The place were I was kept was small and isolated from my friends, family and almost the rest of the world. Many other children or teens, like me were thrown into the wilderness far away from help. Electric fences, barbed wire and guards surrounded the prison. It was a fortress. And like all fortresses there was no way out.
I hated it as soon as I set my eyes on it. It had the classical prison look. Metal everywhere. The cells inside were made of concrete and each cell had a bathroom and those horrible, classic metal bars. As I looked around the small compacted jail cell I saw four other girls, huddled in a corner of the cell. They looked terrified. I couldn't blame them, I was just as scared. Why we were taken here, I don't know. But yesterday's memories were still fresh in my mind.
"No forget about them. There not going to help you." I told myself. So I focused on other things, like why were there only five girls in our cell but six in the others. All of the other cells around us were full. I pondered this question for a while. Soon I heard the lunch bell. I walked to the cell door and waited for an "officer" to open it.
Soon enough, a big, stocky man walked to our cell door and opened it. A loud, annoying buzzed made itself known as the door opened. "Out you go" he said. All the girls lowered themselves off the ground, surprisingly still in a group, and walked to the door.
"Um, Sir." I asked. "I was just wondering why our…um…cell has only five girls in it? I mean, all the other cells have six."
Mr Gruff (that's my name for him) turned towards me and crouched down, to look me in the eye. He was intimidating, crouched over me like that and he wasn't a thin little guy "Ya want to know why ya'll are missin' a gurl? Well, I'm in a good mood today, so I'll tell ya. There ain't six gurls in your cell, 'cause the other gurl had an 'accident' on the job. NOW MOVE IT!"
"Ok, ok. You don't have to be pushy" I mumbled under my breath.
"What did you say!" Gruff yelled.
"Nothing sir." I hurried out the cell. The large hallway was crowded girls as all the cells joined together. Before long the boys' cells joined the formation. The lighting was awful in the hallway, so I had to squint to see.
I knew that if I fell in the crowd I wouldn't be able to get up. I had seen this happen to a little boy yesterday. The 'Gruff Clones' had to drag his body out, after the crowd had left.
Once we, the crowd, had made it to the lunchroom we rushed to form food line. The semi disgusting lunch ladies served us a glass of water with some plain bread and a couple of grapes. I looked around the lunchroom for a place to sit; I rushed over to an empty table. I sat down on the cold metal chair and took a bite of the bread. It was almost as hard as a rock so I dipped it into the water. It tasted like nothing, just bland and awful.
"Can I sit here?" I turned around to see a boy, about my age, staring down at me.
"Sure." I continued to nibble on the bread.
"You might want to stay away from the grapes. I think they're past their expiration date." He said.
"Kinda like the lunch ladies." I mumbled. The boy began to laugh and soon I joined in.
"Shut yer yaps!" One of the Gruff clones yelled to us. We quickly snuffed our laughter, not wanting a beating.
"You're pretty funny." The boy announced. "I'm Jason, what's your name?"
"Lizzie. I just got thrown in here yesterday. What about you? When did you waltz over to this metal piece of modern art?" I waved my hand, showing the lovely, homey look this place had.
"About three months ago. You came just in time, the foods gotten better. No more moldy, half-eaten sandwiches taken from trash cans. What are you in here for anyway?" Jason asked.
"What do you mean?" I was so confused. I didn't think that you need special talents to get here and I've never been in trouble. Well, maybe that's an understatement. In grade four I was caught cheats off of Jimmy Larson's paper. Automatic principal pass, but other than that I haven't done anything too bad.
"Never mind. You don't know do you?" He continued to eat the bread. "Anyway, what cell number are you?"
"Um… something like 555187. No… it was cell 555197. I'm positive that's it." Now that number was a mouthful. Who wants to been known as “Lizzie from cell 555197”. Geez, can't the Clones even try to make it interesting?!
"I'm from cell 473181. You're the only one here who isn't too terrified to say anything. It's hard to stay positive with so many zombies." Jason explained
"Alright everyone, back to yer cells. Let's move it along." The Clones called.
"Meet here at lunch tomorrow?" Jason asked over the noise of the crowd.
"Sure, I… OW… be there." I rubbed my aching side. An elbow to the stomach, a nice way to end lunch.
I continued the walk down to my cell, getting elbowed or kicked every step of the way. I was deep in thought when Gruff slammed the cell door closed. I guarantee you, I jumped about a foot in the air.
Gruff, being the nicest guy in the world, just laughed at me. "Ha ha! A scaredy-cat, that's what you are! Ha ha, ho ho ho." Eventually his voice began to fade, and I was left alone in silence. The other girls were huddled in the small bunks.
