Class Trip (5 page)

We went down the
stairs and each girl got a bowl of white goo. I thanked the lady who
gave it to me and Herr Glossner smiled approvingly at me. He was
positively grinning from ear to ear at me.

I sat down at the
long tables that they had in this hall. There were no other girls
here. I heard whispering about that. Herr Schweitzer told everyone to
eat quietly. The bus driver was also there looking at us. They all
had canes in their hands.

I was scared and
the white goo tasted like banana. I liked bananas in banana form but
never in anything else.

Some of the girls
were finished and they were being lined up outside of a room. A man
in a white doctors coat came out and nodded at one of the women here.
She grabbed on to Josephine, who was at the front of the line and
pushed her into the room.

We all heard her
scream
no
and then someone was whipping her. I looked around
the room. Every eye was on the door. There were three men here, plus
the doctor. I could see three women and hear a couple more talking in
the kitchen. And there were fifty-two of us.

They just had
canes. If we jumped on them and took their canes we could free
ourselves. I was about to tell everyone what I was thinking when Herr
Glossner spoke to me again.

“What's the
matter? Don't you like it?” He looked at my bowl; which was only
missing a tiny spoonful.

I wanted to say
that I was afraid there might be drugs in it but he still had his
cane in his hands and I knew that none of my friends would come to my
rescue. If they wouldn't do it for Hannah, their life long friend
then they wouldn't do it for me either.

“I don't care
for banana taste in anything but bananas,” I admitted.

He nodded at me
and looked over at the kitchen. “I'll get you something else.” He
went to one of the women and told her something. She looked at him
like he was crazy and then he gave her one of his looks. She went off
to do what he wanted.

The whipping
sound had stopped and now I could only hear Josephine crying.

Herr Glossner was
now over talking to the girls in line to go into the door. They were
nodding at him. He then went table for table and talked to everyone.
When he reached our table he looked at us one by one before he
started to talk. “You all heard what happened to Josephine. You
don't want that to happen to you, do you?”

Everyone shook
their heads no.

“Then do what
the doctor tells you to do without any games. Understand?”

Again we all
nodded.

“What is going
on here?” Sophie asked him.

“Just do as you
are told. It will be better for you.” He stood and walked away.

I peeked over my
shoulder at him. He went to the woman who had given us our breakfast.
She was holding a plate in her hands. He took it from her and brought
it over to me. I now had the feeling that we all needed to eat
something because they were drugging us again.

He set the plate
down in front of me and smiled at me.

All eyes were on
me.

“Thank you,”
I said as I looked at the roll on my plate. There was a knife and a
bit of butter there too.

He stood there
watching me.

I slowly picked
up the knife and I noticed that the kitchen lady was watching me too.

“She is worried
that you will pull something with that dinky butter knife,” he
explained.

I looked at the
other girls and they were all staring at me while I imagined terrible
things like a dead rat in the roll, which he would force me to eat.

I cut into the
bread. It was just bread so I cut it in half. I buttered one half and
took a bite. There wasn't anything odd tasting about it at all. I
finished the roll and the woman removed my plate and knife. She
didn't look happy.

Herr Glossner
said something to her in a language I had never heard before.

The girls were
going by tables to the line that led to the doctor. We heard whipping
every once in a while. Once the girls went through the lines they
didn't come back. I had to wonder if I would ever see them again.

We stayed sitting
at our table. Every time someone wanted to talk we were told to be
quiet.

Then it was our
turn. He told us to get up and get in line. We walked across the room
to line up. The woman who had slapped Evelyn before came back and
talked to him again. They were arguing. The bus driver joined them
too. They seemed to be discussing something and the woman and the bus
driver were on the same side. But Herr Glossner seemed to be higher
up than the others.

The door opened
and a woman called the next girl in. She went too slowly and the
woman grabbed her by her ear and pulled her in quicker. We all looked
at each other. What were they doing with her?

The door opened
ten minutes later and the next girl hurried in. As the line moved
ahead I was able to get a better idea what was going on in there.
There was an examination table and another door. The girls must be
going out of that door.

But what happened
after that?

That we were
kidnapped was clear. Were they oppressing our parents for money?

It was almost my
turn to go in through the door. I was really getting scared. I didn't
want to go in there. I had a really bad feeling about it.

“Sandra, come
here,” Herr Glossner called me to him. He still had a cane in his
hand and I knew how he liked to use it, hard and fast.

I swallowed hard
and went to him.

“I want you to
go last. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

He smirked and
turned away from me.

I went to the
back of the line.

“What did he
want?” the other girls asked me.

“He wants me to
go last.”

“You are
getting special treatment because you are an American. Do they think
that the America government will send in troops to come get you?”

I shrugged, “I
don't know.” I thought about what she had said. It did explain
everything, the reason that he didn't whip me for interfering and for
bringing me different food. If they got caught they wanted me to
testify that I was treated well. But the other girls would testify
something else.

I was getting
more and more nervous as I waited in line. I heard crying coming from
the room. Were they hurting the girls in there?

Herr Glossner
went to the door and knocked. A second later he just went in and then
we heard yelling. He was the one doing the yelling. I had to wonder
how many languages he spoke.

He came back out
and grabbed the next girl by her arm and pushed her into the room. He
closed the door behind him and went to the fat woman who he had been
discussing something with before. She looked mad too. They were both
shaking their heads.

Two more girls
were in front of me. Then just one more. We were both quiet so we
could hear what was going on inside.

