I did it as fast as I could. Eventually, the other two did the same, but it wasn't good enough for our buddies. They told us to do it again and scrub harder. The bristles of the brush were stiff and painful. Finally, we were told to step out and turn off the water. Even in the darkness, I could see how red and irritated Robin's and Teal's skin were. We dried off quickly and put the degrading outfits on to keep ourselves warm again, despite that the sacks stank and would defeat the purpose of the shower. I was afraid to point it out, however.
“Let's move it,” M'Lady Three commanded. She still did not lead us toward the house, however. Instead we were taken to an area off to our right where the three of us saw our clothing piled, shoes and all.
A sweet feeling of relief settled in me, as well as the other two.
“Finally,” I heard Teal whisper.
“No speaking,” M'Lady Two screamed.
We stood there obediently, waiting for the order to fetch our clothes. To our surprise, M'Lady Three went instead to a large open barrel beside them. She lit a match and dropped it into the barrel. Instantly, a flame shot up. Something very flammable was in the barrel.
“Okay, girls,” M'Lady One said. “Take those clothes and throw them into the barrel.”
“What?” Teal couldn't contain herself. “Burn my clothes? Why?”
Out of the shadows as if she were formed from darkness came Dr. Foreman.
“I know this seems hard to you, girls, but it is a very, very important first step. What we are doing here tonight is burning away the old you and beginning your rebirths. This isn't just symbolic. It has a great deal of psychological importance.”
The fire crackled in the barrel.
“But that's not the old me. That's my clothing, my designer clothing!” Teal exclaimed.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Dr. Foreman stepped a little closer.
“We'll stand here all night if we have to,” she warned. “It is essential to my system, my process, that you all participate in your own rebirths.”
“This is really crazy,” Teal muttered.
“I'm so tired, I don't care about anything anymore,” Robin declared, and went to the clothes.
“Don't throw mine in there,” Teal screamed at her.
Robin picked out her own things and began to toss them into the barrel. I followed after her and did the same. Finally, Teal, standing alone, went to the remaining garments. Then, like someone giving up the most precious jewels, dropped them into the barrel.
“Good,” Dr. Foreman said. “You're all beginning well. I'm proud of you girls, and to show you my appreciation, I'm giving you all plus five points. You're now that much closer to receiving comforts and privileges. M'ladies,” she said, turning to the buddies. “Show them to their sleeping quarters.”
Thank God, I thought. I followed along, my head down, not realizing where we were going until Teal moaned. We were standing at the barn.
M'Lady Two opened the door. We could see it was well lit within.
“Home sweet home, girls,” she said, standing back.
“Home! What are you talking about? This is a barn,” Teal moaned.
“Demerit,” M'Lady Three said. “Even though Dr. Foreman rewarded you with five plus points, you have one demerit from before and now a second. Two demerits in one day qualify you for the Ice Room. Dr. Foreman must be immediately informed. You could go right to the Ice Room.”
I raised my hand.
“Very good, Phoebe. Permission to speak. Speak,” M'Lady One said.
“Can't you be a little bit understanding? We're confused and tired and this looks like a barn.”
“It is a barn and we're not here to be understanding. You were given the rules and you must obey them. It's what we had to do and what we did.” M'Lady One looked at M'Lady Three. “It's up to you,” she told her. “What do you want to do about Teal?”
“I'll let this one slip, but consider it the one and only time I will,” M'Lady Three told Teal.
We were then ordered to enter.
Before us were five wooden cots lined up beside each other. Two had mattresses, pillows, and blankets on them. The other three were just bare.
“Those three are yours,” M'Lady One said, pointing to the bare ones.
Robin raised her hand.
“Permission to speak,” M'Lady Two said.
“There are no mattresses or anything on them.”
“You have to earn that,” her buddy replied.
“But. . . how . . . ?”
