Come Back (20 page)

The teachers stay on and classes are loosely maintained. The threat of arrest has kept Zuza and Dusana away for a few days, but the kids think Glenn’s returning means we’ve saved the day. They’re so excited, they put on a show for us in the lobby. The girls do a dance number, swinging their arms and ponytails. The boys do a rap number, with lyrics about their “Morava brothers” and their “magical child.” A few boys and girls eye each other, but there’s little typical teen mating behavior. They laugh and goof around in their dorky clothes like fifth-graders and keep asking parents to watch them do some trick or dance step. They’re playing, they’re happy. Such a simple thing, really. But, for us, a miracle.

We parents exchange glances with each other as we watch them. We feel as if we’ve been allowed entrance to someplace precious and rare. We’re also secretly heartbroken, because we’re afraid all of this is going to vanish overnight. And they have no idea.

Lupe’s going home. Glenn just came to us with a list of kids being pulled by their parents. Glenn stands as a rock as Lupe falls apart in her arms. We all cry with her. Everyone knows she’s not ready. Ricky will know she’s home within a week, and one of two things will happen—she’ll go back to him willingly, or she’ll go back by force.

Is this what the media wants? The government? A week ago, everything in my life was falling into place. My mom forgave me, I’d finally reached Level 3, I was really beginning to feel happy.

Now, I feel like my whole world is ending. They keep saying this will blow
over, that everything’s fine, but it’s not! Girls who’ve become like sisters to me are leaving, Glenn has to sneak out of her room just to see us for a few minutes, and we haven’t seen Miss Zuza in days. We aren’t just crying for Lupe, we’re crying for ourselves.

We call a press conference to counter the increasingly ridiculous news reports. Overnight, their little puppy Gizmo has become a vicious dog kept inside to menace the kids. The company tells us not to let the media inside. We’d ignore them, but we’re afraid they won’t take our own kids in their other schools if Morava closes.

Everyone agrees it’s best to let the kids make statements rather than be interviewed. They’re afraid of being hammered by journalists; they’ve already seen them in action. Before we go out, I realize it might have been a good idea to let the kids wear street clothes, a bit of makeup. Mia’s complaints about the food were justified—all the kids have the same pasty, pimply complexions. The girls haven’t had haircuts in months and it looks like it.

At the appointed time, we walk outside and we’re swarmed by media from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. We haven’t said a word, but already most of them are looking at the parents as if we’re child abusers. They’re annoyed that they can’t directly question the kids.

“They don’t trust you. You’ve lied about people they love. You’ve also trespassed and been generally uncivilized.”

“Hey!” A journalist yells from the side of the building. “Come see this beast!” Half of them rush over with their cameras to where the tracking dog’s yard is. Ify is a beautiful, sweet-natured German shepherd. He’s void of aggression by training and breeding and will bark only when he makes a find.

The poor thing cowers as they taunt him and poke a stick through the fence in a fruitless attempt to make him bark for cameras. A British reporter looks at me with complete disgust. Her colleagues are terrorizing a caged dog whose sole purpose is to save lives, and she’s looking askance at
me
?

With little exception, they taunt the kids almost as much as they did the dog and are downright contemptuous of the parents. Most of them simply refuse to believe what the kids are saying; they hardly let them speak. Despite being asked to simply let the kids make statements, they
grill them knowing that kids can’t help but answer. Many are rude and aggressive, even as tears stream down the kids’ faces. At one point the parents try to stop the journalists but the kids insist on talking to them in the hopes they’ll listen.

Our kids behave remarkably. These once angry, self-destructive drug addicts and delinquents are confident and polite, honest and respectful. This has elicited the very best in them.

I can’t believe these people call themselves professionals! Several of us came out to talk about Morava, but unless we’re discussing some minor flaw, like the food or the uniforms, they keep cutting us off. I listen to Sunny try to stammer out her story.

“The food’s not the greatest but—”

“Do they withhold food as punishment?”

“No, I never said—”

“But you’re not satisfied with your diet, right? Do they lock you in rooms by yourself? Why aren’t you allowed outside? Have you ever been tied up?”

