“Yes, sir, and my name is Quinley,” she mumbled as she ran back toward her cabin. She had to hustle to get back in a minute, but when she did, she gave her other two team members a look meant to fry them on the spot.
“Miss Jayden, you can stand beside me and you girls can follow her movements. I’ll go easy on you ladies for the rest of this week, but next Monday, I’ll get out the jump ropes and stretching bands, and we will add more strenuous exercises to our regimen,” Elijah said. “We’ll begin with toe touches.”
Jayden bent forward but raised her eyes to see how her girls were doing. They had each followed her lead that morning and put their hair up in ponytails, then pulled them through the holes in the back of their caps. Not only would it keep their hair off their sweaty necks, but it would also keep their hats from falling off like other teams’ hats had already done. Even though Tiffany was the tallest and thinnest of the three, her fingertips only reached her knees. Carmella managed to touch her ankles on the first try. Ashlyn palmed the ground in front of her. Apparently, that girl didn’t only have a daily appointment with the tanning bed, but with the gym as well.
Elijah went through basic stretching exercises with them for the next fifteen minutes and then said, “Now that you’re all awake, I want you to look to your right at that mountain back there. Our goal on the final week you are here is to hike all the way over there. It’s about a five-mile trip there, and then that far back to the camp. We’re going to walk a mile today. By walk, I mean a good steady pace, not a slow walk like you are moseying through a rose garden. I’ll take the lead, and Miz Jayden will bring up the rear. Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and follow me.”
Ashlyn had no trouble keeping up with Elijah, but some of the stragglers, including Tiffany at the very tail end of the group, were panting before they’d even walked the equivalent of a city block. Jayden lengthened her stride until she was right beside the girl. If her bulimia was advanced, she might faint dead away, and someone needed to be there to catch her when she fell.
“I would have thought that you’d fight for first place rather than being satisfied with the tail end,” Jayden said.
“You don’t know me,” Tiffany panted.
“I know that you’ll poke your finger down your throat just to please your friends, so that tells me you’ll do anything to win. You need to be in control, don’t you?” Jayden would have rather jogged than kept up such a slow pace with Tiffany.
“I don’t care if these people are ever my friends. I just want to get through this stupid camp and out of this hellhole. And if I’m in control, then no one can hurt me.” Tiffany picked up the pace until she was a good twenty yards ahead of Jayden.
The girl was right about one thing. By being in control of her own life, heart, and time, she was less likely to get hurt—emotionally or physically. She didn’t want to think about that, so she shifted her thoughts to the plant life around her. A few sprigs of grass had sprung up here and there, and yucca plants were scattered about.
Elijah stopped and pointed to a green plant at his toes. “The common name for this is sotol. It doesn’t require much water, so it grows well here in this desert scrubland. Most years, we only get seven to twelve inches of rain, so the plants that survive have to be able to hold water in their leaves. This plant is edible, but it takes preparation, and it’s bitter, so you don’t want to put it in your mouth.”
“Yes, sir!” all nine girls sounded off in unison.
“Remember some of the plants we’ve talked about. The different kinds of cacti and the others,” Elijah was saying when Jayden started listening again. “Tomorrow I will ask you about them. We’re about halfway to our turnaround point, so let’s pick up the speed just a little.”
He didn’t stop again until they reached a stake that had been driven into the hard earth. A piece of yellow fabric tacked to the top flapped in the