“I let who in??
“Oh, don’t pretend.”
“It smells like a port-a-let.”
I finished my shower and came out to find my half of the room barren. No bedding, no pillow, no piss-ridden clothes—just a blue tick mattress rolled over the opened windowsill to air out. Buffy had rolled everything into a wet, bitter-smelling ball of cloth. Opening my closet door, I chose sweatpants and a thick hoodie. Buffy averted her eyes in some minimal gesture of respect while I covered myself.
“You want to take a minute here and tell me what went on?”
“Like you don’t know….”
“Listen, Biba, you’re not entitled to talk to me that way. I’ve been nothing but kind and helpful to you. You don’t pay me back that way—nuh-uh. Not going to happen.” Her southern twang had thickened, and it wasn’t until then that I realized how good of an actress she truly was.
“I can still taste piss in my mouth, Buffy,” I hissed at her with as much venom as I could muster. “You left me alone and vulnerable with the door unlocked. Forgive me if I don’t believe that you knew nothing about this.”
“You are being paranoid. This is my room, too. Do you think I’m happy about it smellin’ like a sewer?”
I leveled my eyes at her. “Maybe you’d like to find another roommate?”
“Just maybe you ought to go looking. Now’s the time.”
“I’ll do that.”
I grabbed a pair of sneakers out of my closet and left the room, bound for the house mother’s office. Her name was Frau Wilhelm, and her craggy, wizened face made her seem as old as the school itself.
I didn’t even bother to knock. She was caught off guard and quickly dropped her pint of schnapps into the open filing drawer before her and slammed it shut.
“I need to talk to you,” I said without preamble.
She coughed and choked a little, making her eyes water, but she gathered her sturdy German composure and nodded, pointing to the chair next to me.
“Miss Quinn,” she drawled, “you are soaked through und dripping on my floor.”
“Maybe you could tell that to the group who just marched unannounced into my room and dumped a bucket of urine over me?”
“Vat?” Her voice rose an octave over the space of that word. “Who?”
I was about to reply, but then I remembered all Buffy and Theo’s warnings about Zephyr’s powerful relations.
“If I tell you and you go after them, their parents will back you down because they employ you. If I don’t tell you, just maybe they won’t kill me. In the meantime, I need a new room. My roommate has totally lost it over this, and I’m not sure she isn’t in on it. At any rate, I won’t be able to sleep with one eye open forever. So, put me in another room, please, preferably alone.”
She stared at me for a few moments as if trying to figure out whether I was telling the truth. Grabbing for a notecard box on the corner of her desk, she opened it, flipped through a few cards, and then slammed the lid shut. “Ve haf none.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. I paid tuition, and you’re responsible for providing me with clean, safe room and board.”
Her steely blue humorless eyes locked on me, the hairs protruding from her nose almost waving in the breeze of her indignant exhalation.
With a loud slam, she pulled open the box again, picking through the cards as she glared at me over the box lid. Finally, she pulled one out. It was yellow. The others were pink or blue—I assumed designating gender of the occupants. She handed it over. I took it.
“Why is this one yellow?”
“Brrroom closet.”
“Broom closet?”
She nodded curtly. “Take it or go.”
Internally, I grumbled. I’d get my way—eventually. “Is there a bed in there?”
“Ve get von.”
I stood up. “Okay, now, please. I’m going back and packing my things. How do I get to the…broom closet?”
“End of de hall.”
I nodded. It was clear there wasn’t going to be any of the royal treatment, so I’d have to find it on my own. Heading back to my now “old” room, I opened the door and found Buffy sitting cross-legged on her bed with an opened textbook before her.
“Well?” She looked up with her inquiry.
“Well, what?”
“Did you get that silliness out of your head? Tell me what happened.”
“I’ll pretend you don’t know. I was sitting here, waiting for you to come back, when I heard whispering and turned to find Zephyr and his entourage gawking at me from the door. I freaked, and then Erin heaved a big bowl of pee on me. They thought it was funny, but I felt like I was dying. You don’t look surprised.”
Her face remained passive. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a broom closet. They’re putting a bed in it for me.”
Buffy nodded. “At the end of this hall. But you can’t possibly be considering—”