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MARCHING POWDER

stalls, but there was no sign of him. They even boosted Ramero up to have a look on the bathroom roof, but he shook his head. 'Check under the benches,' suggested Chino.

'We already did.'

'Shit. He's escaped! Let's clean our cells and fix up these beer cans. Drop some toilet paper over the top of them.' Once the guards found that Samir had escaped, they would do a full-scale search.

The sergeant on duty didn't suspect anything at first. He was an old guy who talked about his family a lot and he was always nice to us. He was also easy to trick. When Samir didn't answer his name at the lista, we shrugged our shoulders and then followed the sergeant to Samir's cell, pretending to be just as surprised as he was. None of us had bothered to check in Samir's cell because we had seen that his door had been padlocked from the outside when we got up and the sergeant had needed to unlock it.

In fact, Samir hadn't escaped at all. The sergeant swung the door back and there he was, lying fast asleep on his bed, fully clothed with his mouth wide open. The room smelled of beer and vomit. It was only then that I saw how Samir had gotten out: the bottom corner of the metal door had been prised back and he had slid his way underneath, through the small gap. He must have given up on the idea of escaping and then crawled back in there before morning. I nudged Chino behind the sergeant's back and pointed to the door, but he nodded that he had already seen it. He was more concerned about the empty beer cans that were all over the floor.

'What's happened here?' demanded the sergeant, shaking Samir. 'Why won't he wake up?' He still hadn't spotted the door or the beer cans, but it wouldn't be long before he did.

'He's sick. Can't you see he's sick?' Chino answered, pointing to the dried vomit on Samir's chin and clothing, turning it to our advantage. 'We called out all night, but no one came.'

'But I wasn't on duty last night,' said the old sergeant defensively.

While Chino continued to distract him, the rest of us blocked his view of the beer cans by fussing over Samir. 'Someone should get a doctor.'

'Listen. I don't think he's breathing properly,' I said, giving the sergeant five bolivianos. 'Please. Can you go? The other guards won't listen to us. It could be serious.'