This is how it is: We who live on the edge of the Heap are different. Harper’s arms are no more than nimble flippers that sprout exposed bone. Zora’s skin blisters from the sunlight, while Ernest cannot raise his medicine ball sized head—he only lolls it. They cannot of course talk, so I talk for them, and I talk to them. We bronzer children of the golden class are a motley litter of rejects, everyone knows.