All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook (17 page)

Z
oey Samuels was up half the night with her aching tooth. I know because I was up too—boiling mad at Mr. Thomas VanLeer, and letting all the bad news chew a hole in me.

I wake up tired in the morning. I lie on the mat in the VanLeer closet and look at my timeline. Am I going to have to add to that, make it go all the way around these walls? I roll over and press my face into the pillow until my nose feels flat. I scream into it. Then I growl.
I cannot stand you, Thomas VanLeer!

Zoey's mom is letting her sleep late this morning. They're going to the dentist later today. I tiptoe past her door and make a get-well wish for that tooth.

I walk into school alone. I look at my feet or at nothing way up ahead of me.

“Hey, Cook!” Brian Morris aims at me with both pointer
fingers. His friends look on. “The one-mile run. Coming up soon. Prepare to be crushed!” he says. “For the second year in a row.”

I've got nothing to say to him. I haven't been thinking about the run. I haven't even been running. I stumble forward on tired feet. The boys laugh then scatter.

Then I see Miss Maya in the lobby coming to check in with me. She does it almost every day. I tell her about Zoey's tooth. “Oh, misery! Tell her I hope she feels better soon,” she says. Then she asks me, “How're you doing with your Coming to Butler County project, Perry? I tried to make it all the way around the room on Friday. But I missed checking in with you and Zoey.”

Miss Maya's question makes me drop my head. “Good,” I say, and I manage to nod while I look at the toes of my shoes. “The stories can be hard. You know.”

“I can imagine that it's very emotional.” She is exactly right. I don't want to talk about the stuff I found out about Mom's story. It feels too private. Maybe not for Miss Maya, but for the school lobby.

“I've got the stories written out,” I say. “I guess that's fine. But I have some video I took, and I keep wishing I could use that too . . .”

“Oh, sure,” Miss Maya says. “That would be neat! Videography, right? You still have time. I don't know how to help you with that myself, Perry, but did you know there is a group of kids that meets at the library? They have a video club.”

“Yeah, I know. I went to use the room once. But I don't know . . .”

“Go again! See what they're up to. Ask questions. Or look at the computer program on your own. There! That's your assignment for the day,” she says with a grin. “Go check that out.” She looks at the clock, gives me a nod, and heads off to her classroom.

I spend the morning trying to take extra-good class notes to share with Zoey when I see her tonight. I wonder about her tooth, and I miss her something awful, especially when lunchtime comes. I'm one of the last kids through the line.

“It's Perry!” Miss Jenrik says. She swipes my card with a jingle and a smile. She taps in my special code. I wonder if she will say anything about seeing me at Blue River. “No Zoey today?” she asks. She pushes her lips sideways to blow her feathery earring back from her cheek. I tell her about Zoey's tooth. “O-o-oh! Ow!” Miss Jenrik cringes. I think she's one of those people who cannot talk about tooth pains, the way some people cannot talk about spiders or snakes.

I take my tray past Brian Morris and his friends to get to my nook at the end of the table. It's weird not to have Zoey across from me. I look at the spaghetti, the breadstick, and the zucchini slices on my tray. I look at Zoey's empty spot while I eat.

It's not long before a balled-up napkin flies my way. I sit back and ignore the first one, but the second one lands on
my tray. I look at the boys. I look hard.

“Where's your girlfriend?” one of them asks.

“It's not his girlfriend,” another says. “She's his
sister
now. He got adopted.”

“No I didn't!” I sit up and spin to face them. “I'm not adopted! I have a mom!”

“Well then, why did you move into Mad-Zoe's house?” The kid curls his fingers into claws. Brian Morris is being quiet. I wonder what's up with him.

“She's not Mad-Zoe,” I say. “She's pretty calm now, in case you haven't noticed.” Funny thing is,
I
don't feel calm and I think my voice sounds snarly. I look at my lunch tray. I don't want the food anymore. The napkin balls have spaghetti sauce on them—from someone else's spaghetti. That's a gross-out thing for me. Besides, I can't believe they said I was adopted—and they mean by VanLeer! I want a pillow to scream into.

Miss Jenrik's heavy boots come stepping over the bench across from me.
Clunk-clunk.
She jingles her way into Zoey's place. “Okay if I take my break here with you?” She tilts her pink head at me.

