FLIPKA

Chapter 2

I awoke to a buzzer the next morning, stiffer than a mule and feeling about as cantankerous. Dinner had been Cheetos, a Pepsi and a Pepto-Bismol I’d fortunately shoved into my purse before leaving Vegas. I was hungry with a capital H. 

Sunlight streamed through metal mini blinds above me but did not improve the ambiance of the room I was in; four institution-grey walls were covered with meaningless affirmation posters—“I love myself because I’m worthy”—the sort of propaganda that will drive any bright kid with an unrelenting self-loathing right over the edge. I had to fight the urge to yank the darn things off the wall and rip them to shreds, but I’d already ticked off Winnie Peterson, the Chief Administrator, Head Mistress, Warden (or whatever the heck she was called) by arriving at the very hour of her bedtime. That woman’s skinny body contained not one light-hearted bone. Not one! I guessed her to be in her early fifties, a former smoker who now chewed Nicotine gum and was probably (from the style of her dress) a Mormon. That part of the state was awash with tribes of them. Of course, I’d further ingratiated myself to her by joking that 9 pm was breakfast time for me and that the ungodly hour she expected me to wake up the next morning was my bedtime. Coldly she begged me to desist from further attempts at conversation until the next morning and left me in a small room in Barracks Six with a stern admonition to “lock the door.” Which I did.

In the next room I heard young girls chattering the way young girls do—in singsong short phrases, punctuated by breathless exclamations; everything was so in the moment for them, so laced with deep import and eternal consequences, that I had to snicker to myself. From the little Ms. Peterson had told me, there were just seven girls in Barracks Six, ranging in age from fifteen to seventeen. They were all from so-called good families. Their offenses against society (the things that got them there) ranged from pot-smoking and assault (generally on a parent or parental figure) to breaking and entering. One of the girls had forced open a neighbor’s sliding glass patio door to steal a large bag of M&Ms that she then ate. The neighbor pressed charges and some judge, obviously a man, threw the book at her. 

I threw on my sweats and wandered across the hall to the communal bathroom. Five girls stood at a row of washbasins, applying what makeup they had—sample-sized tubes of lipstick and eye shadow that were probably donated by some philanthropic women’s group. The room reeked of sweet, fruity perfume. I tried not to gag. 

“Hey girls!” I chortled. “Top of the morning to you! I’m Fi Butters, your new resident counselor. I got in late last night, unfortunately after light’s out and dinner.”

“Dinner stank.” One of the girls offered as she took time from applying Cleopatra-style eyeliner to assess my reflection in the mirror. “You don’t look like a counselor.” 

“I’m afraid to ask what I do look like. What’s your name?” I asked Cleopatra. 

“Thursday.” 

“Nice name—is that the day you were born on?” 

“No. I was born on Wednesday, if my whore mother can be believed.”

“Ok. How about you?” I asked the younger-looking waif close by her side. “What’s your name?”

“Friday,” she replied with a nervous giggle. 

Spotting a trend (which would be impossible to miss unless you were brain dead), I turned to an unusually pretty blonde standing apart from the group, “I suppose your name is Tuesday?”

Cleopatra stepped in front of her, “No,” she informed me. “Tuesday isn’t here—she’s getting dressed. That’s Monday.” 

The pretty blonde rolled her eyes.