None of us replied. We all stared at her again.
Then Teal leaned forward, holding her head with that superior air as only she could and looked Alex in the face. “Your understandings are somewhat misdirected,” she said in perfect, teacherlike tones.
Alex lost her smile. “Then help me understand correctly.”
Teal looked at us. “Shall we help her, girls?”
“Look, Mrs. . . . Alex, whatever,” Robin said. “Y'all been given a lot of hogwash it seems. We didn't have any real classes. She threw books and assignments at us and we were left on our own to do them, and if we failed, she gave us demerits, and if we got too many demerits, we lost privileges, and if we got even more demerits, we were sent to the Ice Room.”
“Ice Room?”
The two men in suits closed Gia's notebook and turned to listen to us.
Neither Robin nor I was anxious to describe the Ice Room. In fact, Robin just wouldn't say much at all. I explained how I had revealed my fear of rats and how that had been used to torture me into obedience.
“Virtual reality,” one of the men in suits said. He nodded at the other. “Pretty sophisticated equipment. Look into that as they sift through the ruins. See what you can find.”
The man nodded and left the barracks.
“Tell me about this desert trip,” Alex asked.
Robin did describe that. When she reached the point when Teal got bitten, Teal started to cry silently. It was almost as if she didn't know she was crying. She sat there staring and the tears started to emerge from under her lids and trickle down her cheeks.
“I'm sorry, girls. I don't want to force you to relive painful experiences,” Alex said, “but we're just trying to understand how all this came about.”
“Did you help this Gia with the gasoline?” Lieutenant Rowling demanded, raising his voice with impatience and stepping closer to us.
“Gasoline?” Robin responded.
“No.” I looked at Alex. “What did she do exactly? Please tell us already.”
“This is ridiculous,” Lieutenant Rowling complained. “This girl, Gia, went out and did all this and you three are sitting there and telling us you knew nothing about it. Is that it?”
“Y'all don't have to believe it, but that's true,” Robin told him, her eyes just as fiery.
The stronger my friend was, the prouder I was of her, and the stronger I felt myself become.
“Gia was smarter than any of us,” I said. “She helped us all get through the schoolwork. Whatever she came up with to do, she didn't need any of us to help her do it or think it up. What did she do?” I repeated with more firmness.
“It looks like she poured gasoline strategically around the hacienda so that the fire and the flames would entrap the inhabitants. She poured it on the roof, around windows, everywhere. The lieutenant believes she might have spread this gasoline over a significant period of time and not have just come up with the idea and done it all at once. That's why he and some others are so suspicious about no one else noticing anything,” Alex explained calmly.
“If she was carrying that much gasoline to that house, she would be marching back and forth a number of times from the barn where the tractor was housed,” Lieutenant Rowling continued. “Someone would have to see her doing it and ask what she was doing. She would smell from gasoline, too.”
“We all smelled from one thing or another around here,” Teal said. “You ever clean out a pigpen?” She wiped away a tear.
“Maybe there was some gasoline closer to the house,” I suggested. “Besides being in the barn with the tractor.”
Teal looked at me. “That big tin drum,” she said.
“What drum?” Lieutenant Rowling asked.
“There was a big drum behind the house.” I then described how we had spied on the buddies. Confessing about something so innocent compared with what had just happened here and what had been done to us over time didn't seem risky. I told how we had gotten the idea from Gia in the first place.
“So she knew the drum was there,” Robin said.
“I don't think there was anything in it then. I didn't smell any gasoline,” Robin said, “and it fell over, remember? We would have seen gasoline spill out.”
“It just wasn't in it then,” I said.
Robin shrugged.
“She might have been sneaking gasoline from time to time and spilling it into the drum until she thought she had enough,” Teal suggested.
“I guess that makes sense. That way she wouldn't have to be running back and forth with pails all day and night to spill it all around the house,” Robin added. “I guess she did have it all well planned out.”
Her look of appreciation for Gia's ingenuity only made Lieutenant Rowling more enraged. “And you are sitting there and telling us you didn't help her and you didn't know anything about it?”
“See that?” Teal said, looking at me. “And you said he wouldn't be able to figure it out.”
If the top of Lieutenant Rowling's head hadn't been securely attached to the rest of his skull, it would surely have blown off from the explosion of anger inside his brain.
“Girls, please,” Alex said. “I'm trying to get this all over with quickly for you and get you out of here.”
“I guess they did belong here,” Lieutenant Rowling said. “I guess no matter what was done to them, it wasn't enough to change them.”
“Oh, we're changed, sir,” I said. “We're changed. We used to be nice people.”
Robin laughed and Teal smiled widely.
“I'm sorry,” I said to Alex, “but we're tired and we have seen terrible things and terrible things have been done to us, whether we deserved them or not.” I glared up at the policeman. “Won't you please tell us whathappened to Gia? What happened to Dr. Foreman? Was she in the house?”
“Five people were killed. Figure it out,” Lieutenant Rowling snapped. “You're smart enough to add.”
“Please, Lieutenant. You
