The Entitled

by Nancy Boyarsky

  Seven

  As soon as she arrived at the youth detention center and saw the other girls, Abigail’s sense of dread deepened. The inmates were unlike anyone she’d ever met. Except for the way they talked, they resembled characters in TV shows she’d watched about tough kids who lived in the poorest part of town. They’d have gangsta boyfriends and single mothers who were never home because they worked three jobs or were drug addicts.

  Many of these girls were dark-skinned minorities. Some spoke in their native languages—perhaps to keep the guards from understanding what they were saying. Others were white girls with pale skin, scraggly hair, and bad teeth. The way they looked at Abigail’s long blond hair and her outfit—wrinkled and messed up as it was—made her skin crawl.

  She was registered at the desk, then taken into an office for an interview with two women. One was old and wrinkly, with white hair. She wore a crisp olive-green uniform and an air of authority, as if she thought she was in charge of the whole universe. The other one was young, perhaps an inmate who was so goody-good they’d promoted her to the front office. She was wearing jeans and an ugly plaid blouse.

  The old lady made Abigail surrender her purse, watch, birthstone ring—a large opal surrounded by diamonds—as well as her diamond earrings. The assistant carefully put the jewelry in a manila envelope with a label that bore Abigail’s name. Beneath the name was a long number. The assistant put the envelope in a safe, and with the same care she’d handled the jewelry, closed the safe and spun the dial. The purse was placed in a plastic box with an identical label. The number on the label bothered Abigail, reminding her of a movie she’d seen at school about a Nazi prison camp where prisoners had numbers tattooed on their arms. Although she knew it was stupid, the memory of that movie made her even more fearful. She felt certain that whatever was going to happen to her here wasn’t going to be good.

  Once her property was taken away, a guard appeared—a tall, bulky woman with dark skin and cornrows. She wordlessly brought Abigail into a hallway with rooms on either side. The guard ushered her into one of the rooms. The door had a window in it, like a jail cell, and Abigail wondered if she was going to be locked in.

  The room was empty, but there were two bunk beds. With a sinking heart, she realized she’d be sharing this small space with three other girls. She’d never shared a room with anyone—not since she was six, living in the orphanage where she’d slept in a big room with ten or so other girls.

  The guard pointed to an upper bunk. Sheets and a blanket were folded on top.

  “You’re to make your bed. Once you’re done, I’ll come back and show you where the showers are.”

  “I already showered,” Abigail said.

  “It doesn’t matter. You follow our routine while you’re here, and group B—that’s you—showers before lunch.”

  The guard left and Abigail obediently climbed to the upper bunk the guard had pointed out. To her dismay the mattress was stained. Worse yet, it smelled of pee and was damp to the touch, meaning its last occupant had been a bed-wetter. She gulped back disgust and covered the offending mattress with the sheets and blanket. She decided she’d have to sleep on top of the bedding to escape the smell.

  As she was climbing down, the guard came back.

  “Follow me. I’ll show you where the showers are.”

  Abigail followed the woman to the end of the hall, where a doorway led to the showers. It was a one big open room—no stalls or private cubicles like at school.

  “Get a towel and undress.” She stopped and eyed the girl’s outfit. “No, someone will nick your things if you do that. Here, grab one of those towels and follow me.”

  They returned to the room with the bunk beds.

  “You can undress here,” the guard said. “Put your things in that cubby.” She pointed to some lockers against the rear wall.

  Three were closed, the fourth was standing open. In the lock was a key on a looped plastic band meant to be worn on a wrist.

  “After you put your clothes in, lock it, wrap the towel around you, and wait until you hear the bell announcing shower time.” The guard looked at her watch. “That will be in four minutes. Fifteen minutes after that, the lunch bell will ring, so hurry back after your shower to dress. Oh, and take the locker key with you when you go to shower.”