“Reality checks, remember? You earn the points and then you are rewarded with comforts. It's how it works. Here we earn everything we have, even every morsel of food we eat. Whoever doesn't do her share, doesn't share. That includes water as well as food.”
We all looked about despondently. The floor literally had straw over it. The place smelled like a real barn. The four windows had no curtains over them. The walls were bare and there wasn't much of an interior or any other furniture. Only by the two beds that had mattresses, we saw what looked like two small wooden chests.
Teal raised her hand.
“What?”
“Who sleeps on those?” she asked.
“Those are Gia Carson's and Mindy Levine's beds. They've earned enough points to have an hour's recreation time in the library where they can read approved books and listen to approved music. They will be back here momentarily. I now advise the three of you to go to sleep.”
“I'm sure my father didn't pay all that money for me to sleep in a stinking barn,” Teal declared.
M'Lady Three stepped up so closely to her, their noses almost collided. “Okay, you're not sleeping in the barn. I'm sick of your whining. You've just lost the privilege.”
“Privilege?” Teal started to laugh. “You call sleeping in a barn a privilege?”
M'Lady Three nodded at the other two buddies, who then picked up a bunk and carried it out the door.
“Follow them,” Teal was told. She looked to us desperately for some help, but neither Robin nor I had the courage to say a word. With her head down like a flag of surrender, she walked out of the barn. I would never have thought sleeping in a barn was so great, but it had to be to be better than being out there, I thought.
At the door, M'Lady Three turned to Robin and me. “Go to sleep. You'll need every moment of rest you can get, believe me.”
She left, closing the door behind her.
“Any moment I'm going to wake up. Tell me that's true. Tell me I'm in a dream, a nightmare, and it's coming to an end,” Robin muttered in the tone of a prayer.
I just shook my head and sat on the first bare wooden cot. The surface was hard, but I didn't care.
“I'm so tired,” I whispered.
The lights in the barn flickered in warning that they would soon be out, then the door opened and two girls entered. The first was a diminutive girl with a mop of hair the color of black licorice. She had large, dark, haunted eyes with a small, delicate nose and thin lips turned down in the corners. Each girl was dressed in a pair of blue coveralls with a faded white short-sleeve shirt that looked more like a man's shirt than a woman's. They wore the same ugly shoes, too.
The second girl was tall and thin with hair so pale yellow it looked almost white. It hung down like dead straw over her ears, the bangs nearly over her eyes. My immediate thought was she was anorexic. Her wrists were slim and bony. I imagined that a strong handshake could shatter them. Her cheeks were sunken. The skin on her face was so taut it was transparent. Once, she must have had a pretty face, I decided. She had high cheekbones and a nearly perfect nose, but when she glanced our way, she never changed expression or in any way showed that she saw us. She looked more like someone dazed, moving in her sleep.
Both girls diverted their eyes to the floor and moved so softly, I had the sense they were floating in, gliding toward their bunks. They said nothing to each other, did nothing to indicate they were aware of each other.
Robin looked at me with q
uizzical eyes and shrugged.
The girls, still ignoring us, began to take off their coveralls and their ugly shoes, caked with mud. They did everything with great care as if they were performing a delicate lifesaving operation: folding their coveralls neatly and placing them in the chests beside their bunks, rolling their white stockings down and then again taking great pains to fold them perfectly as well and placing them in the trunks, all the while moving like two people in a hypnotic state.
Neither girl wore what we called diapers. They had ordinary-looking panties and both had bras over what looked to me like quite underdeveloped breasts. How could two such fragile-looking girls have gotten in the sort of trouble that would send them to a place like this? I wondered.
Because the door of the barn was still wide-open, neither Robin nor I risked speaking to them. They didn't seem to care anyway. They still showed absolutely no interest in us. We watched them with fascination, however, as they both got under their blankets and lowered their heads to their pillows.
