Let's Go Play at the Adams'

With that conclusion, of course, she began to hurt.

Her flesh and her muscles and tendons and body began to hurt very much. Something

like her first panic almost returned.

No, Barbara said (remembering Terry's advice).

I'll be calm. I won't hurt myself. I won't scare them again. I'll be careful.

Help me, Barbara said.

For-anyone inclined to see humor, Freedom Five's second visit to their captive offered

subtle possibilities. They entered the room together-very closely together-and moved to

the bed in silence. It could be guessed from their manner and the sound of rapid shal-

27

low breathing that the wardens were more nervous than the prisoner.

The law had been broken, of course, and they had broken it. Since Barbara's capture

had been accomplished before, however-last night, offstage, remote from them-all

except Bobby might conveniently regard the crime as not theirs. The resulting

situation Barbara's helplessness, their ascent to power-might then be merely an

abstract, a set of conditions discovered on their awakening this morning. But with their

meeting, their decision to go on, their confrontation of the girl right now, things must

obviously change. Now they began to break the law hour by hour, deliberately,

forewarned of all the possible and unpleasant consequences. They became entirely

responsible and answerable for their own actions. The door to innocence, real or

pretended, had closed behind: from now on, there was no way to think of themselves

except as bad and wrong and to be punished. So clearly did this appear to impress

them, that they looked down at their prisoner but took care to avoid her eyes.

Barbara, of course, felt their tenseness and had the momentary, crazy impulse to

laugh-if she could have laughed-at the whole improbable scene. She saw it as one both

sees one's self and is one's self in dreams, the not-quite-Lilliputian captors and their

possibly dangerous captive, each afraid of the other and yet each locked in with the

other. Because it was true, of course, there was an hysterical edge to her thought.

Finding after several moments that Barbara indeed remained helpless, however,

Freedom Five gradually relaxed. All right, here they were, out in the open, breaking the

law between children and adults, and nothing was happening. They ignored the taboo,

and

no lightning fell.

·

"Well, what're we going to do?" John's voice was a little tight and dry, as if he were

having difficulty in speaking.

''We don't have to do anything if-"

"I thought we were going to ask her if she wanted

28

to go to the bathroom!" Cindy giggled at the idea. To her the capsizing of roles seemed

endlessly funny.

"If she wants to go," Dianne said. Then she said directly to Barbara, "Do you?''

"Umnn?"

"Do you want to go to the bathroom?" Dianne said with painful clarity. "We can take

you."

Barbara looked back up at her and then closed her eyes. The situation was, in actuality,

more desperately impossible than she had foreseen. Going to the bathroom with five

youngsters in tow! First, she thought that she'd never go to the toilet again rather than

this. On the other hand, caution slowed her the matter would have to be faced

sometime if they held to their plans, and anything was better than simply being forced

to lie here forever.

The other selfish thought skipped through her mind, of course. She hardly dared think it

lest the kids somehow intuit it. This might be a chance to break free.

"She wants to go," Paul said. Squirming from foot to foot, he now seemed to be

enjoying himself.

"OK, now. Like we talked about it," John said.

"Are you ready?"

·

"Yeah"-Bobby had some more rope in his hand-"but, remember, she's strong for a girl if

you let her get even a little bit loose."

"I won't." John rather squared himself. "Let's do

it."

"Well, OK, I'll tie her hand first."

With one piece of the new rope he had brought, Bobby tied her right wrist just above

the point where it was already tied. Then he took the free end of this new rope and

squatted down beside the bed. "Now, we'll run it through here-"

Her momentary objectivity gone, Barbara watched them a little apprehensively. She

could not see all they were doing, and she was afraid it might hurt.

Bobby straightened up. "OK, now, when I untie 29

her hand up here, you all hold her arm and move it down there and Paul pull on your end."

"All right," Dianne sighed. "Just do it, will you?" There was a moment's silence with Barbara

looking up at them, and John and Dianne looking down at her arm as if it had more-than-

human strength in it. Barbara despaired.

''OK, that's it." Bobby jumped up from the head of the bed. "Move her-hurry up." He went

around to help Paul.

The plan at last became clear to Barbara and everyone. At no time was she to be free.