  Abigail did as she was told. At the ring of the bell, she went to the shower room. Some girls were already washing up, others were standing around talking. A group of them stopped chatting and watched Abigail as she took off her towel, hung it on a hook, and went to an empty spot under a shower head. When she turned on the water, she was shocked at how cold it was. She tried to adjust the temperature, but turning the handles didn’t make any difference. She turned around once under the chilly spray, then turned off the faucet. Freezing, she headed for the hook where she’d left her towel.

  A girl wrapped in a towel stepped forward. She was a head shorter than Abigail, but stocky and muscular. Abigail quaked inside.

  “How’d you get those?” The girl pointed at Abigail’s eye and stomach.

  “Someone beat me up.”

  “Tough luck,” the girl said. “But you know somethin’? That wasn’t much of a shower you took. You’re filthy. Go back and give yourself a good scrub. Wait! Where’s your soap?”

  Abigail held out her empty hands and gave a shrug. No one had given her soap.

  “Don’t have none? Then you gotta stand under the shower for ten minutes. Or they won’t let you in the dining room.”

  Abigail knew she was being hazed, but she was outnumbered. Even if she could take on Muscles without getting clobbered, eight of her followers had wandered over. Abigail went back and stood under the cold water until her teeth started chattering.

  The tough girl said, “Okay. That’ll do. Now let’s see your garms.”

  “Yeah,” said a skinny girl standing next to the tough one. “Maybe they aint good ‘nough for this place.”

  To Abigail’s distress, the whole group followed her to her room and watched while she unlocked the cabinet and pulled out her clothes.

  They were silent, looking at each other and back at her while she pulled on a pair of lace-trimmed silk underwear. She quickly put on the rest of her clothes, along with Nicole’s bright blue cardigan.

  “I’m Niamh, by the way,” the tough girl said. “And you are?”

  There was a moment’s silence while Abigail considered the name Niamh, which the girl had pronounced nee-of. Abigail had never heard it before.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Niamh said.

  “Ab-Abigail.”

  “Ab-Abigail,” Niamh repeated. “That’s right dorky. Must be American. I like your threads. Best keep an eye on yur gear, innit? Someone might nick it. This place is full of chavs. They don’t got stuff like that.”

  Abigail climbed up to her bunk. She watched the girls, who stood there staring at her. After a few minutes, they grew bored and drifted away, one by one.

  When the bell rang, Abigail didn’t have to be told it was lunch. Girls were all rushing in the same direction. She climbed down from the bunk and followed them into a big cafeteria that smelled of meatloaf and brown gravy, which was exactly what they were serving. She picked up a tray, got in line, and was served a plate with a small slice of meatloaf and scoop of mashed potatoes. A ladle full of brown gravy was poured over this. When some limp, lifeless broccoli was dumped on her plate, it floated. As she left the line, she was handed a small dish of what appeared to be apple pie but without the crust.

  She looked around for somewhere to sit, and spotting an empty chair, headed toward it. She stopped short when the toughie, Niamh, stepped into her path, along with a couple of her followers.

  “Hey, that’s mine, innit?” Niamh snatched the dessert plate from Abigail’s tray.

  One of her friends took the entrée. “And this is mine.”

  Abigail returned to the line. When the women dishing out the meals saw her, they remembered she’d alr
eady been served.

  “That’s all you get. You know the rules. No seconds.” Abigail’s stomach clenched. Damn she was hungry, but she had no recourse but to go back to her room and try to hang on until dinner.

  When she drew even with the table of the girls who’d taken her food, she averted her eyes in hope of avoiding another encounter. But a foot was extended into her path. She tripped and fell to the floor. Now she was angry, too mad to think. She got up, grabbed the girl who’d tripped her, and pushed her to the floor. She climbed on top, about to raise her fist when she was pulled off. Two girls held her down while the others began kicking her. She yanked one arm free and held it over her face, screaming in pain as the kicks landed on her.