"What a loser." I mumbled under my breath.
"You might want to get to bed, we have work detail tomorrow." One of the girls told me and she lay huddled on an old, lumpy mattress with a moth ridden blanket wrapped around her small shoulders.
"What's that all about anyway?" I asked, feeling a little bit better. It was the first time one of the other girls had talked to me.
"You'll find out." She turned around to face the wall.
I shrugged my shoulders and made my way to my bunk. I spent the rest of the night trying to get comfortable, and trust me that was hard! I swear that the mattress was bug infested. Boy, was that night fun! Did I mention that ever since I was young I have had an irrational fear of cockroaches?
"Git up ya little brats!" The Gruff Clones yelled down the hallways. "Time for work!" Nature's worst alarm clock and the thing is the Gruff Clones were good at it. Yelling, I mean. My theory is that they were build with a megaphone voice-box.
I groggily sat up on the bed, gracefully whacking my head against the iron bar that held the bunk bed together. I rubbed my head as a massive headache ensued. It was going to be a LONG day. I stretched and made my way over to the cell door, where the other girls had formed an almost perfect line. And I, oh wondrous me, was there to ruin it. I really don't mean to mess things up, I just kinda do.
"Cell 555197?" An old, very distinguished man dressed in a very expensive grey suit asked one of the Gruff Clones. White tufts of hair peeked out from under his matching grey hat. His nose stuck out in a hawk like fashion, and the white hairs once again popped out, this time from his nose and ears. In his hands he carried a plain black briefcase. He looked little some old gangster, to be honest he reminded me of something out of the Sopranos.
"Yes, sir." The Gruff Clone nodded pointing at our cell. "Careful of that one.” He pointed at me with a dirt-covered hand. A buzzer rang as the metal cell door opened and the soprano guy stepped in. His footsteps clicked and clacked, as he walked across the cold concrete floor. He stopped in the middle of the room, suddenly and abruptly. His cold, dead, blue eyes lasered the room; analyzing everything. He stared at each of us, sizing us up for some odd reason that I couldn’t figure out.
Finally after about 10 minutes of his intense staring, he spoke. “Alright, listen up.” His voice was tinted with the same Italian accent as expected. “I’ve got news for you girls. Today, ya’ll are going to be working a new zone. Especially designed for you.”
“Oh, my word.” I thought to myself. “He’s got something stuck in his teeth! Ewww!!!!” Now that caught my attention. I stared at that for like the whole time he was talking. It was so gross, how could someone not see it! It was big, green and…DISGUSTING. Can I say EWWWW again?
All a sudden a small brown wrapped packaged was thrust into my hands. “Huh? What’s this?” I said, turning it over and over again in my hands.
“Your uniform.” The girl beside me hissed. “Didn’t you listen to what Mr. Castilano said?”
“Is that his name? I was thinking Soprano.” I whispered back. “ And what in the world do I need a uniform for?”
“Obviously you didn’t listen. It’s for your job, duh.” The girl rolled her eyes and looked straight forward again; her hands perfectly at her side. And, of course, I was there ruining the whole prison atmosphere.
“Oh. What’s our…”
“Shut-up already!” She hissed again. “Leave me alone!”
“Fine, you don’t have to be so angry” I whispered and tried to follow the other girls’ examples, it didn’t work so well for me.
“You all will be working within the designated area. If you do decide to exit that area, extreme measures will be taken. And trust me when I say extreme.” Mr. Castilano (I still like “Soprano” better) said with another on of his evil grins. “I expect all of you to finish your daily quota, any who don’t will be punished in the usual manner. I understand you’re all starting a new different job and I want you to know that…I DON’T CARE! I don’t care if you’re new to this! I don’t care if you get tired! I don’t care if you don’t like it! You are doing this job, you’re going to finish your daily quota and you aren’t going to complain! If you fail any of these tasks you will be punished!”
“Oh great!” I thought, “I’ll totally love this job! Why doesn’t someone just shoot me already!” You see I don’t really do well with rules. I’m the type of person who, doesn’t try to, but always seems to break them.
“Now, off you go! Do your job like good little girls.” Mr. Castilano said, acting as if we were his daughters, not his slaves. He motioned for Gruff to open the door again. The buzzer rang and the door opened to let the soprano dude out. Of course it was closed soon after to prevent us little diseases from getting out. And honestly, I am a bit of a disease. My klutziness is a bit catchy to some people and they’re not afraid to let me know what I did to them. Oh, well. I guess I’ll have to just suck it up.