I felt like someone in a desert watching someone drinking a glass of cold, sparkling freshwater. Those bunks looked so comfortable. How rich they were to have an actual pillow, a soft mattress. When I glanced at Robin, I saw a similar covetous expression on her face.
M'Lady Two stood in the doorway.
“Lights out, girls,” she announced, and although I didn't see her throw any switch, the lights snapped off. It took a few moments to get used to the darkness. The starlight coming in through the four windows helped.
“Hey!” I chanced, calling to what I thought now were lucky girls. “Who are you? How long have you been here? Is this the only place for us to sleep?”
Neither responded.
“I'm Robin and that's Phoebe,” Robin added. “What are your names?”
Silence remained.
“What's wrong with you?” I asked. “No one's here. Can't you talk?”
“We're not going to bite you,” Robin said. They didn't budge. “You believe this?” she asked me.
“No. They're just being brats. What's your damn name?” I asked sharply, raising my voice a bit too loudly.
Suddenly, the door of the barn swung open and the lights went on.
M'Lady One was standing there.
“Who's talking?” she demanded. “Well, who is it? Confess or I'll hold you all accountable.”
The smaller girl sat up and pointed at me.
“She talked,” she accused.
My mouth dropped. How could she do that, squeal on me?
“Sure. It just had to be my girl,” M'Lady One muttered unhappily, “and after I thought she was beginning to do well.” She entered the barn and approached me.
I turned away and looked down, but she kept coming.
“When lights are out, you go to sleep,” she said, hovering right over me. I kept my head down. “Are you just stupid? Or are you just a hard case? What do you need to convince you we're serious about the rules here? Well, which is it, stupid or defiant? Answer immediately when you are asked a question,” she bellowed.
I turned slowly. I was tired. I ached and I was afraid, but I couldn't help myself. I looked up and into her face as bravely as I could manage.
“I'm not stupid. This place is stupid.”
She raised her eyebrows and then smiled. “Really? What do you find stupid? Surely, not your buddies,” she said, and M'Lady Two entered the barn. She walked up beside M'Lady One and put her hands on her hips.
“What's the problem now?” she asked.
“My little sister here says this is all stupid. I'm trying to find out what exactly is stupid.”
I looked at Robin, who immediately looked down at the floor when they turned to her as well.
M'Lady Three entered. “What's going on? I'd think everyone would be quite tired by now.”
“We're about to hear a critique on Dr. Foreman's School,” M'Lady Two told her.
“Well, Phoebe bird, what's your answer? What exactly do you find stupid?” my buddy repeated.
“The whole thing,” I said. “Making us sleep on a hard wooden cot and making us earn food and water and wear these, these stupid sacks with diapers.”
“She doesn't like her clothes,” M'Lady One told M'Lady Two as if that were an amazing thing to hear me say.
“Well then,” M'Lady Two said, “she shouldn't have to wear them.”
“Exactly my thoughts,” my buddy replied.
Before I could respond or move away, they seized my wrists. M'Lady Three stepped up. I screamed and struggled, but they were so strong. They got me down on the wooden bunk and M'Lady Three took hold of my sack and drew it up and over my head. In moments they had it off me and I was naked, but for the diaper, socks, and shoes. I knew how ridiculous I looked. I cried and screamed and they released me and stepped back. Immediately, I covered my breasts with my arms and sat up.
“Now, are you happier?” my buddy asked.
“No. Give it back to me,” I cried.
“This . . . what did you call it ... stupid sack? We don't want you to feel stupid.”
She turned and the three started out.
“Wait!” I cried. “I'm sorry. Please. Give it back. I can't lie here like this.”
They paused and looked at each other.
“Think she's sorry?” my buddy asked the other two.
“It's hard to tell. She looks sorry, but she looked sorry from the moment I set eyes on her,” M'Lady Two said.
“Okay, let's see how sorry she is. Step outside,” my buddy said.
I looked at Robin. She wore an expression of abject terror and avoided looking back at me. The other two girls remarkably were as they had been, their eyes closed, still on their backs. They hadn't turned or budged to witness any of it.
