look at the scenery,” Martha moaned. “I don’t want to be here at all. I want to beback home in Ohio, walking through a nice park to have a picnic.”
“Picnic. Fab idea. What are we having?” Bebe asked.
“Huh?”
“What’s on the menu for the picnic?” Bebe asked again.
Martha fell silent for a while, but then she piped up: “My mom’s chicken-salad sandwiches. They’re the best. Not too mayonnaise-y.”
“What else?” I asked, glad to distract her.
“My mom makes these twice-baked potatoes with cheese and sour cream. They’re supposed to be eaten hot, but they taste even better cold. Then we’ll have some cut-up carrots and celery to be healthy. And watermelon. And ice-cold lemonade. The homemade kind, not the powdery stuff.”
“What about dessert?” I asked.
Martha pondered that for a second. “Can we have two choices?”
“It’s your picnic, darling. We can have as many as you want,” Bebe said.
“Icebox cake. It’s this thing my grandma used to make. Chocolate biscuits all crunched up withwhipped cream and chocolate sauce, and then frozen. It’s like an airy ice-cream cake that doesn’t melt all over.”
Bebe and I were both salivating now. “What’s the other option?” I asked.
“Strawberry shortcake. Little individual ones, really thin, with fat strawberries that we picked ourselves, and fresh whipped cream.”
“Oh, stop it Marth,” I said. “This is torturous, worse than the hike.”
“I know, I’m hungrier than ever,” Martha said. But she was also almost at the summit. When we sat down to eat our apples and trail mix we tried to pretend they were Martha’s dream picnic. It almost worked.
Two weeks later, we had the first snowfall of the season. “Thank God,” Martha said, looking at the falling flakes. “No more backcountry therapy.”
I wished group therapy would be over for the season, too. I came to dread the sessions almost as much as my meetings with Clayton. I had tried to fly under the radar for the first few months, and it sort of worked. During the CT sessions, I’d only been put in the hot seat that one time with Sheriff. But after Thanksgiving, all of a sudden my honeymoon wasover. Now it was like I was the counselor’s pet project. I wound up in the CT circle twice in one week, and twice they couldn’t get me to cry, even when they mentioned my mom. Some of the Stockholm-Syndrome girls were starting to get nasty with me too, constantly harping on me about not working my program. As if it was any of their business.
Plus, now that the weather was cooler, the counselors patrolled the yard to keep warm, and that kind of ruined the joy of the quarry. We couldn’t talk as much, and we were separated a lot more. And they just got randomly nasty and controlling for no reason. I happen to have a small bladder and had to pee a lot because I drink lots of water when I’m building walls. When it was hot, we got quarry bathroom breaks once an hour, but now that it was cold, we were only permitted to go every two hours. Most of the time, when I raised my hand, they let me go, but one day, one of the goons refused to let me. “I think you use your bladder as a form of control,” he told me. Yeah, to control my pee. I was about to wet my pants so I waited for him to pass and squatted behind a rock.
A dorky Level Four chick named Jenny caught me and started screaming, “Oh, disgusting. She’s going on the ground!”
God, you would’ve thought I’d peed on someone. I got pulled from the quarry and hauled straight into Clayton’s office. She was livid, turning shades of red.
“Your continual defiance is getting tiresome,” she said coldly.
“ I’m not defiant. My bladder is. It’s got a mind of its own,” I said.
That remark turned out to be a little too smartass. Clayton turned purple. “I thought I told you to stay away from Miss Larson.”
“What does V have to do with my bladder?” I gave Clayton my best are-you-nuts face.
“This
“Picnic. Fab idea. What are we having?” Bebe asked.
“Huh?”
“What’s on the menu for the picnic?” Bebe asked again.
Martha fell silent for a while, but then she piped up: “My mom’s chicken-salad sandwiches. They’re the best. Not too mayonnaise-y.”
“What else?” I asked, glad to distract her.
“My mom makes these twice-baked potatoes with cheese and sour cream. They’re supposed to be eaten hot, but they taste even better cold. Then we’ll have some cut-up carrots and celery to be healthy. And watermelon. And ice-cold lemonade. The homemade kind, not the powdery stuff.”
“What about dessert?” I asked.
Martha pondered that for a second. “Can we have two choices?”
“It’s your picnic, darling. We can have as many as you want,” Bebe said.
“Icebox cake. It’s this thing my grandma used to make. Chocolate biscuits all crunched up withwhipped cream and chocolate sauce, and then frozen. It’s like an airy ice-cream cake that doesn’t melt all over.”
Bebe and I were both salivating now. “What’s the other option?” I asked.
“Strawberry shortcake. Little individual ones, really thin, with fat strawberries that we picked ourselves, and fresh whipped cream.”
“Oh, stop it Marth,” I said. “This is torturous, worse than the hike.”
“I know, I’m hungrier than ever,” Martha said. But she was also almost at the summit. When we sat down to eat our apples and trail mix we tried to pretend they were Martha’s dream picnic. It almost worked.
Two weeks later, we had the first snowfall of the season. “Thank God,” Martha said, looking at the falling flakes. “No more backcountry therapy.”
I wished group therapy would be over for the season, too. I came to dread the sessions almost as much as my meetings with Clayton. I had tried to fly under the radar for the first few months, and it sort of worked. During the CT sessions, I’d only been put in the hot seat that one time with Sheriff. But after Thanksgiving, all of a sudden my honeymoon wasover. Now it was like I was the counselor’s pet project. I wound up in the CT circle twice in one week, and twice they couldn’t get me to cry, even when they mentioned my mom. Some of the Stockholm-Syndrome girls were starting to get nasty with me too, constantly harping on me about not working my program. As if it was any of their business.
Plus, now that the weather was cooler, the counselors patrolled the yard to keep warm, and that kind of ruined the joy of the quarry. We couldn’t talk as much, and we were separated a lot more. And they just got randomly nasty and controlling for no reason. I happen to have a small bladder and had to pee a lot because I drink lots of water when I’m building walls. When it was hot, we got quarry bathroom breaks once an hour, but now that it was cold, we were only permitted to go every two hours. Most of the time, when I raised my hand, they let me go, but one day, one of the goons refused to let me. “I think you use your bladder as a form of control,” he told me. Yeah, to control my pee. I was about to wet my pants so I waited for him to pass and squatted behind a rock.
A dorky Level Four chick named Jenny caught me and started screaming, “Oh, disgusting. She’s going on the ground!”
God, you would’ve thought I’d peed on someone. I got pulled from the quarry and hauled straight into Clayton’s office. She was livid, turning shades of red.
“Your continual defiance is getting tiresome,” she said coldly.
“ I’m not defiant. My bladder is. It’s got a mind of its own,” I said.
That remark turned out to be a little too smartass. Clayton turned purple. “I thought I told you to stay away from Miss Larson.”
“What does V have to do with my bladder?” I gave Clayton my best are-you-nuts face.
“This
Similar Books
