Imprisoned (9 page)

The next morning when I woke up, my body ached. Between scrubbing all those bathrooms and the two-hour workout, my muscles screamed at me for using them when they weren’t used to it. I crawled out of bed, gathered my things, and made my way to the bathroom. Since I had showered the night before, I decided I wouldn’t take the time to shower this morning.

The bathroom was a beehive of activity—seven girls vying for mirrors, sinks and showers. My gaze swept the room and I noticed all the ways the girls were making a mess. After working so hard to clean yesterday, I couldn’t help myself, and spoke without thinking. “Would you guys mind not making such a mess?”

One of the girls laughed and my gaze met Beth’s. Oh, crap, I thought, recalling our confrontation in the gym the previous evening. Then I watched as she squirted some toothpaste onto the counter, took a tissue and scooped it up, then smeared it on the mirror.

“That’s for you, new girl. I want to make sure you have plenty to do when you clean up after us today.”

Fury spiked in my brain. How dare she treat me like her personal maid? But wasn’t that what I was? For all of the girls on this floor?

I had to use all of my self-control to keep from responding. Instead, I purposely ignored her challenge, then turned away and went about my business, hurrying through my tasks so I could get away from her.

When I got back to my room I saw the food journal sheets on my desk and remembered that I needed to fill them out. Still upset about what had happened with Beth, plus feeling achy and tired after working so hard the day before, I struggled to remember everything I’d eaten. I did the best I could and hoped it would be good enough, then folded the sheet of paper and put it in my pocket.

After Alyx and I turned in our food journals, we got our trays. Today’s food was a little better—fruit, eggs, a power bar, and no oatmeal. As I sat with my group I tried not to think about what Mrs. Reynolds had offered me. Then it suddenly occurred to me that everyone here was probably told the same thing. But then I wondered if everyone had been. After all, Mrs. Reynolds didn’t talk to Chad after the counseling session. Just me. Did they only make the offer to those who they thought would be likely to tattle?

I hated the idea that I came across that way, but at least it would make the people running this place less likely to suspect my true plans.

“You seem deep in thought,” Billy said. He sat across from me.

“What? Oh, I’m just tired.”

“What did Mrs. Reynolds want to talk to you about?” he asked as he took a bite of his cold cereal—some sort of brown flakes swimming in skim milk.

I felt all eyes turn my way. Did he really not know? Or was this a test?

“Mrs. Reynolds pulled you aside?” Piper asked. “What for?”

My heart pounded as my mind raced to come up with an answer. Obviously I couldn’t tell them the truth. What if one of them told me something juicy enough that it could get me released immediately? If they knew what she had said to me, they would never trust me. As much as I liked them, as soon as I got out of here, I would never see them again. “She just wanted to know how I was doing. You know, if I was having any problems.”

“Really? She cares?” Cassidy asked.

I laughed, maybe a little too loud. “I doubt it. But I guess that’s her job—to pretend to care.” I looked at the others and no one accused me of lying, so I went on. “Have you guys noticed how fake their smiles are? It’s like they get paid extra if they can pretend to like us.”

“I know,” Cassidy said. “It creeps me out.”

“Of course some of them don’t even try to pretend they like us,” Alyx said.

“The Gray Witch hit Morgan with a book yesterday,” Billy said.

“She did?” Piper said, her eyes wide. “What did you do?”

“You call her the Gray Witch?” I looked at Billy.

He nodded, his ever-present smirk on his face.

I looked at the others. “I was so tired and her class was so boring, I fell asleep and I guess she didn’t like it.”

“I’ve seen her do that before,” Cassidy said. “I think she enjoys it.”

“Well, I’d better get to work,” Alyx said.

“Yeah, you don’t want to keep Austin waiting,” Piper said, a knowing look on her face.

Alyx’s face turned red. I pictured Mr. Muscles and wondered what she saw in him. I had to admit he wasn’t ugly, but when I thought about how he had forced me to run on the treadmill for twenty minutes, all I saw was a horrible person who didn’t care about us “campers”.

“I’d better get going too,” I said, not wanting to be late.

