The bunk-beds of cheap stripped pine with their rough canvas mattresses were jammed end to end on both sides of the long, drafty room. Without the beds it would seem quite cavernous, perhaps with it's stone floor and corniced ceiling it might even seem quite grand, but like this it was reminiscent of the economy section of some clapped out train carriage. At the end of the central aisle the light shone dimly through the grimy mullioned window onto the grey bedding and the grey, dusty floor. Outside to the horizon you could only see where the grey sky blended into the grey of the ocean. If there was a color to sum up life in the dormitory, grey would be it; an anthem for their lives in those shabby grey uniforms eating grey food to the grey drone of pointless chatter
Each boy had an assigned space in the dorm, where he ate, slept, and passed whatever leisure time the no-sponsors had. These rooms were actually sections of cardboard utility pipe that had been sawed into six-foot lengths. The pipes were suspended from a network of wires almost fifty feet off the ground. Once the pipes were occupied by orphans, the entire contraption swayed like an ocean liner.
Found in The Supernaturalist, authored by Eoin Colfer.
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