Hayley inched closer. “When I was in Jamaica, I broke out. I waited until the night guard fell asleep and then I broke through the window. But I had no food, no water, no shoes, no money. I was a white girl with red hair running around on the streets of Jamaica. They caught me within two hours. The supervisor told me I would be in OP for three days.” Her eyes were flat. “I was in there for a month straight. So if you run, Cassie, you’d better not come back.”
twenty-three
June 2
“Hiya! Hiya!” Cassie shouted, waving her arms, running with the other girls toward the goats that had gathered on the field where they played soccer. Twice a week, the Respect Family was allowed outside to play soccer. Really outside—outside the compound walls. Those who had been given consequences stayed behind, assigned to write essays or do worksheets. Just being forced to stay inside was punishment enough. Watching the goats trot away, bleating, ears flicking up and down, Cassie had the uncomfortable feeling that she had probably eaten one of their brothers or sisters the day before.
The Respect and Triumph Families took their positions in the large dirt field littered with rocks. Even though she had only played it a few times before coming to Mexico, Cassie now loved soccer. Outside the walls, she felt free. There were no housemothers, just four guards who did nothing but watch while two families squared off.
Cassie technically played forward, but no one really stayed in their positions. The game started, and in a few seconds it was just a mad scramble for the ball. Like most of the other girls, she played in her bare feet. Cassie might never have learned how to properly kick a soccer ball, but at Peaceful Cove she had become an expert at running people over. All her anger, fear, and frustration found an outlet in scoring points, sprinting up and down the field, and bulldozing anyone who stood in her way.
A hotshot girl from the Triumph Family who used to play on her high school team broke free and started down the field. Cassie managed to dart in front of her. She tried to kick the ball, but instead she kicked the girl. The other girl went down, grabbing her knee. For a second Cassie had the ball to herself and she began to dribble it up the field. Someone grabbed her ponytail, jerked her head back, and threw her to the ground.
PE was the only time of the day it didn’t matter what color shorts you wore, it didn’t matter that you didn’t deserve to be here, it didn’t matter if your parents didn’t love you, it didn’t matter that you might not go home again for years. All that mattered was getting the dusty black-and-white ball into the goal. The girls fought their way through soccer games as if they were fighting for their lives.
Cassie limped off the field. A few minutes later, Hayley joined her, favoring her right knee, although Cassie was pretty sure she was faking.
“I wish there was a way we could take off now, when we’re already outside the walls,” Cassie whispered to Hayley. She leaned forward to rub the already darkening bruise on her thigh that was the exact same size as another girl’s foot.
The guards had a bet riding on this game and were more involved in watching what was happening on the field than what was going on off it.
Hayley shrugged. “You know how fast they would be on us? We’d be a year’s salary apiece running around in flip-flops. We wouldn’t get more than a hundred yards.” She turned to look at the guards, then slipped a piece of paper folded impossibly small from her bra. “Still want to know how to use that compass ring on your watch?” She pressed it into Cassie’s hand.
Without unfolding it or even looking at it, Cassie tucked it into her own bra. “Where did you get it?”
Hayley’s grin was proud. “You know that new nurse, the one who looks up stuff on the Internet all the time because she never really graduated from nursing school? I told her I was feeling weak and dizzy, and she let me lie down for a while. As soon as she went to the bathroom, I got on the Timex website. I had the instructions printed out before she got back.”
“You shouldn’t have taken that chance! She could have sent you to OP for weeks!”
Hayley shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Just promise me that you’ll tell everyone about this place when you leave.”
“When I leave?” Panic surged through Cassie. “But you said you would go with me. I need you!”
Hayley wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Two people will be twice as easy to find.”
“But the way I figure it, you need two people to get home! Two people to make sure we’re going the right direction, to help each other climb up those hills, to take turns so one can watch while the other sleeps.” Cassie felt desperate. She wouldn’t—maybe even couldn’t—do it alone. “It’s like swimming. You know how they say you should never swim without a buddy?”
Hayley still didn’t answer.
Cassie put her hand on Hayley’s freckled arm. “Please say you’ll do it with me. I’m too scared to do it on my own.”
