.. or a disease ... or if you’ve been raped.” She gasped. I’d already headed toward the hospital.“No, Uncle Ari. I’m ... I’m a little high... But I didn’t have anything hard and nobody ... used me. I think ... I think Pal was going to trade me. That’s why I ran.”“You did the right thing, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”“Can I spend the night at your house?”I let her parents know that she was safe and at our house. Of course, it was after curfew and after Treasure had called them, they stayed up. Theywould leave at 6 am and be back at midnight. I was ecstatic at thethought of being able to set my hair as well as dry it so that I couldsee how I looked in curlers. My parents left, I showered, got thecurler bag, put the Dippity Do into my hair, and began setting my hairwith green plastic curlers with spikes according to a setting pattern Ihad seen in a magazine. I amazed myself with how careful I was and howwell the curlers went on. I could feel the spikes poking my head and Iknew I. ”The room goes from absolute silence into chaos. Once undressed we head into the sauna, where we are once again greeted with silence. The girls are in here and they’re naked. Every year before this we had shared the sauna but we wore swimsuits. There had always been an adult supervisor but we had none. We gather ourselves on one side while the girls gather on the other. In the silence Rabekka stands, she gets one of the girls and a myrtle branch.I’ve seen this ritual before. Starting when a. Kiran having spend so many days away, wanted to spend that night with her mother, she asked Rashmi too but she made excuse of her studies. Kiran’s father was ill but Gautam agreed to sleep with him for his wife’s sake. Kiran looked back at him and hugged him in appreciation, but inside Gautam knew that his father-in-law has the habit to take sleeping pills which will give him the opportunity to slip out. Rashmi too wanted to spend at her own room which too gave him the cue to agree to sleep.