Anyway, we were left alone to open our little brown packages. I flipped it over and tore at the tape holding the paper together. I was as eager as a 5-year-old child on Christmas morning and I was a wee bit surprised to see the other girls were almost as excited as me. My hopeful heart was broken as soon as I saw the orange jumpsuit make its appearance. It was the ugliest, awfulest outfit anyone has every created! Another “EWW!” popped into my head, and guaranteed most of the other girls felt the same way according to their faces. They all had small grimaces and refrained (see I’m smart!) from touching the jumpsuit too much. Yes, I too was doing the same thing.
“You had better put those on and get to work, unless you want to get your clothes all dirty.” Gruff called as he closed a curtain over the little cell door’s window. It was the only non-concrete thing in the room, how awful is that?!?!
We all stared at the jumpsuits for another 5 minutes until I finally shrugged my shoulders and pulled the jumpsuit over my clothes. The other girls followed my example and slipped into their jumpsuits. When they were all finished, I marched over to the cell door and knocked on the steel with my fist, sounding like hollow thunder. “Hey! Yo, Alcatraz guard! Over here, we’re finished!” I called out.
He removed the curtain. “What did you say!? Alca-whatahuh?” He said, looking genuinely confused.
“Alcatraz? You know, famous prison. On that island, near San Francisco…you know?” I told him, kinda weirded out by his confusion. I knew he had a tiny brain, I just didn’t know it was non-existent. “Never mind. Short story, we’re done and ready for work. You got it?”
“I knew that.” He said, acting all macho and smart “Island prison, near San Francisco, of course. I was just making sure you knew what you were talking about. Humph.”
“Yeah, yeah whatever. Just hurry up!” I rolled my eyes, one of my new favorite activities of late. Gruff opened the door and let us out.
“Door 4 and your ‘escort’ will be waiting.” Gruff told us, checking to make sure all of us were out. We were already heading out through the door and halfway outside by the time he finished.
A tall, thin woman leaned against the concrete wall of the fortress. She had short blond hair cropped just below her ear, covered by a large, floppy black hat. She wore a red, knee-length dress (that had a way to low neckline, if you know what I mean) with a large black over coat that matched her hat. In her hand was an old-fashioned silver and black cigar-ish idea (I never knew the name of that thing) and occasionally she would lift it up to her mouth and let loose a small cloud of grey smoke. She looked slick, greasy and demented. Like she ruled the world or something. She turned towards us with a grin, similar to Soprano’s, on her face.
“Girls.” She had a thick French accent, which seemed to mock us. “Follow moi. Vête, vête!” She turned to go and looked back at our stunned faces. “Hurry it up! Quickly!” We followed; like obedient lap-dogs, if I may add. She led us up a small hill and through a couple of trees, cursing (in French) when her 3 inch stiletto heels slipped into some mud. “Here, iz your job.”
There, about 7 feet in front of us was a large swamp. Murky brown water surrounded large reeds and trees, green plant stuff floated on top of it. “Yum, appetizing.” I thought. I was so glad I had rubber boots and something over my clothes to protect them. At least the loser who ran this dump did something right.
“Zis iz ze group you vill be vorking vith.” (Wow, heavy accent or what!?) The woman waved her gloved covered hand at another orange clad group walking (or rather “Vocking”) down the hill. They were almost exactly like us, except for the small difference of genders. They were guys, we were girls. Other than that you couldn’t tell us apart! In case you didn’t realize, I speak sarcasm as a 2nd language.
When the guys had made their way towards us, the woman spoke again. “ Your job vill be to search ze bottom of ze lake, for anything, humh, how do you say it? Unusual. Got it? Now, I vill go back to ze building and come back vhen your job iz finished. You understand, oui? Good-bye!” She waved her hand at us and hopped-stepped (running is hard in high-heels, trust me, I’ve tried and failed) up the hill. She cursed loudly as her heel snapped off after she had stabbed it into the ground.
That was it. I couldn’t help it. It just happened. I giggled, loudly. The other girls glared at me with looks saying “Shut-up and get to work!” or “Stop horsing around!” The woman turned around, wrinkled her nose at me and then promptly stuck it high up in the air and began to trudge her way back up the hill (nose still in air).
The group of guys waited until the woman was out of hearing before bursting into laughter. “Man,” said one of the guys. “That was hilarious! She has some serious issues!” The other guys joined in with their own comments.
“Yeah, totally!” The same girl, who had mocked me for not listening, said as she laughed. The area grew quite, the boys laughter had died down and all that was heard was the girl’s annoying nasal laughter.
“Dude, you totally didn’t believe that.” Another one of the guys said. “Loser.” He mumbled. I almost felt sorry for the girl when she turned a very lovely cherry shade of red, but not really. I’ve been told I don’t really let go of things.
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