by Sean Black
Mary stopped blinking. Here eyes grew wide. She stared at Ruth.
“So? What about you?”
Mary cleared her throat. “I’m here because I lack self discipline. Especially when it comes to looking after my body. Broken Ridge is helping me. A lot!”
Ruth was suddenly aware of someone standing behind her. She turned to see Rachel standing directly behind them. She had her arms folded across her chest, and her right foot was tapping out a beat on the floor.
“I was just telling Ruth how good this place has been for me, Rachel,” Mary blurted, her words coming in one big rush.
It didn’t take a genius to work out that all the other girls were intimidated by Rachel’s presence. Ruth didn’t blame them.
“Right,” said Rachel, who was staring at Ruth. “You two had better get changed. Phys ed starts in five minutes, and you don’t want to be late again, do you, Mary?”
“No,” said Mary, her eyes cast down to the floor.
Rachel turned towards Ruth. “Mary really needs to get as much exercise as she can. Chris says that being fat is the outward manifestation of being weak.”
God, what a judgmental bitch.
Rachel looked Ruth up and down. “You could probably do with losing a few pounds yourself.”
All the girls in the room had started getting changed into t-shirts and shorts. Without answering Rachel, Ruth went over to her open locker, grabbed what she needed, went back to her bed area and started to get changed.
The clothes that she’d had with her had already been taken away. She doubted she’d seen them again. She was left with what she’d been given shortly after she’d arrived. She guessed that everyone wearing the same clothing was another way of making people conform, of converting them from individuals to little robots who didn’t challenge anything and always gave the right answers.
A few minutes later she followed the others out of the room. They spaced themselves out, and led by Rachel, they walked down the corridor and outside.
It was late afternoon but the air still bubbled and shimmered with heat. Rachel led them over to an area of open ground away from the residential blocks. They stood in a single line, and waited. No one looked at each other. No one spoke. They just waited, silently, in the baking heat.
A few minutes later, just as Ruth was starting to think she might pass out, Chris Fontaine appeared. He stood directly in front of them.
“Good afternoon, ladies.”
“Good afternoon, father,” they all said in unison. Only Ruth didn’t join in. Chris looked over at her.
“I said, good afternoon, Price.”
Ruth hesitated. She knew she had to say it. There would be a problem if she didn’t. But calling this guy who was a complete stranger her dad, when she already had a dad. It creeped her out. Maybe she could compromise.
“Good afternoon,” she said, remembering to keep her voice as neutral as possible.
She could almost hear the collective intake of breath from the other girls.
Chris Fontaine glared at her. “Good afternoon what?”
She wasn’t going to call him father. No way. He could deduct a hundred points if he wanted. They could create a whole new level just for her if they wanted. It wouldn’t matter. She wasn’t staying around here. Even if she couldn’t get away, as soon as her real dad found out where she was he would get her out of here.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
Further down the line she heard Rachel mutter. “Just say it, bitch.”
Chris ignored that interruption. Obviously the rules were different for different people.
“Okay Price, have it your way. Everyone drop and give me ten.”
Slowly all the girls got down onto the bare desert ground. Ruth followed them.
“Not you, Price. You stay right where you are. Take it easy.”
Ruth watched as the other girls began to count off ten push ups. Rachel breezed through hers while the others struggled. At the end of the line, Mary was finding it hard after the first one. Her face was even redder and sweat poured from her forehead and into her eyes. She swiped it away with the back of her hand.
“Come on, ladies,” Chris barked. “Everyone does ten. No exceptions.” He started to walk down the line towards Mary. “That includes you, tubby.”
Mary, giving it everything she had, managed to squeeze out a couple more pushups. Finally, her arms gave out and she collapsed face down on the ground.
Chris crouched down next to her. “Come on. That’s pathetic. Three push ups. You’re fifteen years of age. Heck, my grandma can do more than that.”
Mary levered herself back up onto her hands. She managed another push up. “That’s better.” He glanced back over to Ruth. “Now, Price, what are you going to say to me.”
Ruth didn’t want to give in. To call him father. At the same time she didn’t want to see everyone else being punished for what she’d done. She didn’t care if they hated her for it. She just didn’t want to see someone like Mary having to suffer because this guy was on some weird power trip.
Ruth lowered herself down onto the ground. Chris gave up on Mary and marched back over to Ruth. He grabbed her under the arms, and yanked her back onto her feet.”
“I said stay where you are, Price. Okay, that’s ten more push ups for everyone.”
The girls who had done their first set and got back to their feet, started to get back down onto the ground.
Ruth glared at Chris. He smirked. “What is it Price? You think you’re special? You think you’re different? I’ve seen this kind of bullshit a hundred and one different times. And I got news for you. It doesn’t fly here.”
He walked back over to Mary at the end of the line. “You useless sack of crap. Everyone else has done there ten. What makes you so special?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah you are. You’re a sorry excuse for a human being. Now I want to see two more from you.”
Mary lowered her herself, her elbows flaring out. She pushed herself back up as Chris kept screaming at her.
