Muko struggled to contain and control his bewilderment. Everything around him was so strange, so precise and so cold. He wanted to run for his life but there was nowhere to go. He just didn't want to be there a moment longer. It felt like he was in some great body of water which was trying to sweep him along while he had his feet on the bottom, resisting the current. He was only a little pebble after all – or maybe more like a fragment in a vast jigsaw puzzle with no picture anywhere to be seen.
Someone must know what's going on, he thought. Someone must be in charge. But looking around he just saw frightened and lost faces like his own.
The boy in black, however, was quite different. He seemed to be endowed with some sort of authority. He tucked his fingers around the clapper of the bell so that it wouldn't sound, then in a quiet but penetrating voice commanded:
“Get up off the bed and stand by its foot, facing the head.” He paused to allow the children to obey his instruction before continuing: “The cabinet that belongs to the bed is the one on the right. In the bottom compartment you will find a pair of shorts and a shirt. You will remove your pyjamas and put these