Skeletons in closet

“You should calm down,” the lady said.

“I’m sure that’s what your sister said,” I said.

There.

“I think we’re done here,” the woman said stiffly. She rose to her feet and I could see that her legs were shaking a little.

I’d looked into the Youth Guard representatives most likely to be sent here, in advance, hoping that if I could get enough information on enough of them that I could get all of them to leave early. My biggest nightmare would have been someone who actually had no skeletons in their closet; I’d have been forced to give them some, and I’d have felt really guilty about it. Fortunately, everyone had skeletons if you looked far enough back. It wasn’t that they were necessarily any worse than anyone else. It was that everyone was that terrible.

***

Guard