Domingo and Boss were telling the truth: We did get to talk to Mama after we had been at Time Out for a week, and every week after that, we would have a 5-minute call with Mama. Sometimes I thought it was the only nice part of living in Time Out. Every time we saw Mama, she was dressed up in the prettiest thing I had ever seen her wear. She was even wearing makeup, which was a big no-no, Grandma always told her that it would attract the wrong sort of attention. I guess now that Grandma was gone, Mama thought it was ok to start wearing makeup.

  Every time we talked to Mama, she smiled at us. Her smile was wrong, though. I did not know why her smile was so sad, but it made me want to give her a hug every time I saw her. I could not hug her, though, because she was just on the screen. I kept asking when we would get to see Mama in real life again, but no one would tell me. I knew that if I could just give her a real hug, she would be able to smile for real again. Even with all the makeup and the pretty clothes that Mama was wearing, I thought she would be even prettier if she could smile like she always used to.

  Sometimes I got upset with Mama because I would tell her how much I did not like Time Out and ask when we could leave, but she never said when she would get us out of here. I told Carlos this once, and he said that she would get us out of here in an instant if she could, but she was trapped where she was, like how we were trapped in Time Out.

  I sometimes asked Mama what it was like where she was, but she just said there were lots of pretty things and pretty people. I wish I were trapped there because living in Time Out was so boring. We did not have any toys like we used to have at home. If we wanted to play, everything had to be pretended. I was really good at pretending, but I still liked having toys when I was playing.

  I tried to tell Mama about all the friends I had made at Time Out. Including Carlos and me, there were 10 kids in Time Out. There was Boss, I did not really want to call him my new friend, but I thought it was important that Mama knew about him, so I told her about him first.

  Santi was Boss’s best friend, he was the second-oldest boy in here and he was not very nice most of the time, but he did sometimes like playing stuff when Boss was being stupid and mad in the corner. He said he had been here longer than anyone else, but Boss was bigger and stronger, so he did not want to fight over who would be Boss with him. Santi said there was a whole different group of kids here when he first got here over a year ago, but they were eventually taken away.

  I asked Mama if she thought it would be good if we were taken. She looked scared when I asked her about it. She just said it would be best if we just did what we were told. If we were good boys, they would not take either of us away from here. It was safe in Time Out, and if we were taken, it might not be safe anymore.

  Jose was the kid that Carlos played with the most. He also had a little brother called Mateo, but there was another Mateo, so we just called him Little Mateo. Jose also wanted to escape, so Carlos and Jose were always talking quietly together. I did not know whether they would find a way for us to get out of here, but they never stopped trying.

  Big Mateo was almost as mean as Boss, just not as old. He always tried to hurt other kids. My brother would fight him a lot, especially if he tried to hurt me. Our space was so small that most of the time, I could just run behind Carlos whenever someone got angry. It seemed like everyone in Time Out would get angry and try to fight or hurt someone lots more than in school. I did not know why all these kids seemed to want to be mean to each other.

  Miguel and Anteneo liked to follow around Boss. They were both 8, like my brother. They acted like they were just as important as Boss whenever he was not around because they hung out with him so often. Even when Boss was not around, they seemed to always be together. They liked to team up on people when they got mean. They did join in on the group games like tag if Boss was not around.

  Little Mateo and Stick were my same age. We played together most of the time. I did not know why Stick had such a weird name, but he said Boss had given him his name and got mad when anyone called him his old name, Pancho. I said I would call him Pancho, but I always did it quietly if I knew Boss was around. Boss was scary, but I did not want to call my friend the wrong name just because a bully told me I had to. We three were the youngest kids in Time Out, but we stuck together and tried to bite anyone who tried to hurt one of us, so most of the time we were left alone.

  The kid that we had seen being taken down the hallway to the doctor was Rafael. He was brought back from his treatment, crying with his hand wrapped up in a bandage. He did not want to talk about what happened when they gave him a treatment, but he always liked to talk about other things. He always liked to say things like he knew everything. I would sometimes listen to him because he had ideas about what was going on, and that was better than most of the other kids.

  It seemed like most of the other kids did not want to talk about what was happening in Time Out. Almost everyone except my brother, Jose, and Rafael only wanted to talk about how they knew they were the best kid to be taken next. There was a lot of different ideas about what you could do to be taken.

  Once, I asked Rafael why he thought some of the kids were taken and others were left here in Time Out. He told me that Time Out was where they put us when we were being punished, which is why it was called Time Out. Once we had finished our punishment, we were let go again.

  I did not think I had done anything wrong to be put in Time Out for so long, but when I thought about it, it made more sense. It was not good people like Mama or Grandma who put me into Time Out, but the bad men like Domingo. Maybe bad men put you in Time Out for being too good, and that is why I was here.

