Chapter 28: Consequences

I sat on my bunk and thought about having a shower before I went to bed, the way Maya had suggested. As I was thinking, Vee was sorting out her schoolbag and Aubrey was fussing about in her cabinet. I thought about what she’d done to my trophy.

“Hey Aubrey,” I called out. “You should get yourself a proper dildo so that you don’t have to stick my trophy up your twat. That can’t have been as pleasant as a proper dildo would be.”

Aubrey laughed, but Vee froze and looked at me. “What did she do?”

I thought I’d been making a joke, but Vee seemed to be taking it seriously.

“She used my dance trophy to wank herself. Shoved it up her twat. It’s lucky she didn’t break it. It’s only plastic and if she’d broken it, I would have been totally pissed off. To be fair, I had just got done teasing her, so...” I shrugged.

Vee was scowling at Aubrey. “You stupid cunt. You know not to mess with other people’s things. That’s like the number one rule. What were you thinking?”

Aubrey fired up and glared at Vee. “I was thinking I’d rather use your tongue but you weren’t there so I had to make do.”

Vee slammed her schoolbag back in its storage drawer, saying, “I can’t talk to you right now.”

She turned and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Aubrey went over and sat on the long bench below the windows. “What a bitch,” she groused.

I was a bit surprised by Vee’s reaction. To be honest, I was expecting my stuff to get messed with sooner or later. Every story I’d ever heard about places like this involved bitchy girls messing with other people’s stuff. Okay, so I didn’t know much about places like this, and maybe many of those stories came from films or books, but I figured if it happened in films, that was probably a clue that it happened in real life.

Neither of us said anything for a moment. We just looked at each other. I was thinking about apologising for causing grief between her and Vee by bringing up the trophy. Then I thought, fuck her. She should’ve left my trophy alone. It wasn’t the trophy so much as the fact that it was standing in for my dad’s shelf. If she’d broken it, I would’ve gone berserk.

We sat in silence and thought our own thoughts. I was picturing what I would have done to her if Aubrey had broken my trophy. I can’t tell you what Aubrey was thinking.

The door opened and Maya and Jana came in, followed by Vee and Clara.

Maya gave Aubrey a cold glance and turned to me.

“Is it true? Did she use your trophy to jill off with?”

I shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Did she wreck it?” Maya asked. “Can I see it?”

I got up from the bunk and pulled the trophy out of my cabinet. I handed it to Maya and went back to sit on the bunk. Maya read the engraving and then looked over the trophy carefully.

“I see a bit of paint chipped off, here, on the tutu,” said Maya.

I shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the paint there was already chipped. It’s an old trophy. And it’s only plastic.”

“It looks clean,” said Maya.

“Yeah,” I responded. “I washed it off. It was all manky from her juices.”

Now Maya turned to Aubrey. “Well?”

“So what?,” said Aubrey. “It was a joke. I don’t see why you have to make a big deal about it.”

Maya handed the trophy to Jana to look at and then turned to Vee and Clara.

“Get all the girls in here,” said Maya in a commanding tone. “We’re having a meeting. Everyone comes. No excuses.”

The two girls nodded and left the room.

Aubrey was frowning. “I’m not having a meeting. I don’t have to be here if I don’t want to. You can’t make me.”

“Sit down!” Both Maya and Jana said it at once, loudly and firmly.

Aubrey had started to stand up during her complaint but she immediately sat down again. Then she looked surprised that she’d done what she was told. Jana handed me the trophy and went back to stand with Maya.

Over the next few minutes the other girls started to drift in. There were questions, asking what was happening, but Maya just told everyone to find somewhere to sit and wait until everyone was here. Girls were sitting on the bench, on the bunks, on the floor. Sami and Kala came and set next to me in their bright red pyjamas. Some of the girls were in their pyjamas, others were in their street clothes. Scarlet was wearing a towel wrapped around her and knotted off. Apparently she’d been about to start her shower.

Eventually Vee and Clara came back in. They looked around.

“That’s everyone,” said Vee.

Maya stood in the middle and looked around the room. Jana stood next to her. Everyone else was sitting somewhere.

“Okay, thanks everyone for coming,” said Maya.

Scarlet snorted. “We weren’t exactly given a choice. What’s going on?”

“I’m telling you,” said Maya. “If you stop interrupting, you’ll find out.”

Scarlet mumbled to herself and fiddled with her towel, but she didn’t say anything.

“The reason I called this meeting is because Aubrey decided it would be funny to mess with Jacinta’s stuff. She took Jacinta’s dance trophy and masturbated herself with it.”

“Eeeew, gross,” whispered Kala. I heard other murmurs around the room.

