“How do we know when the shift is over or is it until the required target of lobsters has been caught?”
“The spotters also have the task of counting the lobsters caught by each team. They keep doing the addition till the target is reached, once that happens, the horn goes off to signal the end of the shift.”
“Will we be able to hear the horn while we are underwater?”one of the younger kids asked.
“Frankly you will not, your puller will give you three tugs on the rope to signal to you that the shift is over.”
More questions were asked; some smart and some silly as the session continued, Martins mind began to stray after he realized all the questions he wanted answers to had been taken Care of .
He wondered if there were slots in this dormitory as well, he was tempted to ask but he wasn’t sure whether It would end up betraying what could probably be a secret on the other side that these lads did not know about.
Did they also have secrets of their own that the surface boys didn’t know existed? Well a month was a long times to learn a lot and he intended to do so.
His mind wandered back to what Goliath was saying. He was giving a lesson on what the lobster trap looked like, how it worked and how we are supposed to bring the lobster out of the trap.
“The traps are made of wire and wood, the metal part are specially protected against rust and wooden parts are a special kind of wood protected against rot,” Goliath lectured . “the traps have two chambers, One chamber is for holding the bait and the other for holding the trapped lobsters”
He describe how how the entrance to the Trap were designed such that any lobsters that crawled in could not crawl back out.
Martins began to appreciate the difficulties involved with not just harvesting lobsters but farming them as well, he guessed this was what made them such an expensive commodity, liives of disadvantaged children were being put at risk to get this expensive treat to people’s plates.
“Do we just decide which part of the lake we want to catch our lobsters in?” Martin asked.
” The lake has been divided into twelve sectors using stainless steel wire meshes, we farm the sector from one end of the’U’ to the other throughout the year,”Goliath answered.”The teams stay in one sector to harvest as many lobster as possible and then move into another sector the next month.”
Goliath also added that more larvae, the young of the lobsters were then introduce into the already harvested sectors. “These would be ready for harvesting in sector one by the time sector twelve had been harvested at the end of the year”. The dormitory prefect also briefly mentioned the harvesting of the oysters but didn’t go into much detail.
A few minutes later, the meeting ended, he sent away all the children who were not yet teenagers and asked to Speak with the rest of the older boyd martins did a quick head count, there were seven of them.
Goliath took his time to explain a few more complicated details about the operation that had not been mentioned in the main meeting.
“There’s one last thing that I also want to talk about, ” Goliath said in an undertone.
He mentioned the recent wave of escape attempts from dorm’A’ and how they had all been unsuccessful. He stated that he knew more escape would be attempt and been put in place. Goliath confirmed to the boys that this was a better place for him to be than on the out side.
And though he was dorm prefect he promised never to betray anyone who wanted their freedom back, his only advice would be that the boys remain faithful to whatever they decided to do in this place.
Martins had wanted to ask questions about the escape attempts but decided against it, he had a feeling Goliath was not one to encourage such discussions, A month wasn’t a long period of time. Zell was the person to hold such discussion with.
The rest of the weekend passed without any major incidents, however, being in dormitory’A’ was like being at a bazaar, the boys were noisier.
There were arguments, there was gambling and there was even a fight over a piece of meat.
Monday morning came for another batch of new dorm mates, it was just another day. For them who were still new comers, a lot of the lads were anxious as they tried to fish for more information on the task for the evening shift.
The day passed with the normal sight and sound they had now gotten used to, the light in the dormitory started to fade as the sun began to set.
After a while it was a bit difficult to see all the way to one end of the dormitory as darkness fell, a harsh beam suddenly filled the entire area, starling Martins, this light hadn’t been turned on during the weekend.
“This spotlight automatically comes on at seven O’Clock during the weekdays”, Goliath explained to him, ” It’s a signal for us to check our kits and get ready for the shift.”
“So I’m supposed to make sure all my work gear is together?” Martin asked, clearly surprised.
“Exactly” Goliath answered.
“But how do i even know what’s supposed to be in the bag for the shift?”
“You’re right. come this way, let me get the newcomers and we will all do this together,” Goliath said.
Minutes later, everything was set. The group of had been Created during the day and he was automatically put on the same team with Goliath and one other boy.
Martins teammate was a boy of about twelve who was supposed to be skillful, he was amazed at how efficient Goliath had at organizing the teams. It answered his question about why management had left such an important part of the operation in his hands .
He had come in with Zell’s group and martins was sure he had proved his worth over the years, it shocking to learn that in this six years since they had been sorted he had seen Zell only six times and even those sightings were from a distance.
Goliath and Zell had both come from a community which was not too far from his village.