The Children Colony

Sophia hid the binder with the pictures of pregnancy far under her bed, where Papi and Daddy would never find it. Ever since her periods started, she’d been collecting the pictures in secret, but she only had a dozen because they were so rare. One torn from an old library book. Another in a magazine, in a sequence from amoeba to stooped gorilla to pregnant woman to two striding men. Even though none of the pregnant women looked happy, Sophia was still excited by the images, visualizing a curled body growing inside another body. Whenever her fathers left for the evening, she took out the binder and rocked against her bed as she imagined her face on the women.

At school, near the dumpsters that stank of rotten strawberries, a girl in her geometry class whispered that she’d seen a pregnant woman during the summer. Her neighbor’s daughter. Only a few years older than them. The geometry girl had peeked through a knothole and seen the girl tending the garden while stroking her stomach, inflated as a balloon. Geometry girl curved a hand out from her own stomach to indicate the swell, and gave details: how the whole thing jiggled, and the nub of the bellybutton, like a thumb trying to break out. One girl spat after the story was told, viciously wiping at her mouth to clear the saliva. All Sophia wanted to know was what happened to the neighbor, but when she asked, geometry girl drew her hands together in fists, then flung them outwards, fingers spread. Poof. Never seen again.

Sophia started eating lunch with the new girl, Vic. Vic seemed the type of bird that flew separate from the V formation, never needing to draft off the flock. Rumor said she was transferred because she’d scratched a girl’s face into a train depot, tracks and tracks and tracks. While Sophia ate her carrot and relish sandwich, a boy walked past their table, and Sophia stared at the way his jeans puckered below his waist, then tightened as he reached the end of his stride. She stared too long. Vic noticed. Sophia’s heart compressed as she imagined Vic pointing a finger to denounce her, but it was one of the gossip-whores, loitering near the lockers, who said,“I saw that.” She repeated the accusation as she approached, and Sophia cringed, already composing weak lies. Then the figure blew in like a meteor, concussing into the gossip-whore’s body and toppling them to the cement, and already girls were screaming and a circle formed, out of which Vic rose, dragging the girl by her hair. Only after three gossip-whores ganged up on Vic did she retreat.

The following day, Vic sat with Sophia, ignoring all the attention from passersby as she stirred a gelatin mass in a bowl. “I think we should stick together,” Vic said. Sophia wanted to check: “You mean for appearances?” she asked. “For protection,” Vic said. Sophia looked at Vic and understood. After that, they hung out, looping an arm around each other’s shoulders, latching sweaty hands down the sidewalk, playing as a tennis pair. The gossip-whores nicknamed them the Sweet and Sour couple. Occasionally, Vic would cup Sophia’s face and paste a sloppy kiss on her cheek, but they never parked in the hills near the water tower to neck, like all the other pairs of girls. At least the rumors, circling like vultures, flew away to feebler prey.

Vic was the one who told her about the bathrooms, the one who took her there late at night as the sky threatened rain. It was a nasty place for a first. While the drains burped the smell of curry and cockroaches scurried across the walls, they loitered in the doorway until a muscled man led Vic to a stall, followed by a short man who took Sophia. His tongue was rough, but she enjoyed kissing him and rubbing the hair on his chest. It was pleasurable until the end, when the bulbs flickered in time to his thrusts. She could hear...