When Abigail Morgan was younger her family had a pet mongrel which needed to be taken to the vet's. The dog was so desperate to escape from its carrying cage that by the time they had reached the vet's its paws were all bloody from scrabbling at the bars.
Abi knows how that dog felt. She is afraid her own fingers will suffer in much the same way. For Abi has started to claw at her chastity device in her sleep.
She cannot help it or stop herself. Night after night she dreams she is about to have sex, but something is stopping her, some obstruction between her legs. She claws and tears at the obstruction but always fails to remove it. Sometimes she wakes, realises where she is and finds that her fingers are sore. Sometimes the dream moves on, and it is not until morning that she is able to reconstruct the events of the night which explain why her fingers are sore and bruised and her nails, short that they are, sometimes torn and broken.
She cannot go on this way.
She is aware of what happened to Karen Frayn, how she tried to bribe Miss McCloud and was punished. (Though she is not aware of the sequel, about which Karen has maintained a strict silence.) It strikes Abigail that was a foolish and doomed thing to try: she would never try such a thing herself.
Instead Abigail runs her mind over every detail of the day, compulsively, as she has done many times before, in the hope of spotting the tiniest window of opportunity. But the Wardens watch the girls like hawks, from the moment their chastity belts are unlocked in the mornings to the moment they are fastened again in the evenings. She considers the washrooms and showers, where the girls are already naked, so in a sense that bit closer to their vaginas. But they are too exposed, too much under scrutiny. The toilets likewise: though they sit there with their knickers and skirts round their ankles, they are watched remorselessly. In the mornings the girls work: some, the longest serving, in the kitchens which are regarded as the most desirable workplace; some in the laundry; and some, the newest arrivals, at cleaning duties in the toilets and washrooms. But wherever they work they are always under scrutiny. For meals they sit at long tables in the Refrectory: here, you would think, lay an opportunity: a girl could be eating with one hand and diddling herself with the other. But the rule is: both hands above the table at all times: if you so much as reach down to brush a crumb off your lap you risk a cane on your backside.
That leaves Matron's domain: the Examination and Sick Bay area. There are beds there, where girls who are genuinely ill get some respite from work and lessons. But as several girls who have feigned sick have found to their cost: when a girl goes to the sick room her chastity belt goes with her. For Miss Bulstrode is much too wily to be fooled by that one, and a girl could be at death's door, she would still be locked into her chastity belt and the key handed over to Matron.
There have been schemes of course: crazy schemes such as breaking into the Reformatory safe (or wherever the keys to the belts are kept, none of the girls knows for certain); or overpowering the Warden on morning duty and wresting the keys from her. But these are too fantastical and dangerous to have any grounding in reality.
It seems quite hopeless. But Abigail thinks on, turning over the routines in her mind like a car at a standstill revving its engine.
And then one night, long after everyone else is asleep, an idea comes to her. It is not fully formed: rather it comes to her as a star appears in the night sky, distant and faint, disappearing and appearing again. But the more Abi focuses on her idea the more clarity it assumes, until, having looked at it from every possible angle, having tested it for flaws and weaknesses, she believes she could be onto a winner.
The great thing about her plan, Abi thinks, is that if it doesn't come off, no-one will be any the worse: nobody will get punished.
The worst thing is that it involves other girls: eleven of them to be precise. And she has no choice over their composition.
Two of those girls are Donna May and Ruth Bowers. They are both girls Abi would prefer to have nothing to do with. But then again, she can see that perhaps they could be useful, in ensuring the co-operation of the others.
The following day Abi is tired but also excited. She cannot convey her idea to all the girls at once: gatherings of more than three or four girls are regarded with suspicion by the Wardens, who see signs of conspiracy everywhere. So at morning break she approaches Donna May and Ruth Bowers outlines her plan to them.
"Bloody hell Abi," says Donna May: "You've got a brain as well as a fanny. It's genius."
Abi feels a flush of pride: Donna has never before called her 'Abi'.
Ruth is less optimistic:
"Well never get all the others to co-operate," she says.
"Won't we?" says Donna meaningfully.
The three girls then approach other girls, singly and in pairs, until everybody who needs to be has been apprised of Abi's plan. A meeting of all twelve is scheduled in the Dormitory, an hour after lights out. Come the hour, some of the girls need to be roused from sleep, but eventually all are huddled round the beds belonging to Donna May and her neighbour Kelly Watson, a big-bottomed small-breasted girl, who is also one of the elect.
"So," says Donna: "now we're all here, run it past everyone again Abi.
The girls huddle closer. In little more than a whisper Abi explains.
"So," she says. "There are twelve lavatories, six on each side of the entrance doors. Everyone here is on first sitting."
"First shitting you mean," says an anonymous voice. A few girls giggle.
"We have five minutes," continues Abi, "before we have to wipe ourselves and make way for second sitting. There are always two Wardens patrolling, one either side of the doors watching over six of us."
"And never taking their eyes off us," says Kelly Watson. "Jesus, we can't even have a shit without being watched."
"Okay," says Abi. She is a shortish, dark-haired well-upholstered girl – not a stunner by any means, though she has a pleasant, heart-shaped face and wide 'come-hither' eyes and, if her ex-boyfriend is to be believed, is a girl few men would kick out of bed. She is not entirely unused to being looked at. But never before has she commanded the attention of so many people. "Suppose one of the girls on one side of the entrance is taken ill? Say she has a fit and slumps onto the floor clutching her stomach?"
"She'll be thrashed for faking it," says Laura Marsh.
"Not necessarily," says Abi. "Hear me out. The first thing that will happen is that everybody's attention will be on her. The Warden patrolling the six cubicles on that side of the entrance with hurry to her. And so will the Warden on the other side. They'll both be there, crouched over her, trying to assist her. If she carries on groaning, or lies dead still, one of the Wardens will hurry away for Matron, and the other will stay with the sick girl.
"Matron's quarters are right across the yard and up two staircases. It will take at least a minute, even running, for the Warden to get there. If it's Fatty Armstrong it will be more like two minutes. Then allow a minute for Matron to gather up her first aid stuff, and another minute – probably more – for the two of them to return: and that means the girls who are sitting in the cubicles across the doors from the sick girl will have four, maybe five, minutes unsupervised. Do you think you can bring yourselves off in four or five minutes?"
"Four or five seconds if I had the chance," says one girl.
"For or five times," says another.
"There you are then," says Abi. "What's the worst that can happen? For some reason the Warden who goes for Matron comes back early – maybe she sees another Warden and sends her instead. But if that happens we'll hear her pushing through the swing doors and be sitting quietly with our hands on our knees and our eyes front before she gets to us."
