Little Boy's eyes lit up, and he pulled over his even smaller companion.
"Quick, sign up too!"
Then he glanced up timidly, stealing a look at the staff member's expression. "Can she? She can sing too..."
"Why wouldn't she be able to?"
"So she can't..." Little Boy's shoulders slumped.
"That was a question. I meant she can," the staff member said patiently. "Tell me her name."
"Her name's Meat!"
The staff member understood at once and wrote down "Rose."
The two little ones probably didn't have names. They had simply remembered two names everyone knew.
"I can't..."
"You can! Your voice sounds so good. Why couldn't you?" Little Boy blinked furiously at his companion. Luckily, she wasn't too slow and said nothing more.
The staff member smiled without making a fuss. After completing their registration forms, he asked a colleague to cover for him and personally took "Jack" and "Rose" to get something to eat.
Quite a few Contestants sat eating in the Mess Hall. They were all poor.
The two little ones didn't know what that meant. They only wondered why all the adults kept saying thank you.
The staff member sat them down at an empty table, then went to the counter and brought back a basket of bread.
"Thank you!" Jack said loudly. He didn't know what was going on, but he could copy the adults.
"Thang oo!" Rose echoed through the gaps in her teeth.
"I'll get you each a bowl of soup."
The staff member went back to the counter and returned with two bowls of soup, only to get a shock.
Less than a minute had passed, but the basket was empty. Their dirty hands were stuffing the last pieces of bread into their mouths.
"Don't rush. Eat slowly..."
The staff member set down