Free No More Tomorrows by Schapelle Corby Page B

me back to my normal, happy life. The moment I heard the guard’s keys jingling I leapt up, almost smiling with excitement. My pulse was pumping as I stood expectantly at the cell door. Please let it be over – please!
    But Monday reality was harsh. As the guard unlocked the cell, he murmured that he was just moving me to another cell. My gut twisted as it took the kick.
    This was the start of my white-knuckle, roller coaster ride of hope and despair. I’m still on it. I get so hopeful that I might get out, then bang , bad news arrives, plunging me into despair. It hurts. The ride’s a bit flatter these days: no high expectations, no devastation.
    That first Monday, my spirits took quite a plunge. No evidence had been faxed by anyone from the Australian airports. My panic and fear flew back with the terrifying thoughts: What if they don’t actually have the evidence? What if we can’t prove the drugs aren’t mine?
    What happens if they can’t prove I didn’t do this, then what . . . I stay here? That would kill my mum. It would be all my fault, even though I didn’t do it. This is all way too much, and it’s because of me! How can I say I’m sorry, how do I start to say I’m sorry? I’m here. Why? Why am I here? It’s not me. I shouldn’t be here. And I’m sorry. Sorry for what? I didn’t do anything.
    This is so surreal. A nightmare, not just for me, but for everyone who knows and loves me.
    Diary entry, 15 October 2004
    I felt sick as the guard hustled me out of the cell. I kept biting my quivering bottom lip to stop the sobs, and my heart felt even more tightly screwed with pain and a heavy blackness.
    I started to take deep breaths, soothing myself by forcing new thoughts: Just a bit longer . . . Maybe tomorrow, maybe a day or two more. But I’d lost confidence in getting the evidence quickly, as shouldn’t it have come today? I was scared as the police marched me across the courtyard, past some pushy reporters and photographers and into a long cement passage to another cell.
    Things were about to get worse.
    The cell was a dungeon unfit for human life, with no windows, no daylight and no chance of a breeze. It was like a red-hot sauna and my clothes were quickly soaking wet. In the corner was a filthy squat toilet, so vile that it made the covered-in-shit toilet in the other cell seem not so bad.
    Even worse than the cell itself were the people who came with it: two sicko, weirdo guards and a fat Balinese prostitute. The guards sat just outside the cage door, creepily staring at me and occasionally saying a slimy ‘Wow, sexy body.’ I was on display for these creeps, with nowhere to hide. I was very scared. And those sleazy guards were definitely interested in playing more than just mind games.
    Sitting on a sarong inside was my first ever cellmate, Agung. At first, when she greeted me with a wide toothy grin, she seemed friendly enough. But after a bit of small talk, she was scarily friendly and just as creepy as those guards.
    ‘My name Agung, what your name?’
    ‘I’m Schapelle.’
    For a second she looked at me, shocked; then she jumped up, laughing, as she ran to a pile of stuff. She pulled out a newspaper, pointing to a front-page headline that screamed ‘SCHAPELLE’ above my photo.
    ‘Ha, ha, Saphel, Saphel!’ she kept repeating, and pointing.
    It was day three, and already I was a ‘celebrity’ prisoner – not an asset in a place full of criminals and petty guards. To Agung, it elevated me to a status worthy of adoration.
    She’s making me feel super self-conscious. Keeps looking at me, lovingly. I try to read my book as much as possible. Keeps asking if ‘You like boy? You like big banana? Not banana. Not good.’ A couple of times she’s touched my breast and stroked my upper arm while she’s looking at me and not speaking. She made our beds up together. I was reading and she was lying on her side playing with my arm – staring. Yes, I’m scared!
    Help! Get me out of