Read Online Freefall by Anna Levine - Free Book Online

inside.
    â€œWhen you decide what it is you want, you come and tell me.” She pops her head back in the tent. “I’ve had a long day.”
    She’s had a long day? I find North Carolina outside the tent in a yoga pose. “Did you see my bag?”
    â€œNo.”
    I hesitate. “Do you think we could share a sleeping bag?”
    Silence. “Sorry, but if I don’t get a good night’s sleep, I’ll be hopeless tomorrow.”
    I get the same reply from the rest of the girls.
    â€œSugarpear,” says Lily, “if I were to roll over accidentally, I might turn you into stewed fruit. Is that what you want?”
    No, it’s not what I want. I want to go home! I want to sleep in a warm bed with clean sheets. I want Mom to make me a cup of steaming hot chocolate. I want to hear Hila singing in the shower. I want Dad to tell me that everything will be okay. “Strength, Aggie-doll, is built from the inside out.”
    But I’ve had enough.
    I head back to the commander’s tent. The camping light she had on a few minutes ago is off. She’s probably asleep. I stand outside working up the nerve to knock—but I’m too afraid to wake her. There’s no one to ask and I don’t even know which way it is to the army base.
    I’m stuck!
    I go back to the tent and slip inside. Lying on the rocky ground next to the open flap of the tent, I curl into a small ball. I’ll wait for morning and then I’ll have to leave. I feel something inside me beginning to snap.
    Peeking up at the sky through the tent flap, I feel so small and overwhelmed by the vastness around me. I try not to whimper but can’t stop myself. Something hits my foot. I scrunch up tighter. It lies near me. I kick it away. It doesn’t move. Shining a light on it, I realize that someone has tossed out an old shirt.
    I’ve become a dumping ground for dirty laundry.
    Picking it up, I consider throwing it back, but the shirt is soft and smells clean, and rolled up, it works as a pillow, cushioning the rocky soil beneath my head.
    A few moments later something itchy lands next to me. A wool sweater. It’s not a blanket, but draped over my shoulders it keeps out the night chill.
    For the next few minutes odds and ends fly my way. Soon I’ve got a somewhat comfortable patch beneath me and am covered on top as well. The final thing lands with a jingle.
    A stuffed bunny.
    I can’t believe someone brought a stuffed animal. Wrapping it in my arms, I snuggle down for the night.
    Only I can’t sleep.
    It’s the pressure.
    I roll onto my side. I roll onto my stomach.
    I try thinking about dry cleaners, dry crackers, dry toast, but nothing works. I have a sandbag inside me weighing down on the very spot where all the water that I drank but didn’t sweat out is about to burst its dam.
    I’ve got to go.
    But it’s dark.
    I’ve got to go.
    But it’s too creepy to go alone. I’m bursting!
    â€œLily?”
    Silence.
    â€œLily?” I say louder.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDon’t you have to pee?”
    I wait. A few minutes later her head pops out of her sleeping bag. “Enough to flood the Jordan River.”
    Pigtails sits up. “Can I come, too?”
    â€œWhere are you going?” asks Argentina.
    â€œTo irrigate the desert,” says Lily.
    â€œAre we allowed?” asks Amber.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    We look at one another.
    â€œWe might not be allowed to leave here.”
    â€œWe’re not going out bar hopping,” says Argentina.
    â€œMaybe we should wake the commander and ask her.”
    â€œYou wake her.”
    â€œUh-uh. I’m not waking her.”
    â€œWe could use a can and pass it around,” Noga suggests.
    â€œYou want to take up a collection?”
    â€œWe’d share the can not the—”
    â€œDisgusting.” Lily wiggles out of her sleeping bag.
    â€œThey can try and control