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  If we were here because we were being too good, that is probably why all the other kids got angry and tried to fight all the time. They were trying to show they were bad kids so that they could leave. I did not want to do what they wanted me to do, so I decided to be super extra good all the time so they would have to keep me here forever. As Mama said, I just needed to be a good boy, and they would not make me leave. She probably did not want to see me become a bad boy either, even if it meant I could come be with her.

  I told Mama about all the other boys whenever we talked, but I did not want to tell her about why I thought I needed to be a good boy. If I said it out loud, they might not like that I had already figured it out.

  I did not like that we had only 5 minutes a week to talk to Mama, but I tried to say as much as I could every time we spoke. Carlos sometimes got upset with me and told me to be quiet so he could say something, but most of the time he just let me talk. Grandma and Mama had always said that I talked enough for 4 kids, and Carlos only talked enough for a quarter of a kid.

  Carlos got in a bunch of fights like all the other kids, but mostly because he was protecting me. He always fought super hard, even against Boss. Boss was the only kid who could win a fight against my brother by himself, but sometimes there would be a group of kids, and my brother didn't win those fights often unless Jose helped. If I had to get in a fight, I would curl up in a ball and cry as they hit me. I did not want to fight, so it was good that Carlos was so good at fighting, because the other kids started to leave us alone when they got angry.

  The only other time that Carlos got hurt was when he tried to stop the bad men who would come in to give me my treatments. There were a few different men who would come in throught the food door when it was time to give someone a treatment. The first time a man had come through the doors for me, it had been someone I had known. Pedro, the guy who Mama had punched in the down there place, had come throught the door with a smile on his face. He stated, walking straight towards me, and grabbed my arm.

  Carlos had tried to stop him from taking me, but when he tried to trip Pedro, Pedro had just smacked him super hard across the face. My brother’s blood had splattered against my cheek. I had been dragged away down the hallway to the Doc, but all I could see was my brother lying on the ground, not getting up. He had lain there until they had shut the door to Doc’s room.

  I had been worried about my brother right until Pedro had taken me over to the bed and started strapping me down. My mind came back to where I was once, both of my arms were already strapped to the bed, and I could barely move.

  Once I noticed what was happening to me, I tried to kick my legs so that I could get off the table. It did not matter; Pedro was too big and strong. He just calmly grabbed each leg of mine and strapped it to the chair as well.

  Pedro moved to the corner of the room while Doc moved over to me. He checked the straps, then looked over to Pedro.

  “Many of your Coworkers are not willing to stay and watch the Treatments being administered. I find it confusing that they are all willing to enforce such measures, but do not have the stomach to watch it happen. It is like those who eat meat but are unwilling to hold the knife in their hands as they slit the throat of the animal and feel the life of it drain from the beast as the blood pumps from its body. It does not make sense to me.

  But no matter, I am glad you are here to watch the process. I find that my art feels more satisfying when more people witness it.”

  Pedro looked from the Doc to me and just grunted, “Creepy as always sicko. I am only here because this one caused me to get in quite a bit of trouble with Domingo. I am looking forward to seeing him scream.”

  The Doc looked like he was thinking while he turned back to me, and pointed out a little box in the corner of the room. “We have a little camera here to document your treatment. Now look up at the camera and say your name and your mother’s name.”

  I did not want to do anything that this man told me to do. “Not unless you let me go.” The Doc moved like lightning over to me when I told him “No”.

  “You are going to do what I tell you to do.” He grabbed the shoulder that had been hurt a few weeks back when I was brought here, and started pushing my arm down. It started hurting worse and worse as he kept doing it. “Did you know that if you dislocate an arm as you did, it will never fully heal. You will always have a higher risk of it being dislocated again. Now tell the camera your name and your mother's name, or I will make you feel that once again.”

  I did not want to feel that pain again, so I said, “My name is Jaun Delgado, and my Mama is Maria Delgado”. I felt like I was letting the bad men win, but I was sacred and it hurt. I did not want to hurt. What I wanted did not matter, though.

  Doc turned to the camera and said, “I am sorry I have to do this to you, but your mother has left us no choice. This is all because of her.”

  When he turned back towards me, he had an even bigger smile on his face than when he was sucking on my blood. He pulled out a tray of tools from behind me and put them in front of me. I did not know what any of the tools were for, but I would find out soon enough. The first tool the Doc picked up was the biggest scariest nail clipper that I had ever seen. He held it in his hand for a second. “Since this is your first treatment, we need to make sure we don’t do any permanent damage. That does not mean this won’t hurt, though.

  I did not want to be hurt. I tried to get away from him as he brought the nail clipper over to my hands. I could not move, and even when I tried to move my hand fast so he could not get a good hold, it did not matter. He grabbed my hand and forced one of my fingers out strait. He was licking his lips as he brought the clippers up to my finger. The metal was cold as it latched to the tip of my fingernail. The coldness did not last long as he started pulling. It hurt a little at first, but he kept pulling, and the pain started to build until it felt like my finger was in a fire. All I could think about was the pain after that.