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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Carpool” Down in the Dirt, v149 (the September 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book the Light in the Sky the Down in the Dirt Sept.-Dec. 2017 collection book		get the 418 page May-August 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

The School

Betty J. Sayles

    Samantha Westlake was a very pretty young woman. Her family was wealthy and she always had everything she wanted including the freedom to go where she wanted and do what she wanted. Now, at eighteen, she was bored to tears. Her older brother, Robert, was a straight A college student and Sam’s parents expected the same from her. With years of rebellion and headstrong ways behind her, she had no intension of leaving her friends and going off to college. Their increasingly unlawful antics were the only fun she had.

    James and Ethyl Westlake were reading a brochure about a new school, a different kind of school. It guaranteed to change problem children into well-behaved model sons and daughters. They wanted an obedient daughter and had no idea how to make that happen. This seemed like the perfect solution.

    One afternoon, Sam came out of the music store with her new CD’s and was grabbed by a large man with one arm while the other hand held a cloth to her face. She dropped her sack and scratched his face, but that was the end of her resistance. She sagged on his arm and he lifted her into the side door of a van.

    “Wake up, bitch, we’re here.” Sam was still groggy and mumbled. “Where are we?”
    A man with a bleeding scratch on his face said, “This is your new school. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.” She was hustled through a large, heavy door and the man locked it and pocketed the key.
    Sam ordered frostily, “You unlock that door and take me home. My dad will deal with you, he’s the Lt. Governor of this state.”
    “That won’t cut any ice here, bitch.” He half dragged her up a flight of stairs, pushed her into a room and locked the door. Sam pounded on the door and yelled, but no one came for the rest of the day. There was no bathroom connected to the bedroom, but she saw a bucket in a corner and she peed in that. Someone will pay for this, she thought.

    Sam was awakened the next morning by a heavy woman with huge arms and legs and a moustache. She was repulsed by the ugliness of the woman. “I demand you let me out of here,” she screamed. The woman ignored her words and said, “Get up, the director wants to see you.”
    Thinking that the director would have some sense of self- preservation after she explained who she was, she hurriedly pulled on her jeans and shirt and put on her sneakers. She had slept in her underwear. “Let’s go,” she said.

    They went down the stairs, along a long hall towards the rear of the building. Sam noticed that the windows were barred. “What kind of place is this,” she wondered. The director was a small man who looked like Woody Allen. “Why does everyone here look so weird?” she wondered.
    “You’re here to learn obedience and manners,” the man said in a squeaky voice. “I’m Mr. Johnson and I’ll be keeping a close eye on your development.”
    “Why was I kidnapped? I will not stay here, my parents will pay you to take me home.”
    The man motioned to the moustache and she took Sam’s arm and led her back into the hall. They stopped in a room where a girl gave her a toothbrush, comb and a roll of toilet paper. Moustache said,” You will shower in the community shower and use the bucket in your room which you will empty every day.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding, that’s disgusting.” Sam cried.

    After Sam took her new possessions to her room, she was taken to another room with a cement floor and a drain. In the center was a tall wooden cross with handcuffs on the crosspiece. She was told to remove her clothes. When she refused, she was beaten on the legs with a strap until she obeyed. She was handcuffed to the cross.
    “This is to teach you humility.” Said the moustache.
    Three young men and two young women entered the room and sat on the floor facing Sam. They all had bowed heads until the woman shouted, “Head’s up.”
    Sam wished she could die right then. Her torture was only starting. Her legs grew tired and she sagged with only the handcuffs, biting into her wrists, holding her up. She wet herself and saw pity in the faces of the young people. After two hours, she was released. One of the young men passed her on his way out of the room and he whispered, “We’ve all been there.”

    Every day, Sam spent two hours at the cross. On her second day, she was given a scant breakfast of oatmeal and later suspected that a laxative had been added to it, as she had diarrhea to add to her humiliation. Before being released, the moustache hosed her down with cold water.
    When she wasn’t on the cross, she was given hard work to do. Every night, a loudspeaker droned on and on about the necessity of obedience, obeying parents and authority figures. It went on all night, but she was so tired she slept, fitfully, through it.

    As the days passed, she guessed she saw about 20 different young people in the building. They never talked or met her eyes. She didn’t learn meekness fast enough and Mr. Johnson cut her scanty meals to two per day. She was always hungry.

    One day, her fifteenth, someone left a door unlocked. Sam was gone. She walked miles until she found a phone and called her mother.
    “Samantha, why aren’t you in school?”
    Sam asked, “You knew where I was?”
    “Well, of course,” her mother answered.
    “Why that school. Mother?”
    Her mother sounded defensive, “Well, you needed help, Samantha, We really couldn’t let you go on as you were.”
    Sam hung up. She reported the school to the authorities, but never learned if it had been closed.

    Sam was a smart young woman and she went through college on grants and scholarships. She got a good job and met a good man. Sometimes, she wondered what her life would be like without the school experience. But the memories were cruel and she couldn’t forgive what her parents had knowingly put her through. She and her brother remained close.

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