“Maybe,” I said.
“Not me,” Robin said. “They'd have to drag me screaming and clawing. That can't be on the agenda, can it?” She looked from Natani to me for some assurances, but all I could do was shake my head.
“Let's wait and see,” I said.
“Always cover your head in desert,” Natani continued, ignoring our conversation. “Shorts, less clothes, are not good. Sun can be like a knife. You already know,” he said, looking at Robin. “But I will teach you now how to make fire in the desert.”
“Fire in the desert? That's like bringing ice cubes to Eskimos,” Robin said, grimacing. “Why would anyone need a fire in the desert?”
“Fire is a way to signal, cook food, make water good. You know it can be very cold at night, too.”
Natani showed us how to use a stick with a piece of dried wood or the thick branch of a bush to generate enough friction. Once the smoke started, he bore down harder, then fed the area with some dried twigs,
constantly blowing on the tiny embers. They flamed up and he sat back.
“You try.” He gave both of us the means to work a friction fire. Robin and I got the smoke started, but both of us failed to get the flame going until Natani demonstrated again. Finally, we both got a flame. It felt like a major accomplishment.
“Isn't it easier to just carry a pack of matches?” Robin muttered.
Natani's eyes darkened, then brightened again when he looked at me. “Natani can't teach in one day what it takes a lifetime to learn, and what you learn here is good forever. Everywhere there are deserts, even in the middle of your cities.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Don't worry about it, Natani,” Robin said, nodding, “I'm not exactly going to need to know all this when I get out of here. I promise you, I won't even look at a desert on television.”
M'Lady Three poked her head into the doorway of Natani's hogan and we all turned when she asked, “Are you finished in here?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, that's too bad. Dr. Foreman wants to see them now.”
I looked at Natani. Something in his otherwise impossible to read face frightened me. He wasn't happy for us.
“Now,” M'Lady Three snapped.
We rose and emerged from the hogan to walk to the house.
“How was your lesson from the chief, girls? Think you could survive a day in the desert without your makeup?”
“You survived, didn't you?” I fired back at her.
“Are you saying if 1 did it, you could do it?”
“Maybe.”
She laughed.
“And then again, maybe you didn't survive,” I said.
She stopped smiling and reached out to grab my shoulder and turn me around to face her. “What's that supposed to mean?”
I didn't reply. She kept her eyes fixed on me, the fury so hot between us, Natani could make a fire with a stick he held up in front of our faces.
“Get moving/You haven't changed,” M'Lady Three muttered as we walked. “You haven't improved one bit despite your act. You might have fooled some people around here, Phoebe bird, but not me. Remember that.”
I wanted to turn around and just charge at her and scratch those hateful eyes out, but I kept walking.
To our surprise, Teal was alone in Dr. Foreman's office. She had a crutch and was seated on the sofa. She didn't look up at us but, instead, kept her eyes fixed on the floor. I thought she looked a little thinner and paler, but other than that, not much different.
“Teal!” Robin cried. “How are you? Where have you been?”
“Here,” she said quickly. “Where else?”
“Well, what happened?” Robin asked, sitting beside her.
“Nothing. Dr. Foreman determined that I had a sprained ankle and kept me in one of the rooms.”
“The room with the big bed and canopy?” I asked, slowly lowering myself to the sofa.
She looked at me with small eyes and nodded.
“Didn't she ask you how you sprained it?” Robin questioned.
“She already knew all about it,” Teal said.
“But. . .” Robin looked at me. “She never said anything about it to us. Things haven't changed much, right, Phoebe?”
“I don't know. Have things changed, Teal?” I asked, my eyes drilling into her. She shifted hers away quickly and shrugged.
“What . . .” Robin buttoned her lip as Dr. Foreman marched into the office and sat behind her desk. Suddenly, she looked more like a judge in a courtroom tome.
“Periodically,” she began, "I review the progress my newest girls are making and I send this report to the courts, to the families, so everyone will know what to expect and when to expect it.
“In some ways, many ways,” she continued, looking mainly at me, "you have made great strides in a positive direction. You have learned how to obey rules and you have become somewhat less self-centered.
"Now we are at what I like to call the first of many crossroads. How much faster and further you go in a positive direction will soon be understood, and after that, I will be able to evaluate you and make my report.
'To get right to the point today, the three of you know that I have been very disappointed in your behavior lately. I have waited to see which of you would come forward to tell me about it, which of you has grown in moral capacity to know enough to come to me and confess, to relieve yourself of the guilt you must be carrying.
“I can't tell you how disappointed I am, especially in one of you.” She again looked more at me than she looked at Robin or Teal. "I waited and waited and hoped, but, alas, I realize we have a way yet to go.
“So,” she said, leaning against the desk and folding her arms under her breasts, "let's begin.
“Teal has told me that it was Robin's idea to commit this stupid night foray to spy on your buddies, to
