“Was this place ever inspected since you've been here, Gia?” I asked.
“No. Or at least not that I know of.”
“Then, I'm right,” Robin decided. “It's obviously time for an inspection.”
“Well, I can tell you this,” Teal said, “if someone pulls me aside to ask me how things are going, he or she is going to get an ear so full, his head will tilt to one side.”
“Just remember,” Mindy cautioned, “if you're not shipped out soon after you spill your guts, one of the buddies might spill them for you.”
“I don't care! I'm sick of all this and I want the world to know it!” Teal screamed at her.
Mindy just smiled at her, which irritated Teal even more.
“You're sick,” she said. “You're all sick,” she continued, looking mostly at Gia.
“Shut up, Teal,” I said.
“I want to go home. I'll do anything to go home,” she moaned, and hobbled along.
We did have a more elaborate breakfast, even some Danish pastries, which reinforced our theory that we were about to be observed and evaluated by some government agency. Gia ate tentatively, looking everything over twice to be sure rat poison wasn't over it or something. She made me nervous, but Robin and Teal weren't in any way intimidated. They ate as much as they could, as did Mindy, who reminded me of a starving dog, gazing around her after almost every bite to be sure no one was nearby to take it away.
Toward the end of breakfast, M'Lady Three came into the dining room to announce the day's chores and assignments.
“Mindy and Gia are to report to the garden as usual. Teal, Robin, and Phoebe are going on an off-grounds work detail and, after they clean up in here and put everything neatly away, are to report outside to get into the van.”
“Off-grounds?” Teal asked first. “What's that?”
“That is off-grounds, an outside area. You still speak English, don't you?” M'Lady Three quipped.
Teal looked at me, but I was staring at Gia, who was staring back at me, and what I saw in her eyes, I did not like.
“Move it!” M'Lady Three ordered, and Gia and Mindy left the room quickly, neither looking back at us. “Clean up. Ten minutes to departure,” she shouted at us.
“What's this mean, working off-grounds?” Teal asked me as soon as M'Lady Three was gone.
“I don't know, but I don't like it.”
“I guess we really are like prisoners on a chain gang,” Robin said. “We're probably volunteered by Dr. Foreman to work on a road or something just like inmates.”
“How can I work on a road? I'm injured,” Teal protested.
“I'm sure they'll find something you can do,” Robin said, taking dishes off the table.
I helped her and Teal was left to clean the table off. Robin and I washed and dried the dishes and silverware, neither of us talking much at all.
“Stop looking so worried, Phoebe,” she finally told me. “At least we're getting out of here and can see some new scenery.”
“I hope you're right,” I said without confidence.
When we were finished, we joined Teal and all walked out front to where the van was parked. M'Lady One was there with three small bags, the kind of backpacks you could wear over your shoulders.
“These are your off-grounds kits,” she explained, and opened one up to take out its contents. “First, a canteen full of cold water. Drink it sparingly. Second, bars of nutritional food. Each of you has three. A towel to wipe your ugly faces, some tampons just in case, a vial of cyanide just in case you're captured.” She laughed. "Just kidding, of course. Who would want to capture you?
“All right,” she said, opening the van doors, “get in. There's work to be done.”
“How far away are we going?” Teal asked.
“We were thinking of your sweeping streets in New York. How far are you going? Just get in and shut up.”
Robin got in first and I followed, then we helped Teal in with her crutch. M'Lady One shut the door immediately.
“This brings back fond memories,” Robin said.
“If there is even the slightest chance of getting away once we get to wherever we get,” Teal said, “I'm going for it.”
“On a crutch?” I asked.
“I said I'd crawl if I had to and I will.”
“Maybe I would, too,” Robin added.
A tiny bit of light came through the crack in the door so at least we weren't in total darkness as we had been the first time we were in this van. I sat back and tried to relax when I heard the engine start and felt us pulling away. Then I glanced to my right.
Something was there.
“What's this?” I muttered, reaching for it. It looked familiar.
I held it up.
“What is it?” Teal asked.
“Phoebe?” Robin followed.
I looked at the two of them. “It's from Natani. It's his healing bag.”
“What's that for? I mean, what does it mean that he left it in here?” Teal asked, whining.
“It means, we're in bigger trouble than we imagined. Dr. Foreman is finally punishing us.”
“I don't understand,” Teal said.
“I think I do,” Robin said.
“Well, tell me, big shot.”
“Maybe we should just wait to see,” I said. “Let's not panic until we have to panic.”
“Oh, great. And here I thought we were going on a picnic,” Teal moaned.
We were all quiet, listening to see if we could hear anything that would give us even a slight hint as to where we were going and what we would be doing. The roughness of the ride, however, began to reinforce my worries. I couldn't see Robin's face clearly, but I was sure the same was occurring to her as well.
“How far away are they taking us?” Teal cried after what was surely a good hour. “I'm so nauseous, I'm sorry I ate anything this morning.”
Finally, the van stopped. We heard a door slam and then the back doors were opened. The brightness made us all squint for a few moments.
“Ladies,” M'Lady Two said, standing there and looking in at us. She wore a wide-brimmed hat.