When I got to the supply closet/office, Kyle was just leaving.

“Glad to see you made it on time today. There’s quite a mess in bathroom two. You might want to start there.”

Bathroom two? That was my bathroom. I pictured Beth purposely smearing toothpaste on the mirror and wondered what else she had done.

Kyle walked down the hall. “I need to go to one of the other floors, but I trust you can manage things here.”

“Yeah,” I called after him, then gathered my supplies onto the cart and wheeled it to bathroom two.

The smell hit me first, then I saw brown streaks on the walls.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I nearly gagged. I tried breathing through my mouth so I wouldn’t smell the horrible odor emanating from the room. I just knew this was Beth’s doing, but how could I prove it? And would anyone even care? After all, I was just a prisoner here. No one would care if I had to clean up someone else’s crap.

Rage boiled inside me at being so helpless. As far as I could tell, I had no rights here. No one cared about me. Well, my new group of friends seemed to care. They were my family now and suddenly I knew I could never tell Mrs. Reynolds anything that they said. Maybe that’s what had happened with the person who was banished from the group. I certainly didn’t want that to happen to me.

Swallowing my pride, I put on a pair of gloves, grabbed a squirt bottle of disinfectant and a roll of paper towels, and got to work.

When that bathroom was sparkling clean, I moved on to another one. Fortunately, no one who used the other bathrooms hated me so the cleaning wasn’t too bad. At eleven o’clock, when it was time for me to stop, I hadn’t gotten as much done as I had the day before and I was worried I wouldn’t get everything done that I needed to.

Even though I had some homework to do, I continued working, trying to get a little more done. At eleven twenty I heard someone walk into the bathroom where I was scrubbing the sinks.

“Looks great, Morgan,” Kyle said. “But you can stop now.”

Pleased that he had caught me doing more than I needed to, I said, “Bathroom two took longer to clean, so I thought I’d better work a little longer.”

He smiled, evidently impressed. “You’re a hard worker. I like that. But you don’t have to overdo it.” He paused. “We might have someone join our little crew tomorrow, so that will help.”

I set the sponge down, my feelings mixed. It would be great to have more help, but that meant someone was about to be dragged in here today and probably had no idea. Had Kyle known I was going to be arrested and brought in ahead of time? The idea bothered me immensely. “Great,” I said, trying to show enthusiasm I didn’t feel.

“I’ll take the cart back for you. I’m sure you have other things you need to get done. I’ll see you after lunch.”

“Okay, thanks.” I peeled off the gloves I’d been wearing and set them on the cart, then went to my room and sat on my bed. Even though I had homework from the day before, it wasn’t due until the next day, so instead, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling and felt sorry for myself. At lunch I sat with my new friends, glad to have them around. Without them I would feel so much more alone.

Using the plastic knife, I cut off a piece of my bunless veggie burger and stabbed it with my spork. The burger actually tasted pretty good. Almost as good as the veggie burger I’d had at the
Come On Inn
diner. Remembering the waitress who had seemed to disapprove of my choice to have the burger instead of the soup, I now understood her attitude. This whole society was so screwed up, believing everyone should be forced to be a certain size. And now I was basically in prison because I weighed more than what some random group of people had decided was acceptable.

“Well, I’d better get back to pulling weeds,” Billy said as he stood.

I looked at the clock and saw my time was rapidly ending. I finished eating, said good-bye to the others, then dropped off my tray and went back to the sixth floor to continue being the maid for my floor.

When I walked into the office I was on time but Kyle wasn’t there. I waved my card in front of the reader he had shown me to use for clocking in and out, then gathered my supplies and got to work.

Toward the end of my shift, as I vacuumed the hallway, I remembered that I wanted to see if I could find the stairwell—assuming there was one. I glanced at each door as I moved the vacuum back and forth, back and forth across the carpet, noting the number nailed to each door. When I reached the end of the hall farthest from the elevators, I noticed an unmarked door with a card reader next to it.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a camera mounted in the ceiling, and maneuvered the vacuum close to the door, using my body to hopefully block the camera’s view from seeing me reach out and press the bar that would open the door. Not surprisingly, it didn’t budge, confirming my suspicion that a keycard was needed to access the stairs.

