

“No, they can do any other job. They’re choosing to be here. So they will learn my way. You’re too soft on these kids. They don’t have the luxury to grow up as slowly as we did.”

“Phoebe.” I gritted my teeth. “Come on, let’s head back.” We walked back in silence. 

We arrived back at the house just in time for lunch. My stomach turned at the smell. I had had one too many canned lunches for this lifetime, so I went to lie down. 

I walked up the stairs and felt our little world weighing down on my chest -- I couldn’t breathe. Would the adults ever come back? I had heard the cries of the parents leaving their babies. “I’ll take care of them” I had promised. Maybe they were sitting in some cage, in pain and fear. Or maybe they had been lined up and shot one by one. Or something much worse. But I’ll have just as much blood on my hands if one of these kids dies. I promised I’d take care of them. 

I found myself curled between the wall and one of the cribs. 

“Alexandria! Get down here!” Phoebe called.

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Now!” 

I clenched my teeth and wiped the tears from my cheeks. I walked down the stairs, but before I even got to the bottom step, I was surrounded.

“The foxes got to the crops and chickens. They killed two chickens and took down half the tomato plants,” Phoebe said. Lily was standing behind her, looking at me with wide eyes.

“I-”

“Alexandria! Your brother used the last of the gas!” fifteen-year-old Jaz said.

“All of it?”

“Yes.” I tried to take a deep breath, but before I could exhale, a shriek echoed from down the hall.

“Alexandria! Gabbi is retching blood!”

My world was spinning as I ran to the back room where Gabbi was. I saw the frail ten-year-old hunched over a bucket. Her skin was deathly pale, and her brown hair was frizzy and tangled. The room smelled like sickness: a pungent urine and vomit smell that burned my nose. 

Gabbi looked up at me. Dried vomit and blood speckled her chin.

“Help.”

“Alexandria, what do we do?”

Alexandria, what do we do? What do we do? What-

“What do we do?” I looked around the room, begging someone to give me the answer for once.