She smiled at me as though I were a child.
"Well? Why else would they stay? What's here for them? Even if they enjoy torturing us, it's not enough. Don't they have boyfriends or want them?"
Gia was thoughtful for a moment. I could see that was something she had thought about. too.
She has ways we don't even know exist," she said. She has ways of changing your head. Don't try to understand the buddies, why they are like they are. I don't want to even think about it. I just think about..."
"About what. Gia?"
"Nothing," she said quickly. "I don't think about anything anymore."
"Why not?"
"Why not? It's like being in a prison cell with a window that looks out on the most beautiful place, a place you can't go to, but only see from behind bars. That's why. Do you understand me? Do you?" she shouted.
I just stared at her.
"You and your damn questions. Making us think," she said, making it sound as if I were responsible for all her pain. Before I could protest, she walked away quickly.
Finally, one night after dinner, we returned and Teal was there, lying on her cot, which now, like the rest of ours, had a mattress, a pillow, and a blanket. She was in what I called our school uniform, too, only her hair, her hair had been cut down to where she was nearly bald, her beautiful hair was gone. She lay there with her eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling and looking even more drained and in shock than Robin had when she had been released from the Ice Room,
"Teal!" I cried, and hurried to her side. "How are you? What did she do to you?"
The others watched and listened but remained behind me.
"Are you okay? What happened to you? Where have you been all this time? What happened to your hair?"
She didn't answer for so long. I thought she wasn't going to say anything, but then she turned her head slowly and looked at me with eves so cold and empty, they put a chill in my heart,
"My hair." she said. "escaped."
"What?"
"That's how we do it." She propped herself up on her elbows so she could look past me at the others. She looked like the idea was exciting to her. "We escape in pieces. Maybe my teeth will be next or my ears. Right. Gia? Mindy? That's how it's done, isn't it?"
Neither replied. They ignored her and went to their own bunks.
"What are you talking about? You're not making any sense. Did you get far? What did you do?"
She stared at them a moment longer, then turned to me, her eyes as angry and dark as Gia's. "I would have made it. I know I would have made it. I saw light in the distance, but I got stung by a scorpion."
"A scorpion!" I stepped back as if it were still there and could sting me as well.
"That's what they said. It made me pretty sick and it hurt so much. I thought I would die. My leg swelled up. All I did was stop to rest awhile and I guess I stopped right beside one, but you don't have to go out there to find them. They're here, too, you know." She looked around the barn as if that information made her happy. "You could get stung just as easily sleeping in this filthy barn."
I looked at Gia and Mindy. They continued to undress and get themselves ready for bed.
"That's not true, is it?" I asked.
"Of course it's true," Mindy replied.
''Gia?" I asked.
She paused and thought a moment before turning to me. "You know what a minefield is? How they put bombs in the ground to blow up enemy soldiers who might step on the wrong spot?"
"Yes. so?"
"Well, that's what it's like being here. You're always walking through a minefield. If it's not one thing, it's another. and Dr. Foreman doesn't do much to make it any safer for us either. In fact, she plants the mines."