“Why?” I asked.
“Yours is not to question why,” my buddy said.
“Yours is but to do and die,” the other two recited.
I walked slowly behind them out of the barn. The first thing I saw was Teal lying on her side on her bunk. She must have tried to run off or something because I saw her feet were shackled to the cot. She was folded in a fetal position, her eyes closed, but her body shaking. It wasn't warm anymore. In fact, it was cold. I shuddered as well.
“Over here,” my buddy ordered, placing me in the pool of illumination thrown down by a pole light.
I did as she said.
“Arms at your sides, face forward. Do it!” she screamed at me, and I did. I felt myself shaking harder and harder. “Okay, now recite the school prayer. Go on. Recite it and do it loud enough for them to hear inside. Do it!”
I started, trying desperately to remember it, but stumbling over words. Each time I did, one of them stepped close to me and shouted in my ear, “Wrong! Start again. Wrong!”
I don't know if I ever got it completely right, but eventually, I did recite it close enough to satisfy them. My buddy, M'Lady One, handed me the sack.
“Okay, put it back on.”
I took it.
“Don't we get a thank you?” M'Lady Two asked.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“We didn't hear you,” my buddy said.
“Thank you!” I cried. I dressed quickly before they could change their minds and put me through something equally terrible.
“Get back inside and go to sleep. Another infraction of the rules and you'll go to the Ice Room,” my buddy added.
I glanced at Teal. She hadn't dared turn to look at me. She was still shivering, but not as much. Sleep was overtaking fear and anger, I thought.
As I started toward the door of the barn, I glanced to my left because I saw something moving in the shadows. The silhouette became clearer and I realized it was Dr. Foreman. I cringed inside. She had been standing there all the while, watching them torture me. How could she let them do these things to us? A part of me wanted to call out to her, call out to that sweet smile of welcome she had first given us in orientation and ask her what had happened
to that, but I was too afraid to do it. In a moment her silhouette seemed to merge with the shadows anyway and she was gone. I wasn't even sure she had really been there.
I entered the barn and went quickly to my bunk. The two girls were still asleep and Robin was on her side with her back to me. I lay down with my back to her. The lights went out again and the door was closed. I heard it being locked and it occurred to me that they had never told us where the bathroom was. What if we have to get up and go? I wondered. Were we supposed to just do it in our diaper again?
“Robin?” I whispered.
I listened, but heard nothing from her. Perhaps she had finally fallen asleep out of the same exhaustion I felt, or perhaps she was simply too terrified to utter a sound. I couldn't blame her.
Suddenly I heard the cry of something wild, a coyote, I thought. There was another, then another. It sounded like a whole pack of them out there in the darkness. They sounded like a pack of vampires. I wondered how Teal was doing and shuddered thinking about it. Sleep would be a hard-won prize tonight.
The long journey that had begun with a disappointment and a betrayal was finally over, I thought.
I was here.
This was my first night at Dr. Foreman's School for Girls.
And all I could think was I was right about that plane ride I took. Surely it must be the way the dead are taken to their afterlife.
I'm in hell.
What else could it possibly be?
Three New Squaws Jj/ven if our buddies weren't there to whip us with their screams in the morning, the blazing sunlight pouring through the unblocked windows lit up the inside of the barn so brightly, it burned through our thick walls of sleep and dreams, melting away any determination and resistance we had to awakening. There was no question either of us wanted to wake up in a place like this. Teal, who I imagined was used to sleeping into the midafter-noon when she didn't attend school, was probably in utter shock out there.
Almost simultaneous with the glaring light exploding around us came the shouts of the m'ladies to rise. I groaned and looked at Robin. She was awake, but she just lay there staring up. I turned and saw that the other two girls, Gia and Mindy, were already dressed and outside. When did they do that? Did they dress and leave in the dark?
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight Page 5