“Sure,” I say.

She smiles at me while she shakes up a milk carton in one hand. She strips the paper off a straw. She looks at Brian and his friends. “Hi, guys. What's up? How's that
pee-sketty
?” she asks, and she points to the pasta on their trays.

“Good,” one boy says, and he ducks his head a little.

“Yeah? Because it doesn't look that good.” She points her shiny black fingernail at the napkin balls beside me and wrinkles her nose. Then she grins and the boys start to laugh. “Hey, Perry, do you need your spoon?”

“No,” I say. I hand it to her. She uses the spoon to push the napkin balls back to the boys.

“Garbage,” she says. “You guys are being a little bit yucky, aren't you?”

Brian Morris shrugs and snorts a little. “Yeah,” he says. His face is red.

“Yeah,” says Miss Jenrik. “You could probably cut that out.” She sips milk up her straw, looks right at me. Then she says, “Hey, Perry, sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you the other day at Blue River. The time runs short on visiting day, doesn't it?”

I feel frozen because of privacy—hers, not mine. Brian and his friends already know my mom is a resident. Miss Jenrik is looking at me. She has no fear.

“Will you be there next Saturday? I'll introduce you to my dad.”

“Your dad? Mr. Wendell?” I whisper it.

She smiles. “Mr. Wendell Jenrik.” She points to her name pin. She even turns just a little so the boys will see. “That's my pop.” She says it plain and takes another sip of milk. “I miss him like the dickens.”

I give her a small smile. I still won't be able to eat my lunch, and it's not like I'm happy that Mr. Wendell Jenrik is
incarcerated. But I'm sitting across from a real friend. That's an unexpected win.

After school I walk to the library on my own. I start off in the History Room, but I only stay a few minutes. It's lonely without Zoey. I get it into my head that I will take another look at the video-editing program like Miss Maya suggested. It's not a Video Boot Camp day. So maybe, just maybe, one little thing could go right and I'll find that Brian and his friends are doing something else today.

The door is open so I step inside. I look over at the computer Zoey and I used a few days ago. I am staring at the back of Brian Morris's big head. Of course, he got in here first. I begin to turn away. But then I stop. On the screen in front of Brian, I see Big Ed. It's a still shot that zooms slowly inward for several seconds then stops. Brian Morris taps the track pad. He hits an arrow and the shot of Big Ed slowly zooms again, this time, while soft music plays.

“Hey!” I slice the quiet. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Brian is up out of the chair. His cheeks turn red.

“Doesn't look like nothing. That's my file!” I'm loud. Brian glances out toward the library's main floor, looking nervous and guilty. There must be rules about privacy and messing with other people's uploads, and I bet Brian knows that.

“Okay,
not
nothing,” he says. He tries to keep his voice low. “I—I was just doing some editing to show—”

“Show what? Show your napkin-thrower friends? Spread it around for no good purpose?” A speck of spit flies off my tongue.

“No, to show
you
how to—”

“Where did you get that photo anyway?”

“I extracted it from your video as a still. I put music with it but you could record your voice to tell the story.” He's talking fast—too fast—like he's exploding with information.

“No!” I say. I must be crazy to have listened to him this long. Zoey was right about Brian Morris. I don't trust him. “Delete it,” I tell him. “In fact, never mind. I'll do it myself!” I barge into his place at the computer. My fingers jitter along the track pad. “Idiot,” I mutter as I click Big Ed away. I mean me; I'm the idiot for somehow leaving the videos on the computer. I don't know what Brian thinks. I don't care.

The computer shows me a box asking if I'm sure I want to delete the file permanently. I click Yes. I haul myself up and head for the door. I hear Brian Morris calling after me.

“Y-you could sign out the laptop and teach yourself the program. It's easy . . .”

I'm trying to get away from him. The strap of my backpack catches and drags me backward. I yank it. I take out a chair and have to stop to pick it up. Every person from every table in the library turns to look at stupid, stupid Perry Cook.

M
y heart is still pounding when I reach the circulation desk. Mr. Olsen is on duty. I have special permission today to walk over to Mr. VanLeer's office and wait there for a ride back to the house.

“Will you please sign me out?” I say.

