Maragana Girl Ch. 01

While Kim silently stood in front of the medical students with tears running down her cheeks, the doctor conducted a series of tests on her urine, showing the results to the group. He put the test samples on an overhead projector, and repeated the word "maragana" over and over, which of course was Danubian for "marijuana". Apparently he was teaching the students how to test for drugs. He then ordered a student to divide up the contents of the bedpan into 20 lab dishes and passed out drug testing strips. 20 students dipped 20 testing strips into 20 samples of urine. All 20 strips tested positive.

Kim's humiliation in front of the medical students was not over. The doctor ordered her to sit on an examination table. He drew four large needles of blood from Kim's arm and passed them to four of his students. The students then split up the blood among themselves to run tests on it. Over and over Kim heard the word "maragana" around the classroom. The students finally turned in their test kits and crowded around the examination table.

For the next hour the students took turns measuring Kim's pulse and heartbeat, turning up her eyelids and shining lights into her eyes, shoving fingers and swabs into her mouth, and worst of all, forcing her to submit to several pap smears and rectal exams. Kim was a real-life drug user, something very rare in Upper Danubia. The doctor was not about to pass up this chance to give his class hands-on experience with examining and testing a subject for drug use.

Finally the horror of Kim's medical demonstration passed. The doctor ordered her to shower in the bathroom adjacent to the examination room. There was no shower curtain, but it didn't matter. By now Kim was so broken emotionally that she didn't bother to object to showering in full view of 20 medical students. Kim left the shower and quietly allowed the guard to cuff her hands behind her back yet again, for yet another walk down the crowded police station corridor.

With that the most horrible day of Kim's life came to an end. The guard opened the door of a tiny holding cell that contained nothing but a mattress with a medical bed sheet on top and a chamber-pot. Kim crawled onto the mattress and cried herself to sleep. Just 24 hours ago she had been sleeping on a train with her friends, and now here she was, naked and alone in a Danubian holding cell, cut off from everyone and everything she had ever known.

Kim realized she was in a lot of trouble. Why...why did she go along with coming to this horrible country, not knowing anything about it? Why didn't she pay more attention to that voice inside her that was telling her something was very wrong about this place when she saw naked young people wearing collars on their necks? And what about Tiffany and Susan? What was happening to them?

As she lay crying, trying to force herself to get to sleep, Kim would have been even more horrified to know that even as she was wondering about them, Tiffany and Susan already had left Danube City on a train headed for Prague. They had been released and expelled from Upper Danubia, partly because of extremely good luck, partly because of Danubian law, and also partly because of Tiffany's betrayal of her friend Kim.

While Kim was standing before the arraignment panel, Tiffany and Susan had the good fortune to be placed in a holding cell together. It was only for a few minutes, but that gave Tiffany enough time to think of a strategy to get herself and Susan out of trouble at the expense of Kim.

In a quiet panicky whisper she spoke to Susan.

"Quick question...do you have anything in your backpack?"

"Uh...no. I think I put it all in the bag that Kim took."

"You don't have your pipe anymore?"

"No, I lost it last week. Don't you remember?"

"No paper?"

"No, I gave it to you..."

"...and I put it in Kim's bag. So you don't have anything...nothing..."

"No, but what difference does that make? They got Kim..."

"It makes a lot of difference, Susan...don't you get it? Now you listen to me and you listen good. No matter what they say or ask you, tell them you don't know what's in Kim's backpack...get it? You don't know. You didn't know she was smoking pot..."

"But we all were smoking pot..."

"No we weren't. Kim was smoking, you and I were taking a piss. We didn't know about the pot. You don't know shit about it."

"But...what about Kim?"

"Kim's fucked. There's nothing we can do about it. But if your backpack is clean and you stick to not knowing about Kim's stash, I think you and I can get out of this. My backpack is clean. I know that for a fact."

"Mine is too, but we can't do that to Kim."

"Oh we can't? I sure as hell can. Look, you saw how they treated us...you want to stay here in Nudie Prison?"

Susan sobbed, "No."

"Then you do what I tell you. You don't know shit. You're totally surprised. Never realized that Kim was capable of hauling pot. And one more thing. Don't mention anything about pot or Kim until they ask you. Don't bring it up yourself or they'll nail us."

"But..."

"Look...do you want to stay here or not?"

"No."

"Then..."

The cell door opened and Susan was pulled out to appear before the arraignment panel. Tiffany prayed that her friend wouldn't screw it up.

In the end the prosecutor decided not to file any charges against Tiffany and Susan. He didn't believe they were innocent, but there was no evidence nor any witnesses to refute their claim that they knew nothing about the marijuana Kim had with her. Their stories matched, so in the end the prosecutor simply decided to order them out of Upper Danubia and prohibit them from ever returning. Instead he would concentrate on charging Kim and try to get a maximum sentence for her.

Tiffany and Susan felt hugely relieved as they got dressed and were taken to the train station in the police van. When they got their passports back they opened them up to the latest stamp. In English, German, and Danubian it read:

"Bearer of this passport is strictly prohibited from entering the territory of The Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia under any circumstances during this lifetime."

No problem with that for either Tiffany or Susan. Neither had any intention of ever coming back.