This is what they focus on after Sunny told them how long she’s been clean for, how she no longer has the desire to self-mutilate, how amazing Glenn is? Why aren’t they listening to us? It’s humiliating.

I’m shaking by the time Miss Olga ushers us back inside. This could have been the difference between Morava staying open or not, but they already have their minds made up, their stories written.

Ruza knows how upsetting this has all been. She’s waiting for us with our favorite meal, pancakes, and is doling out extra jelly and sugar. We jump at the sound of a dropped fork. It’s Miss Olga, she’s crying.

“Don’t cry, Miss Olga!” we chorus. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“Of course not!” she cries, opening her arms to let in fourteen panicked girls. “I’m here still, girls, I’m always here.”

I don’t know what we’d do if she left. Over the past few months we’ve become as close with her as we are with Miss Zuza. It’s horrifying that the very people who helped change my life might be going to jail for it, to see the people who gave us strength and support break down from exhaustion and fear.

“They’re shutting Morava down for good.”

Glenn’s called us into her room. “They have no evidence, the kids all admitted lying. But after all this media, the state police will never admit
publicly they were wrong. They’re charging us with cruelty and abuse anyway. Karel told me flat out he’ll dig till he finds something to hang it on.”

She starts to cry. “They’re charging Zuza and Peter, too.”

Karel’s on a real roll. Because by the end of the day we’re told he’s going to try to charge
us
, too, the parents. For violating a law they dug up that makes it illegal to leave our kids in their country against their will, something the owners never informed parents of.

It also turns out that it’s illegal for children under the age of eighteen to be isolated for any reason here. And OP is considered isolation, even though it’s supervised. Something else the owners either didn’t know or never told Glenn. The law isn’t hard to understand in theory; for a former communist satellite, “time out” often meant you never came home again.

Now, they have their grounds.

We collect the kids in the cafeteria to tell them. There’s a sharp, collective yell of disbelief, followed by a wall of crying and boys shouting angry threats. Little Charles sits in a pile crying, barely able to be his only support. The wailing in the room comes in waves I can actually feel in my body.

Glenn and Steve don’t hide their grief from the kids who crowd around them. They’ve devoted their lives to creating this haven for them, and they’re losing it, and them, all at once.

Mia hasn’t cried in my lap in years, and it’s only a brief privilege. She stops quickly, wipes her eyes on her sweatshirt, then joins the other girls trying to comfort each other.

Some calm is restored when they stand up one at a time to express their feelings. One boy brings his guitar and sings for the kids; it is a tonic. The kids begin filing out quietly in buddy teams to begin gathering their belongings from around the facility. They don’t get far.

Two police officers enter the school and arrest Steve right in front of their eyes.

Morava’s closing. On some level, I sensed this coming, but hearing the words is devastating. The next few minutes unfold in slow motion. Sunny’s wailing, Katrina’s pacing back and forth, dazed, the normally composed Roxanne can’t stop crying.

What’s going to happen to us? There’s not a day that’s passed that I haven’t thought about home, but now it’s a possibility, I’m terrified. I’ve become so used
to the sheltered world of Morava, I haven’t been around “normal” teenagers in so long, I wonder how long it’ll be before I’m strung out in the back of a van. I’m not ready.

And does this mean the staff are definitely going to jail, Glenn, Zuza, Olga? I feel sick, literally sick. In one week, the authorities have managed to destroy everything we’ve come to call normal and take from us the only people we trust enough to help us. Why?

Glenn takes a few spare moments to talk to me about Mia.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am for what you’ve done with Mia. She’s a different girl, Glenn.”

“No, she’s not, Claire, not yet. Mia’s come a long way, but she’s got a long way to go. She’s built up years of pain and confusion and anger about her father. What you’re seeing is a new awareness. But it takes a long time for knowledge to be internalized to where it changes behavior. She needs enough time in a controlled environment to get strong in the person she’s becoming, so it can survive outside in the world.”

“I’m worried about what’s happening now, how it’s going to affect her progress.”

“Knowing Mia, she’ll shut down for a while, I think a lot of the kids will. This has been such a shock.” She blinks back tears, unable to finish. I sit beside her and put my arms around her.

Mia and the kids will go on to other facilities. Glenn has no idea where she and her husband will go. If the police here let them go anywhere.

We’ve got three days to shut down an entire school and get forty kids ticketed, packed, and escorted out of the country to several different locations without having any runaways. What little sleep we’ve gotten in the last five days will have to last us. Roger stays inside, working nonstop, too, boxing up textbooks, doing whatever he can.

Against police orders, Peter, Zuza, Olga, and Dusana return to spend the last few days with the kids, providing much needed stability for them. And no little love. Peter and Zuza’s tireless devotion to the kids, in spite of their bitterness at the baseless charges against them, is remarkable and heartbreaking. This wasn’t just a job for them or the others.

Glenn ignores the order to stay in her room to be with the kids and to help assign them to new facilities. The girls interrupt their frantic packing
to be with her as much as possible. Seeing her interact with the kids has made me realize how intimidated we are by our teens. They love her for what we don’t give them anymore, individually as parents or collectively as a society. She doesn’t care if they like her, and they love her. She’s not afraid to discipline them, and they respect her. Even in the midst of chaos, I watched her hold them accountable for every little action, and it created not resentment, but trust.

Mia told me that when she came back from the police station, she went straight to Glenn to tell her she smoked, and that she never would have done that with me.

“Because Glenn simply held me accountable, consequented me, asked what my new declaration was, and had faith that I meant it.”

This faith, I think, is the gift Glenn leaves these kids with. Her trust in them has created a space where they can begin to trust themselves.

Professional escorts work two adults per one teen. The four parents left will be one sleep-deprived adult per three kids, many high run risks. One is Mia, though I don’t tell her this. Glenn and I agree the risk is mild, but I’m still a nervous wreck.

The biggest run risk is David. I ask him if, as one of the eldest and most mature, he’ll help me look after my group. He shrugs a nonchalant agreement, but I can see he’s pleased. Everyone, including Glenn and Steve, are sure he’ll run anyway.

Not only will David not run, he will not let me carry a single bag nor open a single door through three airports. Even his posture will change—he’ll stand erect and dignified, an example not only to the kids but to every man we’ll pass.

His composure will be all the more remarkable given the way he and the others will be gawked at in every airport—eleven wide-eyed, huddled American teens wearing identical jean sweatpants and bright red shirts. The boys in white socks, sandals, and crew-cuts, the girls in shocking pink fur slippers and straggly hair.

At the Prague airport, they’ll be recognized as the poor, tortured kids on the news and us as their lousy, irresponsible parents. The last image we will leave them with will probably confirm the accusations. Because one of the parents will pull a pair of scissors from I don’t know where and proceed to cut the girls’ hair. Right in the middle of the airport. The girls
will giggle and blush as hair piles up at their feet. I’ll tactfully suggest doing it in the bathroom as I scoop up handfuls and carry it to the trash.

“There isn’t time, the planes are about to leave and the girls look terrible,” she insists. “Besides, after what this country did to these kids, let them clean it up!”

I stand with my mother in front of Morava, just as we did six months ago when she dropped me off. I remember seeing this building with such a sense of dread and fury it’s hard to reconcile that with the feeling inside me now.

Morava now stands only as a shell. It’s empty of boys and girls walking in lines, of death-defying soccer tournaments, of dancing butterflies and ballerinas, of pseudo-German-speaking American teens trying to figure out their past and future selves.

Morava’s essence is now carried inside sixty teenagers who call themselves a family, who are all painfully aware that a chapter of our life is ending. It’s a chapter that is an indescribable mix of a Utopian environment and pure hell. We’ve all despised Morava, we’ve all loved it, we’ve all been thankful for it, but above all we’ve all loved each other. We’ve seen sides of people that they rarely show and grown together in ways that outsiders will likely never understand.