“Leaving rather early, aren't you?” Mr. Olsen does his signature finger pointing—curl, release—at the clock. I can't believe it either—I'm choosing to go to Mr. VanLeer's office well before I have to.

“A little,” I mumble. Thirty-two minutes is more than a little, but I won't point that out to Mr. Olsen.

“I guess there is no harm . . . as long as you go directly.” He signs me out.

I cross the brick street at the corner and head for the building across from the courthouse—the one with the varnished door. I grip the brass handle and stand looking at the
shining, honey-colored wood. I remember how I took the photo of this door because I knew Mom would like it, and she did. I think of her New Start folder again. Has she looked at that at all? Does she still keep her eye on the rental house on Button Lane? I don't think so—not after what VanLeer has done.

I puff an angry breath out over my lips and squeeze the brass handle. I shouldn't have come so early. The last thing I want to do is sit in his office with him. I decide to go in and sit on the stairs and read for a while.

I'm about to pull the door open when something makes me stop. It's a feeling—like the pull of a magnet through the air. I step back from the door. I turn my head and look at a spot several buildings down the street. I see my magnet.

“Warden? Warden Daugherty!”

Time seems to slow down as she looks up from her purse, which is dangling on her arm, rocking like a cradle. Her eyelids are lowered, but they slowly rise. Her head slowly turns. My heart spreads out under my ribs like a huge warm hand.

The warden's shoulders drop away from her ears. She straightens up tall. I watch her lips form my name. “Perry!”

We're in real time again. I run to meet her.

There is so much to say, and I go saying it all—fast as I can. Ever since I moved out of Blue River, I have had the feeling that the warden isn't supposed to see me. No one has said so. But here on the street I feel as if a hook will swing out of the sky, catch me by the shirt, and pull me away from
her. That doesn't happen. We talk and talk. Warden Daugherty wants to know all about how I am. So I tell her.

When I get to the part about writing the Blue River Stories, she turns her face upward and takes a big breath. “Wonderful! So important, Perry.”

“I wish I'd gotten your story too, Warden. You're so much my Blue River family . . .” It gets hard to speak.

“And you are mine,” she says.

“I'm sorry about everything. I-I heard that you are suspended.”

“Oh . . .” She seems surprised that I know. “Yes, but that's . . . well . . . it's okay,” she says. “I've left your buddy Fo-Joe in charge, and I'm comfortable with that.”

“But if you hadn't let me stay at Blue River . . .”

“I have no regrets, Perry.” She says it soundly.

“Miss Maya told me you'd feel that way,” I say. “Do you think you'll get to go back? Will you get to be the warden again?”

“Well, it could happen. But while things are being decided about me, I'm also deciding about things.” She smiles. “I'm going to be just fine, come what may.”

“Do you think my mom will be all right?”

“She will be.” The warden's eyes narrow a little. She nods. “Your mom is a strong woman.”

“You know what VanLeer did, right? He got her hearing postponed.” I nearly choke on the words.

“Yes,” she says, her mouth in a line now. She raises her
index finger. “He can drag out his investigation while he tries to make his case. But he can't postpone forever, Perry. That's against the law. You take comfort in that.”

I do, because it's the first piece of good news I have had in days. I am dying to ask the warden how soon she thinks it could happen. When could we get it put back on the timeline? I almost tell her what else I know—that Mom's confession was a lie. We should have never been at Blue River at all. Then I wonder if the warden knows that too. All my life Warden Daugherty has known everything—everything in the whole world.

“I shouldn't keep you, Perry. I've got my errands . . . and I suspect you are supposed to be somewhere yourself.” She looks past me, down the street toward the varnished door.

“Warden Daugherty . . .” I know she has to go, so I ask quickly. “When Mom does get that parole hearing, will you be there? Will you be allowed?”

She raises her eyebrow at me. “Let them try and stop me.”

“Yes!” I say. She will speak in Mom's favor. We need that hearing.

The warden opens her arms, and we hug. “What luck, running into you today, Perry. I have missed you so much!” She steps back and looks me over.

“I still have your suitcase,” I say.

“I don't need it back. It's your suitcase now.”

I thank the warden in every which way I can right there
on the street, and I figure she knows it isn't just because she gave me a suitcase.

When she turns to go away I notice something. She moves slowly—a lot less like the wind-up toy on wheels, less like the warden that I've known all my life.