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