  All at once the kicking stopped. It must have been when the guards walked in because her assailants were already seated at their table, eating, as Abigail was helped to her feet. Her clothes were ripped, one sleeve of her blouse half-torn off, her skirt partially separated from the waistband. Nicole’s blue sweater was gone altogether. Abigail hurt all over.

  “All right, girls,” one of the guards said. “Who’s responsible for this?”

  The room was silent.

  The guard shook her head and murmured, “Hopeless. Let’s get her up to medical.”

  The nurse looked her over but didn’t find any cuts to disinfect and bandage.

  “Too bad you got yourself in trouble and ended up here. But you have to realize what’s happening is God’s will. He sends girls like you here to teach you a lesson.”

  Abigail felt her anger start to flare.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” she said, in a strangled voice.

  She had a powerful urge to lash out at the nurse and tell her what she thought of people who were always going on about God’s will. But she knew that would only get her in more trouble. Better to keep it bottled up.

  When the nurse was done looking Abigail over, she used the phone to summon a guard, whose nametag identified her as Mrs. Kinney. Only now did it occur to Abigail that all the people who worked here were female. This one was nicer than the others. She told Abigail to call her Gretchen and chatted amiably on their way back to the residential floor. Abigail told her what had happened in the cafeteria and that some girls had taken the food on her tray.

  The guard nodded. “I know those girls. They’re doing it because you’re new and they’re not used to people like you. I’ll see if I can get you something to eat, but first I have to take you to your room.” She led Abigail to a different wing of the building, unlocked a door and ushered the girl in. “Just a moment.”

  The guard disappeared briefly. When she came back, she handed Abigail a small bundle wrapped in brown paper.

  To Abigail’s relief, the guard locked the door when she left. For the first time since she’d arrived, she felt safe. Those girls wouldn’t be able to get at her. She sat on the bed—relieved to see it was a single—and unwrapped the bundle. It turned out to be a beige dress with snaps down the front. Underneath the dress was a pair of clear plastic flip flops. She sat for a long moment, taking in how ugly the dress was, before she got up, took off her ripped skirt and blouse, and pulled the dress over her head. At least it was clean.

  Her new room was smaller than the previous one, but better in that she didn’t have to share it. The mattress was clean, and there were clean sheets and a pillow on the bed. A TV was attached to an adjustable arm about a foot below the ceiling, and a remote had been placed on the bed next to the folded sheets and blanket.

  She made the bed and turned on the TV. The reception was so bad it was hard to figure out what was happening, the volume so low she could barely hear it. The remote wouldn’t adjust the volume or change channels. It’s only working function was turning the set on and off. Still the TV was a welcomed distraction.

  Aside from hurting all over, she felt weak and exhausted from her ordeal. She wondered if anyone would visit. Certainly not her parents. They wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. But she did hope Nicole and the solicitor would come.

  Abigail thought about the time when she was very young and living with Baba, her grandmother. The house was tiny and almost always freezing because Baba didn’t have money for coal or firewood. Abigail, her sister and brother all slept in a bed the size of the one in this room. She remembered the comfort of having their warm bodies next to her.

  When Baba lost her job and put them in the orphanage, Abigail—whose name was Alina then—slept by herself in a large dorm with other girls, most of them older than she was. After the lights were out, her sister Natalia would leave her bed and climb in next to Alina, hugging her to keep her warm. Natalia was eleven, five years older than Alina. Their brother, who was twelve at the time, had to stay in the boy’s dorm. They rarely saw him.

  Baba had to give them up because she couldn’t afford to feed them. For a while she visited weekly and assured them she’d soon find work and bring them home. After a few months, her visits stopped. Sunday after Sunday, Alina and her siblings waited to be called to the visitors room. Alina cried when visiting hours ended with no sign of Baba. They never did find out what happened to her.

