Juvie (29 page)

“A reduced sentence?” I ask, only half joking. After all, I did keep Bad Gina from getting away. That’s got to be worth something.

“A reduced sentence?” Mrs. Simper repeats.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I see,” she says.

Mrs. Simper finally takes me up on my offer to sit. She presses down on the mattress. “These really aren’t very comfortable, are they?” she asks.

I shrug. “I guess they’re all right. I’ve slept on worse.”

“Really?” She seems genuinely interested, so I tell her about Government Island and camping out there and sleeping on the ground a lot of nights.

“It’s not far from here,” I say. “I could take you there when I get out.” I don’t know why I’m being so friendly with Mrs. Simper, except that she’s being so friendly to me, walking me here without shackles, sitting with me on my bunk, hanging out in the middle of the night as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

She stands abruptly.

“Well, good night, Sadie,” she says, turning to leave. Then she pauses and faces me again. For just a second she reminds me of my mom — I’m not sure why. I think she might even try to hug me.

She doesn’t.

“I wouldn’t pin my hopes on an early release,” she says. “That’s not how it works in here.”

I slump against the wall. “But I’m not even guilty in the first place,” I say, though I know it sounds lame.

Mrs. Simper shakes her head. “Just because you’re not guilty,” she says, “doesn’t mean you’re innocent.”

The cell door locks behind her, leaving me just sitting there. Gravity takes over after a while, and I slide down the wall until I lie on my bunk under the stuttering light, exhausted, ready to collapse into one of those dead sleeps I used to fall into after two-a-day practices plus weight training.

It’s not that easy shutting off my brain, though. I mull over what Mrs. Simper just said. I remember C. Miller telling me pretty much the same thing that day the power went out and we were stuck in the gym shooting baskets.

I shouldn’t have gone to that party the night Carla and I got arrested. I shouldn’t have let Dreadlocks and Scuzzy in the car, or waited in the 7-Eleven parking lot. But I let those other voices get too loud in my head — convincing me that I was sick of chasing after Carla and it shouldn’t be my job, anyway, or it was OK to drink just a little that night, or it wasn’t worth the hassle of saying no to the guys, or we’d just have to wait in that parking lot five minutes, that’s all, five lousy minutes, and then we could go home. What could possibly go wrong?

So, yeah. Maybe they were right. Maybe not being guilty wasn’t the same as being innocent.

We never go back to Lake Anna — work release is canceled forever, according to Officer Killduff — and C. Miller never comes back to juvie. Her injuries aren’t too serious, though Carla tells me she has headaches for a couple of weeks after the attack. Carla also says C. Miller can’t remember anything that happened after walking into the bathroom, which I guess is a good thing, though part of me worries that she’ll always wonder if I had anything to do with it, no matter what she’s been told.

I’m sad at first that she’s gone, but it’s mostly for myself. C. Miller’s definitely too nice for a place like juvie. I call her one night — Carla gives me the number — but we don’t talk about the attack. She tells me she’s taking classes at the community college, which was something Carla suggested, of all people. And she’s playing some rec-league basketball. She says she and Carla hang out some, and LaNisha and Lulu started a Saturday gymnastics class called Tumbling Tots for three-year-olds.

I hear LaNisha in the background, singing, and realize I have no idea what she looks like. That makes me sad at first, but only for a minute, since I’m pretty sure when I get out, Lulu and C. Miller will both be happy to introduce us. “Take care of yourself, Sadie,” C. Miller says. I tell her I will.

The next time Carla visits, I almost don’t recognize her. She’s chopped her hair even shorter than before, to her chin, and it’s bouncy and healthy-looking in a way I barely remember. Her face has filled out a little, too. It’s almost like looking at a picture of Carla when she was my age, before the drugs and Lulu’s dad and the drinking.

She tells me the assistant manager just quit at Friendly’s and they’re considering her for the job, which would mean more money, and if she’s management, Friendly’s would pay for business classes at the community college if she wanted to take them. She also tells me Mom’s definitely decided to move into Granny’s. It’s too good a deal: no rent, and she can look after Dad,
and
there’s tons of room for Lulu to run around and play when she’s over.

Mom comes to visit the next week and confirms that she’s moving out to Granny’s. She tells me that Carla’s thinking about moving in, too. Carla somehow managed to leave that part out. “I explained everything to your dad,” she says. “Through the door, anyway. But I just have a feeling he’s going to be OK with it. It’ll be a lot better than having strangers living there.”

Mom also tells me she and Mr. