3: CABIN 519
Guy wasn’t just taking me on a walk. I mean, I would have loved a good walk. What couldn’t a walk cure? That was what Granny always told me to do when I was complaining about something.
“Oh Val, you sound like you could use a good walk,” she’d say.
Granny died of a broken hip. Actually, she died of a lot of things. But the broken hip added to it. I would like to say she died mostly of old age, but that wasn’t really a thing. She had a lot of other ailments that living a long time seemed to do to a person. That was the beauty of the twenty-first century. There were too many options to die from that you couldn’t just burn out from one thing. It was amazing. She could sit on the toilet wrong and die. She could get the flu and somehow manage to die. Being old must be brutal.
If I could have one thing in life, it would be to die of something normal. Like a car accident. Maybe I would die at New Horizons. A death in the program would surely set someone straight.
Guy took me to the ward. The ward was a small building off of the mess hall that was full of rooms with cots, and medical equipment for when we tried to kill ourselves. There were several small offices too, for the paperwork of our deaths.
The ward was pretty uncomfortable. It was a medical room, and it had equipment that made me want to cross my legs. With my recent history, the ward made me think of my last little visit to the hospital, and how badly it had gone.
At least there were real walls.
Guy left me in a room with a cot that had medical stirrups at one end. I didn’t know where to put myself in the room. It had to be a safer option to sit in the chair. But sitting in a chair meant there was nothing physically the matter with you, and that you were there to fix the emotional side of things. The cot was a lot safer, and it ended up being my final choice. I crossed my legs, and chewed on the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t going to talk about anything to anyone.
A nurse came in and introduced herself as Nurse Janice. She had big, fluffy hair and lots of eyeshadow. The first thing she did was cut the tape off of my wrists and peel it from my skin.
I screamed as the hairs were ripped from my arms.
“Come on, it’s just like a bikini wax,” she said.
“Never had one.”
I was forced to abandon my sports bra and boxer shorts, and then I put on a paper dress to cover up after a strip search. It opened from the back, and you could see the new underwear and new sports bra I was given to wear instead of my own. The underwear was white cotton, and it was weird because they covered my entire ass. It had been a while since I wore full underwear like that, and they felt pretty good. It made me question why I had ever worn anything else but full underwear. At least I was out of my other garments. They were soaked from sweating all night in solitary confinement.
“Do you have any tattoos?”
“No, not yet. But I’m planning on getting a koi fish when I’m done this program. Just as a reminder to always persevere and achieve my goals. Or maybe I will get an anchor. As a metaphor. Just so I know I can never be held down. Maybe I could put it on my shoulder. That way it could also be a symbol of how much I carry. How strong I am. Yeah, I’ll get an anchor on my shoulder.”
“Do you have anything on your person?” Nurse Janice asked.
“I don’t have a person.”
“Do you have anything on yourself?”
“This dress. And these underwear. And this uncomfortable sports bra.”
She patted me down, as if she were searching for anything sharp or hidden. When she pushed in my hips and ribs, I smiled because it tickled. What was she looking for under my skin? All I had under there was my skeleton.
“Are we done?”
“I’ll need that hospital bracelet.”
I touched the white bracelet on my wrist. I had kept it there to see how long I could wear it. No other reason. I really didn’t want her to take it. I liked seeing all the important information about me. My birthday. My gender. Apparently the important things in determining who you were in life.
“You can’t have it on you.”
“Are you serious? It’s just a hospital bracelet. It’s nothing that can hurt anybody.”
She grabbed my wrist. I didn’t pull back, and I let her take a pair of scissors to it. She cut the bracelet off me.
“That sucks.”
“It had to come off. It’s the rules. You’re not allowed anything on you or in you.”
“In me? Like what. A tampon?”
“If you have anything in you, now would be the time to hand it over. It’s for the safety of you and other residents at this program.”
“I didn’t know I was coming here, so how the hell would I have time to shove something up me? What would I shove up there?”
“I don’t know. But we have to ask.”