Robin crawled out first and I followed with Natani's medicine bag around my shoulder. I reached back to get Teal's crutch, then Robin and I helped her down. We stood there looking around. We were, as I had feared, in the middle of the desert. The mountains, in fact, looked farther away than they did when we were at the ranch.
“Where are we?” Teal asked first.
“That's top-secret information,” M'Lady One said.
“We're going for a long walk in the desert, aren't we?” I asked. “This isn't a work detail.”
“Believe me, Phoebe girl, a walk in the desert is a work detail,” M'Lady Two replied, smiling.
“How can I walk in the desert? I can't walk back at the ranch that well,” Teal complained.
“You can walk just like the rest of us. You've been using that sprain as an excuse from work long enough,” M'Lady Two said. “Ready?”
“I'm not going,” Teal declared, and folded her legs to sit on the ground.
M'Lady One looked at M'Lady Two.
“I'll meet you at the designated spot,” M'Lady One said, and got into the van. We watched her start the engine and drive away.
“This way, girls,” M'Lady Two said, and began to trek forward.
No one moved. She stopped and looked at us. Teal tried to keep her mask of defiance over her face of fear.
“I'm walking and meeting that van,” M'Lady Two said, pointing at the van, which was disappearing over a hill. “If you girls want to remain here, you can,” she said, shading her eyes to gaze up at the noonday sun burning down on us. “However, I wouldn't advise it.”
She started away. I looked at Robin.
“We've got no choice,” I said, and began to follow.
“No,” Teal moaned.
“Come on,” Robin said, helping her to her feet.
We started behind M'Lady Two, wh
o moved at a steady, quick pace over the sand and rolling small hills. I quickly envied her wide-brimmed hat and remembered Natani's advice to always have our heads covered in the desert. He had also advised against us wearing shorts, and suddenly I realized these sneakers were not proper shoes for this as well. So Dr. Foreman's apparent gifts were not gifts after all. We would have been better off dressed in the outfits we had. She had set us up to suffer out here. M'Lady One's sarcastic reply to my question wasn't sarcastic after all. Punishment had a new meaning and certainly a capital P.
I looked back and saw how Robin and Teal were already struggling. The crutch looked to be more trouble than it was worth, especially over this kind of terrain.
“I can't walk this fast!” Teal screamed.
M'Lady Two didn't turn around. She kept her pace and kept her direction.
Robin caught up with me. “What's going on? Why are they doing this to us?”
“It's the punishment. Remember what Natani said about clothing, covering our heads, all that? She gave us all this before putting us out here, and these are exactly the wrong things to be wearing.”
“Damn her.”
“Yeah, well, it's too late for that.” I was breathing heavily already. How could M'Lady Two walk so fast and so steadily? I wondered. She was probably the best at this and that was why she had been chosen to lead us.
“I'm burning up,” Teal moaned, catching up to us and wiping her forehead.
I thought a moment, then reached into my bag and took out the towel. “Wrap it around your head. At least you'll get some protection from the sun this way.”
“I need sunglasses. My eyes ache!” Teal complained.
“Mine, too,” Robin said.
“Walk with them closed half the time,” I advised. M'Lady Two was pulling farther and farther away. “Come on, we can't lose her out here.” I quickened my steps.
Teal kept complaining and struggling. Finally, out of disgust, she threw her crutch down and hobbled. Before long, she was putting weight on the ankle and enduring the pain just so she wouldn't be left too far behind. From the way the sun moved in the sky, I was sure we had already walked a good hour.
“Can't we rest for a while?” I called to M'Lady Two. She kept walking, not even turning her head.
“Why isn't she tired, too?” Robin asked. “I was going to drink some water, but I didn't want to do it until she stopped and did it.”
'That's a good idea," I said.
“I've already drunk some of mine,” Teal admitted.
“Don't drink any more,” I warned.
“Why not? We can't be going too much longer before we reach the van, can we?”
“Look out there,” I said. “Any sign of a van for miles and miles?”
Teal paused and panned the scene before us. The cacti stood like sentinels over the sand, rocks, and bushes. There wasn't a house or a road, or any sign of civilization, for as far as we could see in any direction. Heat seemed to be steaming up from the earth. Nothing moved that we could see. It was as if the whole world had come to a complete stop.
“Where are we?” Robin asked.
“What is this? Stop!” Teal screamed, the panic settling in her throat like a lump of coal and turning her scream into more of a desperate screech, but I was sure her voice didn't even reach M'Lady Two.
“Just keep going,” I advised.
At one point M'Lady Two was so far ahead, she disappeared over the top of a knoll. We all walked faster. I even broke into a run because I saw how we had lost too much distance and how long it would otherwise take to catch up to her. When I reached the top, I stopped and the other two caught up with me.
“What is it?” Teal asked. “Why are you stopping?”
Robin and I turned our heads and put our hands on our foreheads to shade our eyes. Sweat was running down my forehead, under the towel. I had to wipe it away to keep my eyes open.
“I don't understand,” Robin said.
“What?” Teal moaned. “What is it now?”
