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not allowed to have anything besides whatever money you’d like to put into your phone account,” Mrs. Simper adds. “Perhaps they didn’t make that clear.” But her tone says that she knows very well that they did make it clear and that I seem to think the rules don’t apply to me. Great. I’ve already gotten on someone’s bad side, and all because of a few tampons and a disposable razor.
    Officer Wallace tucks my stuff in a garbage bag. “You can have it back when you get out,” he says. He has a very flat face. I’ve never seen one like it before — with a nose that barely casts a shadow.
    “Take good care of it,” I say.
    Officer Wallace lets the bag fall to his side. “In here,” he says evenly, “you don’t speak unless you have permission. Maybe they didn’t make that clear, either.”
    He starts to say more, but Mrs. Simper puts her hand on my shoulder. “Officer Wallace is our intake supervisor, Sadie,” she says. “He’ll take over now. I’m going to have to get back to my office, but you and I will have an opportunity to talk later.”
    She nods at Officer Wallace. “Officer Wallace.”
    He nods back at her. “Warden.”
    A door next to where we’re standing buzzes and then makes a heavy clicking sound. Mrs. Simper opens it and disappears inside. A lady guard comes out with handcuffs and ankle cuffs and a whole lot of chain. She sees me eyeing them.
    “Most inmates come in directly from court, from off the transport van,” the lady officer says. Her name is Officer Kohl. “They already have their chains on. It’s procedure we got to put them on you before we take you back to intake.”
    Officer Wallace grabs the ankle cuffs from Officer Kohl. “Legs apart,” he says.
    He squats in front of me with the ankle cuffs while Officer Kohl does my wrists. Everything locks together, my hands shackled in front of me, my legs hobbled. My arms already ache from holding it all up.
    Officer Wallace says something into his walkie-talkie, then there’s another buzz and another click and they lead me through another door off the lobby in the opposite direction of Mrs. Simper. I shuffle through the door and down a short, gray hall to yet another door, this one marked INTAKE . It took more time for them to put me in the shackles than it does to walk there.
    The hall is bare except for a mop and bucket next to a set of gray double doors at the far end of the hall, which is where I figure they bring kids in off the transport bus.
    “What’s that doing there?” Officer Wallace snaps. “That’s not supposed to be there.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” Officer Kohl says. “It isn’t my job, though.”
    “If it’s something where it’s not supposed to be, then it’s your job,” Officer Wallace says back.
    Officer Kohl wheels the bucket and mop over to a closet, which she unlocks with a key. Officer Wallace unclips his walkie-talkie from his black belt and mutters something, and the by-now familiar buzz and click happens and then the intake-room door opens. Officer Kohl, back with us now, nudges me from behind, and I shuffle through there, too. It’s still morning, though it could just as easily be the middle of the night since the only light comes from stuttering fluorescent bulbs high overhead. Suddenly I feel very, very tired.
    A row of holding cells lines most of one side of the intake unit. I can see through their small windows: each has a bench bolted to the wall, a stainless-steel toilet with no seat or lid, and a stainless-steel sink, the kind where you push down on a button so water comes out for five seconds — just long enough to wet your hands but never enough to rinse them properly. In the main intake area are a couple of desks, a long shelf with stacks of what look like uniforms, and a row of hooks with enough cuffs and chains hanging from them to stock an entire Inquisition torture chamber. The officers unlock me from my restraints and add them to the Torquemada collection.
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