She nodded. "I knew it was Teal. Phoebe. You did the right thing in being honest with me. I'm proud of you. You're going to succeed here. You're going to become something. I want you to come to me or to one of the buddies if she continues to talk about this. If she does and you don't, I won't appreciate it and you will be hurting her more. Do you understand? Do you?"
I nodded.
"Good. Now go have yourself some breakfast. We'll talk again soon," she said. standing.
I rose. My head lowered itself with shame as I walked to the door.
"It's always hard to do the right things after doing the wrong things for so long." Dr. Foreman called after me as I left her office.
You're the one who doesn't know the difference. I thought. But that was a sentence I would not utter aloud, even to the others.
I had something worse to keep locked in my heart now. Rationalize all that I might, make any excuse that I could think of. it was still the same thing, a betrayal. That was what I had committed in there. under Dr. Foreman's threatening eyes. I was afraid. more afraid than I had ever remembered being. Even the rats hadn't frightened me as much. Now nothing was clearer to me than this secret pain I had to carry and not show-- none of us could be trusted. Not if I was the one who betrayed one of us so easily. I had thought I was stronger than the others. What a laugh. I thought. I might be the weakest of us all.
The cloud of depression darkened and fell over me as I walked on. We were all running down a street that would eventually become a dead end. The result of all this was never clearer to me.
She will win. I thought. Eventually. Dr. Foreman will get everything from us that she wants, and the most horrible thing of all will be that we will willingly give it to her.
5
Catfight
.
Even though I knew no ant, especially not
Robin or Teal, would suspect I was a snitch. I had difficulty looking either of them in the eye. Rabin was intrigued about everything that had happened to us. It frustrated her that while we worked in the field this time, the buddies hung around seemingly just to make sure we didn't speak to each other. Finally, they grew bored and left. Robin nearly leaped out of her clodhoppers to get at us.
"What happened to you guys? Why didn't you come back to the barn to sleep?"
"We had to bury our evil," Teal said dryly.
"Huh?" Robin looked to me for a more sensible reply. Was there one? I wondered.
They put us in these coffins they keep for a little extra persuasion," I told her, then described it. She paled, even through
her darkening tan. as I spoke. Even her lips turned pale white. While I spoke. Teal kept her head down and leaned on her shovel.
"They can't do these terrible things to us." Robin exclaimed, Mindy, who had been working on the other side and had been listening. laughed.
"They can't! It's illegal for sure," Robin insisted,
"So call the cops," Mindy taunted,
"I can't stand her." Robin muttered, glaring at Mindy. Her eyes suddenly grew smaller with a new suspicion. "You want to know something? I don't think she did anything wrong."
"What are you talking about?" Teal asked, looking up quickly.
"I think Mindy is here just to aggravate and annoy us to death. She's like one of these plants. She works for Dr. Foreman. She's a spy or something. I'm going to make her admit it." Robin said, throwing her shovel to the ground.
"Don't do anything stupid." I warned, and looked around. "They hear everything we say. I think. Even when they're not around."
"What do you mean they hear everything we say?" Robin asked. Teal looked at me with new fears in her face.
"Just that. I don't know. Maybe this place is bugged with microphones or something. I get the feeling sometimes that when Dr. Foreman asks us a question, she already knows the answer." I said.
The two of them looked at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mindy cross the field toward us. Gia finished what she was doing and sat back on the ground, embracing her legs and lowering her head.
"What did she ask you?" Mindy fired at me, still crossing. "What?"