Broken Wings 02 Midnight Flight (6 page)

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'Ladv 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 same 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 me. 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 shortsleeve 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
eves. 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 quizzical 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 ware 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 wideopen. 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.
MLady 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," Rabin 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 dawn. "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 cat. 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 dawn 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'Ladv 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 dawn 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
wandered 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?

3
Three New Squaws
.
Even 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 mid-afternoon 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?