They wanted her
to get undressed and then lie down on her back on the table.

We looked at each
other surprised. My jaw had dropped when I heard that. It was in a
sad frown. I racked my brain trying to figure a way out of this, but
I couldn't.

The door opened
and then I was standing there all alone. I could feel the eyes of the
captors drilling into my back. I didn't dare turn around and look at
them.

The door opened
and took a step back.

Herr Glossner
grabbed onto my hand again. He walked me into the room. The woman
came along too.

I didn't really
have to get undressed with him there, did I?

The woman said
something to him and then another discussion started. The doctor even
joined in this time. I couldn't understand what they were saying but
it was so obvious that it was a heated discussion and that Herr
Glossner didn't have anyone on his side.

He picked up a
stack of files and went out the door. Next to it was a larger stack
of files. That one he left where it was.

The doctor turned
to me. “Remove clothing,” he said in English.

I looked at the
woman and she gave me a
get on with it
look. I started to
unbutton my blazer but then the woman took over for me. She was
scolding me about something. I guess I hadn't been fast enough. She
opened my blouse and removed it and then my bra. She turned me so I
was facing the doctor.

His hands went
right to my breasts.

I stepped away
from him but the woman was behind me opening my skirt and holding me
in place.

The doctor
continued with my breasts. When he was finished he wrote something
down on the file. My hands went to cover my breasts from any further
attacks.

The woman pulled
down my skirt and hit me against my leg to tell me to lift up my foot
so she could remove the skirt completely. She then pulled down my
underwear and hit my legs again.

My hands had
moved to cover me down below. I leaned forward so my hair would cover
up my breasts as much as possible. She was working on my socks now. I
lifted my feet before she could hit me.

Both the doctor
and the woman looked me over. They lifted my arms and checked every
inch of my body.

The doctor patted
the table. He wanted me to sit down there. I looked at the woman and
she looked like she was getting really mad. I went and sat down
perfectly straight. The doctor looked in my eyes. “Contacts or
glasses,” he said in very bad English.

I shook my head
no. He wrote that down on my file. He looked in my ears and down my
throat. The doctor looked at my teeth very closely and then he wrote
on the file again.

He listened to my
heart and my lungs and my stomach.

Then he pushed on
my shoulder, he wanted me to lie down completely. He grabbed onto my
leg and I sat right back up.

“No,” I shook
my hands at him.

The woman took
hold of both of my shoulders and pushed me back down. The door that
Herr Glossner had left through opened. I looked at the door but it
was a woman coming in not him. She closed the door right behind her.

The woman came
over and grabbed my ankle and lifted it high in the air. The other
woman did the same with my other foot. The doctor ducked down and
looked in between my legs.

He smiled and
said something to the women. The one that had been there the whole
time moved around so she could look too.

They laughed a
little and I started to cry. This was just terrible. The women let go
of me. The one from before pointed to my clothes.

I got dressed in
record time. I was finished before the doctor was finished with his
writing. He stood up and waved me forward.

I was relieved
that I finally got to see the other girls again.

The doctor moved
his hand in a way that said ladies first. It was a little too late
for him to play the gentleman.

I stepped out and
saw Herr Glossner leaning against the wall. He didn't have a cane
anymore but still I knew that he was dangerous even without it.

Herr Glossner
held his hand out for the file. He opened it and smiled over at me
while the doctor started to argue with him.

He snapped at the
doctor and held his hand out in my direction. I went to him, knowing
I didn't really have another choice.

Herr Glossner
walked me down a long corridor. There were open windows that
overlooked a grassy area. I could see the other girls outside in the
courtyard. They stopped talking with each other and watched me being
taken away from them.

He opened a door
with a key and pulled me in with him.

This was the
first instant that I thought that maybe I had been singled out
because they hated Americans. You saw that a lot in movies and by the
way people talked I knew they felt that Americans weren't as smart as
Europeans. We were often the butt of their jokes.

He led me to a
staircase and went up pulling me along behind him. At the top I could
see that this was the living quarters. There was an old fashion TV
and the furniture looked like it had come out of the fifties too. It
was almost museum-like in the way that nothing modern was in here. He
brought me into a room with a bed, a wooden chair and a wardrobe. My
bags were in here on the bed.

“Sit down and
stay sitting.” He pointed to the chair in the corner.

I went to the
chair and sat down. He opened up my things and unpacked everything
out onto the bed.

I sat there
quietly while he did that. He seemed to be separating my things into
piles. When he was finished he lifted up my stuffed animal bunny.

“Who is this?”
he grinned.

“Carrots,” I
answered.

He laughed and
laid my bunny on one of the pillows nicely. He picked up a pile and
laid it back in my suitcase. “I want you to take off your uniform
and give it to me. I need the shoes too.”

I nodded at him
that I understood.

“I'm waiting.”
His eyes were still on me.

I just sat there
and looked at him. Did he really expect me to undress right in front
of him?

“Have I ever
said something that I didn't mean?”

I shook my head
no.

“Then why
aren't you obeying me?”

“It's just that
I feel that you could step outside of the room and wait patiently for
me to change into something else and then come back to collect the
uniform.” I spoke uncertain, but I could see that he was
entertained by what I was saying.

“No, get
undressed now. You know the punishment for not obeying me. Do you
want me to remove your uniform and spank you again? And besides who
said that you get to wear something else once you are undressed?”

I gasped and he
smiled. He was really the bad guy and my opinion of him, which wasn't
high in the first place, dropped even lower.