“I’m the one who’s been here longest,” said Maya. “And quite a few of you weren’t here last time this came up. So, here’s a quick history lesson. When I got here, the girls’ dorm was ruled by a couple of bullies. They played so called pranks on the other girls, particularly the newcomers. Less developed girls were taunted for being flat. A favourite piece of clothing went missing, or got cut into pieces. Mementos went missing or were broken. One girl’s clothes were peed on. Another girl had food smeared into her clothes. One girl was cornered, held down, stripped and put on display in front of the boys. Those sorts of things didn’t happen all the time but often enough to make this a pretty miserable place. The boys had similar problems.”

Maya looked around the room for a moment to let that sink in.

“The kids then were like you guys. A lot of them came in, already traumatised. We were all messed up in one way or another before coming here, and those two made it worse. A few of the residents resorted to drugs, or were already using before they came here. Once the environment of drug taking was established, others got sucked in. And I’m not talking about pot.”

“Didn’t the leaders do anything?” asked Mei. “I can’t imagine Max and Roseanna putting up with that.”

“This was before Max and Roseanna,” said Maya. She paused and her lip curled. “The previous leaders were useless. One of them was source of some of the drugs. He demanded sexual things in payment. There were enough willing to pay that price to get a fix. And we were all too scared to narc on the main girls, or the leader.”

Maya and Jana looked at each other for a moment in silent communication. Jana nodded and Maya turned to the rest of us.

“One day, Jana was the new kid. They stripped her, held her down and raped her with a shampoo bottle. They came back the following night and did it again.”

“I’d been molested at home,” said Jana in a very quiet voice. “I thought I’d been rescued, taken somewhere safe. But suddenly I was being molested again. This time by girls I was trapped in here with. It seemed like nowhere was safe. It was obvious the leaders weren’t interested.”

She hesitated, then spoke quietly. “I tried to kill myself.”

The room was silent. You could’ve heard a pin drop.

Maya picked up the story. “She ended up in hospital. She told the nurses what had happened. They reported it. There was a full on DCP inquiry. We girls decided enough was enough and told everything. The two girls went to prison for sexual assault and a few other things. Not for long enough, but they went. I don’t know what happened to them after that. I don’t really care. The leaders were replaced. That one leader went to prison. I don’t know what happened to him after that. I don’t really care. We got new leaders: Max and Roseanna. They moved the worst of the druggies to other residences. They ran regular searches. Anybody with drugs got consequences. Repeat offenders got booted. We had meetings, lots of meetings, both with the leaders and on our own. The topic was always the same. How can we make this place better, for everyone.”

Jana spoke. “Among us girls, we tried a rule of no touching, at all, for two weeks. That was really hard. Girls like to hug. We kiss each other. We pat each other. We do each other’s hair. We hold hands. Even people who are survivors, we seek comfort from our friends. Everyone hated that rule, but we enforced it on each other. It helped everyone become aware, so that when the rule was over, touching was a conscious choice. It helped to break the pattern of pushing, pinching, hitting, grabbing. When we stopped enforcing that rule, virtually nobody went back to physical attacks on each other.”

Jana shrugged. “People still had melt downs. But apart from those, the violence around here mostly disappeared.”

Maya took over again. “Our number one rule became don’t mess with someone else’s stuff. Not everyone was on board. We had meetings, but some of the girls kept messing with people. They didn’t get it. Things had been done to them, so they thought they should be able to do the same to someone else. We started enforcing it. On our own. Without the leaders knowing. It was simple. If a girl messed with someone else’s belongings we imposed a consequence. We refused to let one or two girls decide. It had to be a vote. More than half had to agree that a consequence was deserved. More than half had to agree with the consequence. It wasn’t a perfect system. We knew it could be corrupted. So the second step was always that anyone could go to the leaders. Let Max and Roseanna decide.”

Maya turned and looked at Aubrey, who’d sat quietly through all of this. “Aubrey seriously messed with Jacinta’s stuff. I’m calling for a vote.”

“What’s the consequence?” asked Hazel.

“Hairbrush,” said Jana. “To the backside.”

There was a stir. People looked at each other.

Maya looked around the room. “What Aubrey did was gross. But it’s more than that. We don’t know how much a memento means to a person. Most of us arrive with so little. Often those things we do have are hugely important to us. They’re irreplaceable. If she’s willing to do that to Jacinta’s stuff, maybe tomorrow she’ll do it to yours. She needs to learn. If you think Aubrey deserves a consequence, put your hand up.”

There was a rustle around the room. I didn’t look too closely but I didn’t notice anyone who didn’t put their hand up. Except for Aubrey of course, she looked around the room and scowled.

“It’s agreed then,” said Maya. She turned to Jana. “How many do you think?”

Jana looked at me and then down at Aubrey. “Two. I think two should do it.”

Maya nodded.

Aubrey looked confused. “Two? All of this and you’re going to smack me twice?”