“Do you think I have like a bottle of vodka up there? Or a pack of cigarettes? I don’t even smoke that often to be that dedicated to carrying anything on me. And my vagina definitely doesn’t have a cigarette up it. I only ever smoked because I was bored. Just the occasional joint since I’m not a plain cigarette kind of person. There’s no point to it.”
“We ask everyone that question. You’re not special.”
“Even the boys?”
“The boys don’t have vaginas.”
“You know, you can’t be saying stuff like that these days. It’s the twenty-first century, and even though you’re old, you should really join us. Besides, even the boys without vaginas have other cavities that they can stuff, I’m sure.”
I regretted not sleeping with something up me because I could have snuck it in if I wanted to. Like an iPod or maybe a lip chap. I would kill for a lip chap.
“I could probably have something up there and you wouldn’t know.” I showed her my teeth like someone who would smile would do. But it wasn’t a smile.
“Well, that’s as far of a search we do. But we’re not done yet.” Nurse Janice held up a box.
I looked at it. On the side of the box was a girl with shiny, brown hair. She was smiling at me. Maybe she was really proud to be a brunette—empowered by it.
“Is that hair dye?”
“No colourful hair at New Horizons.”
“That’s a little racist.”
She pushed my head down into a sink and washed out the pink chalk that I had added a day ago. The bright pink fell into the sink and went down the drain quickly. I thought that was where it ended—a quick rinse of my personality. But it had to be more permanent than that. She brushed on some goop from the dye box. My highlights and random red strands disappeared, and when I looked in the mirror a half hour later, I was all one colour.
“I’m actually a dirty blonde in real life. So you’re not bringing me back to normal or anything. I’m still not who I am.”
“That’s fine. You have to be one solid thing at New Horizons.”
“Oh lovely.”
Next off was the nail polish. I had each nail painted in a chipping purple. It wasn’t just any purple. It was a dark purple. I liked dark purple because it looked black. And when people thought you had black nail polish on, you knew it wasn’t black. It was dark purple. There was a difference. Nurse Janice handed me the polish remover and a cotton ball and my nails went from chipping dark purple to yellow.
“I have the grossest nails.”
“You won’t be the only one,” she said.
New Horizons’ outfit was the biggest change for me. Each day we were all required to wear the same thing. The cargo shorts were loose and beige. They felt like someone else had worn them before me. The white t-shirt was thick and scratchy, and I felt like I played for a baseball team. On the back, across my shoulders, was ‘NEW HORIZONS’, in case anyone needed a reminder where they were. The brown work boots were way too tight. The socks felt like they were meant for winter. They were thick and hot.
“These boots don’t fit me. They’re tight and they hurt.” I tried loosening the laces of the boots. “I can’t
feel my feet.”
“You’re a size nine aren’t you?” Nurse Janice asked.
“Yes. There’s no way these are a size nine though.”
“That’s what a size nine feels like in this program.”
When I stepped out of the ward, I saw that there was a line of other girls getting their outfits too. All of the girls had shocking looks, with skin that was either blurry with acne, dry and flaking, or covered in specs of freckles. Maybe their looks were strange because they were all new people to me. They didn’t seem to care that their hair wasn’t curly or straight anymore, and that their eyes weren’t traced with layers of black circles. Everything about them was in between, and lifeless. I wondered what I looked like to them—if I stuck out too.
Before New Horizons, my hair had been highlighted and bleached and coloured and chopped up and going in every direction. I wasn’t even sure if I had bangs or not depending on how I wore my hair. Suddenly, I was a brunette. At least I still had my blue eyes.
We were shown around the place after we dressed. A counsellor showed us where we ate, and the classroom where we would be learning about ourselves, and the mudroom where the washers and dryers were kept. The best part was that we weren’t allowed to use them until we were Dandelions.
“Dandelions.”
“Yes. That’s what you want to become. You’re a Stone right now. You’ll learn all about the levels at New Horizons. Certain levels have certain responsibilities and privileges. That’s to motivate you to do well. Otherwise, what is the point to having levels?” The counsellor pointed at us. “The clothes you have on are the only ones you get, so take care of them. They’ll get pretty dirty. Clothes are a privilege, and clean clothes are a luxury.”
I was almost excited about it all. I was in my childhood camp. The bones were there, except the guts were missing and filled with something different.
Even though I had only been at New Horizons a short amount of time, I already had a huge taste of the place. I had spent a night in solitary confinement, and had a personal meeting with the head of the program, and next was a classroom setting—my number one hatred in life.
A counsellor dropped me off to an empty room full of desks and a chalkboard. One by one, a new resident entered the room, fully clothed in their new uniform. I sat in the front row because no one else wanted to. It was the easiest place to be left alone.
A counsellor was sitting at a desk near the corner. It was turned toward us, watching what we were doing. Out in the hallway I could hear the disobedience of a girl who didn’t want to take her clothes off. She wasn’t giving up, and it was almost nice to hear. There was still life in some of the others. I wondered how long it would take for it to get sucked out.
It felt like hours had gone by before the door opened. I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder to see who it was. The quiet sniffles of defeat told me enough.
We were changing.
I got a headache just thinking about being told the things that were wrong with me. The girls around me whispered to each other, while some of them sat stiff in their chairs, already scared straight by just being there. That was the point, I guess.
There was more cursing coming from outside the room, masculine voices, going back-and-forth about wanting different things than what was going on. Someone wanted an explanation, but nobody was giving it to him. I shifted my weight from one ass cheek to the other, and waited for the boys to give up. It was so much easier that way.
The door opened and a group of boys joined us. That wasn’t exciting to me. There was nothing worse than being around boys. Boys were fucking exhausting and always pushing girls into doing stupid things. Every boy I saw just reminded me of Jordan, and it made me annoyed to even look at their angry gazes. It was like they thought they were going through something different than us girls. We were just getting over it faster.
I turned my head so I didn't have to look at anyone. When I saw Larry walk past me, I put my head down on the table. Listening to him breathe and shuffle his papers around was enough to irritate me.
"We're going to watch a very short orientation film about this program. All eyes on the board please," he said.
The video began to play shortly after his speech. I stayed how I was, with my head on the table. I was completely content like that because I couldn’t see anyone, and I pretended they couldn’t see me. I wish that was a thing. But it wasn’t.
There was a tap on my desk.
I kept my head down and pretended to be oblivious to my surroundings.
"Valerie.”
I opened my eyes and peered up at Larry. “Yes?”
“Please lift your head off the table."
I lifted it up slightly and kept eye contact with him.
“Thank you.”
I smiled. Because I wanted to be pleasant and I didn’t want him to think he could say anything to bother me. Because he really couldn't—
“That wasn’t too hard now was it?”
I smirked. My pleasant behaviour was already flying out the window. There was nothing I could do to hold back. It was just a waiting game for when I was going to burst.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
"Screw you,” I said. My head found its resting place on the table again. I was tired. And when you were tired, it was normal to rest. But for some reason, there was no amount of rest that could solve the kind of tired I had going on in my system. It was the kind that required a complete shutdown or reset, and at that point, I was ready to just be broken in half.
From what it sounded like, I had done something wrong. People behind me were whispering and giggling after my freedom of speech. Apparently I was the first person to test the waters. Next thing I heard were footsteps across the room and the classroom door being opened and shut.
The whispers grew louder.
“She’s actually crazy.”
I wasn’t crazy. I was tired. I was so tired that I was comfortable resting my eyes in a room full of strangers, and telling an old man to screw off. It was stupid, and I knew it was stupid, and when you did things you knew were stupid, you had issues that anyone could point out right away.
The door re-opened. And I was aware that footsteps were quick and headed right for me. I stayed completely still and anticipated being yelled at—maybe being punched in the back. Something violent where I could fall on the floor and lay there and make a great scene.
No one hit me.
Instead, someone pulled me up out of my seat. It was just as exciting. I ripped my arm from the counsellors grasp. When I looked at him I realized it was Avril. Just behind me, Burrito Eater wrapped his freckled arms around me and lifted me off the ground.
I kicked at Avril. For a couple seconds he couldn’t get a hold of my flailing limbs. Everyone was screaming and hollering, and it would have almost been exciting if it wasn’t happening to me. It was another scene I would’ve liked to see someone else act out.
Avril eventually got a hold of my legs and lifted my bottom half up. I didn't want them taking me back to solitary confinement. I couldn't handle more time in there. They began to walk my kicking and swearing body out of the room. It was so different than last time when I had let it all happen. This time I had an audience I needed to scare. I wanted everyone to know not to mess with me.
“Get her out of here,” Larry yelled.
I thrashed even harder against the men just to show the residents and Larry that I wasn’t there to get well. It was just a crazy display of the girl who was where she needed to be. But that wasn’t the case in my head. I was fine, bored even, and it was something to do. And just as I was leaving through the door, satisfied with my moment, I made eye contact with the last boy in the row. He had a buzz cut, bushy eyebrows, and two black eyes.
“You’re exhausting,” he said.
I went limp.
Avril and Burrito Eater took me out of the classroom. The scene was over and I didn’t care about it anymore. I was back to being dead
because someone had snapped me out of it. Told me I wasn’t actually all that wild—just annoying and desperate.
There was a chair in the hallway. It had no arms, and when they put me in it, I stayed completely still. I felt like a statue and I stared at the wall across from me. It was cement.
Larry came out of the classroom minutes later. I could still hear the video playing. I felt his eyes on me but I stayed looking at the wall. For a cement wall, it sure had a lot of dents.
“I know a month seems like a long time, but it will seem even longer if you don’t pick up your feet and do something with yourself while you’re here.”
I kept my eyes forward. It was a lot to take in.
“I see how it is.”
I smiled. “What? I’m being obedient.”
“Don’t be a smartass. You’re not a kid. You’re here because you need help. This place isn’t summer camp.”
“Actually, it’s funny you should say that—”
“We’re warning you, Valerie.” He turned his back.
“No one has warned me about anything yet, actually.”
He left me with Avril and Burrito Eater. They stood on either side of me while I listened to the video about New Horizons play in the other room. It talked about being the only program in the province with both freedom and security. How it wasn’t a correctional facility, but an opportunity to better ourselves. We were to think of the experience as a privilege—a chance to re-energize away from our everyday lives.
But in my head, it was still that summer camp where acne first popped up on my chin, and my brace face learned to kiss. It was a so-called facility for troubled youth, in a summer camp that Patty Slaunwhite had funded, and Uncle Mike had sold out of sadness.
Now, without warning, we were all Stones.
The video turned off after a while and the groups came out of the room. I glanced up and down at the residents as they moved along the hallway. We all looked the same. The buzz cut guy looked right at me as he walked with the army of other troubled youth.
He rolled his eyes.
“Like I care,” I told him. But I did. There were a lot of annoying things a person could do, and the small, simple ones, like an eye roll in my direction, had the capacity to make my blood slosh around inside of me.
He had two bruises around his eyes. They were purple, green and black that circled around the sockets, and emphasized the whites around his pupils. His face was full of colours, and his irises were grey. A lonely, pathetic grey.
I imagined what it would be like to jump out of my seat and strangle him. But I had no idea who he was, and I wanted to be good for at least ten minutes. Right then I was the bad kid who had been sent out of the room. Nobody wanted anything to do with me, and it was kind of nice. But when everyone was gone, a woman came out of another room, ruining my alone time.
“Hello,” she said. She looked at the two huge men beside me. “I will take her from here.”
Burrito Eater and Avril left her alone with me. Maybe that wasn’t too smart.
I looked at the old woman. Everything about her—from her clothes to her face—was crumbling. I wondered what held her together from the inside. I bet her bones were about to crack. With her frail condition, she seemed like the kind of person who could pass away from a broken ankle. She was an old, family horse that was there just because somebody couldn’t stomach getting rid of her.
“I’m Sharon and I’m your group counsellor.” She held out her hand.
I shook it but didn’t bother telling her my name. I was so confused by her.