There was nothing else for Ruth to do. After all, they were only words. They didn’t have to mean anything. She took a deep breath.
“Good afternoon, father,” said Ruth, staring straight ahead.
Chris stopped screaming at Mary. “What was that, Price? What you say?”
“Good afternoon, father,” repeated Ruth.
“Get up,” Chris said to Mary. Slowly, Mary stumbled back onto her feet as the others finished up their second set of push ups.
Chris walked back to the middle of the line. “See, wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“No,” said Ruth.
“No what?”
Ruth bit down hard on her lower lip. “No, dad.”
She felt like a little bit of who she was had just been taken from her. She guessed that was the idea behind this place. Then and there, she promised herself she wasn’t going to let that happen. She’d say what she had to say, do what she had to do, but on the inside, where it counted, she was going to stay the same Ruth. Except she knew that wasn’t going to be possible. After what her mom had done to her, how could it be?
“Okay,” said Chris, clapping his hands together. “Let’s run, ladies. Down to the corral and back. Three circuits. Two miles.”
“Yes, father,” they shouted back in unison.
This time, Ruth joined in.
16
“What do you mean you can’t tell me?”
Donald Price tapped the bottom of his pack of smokes, dug out a fresh cigarette, and lit up. He leaned over and pushed the window open. The last thing he needed right now was to set off the smoke alarm.
“I’m very sorry, Mr Price,” said the secretary of Ruth’s school.
Donald Price took a deep drag, and slowly exhaled, careful to push the smoke out through the crack in the window. “All I need to know is whether my daughter was at school the past few days.”
“I just can’t release that information to a
nyone who isn’t a named person.”
Donald closed his eyes and tried to count down slowly from ten. He made it to five. “Listen to me, I’m her father. Surely I’m entitled to know if my daughter has been at school or not.”
“I understand your frustration, I really do, but I can only release information about one of our students, including their attendance, to a named person.”
They were going round in circles. He could feel himself on the verge of losing his temper. And that wasn’t going to help him find out what the hell was going on.
After he’d spoken to his ex-wife, he’d messaged Ruth on Facebook. She hadn’t replied. That really worried him. She hadn’t posted anything on any of her social media accounts for the past eighteen hours either. It might not have seemed like a long time, unless you were a teenage girl, or the father of one. In which case you realized that eighteen hours was an eternity.
He had worked his way through her Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts, worked out who she interacted with most, and messaged a couple of them. They hadn’t heard from her either, and one of them, who was in a couple of Ruth’s classes at high school, had told him she hadn’t been at school either.
Calling her cell phone just led him to voicemail. He’d left a couple of messages, which had started out casual and become more urgent. The last time he had called her cell, an hour ago, it had been switched off – or out of power. Now he really was worried.
He planned on calling his ex-wife back, but first he thought he’d tried the school. If she was in class he couldn’t have much to concern him.
“Listen, thanks anyway,” he told the school secretary before ending the call.
He took another deep drag and pulled the smoke down into his lungs. He’d finish this cigarette and then he’d call Sandra and go one more round. This time she’d give him some answers or he’d cancel her next alimony payment. That was the one guaranteed way of getting her attention. It would probably land him back in front of a judge, but he needed to know that Ruth was okay, and right now he had a bad feeling.
17
They trudged back down the corridor towards their room. There was no problem keeping three steps between each person. The problem was making sure it wasn’t more than three steps.
Ruth had never been a fan of running, and she hadn’t changed her mind. She was covered in sweat and she stank. She hadn’t finished last, but that was only because that honor had gone to Mary.
The only person who didn’t seem to be tired was Rachel who had finished the run first and barely out of breath. Another reason for Ruth to dislike her. Why was it that the bitchiest girls always had the easiest time of it? It was something she’d wondered about before. She’d have thought that breezing through life looking pretty, with good genetics, would make you more pleasant, not less.
In their room, the girls grabbed towels and headed back down the corridor to the bathroom. Beyond the stalls was a separate room with a dozen shower heads that blasted out lukewarm water. Ruth was too exhausted to care that the water wasn’t hot. She showered, dried off, changed back into the regular academy clothes, and followed them out of the block. It was time for dinner, and she was starving.
The dining room was big enough for everyone to eat at once. Like everything else, male and female students were separated. You had to sit with your family group. In this case, the eleven other girls that she already shared a room with.
The other rule was that there was no talking. You came in, you got a tray, you stood in line for your meal, you took it your table. You ate, in silence. Then you have to wait for everyone to finish before you could take your tray back up, and stack it.
Sneaking glances around the dining room, it was a strange sight. All these teenagers sitting there without talking. The cafeteria at her school was a zoo, one of the loudest places on campus. This was like a monastery. Or, in the case of her table, a nunnery. Though she did notice a couple of girls sneaking glances at the table opposite, which was occupied by teenage boys.
For her part, Ruth found her attention drawn to one boy in particular. It wasn’t that he was cute. That wasn’t why she found herself glancing at him, and hoping that Rachel didn’t notice. It was that he seemed like some kind of a zombie. She had seen him stand in line for food and shuffle back to his table, like there was something wrong with him. It was his eyes. They were completely dead. Even the way he moved was strange. His flip flops scuffed along the floor, like he didn’t have the strength to lift his feet.