  Her clearest memory was when the Fletchers showed up at the orphanage. One day the woman in charge had the children line up in the main reception room. Unlike the rest of the orphanage, it was warm. The heat came from a huge stone fireplace. The children were told that a rich American couple was coming to look them over and might even adopt one of them. Usually people only visited the other building, where the youngest children—mostly babies—were kept. The older children were feverish with excitement. They all dreamed of going to America—all except for Alina, her sister and brother. They didn’t want to be separated. The three of them tried holding onto each other, but the vaznitsya pulled them apart. Abigail surprised herself by remembering the word vaznitsya. Once she’d learned English, her Ukrainian was lost, except for a few random words like baba and babushka. Whatever vaznitsya meant, they used it to describe the old witch who was in charge. She arranged the children by height. Since Abigail’s brother and sister were older and taller, she put them farther down the line.

  What first struck Alina about the Americans was the way they were dressed. The woman had on a pretty blue coat with a fur collar, a matching fur hat, and shiny high-heeled boots. The man was wearing a heavy black overcoat with two rows of buttons, and a black fur hat with flaps that covered his ears. The most surprising thing was that their clothes all looked brand-new, as if they’d never been worn before.

  They stared at the row of children, then walked up and down the line, looking at each one. The whole time they were talking in a foreign language, perhaps commenting on the children’s appearance.

  At last they finished their inspection and returned to the front of the room. The woman said something to the vaznitsya and pointed at Alina. Alina looked behind her, hoping the American was pointing at someone else. When Alina realized she’d been chosen for adoption, she started crying and protesting. She couldn’t go to America and leave her brother and sister behind.

  The vaznitsya seemed to be explaining something to the couple in their foreign tongue. She took Alina by the hand and tried to her urge her forward. By now Alina had become hysterical. The woman squatted down to her level and looked her in the eye. In a low voice that sounded gentle but was full of malice, she said, “If you stop screaming, they’ll take you to their castle in America. You’ll have your own room, all the toys you want, and beautiful clothes. But if you keep this up, they’ll adopt someone else. We’ll lock you and your brother and sister in the basement, where we keep orphans who misbehave. We don’t waste food on bad children, so the basement is filled with the bones of those who starved to death. Think carefully. Do you want to do that to your brother and sister?”

  Alina stopped crying and went unprotestingly with the Fletchers. She had no way of knowing this was an empty threat. The orphanage could under-nourish the children and paddle them when they broke
rules. But because of earlier abuses, government inspectors limited the punishments that could be handed out.

  Abigail was jolted from her reverie by the sudden silence. The background noise of girls chatting and banging around in their rooms had dropped to a lull. She suspected the second group was at dinner now. Her stomach growled at the thought of food. Clearly they couldn’t let her go back to the cafeteria and face the same hazing she’d gotten earlier. Perhaps the guard had forgotten her and she wouldn’t get any dinner at all.

  She heard her door being unlocked. Gretchen, the same guard who’d brought her here, came in with a tray. She seemed in a terrible rush. Without a word she set the tray on a small table in the corner and left. There was no chair, so Abigail would have to eat sitting on her bed.

  She got up and lifted the metal cover from the plate. It held nasty-looking brown stew served over a mound of mashed potatoes. There was also a small cup of canned fruit salad, another of Jell-O, and a cup of tea. She tasted the tea, but it was cold and too bitter to drink. She put the cup down and brought the fruit salad and Jell-O over to her bed. When this was gone, she was still hungry but couldn’t bring herself to taste the glop on her dinner plate. She returned the empty containers to the tray, replaced the metal cover on the plate, and climbed into bed.

  Lying back, she tried to focus on the TV’s grainy picture. Then the horror of her situation flooded over her. Sami was dead—her dear Sami, who was always so sweet and put up with her temper. And the police really did seem to believe she was the one who’d killed him. They told Gemma they had proof, although she couldn’t imagine how this was possible.

  What would happen to her? She wanted to go home. She found herself thinking of her parents, how they’d feel if she ended up in prison. What a scandal that would cause among their circle of rich friends. The irony almost made her laugh. She realized she wouldn’t mind if they actually did come to see her in this terrible place.