For most of the time here, there have been only four or five of us to share it. We eat fish whenever possible. So we’ve stretched out our food supply pretty well. It should last a few more days, if we’re careful. Then we’ll have to concentrate on fishing, hunting, gathering edible fruit and vegetables from the jungle, etc.
That shouldn’t be much of a problem, except that we have to contend with Wesley and Thelma. With them out there, getting enough food isn’t exactly on the top of our priority list.
Man, this was a lengthy digression. I think I’m loopy from so much writing today.
After we finished the ham, it was time for the Inquisition.
“You want to tell us what happened last night?” Kimberly asked.
“Not especially,” I said.
Nobody appeared amused.
I sighed. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Why did you untie her hands?”
Relief. An easy one. “I had to. You know how you untied her before she went to the latrine last night? Well, when you tied her back up again, you made the rope too tight. It was digging into her wrists.”
Kimberly frowned at me. “That’s nonsense.”
“It isn’t. I checked. The rope was way too tight.”
“Not when I tied her up. I was very careful…” She glanced from Billie to Connie. “Did either of you retie her last night?”
Billie shook her head.
“If I was gonna do anything with her rope,” Connie said, “I would’ve strangled her with it.”
“Maybe she tightened the rope,” Billie suggested. “Did it herself, so she’d have a reason for asking Rupe to untie it.”
“How could she do that?” Connie asked.
“With her teeth?” Billie said.
“I guess it’s possible,” Kimberly admitted. She frowned as if thinking for a few seconds, then said, “Shit, it sounds exactly like something she might pull. She goes around acting like a lame-brain, half the time, but she can be… crafty. Very crafty. She used to be, anyway. Maybe she’s changed, but I doubt it. Once a sneak, always a sneak.”
“What sort of things did she do?” I asked. I was somewhat interested in hearing about Thelma’s sneaky ways, but mostly I hoped to delay the interrogation.
“She was always doing stuff. But… one time when she was pissed off at me, she chopped up her _own_ Barbie doll—cut off its hands and feet and head—and hid them under my mattress. Then she acted all innocent, went around and asked Dad if he’d seen her Barbie doll anywhere. When it finally turned up, I caught living hell.”
“From your mother?” Billie asked.
Kimberly shook her head. “From Dad. This was after Mom had died, and before he met you.”
“Did he beat you?” I asked. I was suddenly breathing harder than a second ago, and my bean was thudding.
“Who?” Kimberly said. “Dad?”
“Yeah. You said you caught living hell.”
“Right.” She looked a bit offended. “He didn’t beat me, though. Are you kidding? Dad? He gave me a talking to. Which made me feel lower than a snake, and I hadn’t touched the damn doll. You should’ve seen Thelma. She was so proud of herself for pulling it off and getting me in hot water.”
“Did you get even with her?” I asked.
Kimberly gave me an odd look—as if she suspected that something was up. “Yeah. What’re you getting at?”
I could hardly force the words out, but I managed. “She said you used to beat her up.”
“What?”
“That you’d… you were always forcing her to wrestle with you. You’d throw her down on the floor and put head-locks on her… make her cry out for mercy… stuff like that.”
Kimberly smirked and shook her head. “She would’ve liked that.”
“You didn’t wrestle with her?”
“She’s five years older than me. She always outweighed me. And she had a cruel streak. There’s no way I ever would’ve wrestled with Thelma. The one time we actually had a fight, I pulled her hair and she stabbed me in the arm with a pencil. It went in. I had to go to the doctor and get shots.”
“She said you used to wrestle with her all the time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe in some alternate universe.”
I was tempted to go on and explain that they’d been naked and their father had joined in—that the matches were supposed to be some sort of sadistic sexual romp.
Already, though, I figured Thelma must’ve made up the whole wrestling business.
“So you two were over here last night talking about make-believe wrestling matches between me and Thelma?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did she tell you that stuff?”
“I don’t know. We were just talking.”
I felt sort of cornered, and wished I hadn’t brought up the subject. It was a relief, though, to discover that Thelma’d been lying. If she’d lied about the wrestling, it stood to reason that the torture and incest stuff probably hadn’t really happened, either.
I felt a little cheated, a little disappointed. Part of me had gotten sort of excited, picturing Kimberly mixed up in that sort of thing. Mostly, though, I was relieved.
“She must’ve had a motive,” Kimberly said.
“Not that I…”
“I know,” Connie said. She gave me one of her snotty looks. “I bet Thelma was trying to get him to wrestle with her.”
I almost denied it. But the idea seemed to have some merit. I sure didn’t want the truth coming out. “Well… That’s sort of… She did want me to have a wrestling match with her.”
“What on earth for?” Billie asked, half of her mouth rising in a crooked smile as if she were amused but baffled.
“She made it a challenge,” I explained. “If she won, I’d have to let her get away. If I won, she’d let me tie her hands back up. See, she’d pulled them away when I tried to loosen the rope for her.”
“That’s when you should’ve called for help,” Kimberly said.
“Sure, and have everyone think I was some kind of a worthless jerk for being dumb enough to untie her.”
Kimberly grimaced a bit. She lowered her eyes and looked ashamed. She didn’t actually apologize, but she regretted being so sharp with me last night. You could tell.
“Boy,” Connie said, “that Thelma read you like a book.”
I looked at her and didn’t make the mistake of asking, “What do you mean by that?” I kept my mouth shut, but it didn’t help.
Billie asked, “What do you mean?”
“She knew just which buttons to push. Amazing. Rupert’s got sex on the brain. There’s no way in the world he’s gonna miss out on the chance to wrestle with a woman.”
I felt like my face might go up in flames. I said, “That’s bull. We’re talking about Thelma. God almighty, she’s the last woman I’d ever want to wrestle with.”
“Yeah, right.”
“She’s disgusting.”
“As if you’d let a little thing like that get in your way.”
“Yeah,” I said, “look at you.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Kimberly raised a hand. “Let’s not get sidetracked here, kiddies.”
Connie sneered at her and gave her the finger.
Kimberly ignored it. To me, she said, “So, did you agree to have this wrestling match?”
I frowned and tried to decide on the best way to answer. After a while, I said, “Well… she pushed me into it. She called me a chicken, and said I was too much of a wimp and a loser to beat her in a fair fight.”
“So you went for it?” Kimberly asked.
“I had to.”
Billie sighed. “You didn’t have to prove anything to Thelma. She was just manipulating you.”
“I guess… Well, not all the way. I mean, at first I agreed to wrestle her. But then she started to take off her clothes. She wanted us doing it naked.”