The other boys seemed to keep out of his way. They wouldn’t even sit next to him. There was a spare seat either side of him, like he had some kind of infectious disease. She planned on asking someone about him later. Maybe Mary, or one of the other girls, would know what his deal was.
Once they had all finished dinner, Ruth fell into line behind the other girls. Rather than heading back to their room, they walked outside.
A few hundred yards away a bunch of fire pits had been dug into the ground. A group of boys were busy moving wood into the various pits. When they finished, members of staff, Chris among them, moved among the pits, starting fires. Each group moved to their fire pit and sat around it in a circle. It seemed kind of cheesy, but after the day Ruth’d had, she didn’t mind a little cheesiness.
When they had all settled down around the fire, Chris was first to speak. “So today our little family got a new member. I’d like everyone to welcome, Ruth Price.”
“Welcome, Price,” they all sing-songed.
“So would one of you like to explain to Price why we sit around the fire pit every evening and how it’s helped you become a better person?”
Almost every girl’s hand shot into the air. It reminded Ruth of being back in grade school, when most of the kids still wanted to please their teacher.
Chris pointed to a girl with lanky blonde hair and elfin features who was sitting almost directly opposite Ruth. “Amanda.”
Amanda beamed at having been chosen. “The fire pit allows us to confront the truth of who we really are, and tells us how we can leave behind all the old habits that have been holding us back. It helps us be the best possible version of ourselves.”
“Very good, Amanda,” said Chris.
Amana smiled at the praise. Rachel glared at her. Chris seemed not to notice.
“And how has it helped you?” Chris asked.
Amanda glanced down into the flames. “Well, it made me realize that my eating disorder was my way of trying to hurt my parents. The fire pit helped me understand that I needed to stop being so stupid and selfish, and such a. . .” She hesitated.
“Go on,” Chris prompted. “You can say it. You can say anything here. That’s one of the other rules of the fire pit.”
“It helped me understand that I needed to stop being such a selfish little. . . bitch.”
There was an almost audible intake of breath. Ruth assumed that cursing was a fairly major infringement. This time though, Chris seemed to let it go.
“That’s very good, Mary.” Mary beamed like it was Christmas morning and Santa Claus had brought her everything she’d asked for. ”Anyone else?” Chris asked.
Another forest of hands shot into the air. “Yes,” he said, nodding towards a girl who was sitting two people down from Ruth. Ruth had noticed her during their run. She had been at the front of the pack. She was tall, and athletic with long light brown hair. She looked like the kind of girl who would have been on the lacrosse team at Ruth’s high school.
“Broken Ridge has helped me realize my own worth.”
“Go on,” Chris prompted her.
“Well, before it was all about boys and dating. If a boy liked me I felt good. If he dumped me I felt that somehow I wasn’t worth anything.”
“Boy?” said Rachel. “There was a lot more than one, Abby.”
“Yeah,” said one of the other girls who was sitting on the other side of Chris. “I can think of like a dozen you’ve told us about.”
“Yeah. At l
east,” someone else chimed in.
Abby, a fidgety girl with large brown eyes and oily skin was staring at the flames. Ruth could see that tears had started to form in her eyes. Her shoulders were hunched and her arms folded while her knees were pulled up into her chest.
“You’re making excuses for your behavior, aren’t you?” said Chris.
“No, I just said a boy as an example,” said Abby.
“There you go again,” said Rachel. “You said that because you were hoping we’d forget what you’d told us about all the others. You’re minimizing.”
“Yeah, you’re minimizing,” said another girl who hadn’t spoken yet.
“Okay, there were a lot,” said Abby, trying to stave off the attack.
“I saw her looking at Mike when we were having dinner last night,” someone said.
Apart from Abby, Ruth noticed that everyone sitting around the fire pit seemed to perk up as soon as this was said. A few of the girls even smiled.
“Yeah, I saw that,” said someone else. “And I caught her masturbating last night. During the night when she thought we were all asleep. It was totally gross.”
“Is that true?” Chris asked. “You know that we don’t tolerate self-abuse at Broken Ridge.”
“I did not,” Abby said.
“There you go again,” said Rachel. “Why do you always have to deny? Why can’t you face up to things, and take responsibility for your behaviour?”
“Yeah, why?”
Now it seemed like everyone wanted to have their say. The criticism and denunciations came thick and fast.
“You’ve never been honest.”
“You haven’t really changed. You pretend like you have, but you still behave the same.”
“Touching yourself in a room where we all have to sleep is totally gross. You should go down to level one for that.”
At some point in all of this, Ruth wasn’t sure exactly when, Abby burst into tears. Her sobs only seemed to spur the other girls on. A few of them even made fun of the fact she was crying. Chris let the comments keep coming, only intervening to say, “This is good. Everyone should let Abby know exactly what they think of her promiscuity and how it’s damaged everyone else. Like it damaged her family back home.”