get this thing over with quickly. She looked at Freedom Five and made her only sound:
"Umnn?"
"OK, stand up."
She tried and found that she couldn't do it without the fear of falling forward. "Ull m.mnn,"
she said.
They looked at her blankly. All her sounds sounded the same.
"UH mmnn ! "
"Help me," Dianne translated. ·
Obediently, John and Dianne took her bare arms and helped her to stand. Briefly, she
recorded the fact that they were much stronger than she would have guessed. Then Bobby
gave a timid tug on the rope around her neck-it worked as he had said-and she
turned and followed him, the rest coming behind. ·
The trip down the hall was a mile and a half long.
Barbara was hobbled just above the ankles, and Bobby had tied his loops too tightly. When
she stood up and put her weight on her legs, they swelled and the ropes cut in. Moreover,
he had hobbled her too closely so that she advanced only by short little slides no more
than nine or ten inches a move. Finally, her feet finished each step nearly in line so that it
was like walking a tightrope. She was afraid of falling and kept her right hand out to steady
herself against the wall as they went.
When the slow procession reached the bathroom at last, Dianne told the rest, "You can't
see," and let Barbara slide in ahead. The whole time afterward, Dianne stood inside against
the wall near the door, her gaze primly averted.
"Well, we'll have to feed her sometime." John was sitting, elbows on table, heels hooked
over the rung of a kitchen chair. He chewed while he talked, and in front of him lay part of
a sandwich Dianne had made.
33
"How'll we get the gag back in her mouth if she doesn't want us to?" Cindy said. "She
might bite."
"First of all, what if she starts yelling, you mean?" "That's easy." Paul gave a twisted shrug.
"Let John have a pillow, and if she does, he wraps it over her face."
"She'd smother," Bobby said.
"Just for a little while, while we open the chloroform, and then we put her to sleep."
"How about the gag though?" Cindy persisted. "Same thing, stupid."
"I'm not stupid. You stop calling me that!"
"Why don't you leave her alone, Bobby?" John sighed.
"Somebody better stand guard and watch the road in case anyone drives in when she isn't
gagged."
"You want to do that, Cindy?"
"No, I want to watch." She lazily ate the icing oft
a piece of cake she had wheedled out of Dianne.
"I'll stay out here," Bobby said. "No, we might need you." ·
"I'm only out here, for godsakes. Besides, it's Paul's tum to do something. If he wants to
chloroform her, let him try it for a change."
"Finish your sandwich, Paul. Hurry up"-Dianne was already straightening up-"It's getting
late."
"Yeah, and I want to go swimming after my · hour," Cindy licked her fingers slowly.
The kids approached Barbara more familiarly now. She was back in her room but sitting in
a chair to which they had tied her-amid endless debate and engineering discussion-over an
hour ago. It would be obvious to an outsider that half the rope would have done the job,
but that was not the point. The more they used, the safer they felt.
This was apparent in the way they lounged around while Dianne explained about the pillow
over the face and the chloroform and the lookout to watch the road. "Now, will you be quiet
if we take your gag out?"
34
Barbara nodded solemnly. Her jaws ached from being spread.
Since the boys never offered to touch Barbara unless they had work to do, Dianne removed
the adhesive tape. As usual, Bobby had used enough to set a broken bone, and it took a
long time to come off strip by strip, each one protested by Barbara. When they were finally
gone, balled up and discarded with the paper trash to be burned, Dianne reached in the
older girl's mouth and pulled out the damp terry-cloth wad. Barbara swallowed
immediately and painfully, and extended her tongue to touch her dry lips.
"Can I have a glass of water?"
At the sound of her voice, John and Paul stiffened slightly. This, clearly, was the beginning
of danger.
"I won't scream," Barbara said carefully.
Don't lose your head when they ungag you, Terry had said in her phantom conversation
this morning. Talk to them. Be calm.
"I'll get some," Cindy buzzed out.
"Turn on the TV-loud," John yelled behind her.
He was still quite nervous.
"I won't scream," Barbara repeated in a low, steady voice. When no one said anything, she
added, "You can put the pillow and bottle down. I know. I won't make any trouble."
Dianne, also tense, seemed to relax. "All right, then. I'll get you something."
"What?"
Dianne turned and left the room. "Cereal," she said over her shoulder.
"I want more than that!"
"That's all you're going to get." Paul instantly picked up the bottle again; the cloth was
visible inside it, and his fingers were on the lid. "You're on a prisoner's diet."
"You-" Barbara stopped herself and sighed.
"That's not going to make me any weaker, Paul. It's just going to make me hungrier."
"Well, you're still on it." He shut his-lips tightly.
35
There was silence,
"The more you do to me, the more you'll get punished, you know?" Barbara finally said.
She could not bring herself to say more, to grant them additional powers. A certain
stubborn insistence on her adult superior-· ity forbade it, particularly now that she had her
voice back. "What do you suppose they'll do to you for this?"
The boys acknowledged her shot. Paul became embarrassed and looked down at the rug.
Behind Barbara, John remained silent.
"Why don't you have another meeting and talk about it? You know what's going to happen:
just decide for yourselves what's best. If you keep on going and somebody finds out before
you let me go, you'll be in even worse trouble. If you let me go now, I'll"-Bar bara was still
ticked off-"I'll think about it. We'll all take a swim and talk about it."
The boys' silence became concrete and cold. "Isn't that better than what you're going to
get this way?"
Nothing.
After a bit, Dianne came back with the cereal on a tray and, being Dianne, a napkin. "What
were you talking about?" She set the things on the vanity.
Paul's relief at seeing his sister was pathetic. He writhed in gratitude. "She wants us to let
her go. She says she might not tell on us."
Dianne snorted in a ladylike way. "Can we move her over here?"
"But what's going to happen to all of you after this?" Barbara said.
"We don't want to talk. Come on." Getting over on the opposite side of the chair from John,
Dianne helped him slide Barbara up to the small vanity.
Barbara sighed again and shook her head. "Here's the water."
Dianne took it from Cindy and held it to Barbara's lips.
"Aren't you going to untie at least one hand?" The
36
caution, the insistence on detail, the si1ence, the refusal to be sensible or communicate
with her, brought Barbara close to losing her patience. "I can't run away on one hand."
"It's too much trouble." "But I want to feed myself."
"I know, but it's too much trouble. It takes too much time, and everyone wants to go
swimming," Dianne said. "Do you want this or not?"
Barbara looked at her-Barbara felt crushed-and nodded. For all the fact that it was metallic
well water, however, it was cool and healing and smooth. The sheer comfort to her throat