Sharon had grey hair that was rolled into a bun and wire glasses that she wore low on her nose. Maybe she didn’t know that glasses could come in plastic. When she moved, she walked with a hunch, as if she had just pulled her lower back. Her wrists were limp, and it looked like she was waiting for her nails to dry after painting them.
My favourite part about Sharon were her wrinkles. They weren’t deep, but they were definitely there and pointlessly scattered across her face. They were what made me wonder if she was barely alive, or nowhere near dead. She had to be a hundred. Or sixty. She reminded me of Patty Slaunwhite before she got ovarian cancer and croaked. And Granny, before she died of a little bit of everything.
“There are several new residents for this summer, as you’ve seen in the classroom. There are thirty-two residents currently in the program, and you twelve are the last for the summer. These will be your cabin mates—boys with boys, and girls with girls, of course. You all start out at the same Stone level, but that doesn’t mean you will all be progressing together. At the end of each day, you’re all there to help each other out. We’re each other’s support team. We encourage each other to be the best version of ourselves that we can be.”
I was pretty sure that I was already the best version of myself. And that was sad because my version wasn’t anything special. Everything I could achieve in life felt like it was out of my reach, and since it was so far away, I didn’t want to go for it. But I didn’t bother telling her that. I let her take me out to meet my new cabin mates. They were all waiting for me down the hall in the lobby, looking irritated by me already.
“This is your group,” Sharon said.
There were five other girls staring at me. We all matched in our plain uniforms, but none of it looked the same on us. It was funny how clothing was subjective. There were many different ways that a t-shirt and shorts could go horribly wrong, all depending on what body they were placed with.
“Oh Jesus Christ on a cross.”
Even though I knew someone was just trying to provoke me, I looked over at the girl who was already bringing Jesus into it. I smiled. “It’s Val, actually.”
“I don’t care about names,” she said.
“Sure you don’t.”
The girl was the only one really looking at me. Maybe because I was looking at her. She was the widest of the group, and she had a braid on either side of her head. They were tight, precise braids, with fuzzy fly away hairs. I wondered why she got to have two hair elastics when I was only allowed one.
Sharon came between the braided girl and I. We separated, and Sharon led us to our table in the mess hall.
“This is our table. This is the only table you’re allowed to eat at. No eating alone. No eating with other groups. You ladies only have each other, and that’s how you survive here.”
We all took a seat at our new family table. Braids and I ended up next to each other. A counsellor wearing an apron came out of the kitchen carrying a huge pot with a lid. Steam came from the pot and blew around her as she walked. Sharon went away and came back with styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons. I thought about stealing a spoon in case I needed to make a shank later, but I wasn’t sure if it’d be that kind of a program.
It was tomato soup for supper. No crackers. No anything else. Just red soup in deep, disposable bowls. It was a plain and simple, poor person meal.
“Eat up, you missed lunch because of orientation. Normally it’s not this late, it’s almost supper. The only rule is that you eat what you take.”
We each dipped the large ladle into the pot and served ourselves. I had been hungry earlier, until I got so hungry that I wasn’t hungry anymore. It was more of a nauseous thirst. I took about a cup full and looked down at it, waiting for it to become cold. It was the only way I could eat something hot. After about a half-hour, I had gotten down most of it.
“Please follow me to your cabin. Again, no talking at all. Just look with your eyes and breathe through your nose.”
I stayed at the back of the line as we were led out of the building. The property really was exactly how I remembered it, but just a little more overgrown and rundown. It was such a shame that people had to go and die and ruin things for other people.
It was already late in the day when we left the mess hall building. There was a sunset beginning to peak through the trees, and I couldn’t wait to lie down. The day had flown by, but most of it was was
ted from sitting around between tours, and listening to the rules of the place. It was a restless process, and it took a while for each and every resident to cooperate. I was obedient out of sheer boredom, and the entire day I was waiting for something to do. And then out of nowhere, the sky was dark and scattered with stars.
Sharon led us toward the woods and my heart began to hurt when I realized what path we were on. The tree branches reached out and touched the skin on my bare arms, and it felt like I was walking down a magical, childhood path.
I kept my dead gaze forward and followed the line of troubled girls. Like Camp Hedgewood, New Horizons was still divided down the middle. Boys were on one side, girls on the other, with the mess hall separating the two. Some things never changed, and penis and vagina were never allowed to mix when it came to sleeping arrangements.
When I was 8-years-old I was terrified that all the cabins were in the woods. It was scary to think that if you needed to use the bathroom your only option was walking through the woods to get to the outhouses. But after a couple nights out there with your group, it was fun, and it was hard to be afraid of the branches tapping and scraping against the cabin. It was normal to hear things, and you could get used to anything if it became a routine.
“We’re almost there, ladies.”
The path we were on sloped down for a bit, and when we rounded the corner, the smallest cabin on the property became visible in the dark.
Cabin 519.
It was my old cabin. Back in the day, when you were given your cabin for the summer, it was like being accepted into a club. You were pretty much guaranteed to be best friends with your cabin mates after the summer was over. And every year I requested that cabin, and even though the people changed, it still felt like the same place.
But this time it was going to be different.
The cabin was painted white with green trim around the windows, but most of it was chipping. There was a small peephole in the middle of the door, and if I remembered correctly, it was the hole that a breeze liked to sneak through and shake the door at night. We used to say that the ghosts wanted in because they were afraid of the dark.
“This is it?” a redhead asked. She was tall and her teeth were covered in braces. It looked like they were new braces because her teeth were nowhere near straight. She was still in the beginning stages of getting rid of her crooked face.
“Yes, this is where you’ll be staying the next month”
“Next month.” I closed my eyes as it finally sunk in. That brought us to the end of summer. And it was just exhausting knowing that, and having to keep hearing it over and over again.
There was no lock on the cabin. It was still just a wooden block nailed to the door frame, and that wooden block slid over the door to keep it from moving at night. The door was swaying in the breeze, already open for us to explore. I remembered the raccoons, and how easy it was for them to sneak in and out during the day. It really made you question whether it was worth it or not sneaking chips and candy to camp. We always did, of course, and regretted it when a family of glowing eyes were staring at us in the early morning of the night.
“Go inside and check it out,” Sharon said.
It was neat and organized on the inside. There were three sets of bunk beds, with one on either side of the cabin, and one across the back wall. There were water jugs on the end of each bed. One for each of us, I assumed. They were all written on with sharpie markers, randomly numbered so we would know who was drinking from what. A window on the right was the only view of the outside, and carvings from Camp Hedgewood days filled the ceiling and walls. Somewhere, my name was carved. It was still cozy, to say the least, but I never remembered it as being that small.
I shoved through the other girls and headed straight for the back bunk bed on the far wall. It was the only bunk bed that was alone and it was my favourite. The bigger braided girl tried to get past me. I jumped up onto the bed before she could, and I looked down at her.
“Why do you get the good bed?” She glared at me through her long lashes that went straight out from her face. There was no curl.
“Because I got up here first.”
“Ladies, neither of you will get it if you keep it up,” Sharon said.
It was mine though. Because I had jumped up and claimed it. She had to grab one of the other bunks that were across from each other. The little girl of the group got the spot under me. All we had was one grey blanket and no pillow. At least the thin mattresses had a sheet over them. I wondered how clean they actually were though. I climbed down and picked up my empty, four-litre jug.
“49.” I held it by the handle and traced the number with my other hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You can fill your jug at the hose on the side of the mess hall during you breaks, but that’s it. So be smart about it. And if you lose your jug, that’s all you’re getting.”
We were each given a plastic baggie of toiletries. Sharon passed around one baggie to each of us from a brown paper bag she had pulled out from under one of the beds. All that was in the baggie was a toothbrush and a bar of soap.
“Where’s the shampoo?” a short girl asked. Her hair was a frizzy blonde, and she had huge boobs that made her t-shirt bulge. I wondered what she was missing from home that normally shaped her into a better version of herself.
Sharon held up the bar of soap.
“Oh wow,” I said. It made me smile to see the hurt on that girl’s face. I felt it from across the room.
