Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight, Andrews, C. [classic books for 10 year olds .TXT] 📗

“I had a worse reaction obviously. Maybe it was a bigger spider or a more poisonous one or something, and don't forget I had been out in the desert a long, long time walking. I was two miles past total exhaustion and my feet were sore and I was very dehydrated. I should have been sent to a hospital, not kept here,” Teal whined loud enough for someone outside the dining room to hear.

“The way we're being treated, we'll all end up in a hospital soon,” Robin offered.

“Exactly.” Teal nodded and turned to Gia. “Maybe that's where Posy is. In a hospital.”

Gia looked up sharply and glanced at me. Then she dropped her fork so hard, she almost cracked her dish. “Why don't you all shut up? All this whining and moaning, day in and day out. That's what she wants you to do. I'll tell you who's going to end up in a hospital here, me. I'm going to get sick as hell listening to all this groaning and crying.”

“Is that right?” Teal retorted, her eyes filling with indignation. “You never cry? You never moan or complain? You're little Miss Perfection.”

“Stop it!” I cried, slapping my hand on the table. “Gia's right. Just stop it. Everyone just shut up.”

Teal folded her arms under her breasts and turned to me.

“Please,” I added.

The rage drained out of her face. She looked at Mindy, Robin, and Gia and went back to her food.

We ate in funereal silence, all of us staring out as if our eyes had been turned around and we were looking in at our own dark thoughts. I was sure we resembled inmates on death row contemplating their end.

Afterward, I returned to barracks alone and went to bed. The others marched in slowly when they werefinished with the kitchen chores. Teal announced that thanks to having to pick up my load, she was too tired to do any schoolwork. No one said anything different, even though the expectation was they would all receive a demerit for turning in the work late. Someone turned off the light before the buddies could.

The door opened and M'Lady Two looked in. “Tired girls?” She laughed. “I'll let everyone know you went to bed early. Maybe we'll get you up earlier.”

I heard the door close and then I heard Robin say, “And let them know you should drop dead, too.”

Teal laughed and Mindy giggled. Gia was quiet. Dr. Foreman's warnings about how volatile she could be returned. Was she planning some sort of revenge? Was it safe to fall asleep with her only a few feet away? I wanted to apologize, to explain, and to get her to see I had no choice, but I was afraid to do it. Instead, I lay awake for as long as I could. Finally, my eyelids refused to be open and sleep came sweeping over me like a cool breeze.

The way the morning began, I thought the silence that had fallen among us would continue all day. No one spoke. With little more than a grunt, everyone rose, dressed, washed, and went to the bathroom. Reciting the morning chant was the most words any of us uttered for hours, even at breakfast. While the others milked the cows, picked chicken eggs, fed the pigs, and did some weeding in the garden, I was assigned to feed and brush down all four horses, as well as clean out the stalls. I worked almost mindlessly, moving as if I were a robot or someone in a drugged stupor.

Once in a while, I would pause and think about Mama. Had she died in her sleep or did she get an attack and panic and die while they were trying to helpher? Was she sorry in the end? Did she think at all of me? Think of my daddy? I couldn't imagine anything more lonely than to die among strangers, to have no one around you who would shed tears over your passing, no one who was more than just professionally interested in what was happening to you. You would know that when it was over, they would shake their heads and most likely within the same hour, maybe the same minute, return to their normal daily lives. Some who witnessed your passing might not even remember to mention it to anyone afterward. You were, after all, just a statistic.

What did the doctor ask in that letter? What she should do with Mama's remains? How do you write such a question? Surely the doctor was thinking, we've got to get her out of here. She's one of our screwups. Come get her, sweep up this mess, remove it from our sight.

Did Mama deserve it? Was she so wicked that she was being punished?

Is that what was happening to all of us now? We were bad; we had all done illegal things, some of us worse than the others. Both Mindy and Gia were nearly responsible for killing another human being, and Teal and Robin were thieves. Should anyone feel sorry for us? Should we be upset at the cruelty of the buddies? Was Dr. Foreman right? Could she cure us of evil, turn us into good people? Should we resist? Should I blame myself for surrendering completely?

These questions circled in my brain like mayflies. The more I tried to swipe them away, the more they came. They were relentless. I had to stop working and hold on to something to keep myself from spinning and fainting. I caught my breath and started to brush down one of the horses; then I saw Gia in the doorway. She had a small garden spade in her hand. Withthe sunlight behind her, her face was in total darkness. She looked more like a ghost or a shadow coming to life as she slowly walked into the horse barn toward me.

I stepped to my right and took hold of the handle of the shovel we used to clean out the