I turned the vacuum around and continued moving across the carpet, discouragement washing over me that I would have no way to access the stairs.

At the end of my shift I went to the office to clock out and drop off the cart and saw Kyle sitting behind the desk.

“You’re doing a nice job, Morgan. I’m glad you’re on my crew.”

Does he have any clue how much I hate this job? “Thanks.” I hesitated. “You know, I was wondering if you would recommend me for the gardening job.”

His eyebrows went up. “Really? You don’t want to work for me?”

Work for you? This is slave labor. “It’s not that.” I smiled to show how much I loved working for him and doing this job. “It’s just that I miss being outdoors and I really love working in the dirt. You know, pulling weeds, planting flowers. Stuff like that.”

“Stuff like that, huh?”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t refused my request outright, which was a good sign.

“This always happens.”

“What?”

“As soon as I get a good worker, they want to leave.” He chuckled. “What it is about scrubbing bathrooms that does that to someone?”

“So you’ll put in the request?”

“There’s a waiting list, so chances aren’t good.” He paused. “Tell you what, check with me after breakfast tomorrow. I might have an answer by then.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Then he turned away from me and back to working.

I left the supply room/office and headed to my room, optimistic that my cleaning days were behind me. After stopping by the bathroom to freshen up, I got my backpack from my room and went to the classroom floor.

Today I had Social Studies and Science. Sometimes I actually found those subjects interesting and I hoped that would hold true here. As I approached the classroom today, I felt less intimidated than I had the day before. Today I had my books and had an idea of what to expect.

The classroom was filling up and I found a seat in the back of the room—although today I would make sure I stayed awake. There was no telling what the teacher in this room might do to a sleeping student.

A couple of minutes later a really good-looking man walked in. Tall, with thick blonde hair and a model’s face, I guessed he must be in his late-twenties.

Is he the teacher? Suddenly I really liked Social Studies.

But then Beth walked into the room. Now I hated Social Studies. Trying to pretend I hadn’t seen her, I busied myself getting out my notebook and pen, but she had apparently noticed me.

“Well, who do we have here?” She stood next to my desk and stared down at me.

I ignored her, which I hoped would 1) irritate her, and 2) get her to leave.

Only number one happened.

“Don’t you dare ignore me, new girl,” she said through clenched teeth.

My heart raced, but then I reminded myself that I was in the middle of a classroom. What could she do to me here? Of course, there was always later. Still, I felt my courage growing. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to meet hers. “What do you want, Beth?”

Briefly, she looked surprised that I had spoken to her, but she quickly recovered. “You’re in my seat.”

I looked at the desk, then turned to look at the seat back. “I don’t see your name on it.” Then I looked at her. “You do know how to write your name, don’t you?”

Her face flamed red and her eyes grew wide. She opened her mouth to speak, but the teacher interrupted her.

“Please find a seat, Beth.”

Nostrils flaring and eyes squinting, she glared at me and I began to wish I had just moved to a different seat. And in the other world I would have. But knowing I would be gone soon emboldened me to do things I wouldn’t normally do.

I hoped I wouldn’t regret it, but had a sinking feeling I might.

Beth sat in an empty seat and the teacher, whose name was Mr. Hughes, began.

First we all stood and said the pledge. Like the day before, I said the words even though it felt wrong.

As the teacher lectured I had a hard time paying attention. For one, his handsome face kept distracting me, but in the back of my mind I worried about Beth and what she was going to do to me for defying her. As soon as we were dismissed, I hurried and gathered my things and went to my next class, trying to avoid interacting with her. When I walked in to Science, which looked a lot like the Science classes I’d been in before—long tables with Bunsen burners and microscopes lined up in rows—I looked for a familiar face. I saw one face I recognized and went over to him. “Hi, Harley.” It was easy to remember his unusual name.

“Oh, hey. Mary, right?”

I smiled. “No, Morgan.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

“How’s it going?”