Freegans part 8

Matt
I looked at Ben. He seemed sane, unlike his compatriot. Even if he was mute, there had to be some way to communicate with him.
"Can you understand me?" I asked. He nodded, then pulled out of his pocket a piece of paper and stub of pencil, then began scribbling furiously on it. Meanwhile, I turned to Madiza, and noticed that her wrists and ankles were in chains. Big, iron shackles that looked really uncomfortable. The ones around her ankles were attached to the wall in the far corner, which was why she had been staying in that area for most of the time. Cara and Lucy had seen them too, and cautiously walked over to her.

"Why do they chain you up?" asked Cara.
"It's so little old Madiza can't hurt anyone. They like to do that themselves," Madiza said. She snickered in a way that didn't sound really amused. She sat down, and rocked back and forth, singing in a haunting, high voice,
"See, saw, Margery Daw,
Jackie shall have a new mas-ter.
Jackie shall earn but a penny a day,
Because he can't work any fas-ter."

Ben, who had finished writing, handed me the paper, and I moved over into the candlelight to read it. It said, "I'm Ben. Pleased to meet you. This all may seem a little strange, but I will explain as best I can. Don't worry too much about Madiza: she's completely crazy. She was once a Freegan, who was captured and brought here long ago as an eight-year-old, I think. She was submitted to shock treatments and all other kinds of torture to try and get her to say where the Freegan hideout is, which eventually drove her around the bend. Now they just keep her here. I learned all of this from sitting for days and listening to her talk to herself, if you were wondering.

"I myself am here because I'm defective. I was born without a good singing voice, and the government brought me here to try and fix me, because they don't like the idea of anyone not being perfect. As a result of their experiments, I am now mute. They don't want to admit to failure, so they keep me here too. I don't know why they don't kill us, I just feel grateful to be alive. Are you Freegans too?"
"Yes," I said. "They'll probably try and torture us too, won't they?"
Ben nodded. He gestured for the paper, and began to write again.

At that moment Cara said from behind me, "I'm surprised you're not more like most consumerists. From what I've heard, there aren't any good ones left." I jumped about a foot, then turned to her.
"Cara, you know I hate it when you read over my shoulder like that," I said. She rolled her eyes. Then Ben handed me back the paper, and Cara and I both read it together.
"Living as a prisoner for several years kind of puts your life in perspective. I learned more by not being able to speak than I had in all the time I had gone to school. Of course, some of it was learned by listening to the ravings of a crazy lunatic, but it's amazing what you can learn from madness. In fact, there are times when she has brief bouts of sanity. Just wait."

At that moment, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and two big men came down the stairs. They came to the cage, opened it, and suddenly grabbed Lucy, dragging her out. We ran to the door, but before we could get there it was slammed and relocked.
"Where are you taking her?!" Cara screamed.
"For questioning," was the reply.