Hayley heaved a sigh. “Look, I’m bad luck. And I would just slow you down. Look how fast you can run across that field. I get twenty feet and I’m panting. All that smoking probably screwed up my lungs.” Her gaze finally connected with Cassie’s pleading eyes. “Come on, I got you the directions for the watch, didn’t I?”
Cassie gave a short shake of her head. “Please. I can’t do it without you. I need you. Please?” She hadn’t meant to, but her voice broke in the middle of the word.
After what seemed an eternity, Hayley nodded. “All right. I’ll come with you. But you’ll have to figure out how. I’ve thought about it and thought about it, and I can’t see any way of getting out.”
twenty-four
June 3
When the Respect Family filed into the courtyard on their way to head count the next afternoon, they saw two men holding a tall blond girl between them. Cassie flinched. It was Marty and JJ. The two men looked at her without recognition, just one of three dozen girls all dressed the same. The girl they held looked other-worldly to Cassie. Her clothes were so clean! She wore a pink T-shirt, cutoff shorts, two string anklets, and white, silver-striped Adidas. Her shirt stopped short of her belly and announced “How Hot Am I?” Even though you could tell by her face that she was exhausted, she had the most erect posture Cassie had ever seen.
Tears had left shiny tracks down the girl’s face. As Cassie thought about what the girl would have to undergo next, she felt her stomach clench.
After dinner, they headed back up to their room for a feedback meeting. The girls from the Respect Family sat in a circle on the floor, legs tucked to one side, while Hector stood outside the open door, laboriously writing up his shift-change report. For a few minutes it was possible to hold hushed conversations before Mother Nadine came into the room. Then they would have the “opportunity” to stand up and “share,” or offer “feedback.”
Hayley had started to whisper something to Cassie when the guard stalked into the room. “Who is talking?” Hector asked in heavily accented English. “Who?”
They sat silently, as still as trapped animals. His eyes scanned the room, moving slowly from face to face, searching for a hint of guilt. Everyone suddenly became interested with things on the floor or the backs of their hands, avoiding all eye contact. He only left when Mother Nadine came in.
Cassie hated feedback nearly as much as OP. OP was about your body; feedback was about your mind.
Stephanie was the first to her feet. She had been at Peaceful Cove for over a year. She would have been vaguely pretty—with blond hair, blue eyes, and a heart-shaped face—if she hadn’t had angry red zits all over her cheeks and nose. She moved as if she wished she were invisible—head down, shoulders curled over. As a Level Four, she was allowed to look people in the eyes, but she acted as if she were still a Level One.
“I’m really scared.” Her voice was high-pitched and babyish. “I’m scared I’m getting anorexia again. It’s not so much not eating—even if it’s easy not to eat much here—it’s more just the way it feels. I hate myself. I feel so disgusting.” She made a fist and hit herself, hard, on the thigh. Cassie, who was sitting next to her, could see the red mark her fist had left. “I feel so insecure. I didn’t think it was going to come back. And now I don’t know what to do. My parents had to hospitalize me in seventh grade because I only weighed seventy-five pounds. I felt the same way then as I do now, like I’m always going to be alone. I try to pretend that everything is okay—but I know that’s how I’m going to end up.” Tears were running down her face, and she gulped air, the words almost random. “Like, if I get a Cat. Two, I feel like I’m letting everyone down.”
Cassie wanted nothing more than to give Stephanie a hug, to say “shush” over and over until she quieted. The way Cassie’s mom used to do. Her mom would hold her until Cassie was able to find a quiet place inside herself, and build from that. But that wasn’t how feedback worked.
Finally, Stephanie sat down. Hands went up for feedback. Mother Nadine, who had been looking out the window, turned and pointed at Rebecca.
Rebecca glared at Stephanie. “No one else is thinking about you. Why do you think anyone notices you?”
Mother Nadine nodded and pointed at another girl, Jamie.
“Don’t you get it? The purpose of being here, and getting consequences, is to teach you how to pick yourself up. If you don’t mess up, you go home.” Jamie sounded bored, like a waitress rattling off the lunch specials. It was clear that she’d said this a million times.
