I wanted to turn around and just charge at her and scratch those hateful eves out. but I kept walking.

To our surprise. Teal was alone in Dr. Foreman's office. She had a crutch and was seated on the sofa. She didn't look up at us but, instead, kept her eyes fixed on the floor. I thought she looked a little thinner and paler, but other than that, not much different.

"Teal!" Robin cried. "How are you? Where have you been?"

"Here," she said quickly. "Where else?"

"Well, what happened?" Robin asked, sitting beside her.

"Nothing. Dr. Foreman determined that I had a sprained ankle and kept me in one of the rooms."

"The room with the big bed and canopy?" I asked, slowly lowering myself to the sofa.

She looked at me with small eves and nodded.

"Didn't she ask you how you sprained it?" Robin questioned.

"She already knew all about it," Teal said.

"But..." Robin looked at me. "She never said anything about it to us. Things haven't changed much. right. Phoebe?"

"I don't know. Have things changed. Teal?" I asked, my eves drilling into her. She shifted hers away quickly and shrugged.

"What..." Robin buttoned her lip as Dr. Foreman marched into the office and sat behind her desk. Suddenly, she looked more like a judge in a courtroom to me.

"Periodically," she began. "I review the progress my newest girls are making and I send this report to the courts, to the families, so everyone will know what to expect and when to expect it.

"In some ways, many ways." she continued, looking mainly at me. "you have made great strides in a positive direction. You have learned how to obey rules and you have become somewhat less selfcentered.

"Now we are at what I like to call the first of many crossroads. How much faster and further you go in a positive direction will soon be understood, and after that. I will be able to evaluate you and make my report.

"To get right to the point today, the three of you know that I have been very disappointed in your behavior lately. I have waited to see which of you would come forward to tell me about it, which of you has grown in moral capacity to know enough to come to me and confess, to relieve yourself of the guilt you must be carrying.

"I can't tell you how disappointed I am, especially in one of you." She again looked more at me than she looked at Robin or Teal. "I waited and waited and hoped, but. alas, I realize we have a way yet to go.

"So," she said, leaning against the desk and folding her arms under her breasts. "let's begin.

"Teal has told me that it was Robin's idea to commit this stupid night foray to spy on your buddies, to climb on a roof and endanger yourselves."

"What?" Robin cried, practically leaping up.

I looked at Teal, who kept her face turned away from us.

"She's a big liar. She's the one who came up with the idea." Robin shouted. She poked Teal in the shoulder. "How could you tell her that?"

"None of that." Dr. Foreman said sharply.

"Well, she's lying. Dr. Foreman."

"Phoebe," Dr. Foreman said. "is she lying? Was it her idea?"

Teal turned sharply and looked at me, her face so full of fear. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. I also thought of myself and how I had betrayed her. I wasn't any better than she was, and neither was Robin,

"As a rule I don't like any behind-the-back tattle-tales," Dr. Foreman said, now firmly fixing her gaze on me. "That's sneaky and it doesn't show me any real growth. You have probably all done something like that in the past, and you know very well that you can put on one face with the authorities and another for your friends. It's deceitful and not the sign of someone who has truly found herself and her moral way.

"Either I hear a confession and an agreement about that from the other two, or one of you or two of you reveal to me this instant whose idea it was.

"Well?" she snapped, rising to her full height and glaring down at us. "Whose idea was it?"

Tags: V.C. Andrews Broken Wings Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net