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The boy curled in the dark and shivered. He hadn't had anything to eat since he had spilled his orange juice at breakfast and unbeknownst to him the sky was now nearly as dark as the inside of his little cupboard. He hadn't meant to knock the glass but that just made it worse. That made him clumsy as well as well as stupid. He murmured Latin verbs to himself finding the dead words comforting but he knew not to make too much noise. Calling attention to himself would be taken as contesting his fully-justified punishment and that would just make the things worse. Children should be seen and not heard. He had had that phrase beaten into him so many times he wondered if he had the words imprinted on his eardrums. He just rocked, ignoring the burning lines on his legs and backside and the gnawing in his stomach, and allowed his own voice to comfort him. He was afraid and he was angry and he wasn't old enough to realise they were the same thing. He stared into his prison with dry eyes. He wouldn't cry. He cried in the light when they yelled and punished him with stinging words and blows. He didn't want to but he couldn't help the tears because he was stupid and clumsy and weak. But alone, locked under the stairs, he just stared into the darkness and refused to cry.