“Have you ever thought that maybe you
are
too fat?” This from Samantha, whose two years at Peaceful Cove had whittled her down to about a size zero. But Stephanie was even skinnier, too thin, in Cassie’s opinion.
Cassie couldn’t stand it anymore. Even though Mother Nadine hadn’t pointed at her, she said, “You’re not too fat. You’re just sad at having to be here. And since being here is out of your control, you control the one thing you can—how much you eat.”
Mother Nadine pointed at Cassie. “Sit down. I didn’t call on you for feedback. That’s a Cat. One offense. You’ll have to do ten—no, fifteen—worksheets tomorrow during PE. And Stephanie will have to do them, too. Because Jamie’s right, Stephanie. The only way things will work for you
is
to work the program.”
Mother Nadine turned her attention back to Cassie. It was clearly her turn to get picked on. “Right, Cassie, I want to hear something private, right now. Or do you want to go to OP?”
As fast as she could, Cassie went through an inventory in her head. What would hurt the least to say? She had already learned that if you told real secrets, they would be used against you later. Last week a girl had said she was afraid her boyfriend wouldn’t wait for her, and a few days later Mother Nadine had her up in front of the group and was saying, “You don’t think he’s waiting, do you? He’s laughing at you behind your back. How many of your friends do you think he’s sleeping with right now?”
“I think my butt’s too big,” Cassie started.
Mother Nadine cut her off. “I’m not listening to that. That’s not deep. You’ve got to work the program, only you’re not.” She opened the door into the hall and leaned out. “Guard! I need a guard to take someone to OP.” She gave Cassie a smile over her shoulder. And the smile said that Cassie had until the guard got in the room to give Mother Nadine something better.
Like a rat trapped in a maze, Cassie frantically tried to think of a way out. Every idea seemed a dead end. Hector appeared in the doorway. “My stepfather looks at me too long if he sees me coming out of the bathroom after a shower,” she blurted out. It was a lie, but one that she could not get in trouble over.
There was a long silence while Mother Nadine digested this. Finally, she said, “It’s all right, Hector,” and he went away.
Cassie’s feeling of relief was short-lived. Mother Nadine turned back to her with a smile.
“So, what are you wearing when you come out of the bathroom?”
“A towel.” Mother Nadine raised an eyebrow. Cassie went on. “It’s a big towel and it’s my personal bathroom—it’s right next door to my room.”
“So are you trying to cause trouble? Do you think you’re like some cliché out of a bad movie, the teenage girl running around in nothing but a towel? You do that just because you
want
him to look at you, isn’t that right?”
“No, I don’t,” Cassie said, stung. “I try not to take a shower when he’s even around, but sometimes he just is.”
“You think you’re like that girl Lolita,” Heather said.
Rebecca chimed in, “You’ve got a really bad attitude—and you don’t have the body you think you do.”
“Listen up, girls!” Mother Nadine clapped her hands. “There’s an important lesson here. If you dress and act provocatively, if you put yourself at risk—then you get taken advantage of. No always means no—but you’ve got to look at how you market yourself.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. And so it went, the girls all piling on, until somehow, mysteriously, Mother Nadine judged it had been enough and went on to the next poor victim.
Dinner was a bun and cheese, one of Cassie’s favorite meals. She nibbled on it slowly, saving every bite, while she listened to the last audiotape:
Lessons in Obtaining Serenity Through Effective Problem Solving.
The dinner tape was always the longest and hardest to listen to. It went on forever, repeating its stilted and ungrammatical lessons. Cassie was tired and she just wanted to finish eating and go to bed.
Finally, the tape was over and they walked single file back into the classrooms for reflections. There, they wrote down what they had memorized from the tapes they had heard and watched that day and turned the papers in to the guard. He would give them to Martha in the morning. She would review Cassie’s work and write down in her book, “Student is making significant progress.”
During reflections you could also write to your parents. You could even write the truth, if you wanted. But because your parents had already been given the parent handbook and warned that you would lie, it was hard to think of what to write.