"What will she give you when she finds out what you did?"
I
muttered.
"What did you say?" She stepped up to me again, her nose touching mine.
I
stepped back. "Well? Did you say something? Did you threaten something. Phoebe bird?"
"No."
"Very wise reply for
a
stupid girl. Get to work, all of you."
I looked at Robin, whose head was down the whole time. Mindy was muttering to herself and Gia was staring ahead, her eves so dark.
I took a deep breath and turned to go into my shell, chanting to myself.
From the confident way they acted. I was sure that the buddies had told Dr. Foreman what we had done, but they had given her selected information, of course, leaving out what they had been doing. To my surprise Dr. Foreman didn't ask Robin or me anything specific about it. Teal was kept in the infirmary and apparently not questioned either. Dr. Foreman didn't come charging out of the house, her eyes blazing with anger.
However, the silence made me more nervous.
It
was like the moments before a bomb would explode. Our days weren't any different. except Teal wasn't with us. One afternoon we saw Dr. Foreman leave in the van and
I
didn't see her return that day. She wasn't there at dinner either. What does all this mean? I wondered.
The next morning.
I
did see the van out front again, and later in the day Dr. Foreman sent M'Lady One to call Robin and me in from the garden work.
"This is it." Rabin said.
We hurried to her office, expecting now to hear her anger over our spying on the buddies. She was sitting at her desk, filling out some papers. When we entered, she looked up.
"Oh, Phoebe. Robin." she said in a friendly voice,
"I
want you girls to take some lessons from Natani."
"Lessons?"
I
asked. Was she going to make fun of his idea of the shell?
"Yes.
I
usually start the girls on these lessons earlier, but we've had so much orientation and setting up to do, it's just all taken a second seat.
I
find it more effective for Natani to work with no more than one or two at a time. He's expecting the two of you in his hogan after dinner tonight. You're excused from any other schoolwork for now I'll ask you to be polite and give him your full attention. We'll talk about it all afterward. That's all. You can return to the
gardening." She returned to her paperwork. "Oh." she added as we were leaving. "Don't discuss it with the others.
I
hate these petty jealousies that develop. They'll have their turn when it is their turn."
We left in a daze.
"I thought for sure we had bought it." Robin said as we walked down the steps. "What is this about, lessons from Natani? He gives us lessons in farming as it is. What else could he possibly teach us?"
"I'm not sure,"
I
said. The way she talked, it sounded like some sort of reward or privilege, but yet.
I
can't help being very suspicious."
"Oh, well. No homework. I'll take whatever little gifts I get here. That's for sure."
We returned to work and, as Dr. Foreman had ordered, said nothing about Natani and the lessons. All day
I
waited to see if Teal was being released.
I
listened when the buddies talked to each other, too, to see if they would mention her and anything that had been done to her, but it was as if she had never been here. Not a word about her was spoken.
Once again, she wasn't at dinner, and once again, neither Gia nor Mindy seemed to care or be interested. What did interest and surprise them was our not returning to the barn to
do
our schoolwork,
-
How come you're excused from
that?"
Mindy
asked
irritably,
"We have some other chore to attend to." I said.
"Ah." Mindy said. nodding. "You're finally being punished, aren't you?"
"We'll let you know,"
I
said.
Gia made her eyes small, studied me for a moment, then walked off silently.
Robin and
I
headed for Natani's hogan. When we got there, he had us sit on the floor. The rocks were one but he had animal skins in a small pile. Both of us eyed them timidly as we sat, especially the snakeskin.
"What are we here to learn?" Robin asked him.
"The
desert."
He
said
he
wanted
to begin first with the desert's poisonous creatures. He reached into his pile
and
plucked out the snakeskin, which was so long and real the two of us gasped and sat back when he held it up.
"Sidewinder," he announced as if he were introducing us to one of his pets, and moved his body to show us how it moved and from what it got its name.
In
the sand, it makes this shape." With a stick he drew parallel J-shaped marks. "Tells you it's been here.
If
the mark is very fresh, you take another path."
"I would take another path if it was months old." Robin muttered.
"Snakes come out at night. Sleep in burrows or under brush. They don't try to hurt you if you leave them be." he said.
-
That's
a
good lesson about most things in nature."
"I would have no trouble leaving it be."
I
said. Robin nodded in vivid agreement.
"Sometimes, foolish person blindly invades its safe place and it will strike." He held up his healing pouch. "Inside is rattlesnake weed." He dipped his hand in to take it out and show it to us. "If someone is bitten, cut the wound immediately, suck out poison, and squeeze juice of the plant into cut. Chew plant
and
swallow juice. Make you vomit."
"Ugh." Robin said. 'Do you have to tell it all in such detail?"
"Person who has been bitten is very sick, sweating. Bind the wound with plant after it is boiled.
It
will save the person's life maybe or keep him from being very, very sick."
"Why is he telling
us
all this now?" Robin muttered. squinting. "We should have learned it all the first day we arrived at this hellhole."
He put the pouch down and reached into the pile of skins to show us a lizard with brightly colored, beadlike scales an its back.
"Gila monster." he said, holding it up. "Poisonous bite." He shook his head. "Let it be
and
it let you be."
"It
will have no problems from me ever,"
I
said, inching back when he brought it closer.
He then showed us four other lizards, the chuckwalla, the desert night lizard, the thorny devil, and the armadillo lizard, just so we would know them and not be afraid of them. He held up another skin he called a blind snake and told us it was harmless.
"It doesn't look harmless to me." Robin muttered. "A snake's a snake."
Natani stared at her a moment. "Once the night lizard asked the rattlesnake why he ran from men and got so angry if they came too close. The rattlesnake replied. 'A man's a man.'"
"Very funny," Robin said. I smiled and she looked like she saw the point, too.
"Scorpions you know," Natani continued, but showed us dried scorpions anyway so we could tell the difference between the poisonous and
nonpoisonous, and then he held out a dead poisonous black widow. One creature
I
didn't anticipate was a centipede he said had venomous pincers and could give a painful bite.
"Always shake out clothes and blankets good when in the desert." he warned. "You can have a bad surprise putting on shirt with one of these inside."
One final creature was the velvet ant. Natani said the wingless females could inflict a painful sting and he called them "cow killers."
I
could see Robin was getting paler and paler. "All of these creatures are around us, some right under our noses?"
Natani nodded and she looked like she might heave any moment or maybe faint. She was
swallowing hard and shaking her head. "If
I
knew all that was here.
I
would have chosen a maximum security prison."
Why had Dr Foreman decided to have Natani do this now?
I
wondered. Was this our punishment? To be confronted by all these frightening creatures and insects so we would dream about them at night or tiptoe about this place? Was it meant to keep us confined and discourage us from wandering about the ranch? If so, it was working. Robin looked like she would roll herself up into a ball and stay that way, and my stomach was so tight and twisted inside.
I
thought
I
would donate my dinner soon to the ants and spiders and snakes.
Natani pushed all the skins and creatures aside and sat across from us.
"Traveling in the desert is harder during the day, but the poisonous creatures I show you come out only at night. Animals in desert know to burrow and sleep during day."
"Sounds like a peachy keen life," Robin said dryly. "What is all this?" She turned to me. "Are we going for a hike or something?"
"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 eves 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 vou?"
I
fired back at her. "Are you saying if
I
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'Ladv 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 eves 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 eves 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 eves 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 to me.
"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 selfcentered.
"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.