“I don't see her,” I said angrily. “Do you?”
“Huh?” Teal shaded her eyes and looked as well. “Where could she be?”
The knoll slanted down on our left. I thought she might have gone that way and then back around to the other side to lose us and frighten us a bit, so I walked quickly and than ran to the end and went around it. Robin followed.
We both stood there looking for her.
“Do you see her?”
“No,” I said.
“Maybe the other side or maybe . . .” Robin looked ahead. “Maybe she reached that hill before you had gotten to the top.”
“That's pretty far away, but I hope so,” I said. “She's not heading back from what I can see, although I'm not sure if that's back or not anymore,” I added, pointing.
“Well, the sun is going west and it was . . .”
“Directly overhead. I can't remember. Let's get going. She must be over that far hill just as you say.”
We started in that direction and Teal met us in the middle.
“Did you see her? Is that where she went?” she asked, nodding in front of us.
“We think so, but we're not sure.”
“This is crazy.”
“No. It's part of a plan, I'm sure,” I said. “They want us to be frightened, to suffer, to cry and to panic.”
“Well, I have news for them,” Teal said. “We are doing all that so they can stop it. Stop it!” she screamed.
“Keep walking,” Robin said. “You're just acting like an idiot.”
“I'm acting like an idiot? My feet are burning. These sneakers are too thin and the sand is so hot it's like walking over the top of a stove.”
“Maybe we can catch a bus over the next hill,” Robin told her.
“Funny. Boy, are you funny.”
“You're wasting your energy, both of you,” I chastised, and I walked harder and faster, leaving them a good twenty or thirty yards behind me, their bickering sounding like a dozen chipmunks. When I reached the far hill, I stood and looked around again, and again I saw no sign of M'Lady Two. Where could she possibly be? The cacti were too narrow for her to be hiding behind one and the bushes were too low, I thought. I would see her.
While I waited for Robin and Teal to catch up, I took my first drink of water. Then I sat on the sand, near some brush. One of Natani's thorny devil lizards peered out at me curiously. I watched it and was amazed at how still it could be. As soon as the other two came up, it pulled itself back into the darker areas of the brush.
“What?” Robin asked.
“She's gone,” I said.
“Gone?” Teal said.
“How can she be gone?” Robin wondered, and lowered herself to the ground. She saw I had taken a drink from my canteen and took out her own.
“It's like she just disappeared into thin air,” I said.
I stared at the vast stretch of desert sand and brush in all directions. Still, nothing large enough to be M'Lady Two moved. The heat wavered over the ground, making it all look unreal. Above us, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It seemed all sun, one gigantic ball of fire bearing down and over us.
I watched another lizard, a chuckwalla, burrow itself deeper into the sand and I nodded.
“What?” Robin asked, seeing a smile on my face. “What's so funny? We're lost in hell.”
“I think I know what she did. She had time to bury herself in the sand before we reached the top of that first big hill back there. In our panic and excitement, we might have walked right past her.”
“You're crazy,” Teal said. “She couldn't do that.”
“It wouldn't take all that long to do, and who would have expected it? We were looking out there, searching for the sight of someone walking.”
“I can't believe it,” Teal insisted.
“I can,” Robin said. “I think Phoebe's right.”
“Well . . . well, why would she?” Teal asked, the dread and the fear slipping into her voice.
<
br /> “She waited until we were far enough away and then she came out of the sand and probably walked back to where the van dropped us off,” I said, imagining what their plan might have been.
“You mean, they've left us out here?”
“See that, Teal,” Robin said, “when you're left to your own, you can think and reach conclusions.”
“Very funny. They wouldn't, couldn't do that. Why, look at this?” Teal said, waving her arms at the desert around us. “This is the desert.”
“You ran off into it before, didn't you?” Robin said.
“I didn't get half as far as we've already walked. I followed a road that just disappeared on me, but it wasn't like this. There was ...”
“What?”
“That road. I thought about going back to it. I just got too tired. This is different. This is really the desert.”
“You sure made it sound like you almost got away,” Robin reminded her. “What are you saying now, you went only a little ways from the ranch before you had to take a rest?”
Teal was silent.
“You probably didn't get half a mile away. How pathetic.”
“At least I tried,” she whined.
“Can't you two shut up?” I said.
“What do you really think is happening, Phoebe?” Robin asked.
“It all makes sense now ... Dr. Foreman ordering Natani to give us desert lessons, giving us these clothes . . . we're in another one of her tests, I suppose. If we survive, we'll be better for it. Something stupid like that.”
“Then she knows where we are?” Teal asked hopefully.
“In a very general way, maybe.”
“A general way? What if we die out here?”
“So, we tried to run away and we died,” Robin said. “Right?”
I nodded.
“Well, what should we do?” Teal practically screamed.
I stood up and brushed off my legs.
They both looked up at me.
“Yeah,” Robin said, “what should we do?”
“Survive.” I started to walk again.
“Wait,” Robin said, rising.
I paused and looked back. “What?”
“Why are we going in that direction? Shouldn't we try to get back to where we were?”
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight Page 25
