When we were finished, we went to the doorway because we heard a loud roaring sound. We saw a helicopter landing. Two men in suits and a uniformed policeman who looked like a general emerged, bent aver to avoid the propellers, and ran toward the ruins of the house. Many more patrol cars, another ambulance, firemen and police were moving about the rounds and around the smoldering hacienda. Off to the left. I saw Natani and his nephew surrounded by policemen, who were listening to them answer questions.
"Who's that in the helicopter, the president?" Teal wondered aloud.
"What's going to happen to us now?" Robin asked.
Bath Teal and I turned and looked at her. Funny, I thought, how I had never even considered it until she had just mentioned it. What
would be done with us?
"Whatever it is, it'll be a vacation compared to this." Teal replied.
Somehow, I didn't believe a vacation was what was ahead for us.
16
Fly Away Home
.
The two men in suits whom we had seen come
in the helicopter joined Alex and Lieutenant Rowling when they returned to the barn barracks. Once again. Alex told us to sit on a cot. She sat on the one brought closer to us, and the three men stood around and stared down at us as if we were extraterrestrials or something that had just been found in the desert.
"We need your help to understand what exactly happened here," Alex began in a soft, friendly tone.
None of the men smiled. I had the feeling that if she weren't there, they would beat every answer out of us.
"All three of you were sent here as part of the juvenile recovery program, correct?" she asked, thumbing through some pages in a file she carried.
"Was that what they called it?" Teal asked, looking at Robin and me as if we had kept it a secret from her.
"I never heard that term. Teal," I said.
"I thought it was part of the garbage recycle program," Robin muttered.
"Maybe we should conduct this interrogation someplace else." Lieutenant Rowling growled. "like the state's maximum security prison."
Alex held up her right hand without turning to him. She kept her eyes on us.
"Listen to me, girls. People are dead. This is an obvious case of felonious arson."
'Murder is a better word," Lieutenant Rowling corrected.
Alex closed and opened her eyes, again without looking up at him. "Before we can take you to more comfortable surroundings and see about your futures, we need to know as much as possible about what transpired here. How long have you girls been here?" she asked, flipping through those pages again.
We looked at each other, and then, after a moment, when no one replied, we all just laughed.
The men again looked ready to pounce and pound us.
"We're not being disrespectful, Alex," I said. "We've all last track of time. It seems like a very long time. but I imagine it's not."
"When you arrived here, these other girls, Mindy and Gia, were already here. however?"
"Yes." Robin said.
"Is Mindy dead?" I asked. I looked up quickly at Lieutenant Rowling, anticipating his saying again that they were the ones who asked the questions, not us. "We're worried about her. We don't know what to believe."
Alex nodded. "We understand she did attempt suicide. She's at a clinic. A mental clinic, and she is in treatment."