The girl bunking under me just stared at her baggie. It was like she was going into shock. She had a low pony tail and her clothes were big on her. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen. It wouldn’t be good for her to be around us older and meaner girls.
“What about toothpaste?” the redhead asked.
“You don’t need it.”
“Don’t need it?” I laughed because I couldn’t believe it. “Hello—cavities are a thing. And they suck.”
“If you brush correctly, you won’t need toothpaste.”
“That isn’t a thing. There’s no way.”
“At New Horizons it is.”
Sharon showed us the bathrooms next. I knew exactly what to expect as we were led through the dark. When she stopped at a little shed in the woods with a cut-out moon crescent, I looked at the girls and their faces were blank. They had no idea what they were looking at.
“There is no running water out in the woods, hence the outhouses. There is a bottle of hand sanitizer sitting on the floor of every outhouse. There are approximately five outhouses scattered across this property. It’s not as bad as it looks, ladies. Believe it or not, you will get used to it.”
It wasn’t as bad as it looked. It was worse. Because when you needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, you were almost screwed. Sure, there were several of the outhouses spread out across the property in between the cabins, but when you needed to go, there was no quick way of getting to the bathroom in the dark.
There was a single candle beside the toilet seat. She bent down and lit it with a match that was on the side. It was the only pretty thing in the area.
“How do we shower?” a different blonde girl asked. This one had a boy haircut and a boy chest. She was standing next to the frizzy haired blonde who was depressed about the lack of shampoo. To be honest, they both had the same kind of hair—dry and nicer looking in another life somewhere outside of New Horizons. But when you were stripped of things that made you look good—makeup, jewelry, nice clothes—just your skin and bones were all you had to work with. The two blondes still had their blonde hair though. Just because it was one colour didn’t mean it was real. That didn’t seem fair.
“The lake is your shower,” Sharon said.
The lake. That gave me hope—that we still had access to the shoreline. It could be an escape.
“Do you provide razors?” the redhead asked.
“You don’t need that.”
That was crazy. I thou
ght about my legs and how hairy they seemed to get in just a day. Or my armpits, and how itchy it would be to have stubble up there.
“Right now it’s bunk hour. Bunk hour is your time to get to know each other, maybe read a novel from the bookshelf, or catch up and relax. You get them at random points in the day. The last one is right before lights out. That is one hour before bed, and then you’re asleep. I will come around and make sure you’re in bed, and there will be random checks throughout the night. If you have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, you go to the outhouse, and then you’re back to your cabin. There is a nurse on duty at all hours for emergencies only. During the day, she is someone you can go to for tampons, pads, Band-Aids, and whatever else you may need. She is located at the ward, which is attached to the mess hall, which you already know. Again, there are counsellors doing random night walks, so that means no funny business. There is no audience in New Horizons. Just be good.”
It was all business, with words and instructions. And if you didn’t listen, that was when you messed up. Sharon gave us ten minutes to go to the outhouses and brush our teeth in the woods. I brought my jug, 49, and was careful not to waste too much water. When I got back to the cabin, the next debate was what to sleep in. We only had one set of clothes. I slipped off my boots and laid them on the floor near the ladder. I didn’t bother taking anything else off. I was uncomfortable either way and just laid under my grey blanket and ignored everyone else as they got themselves into their bunks.
Sharon left the only lantern that we had for light. She said she’d be back for it in an hour when we would have to go to sleep.
“As an ice breaker, I say we each say something about ourselves,” the redhead said.
“I’m going to kill you in your sleep if you don’t shut up,” braided girl said.
That was all I needed to hear to know that cabin 519 wasn’t cabin 519 anymore. There were no telling secrets and stories and laughter. There was no sharing, or dreaming of tomorrow. It was just dread, and depression and holding in piss—because even though you went to the bathroom, that didn’t mean you could go.
I covered myself with the thin blanket. The other girls began to whisper back and forth for a bit. I turned over onto my side and felt for the groove in the wood for the initials of an 8-year-old girl who just wanted to leave her mark.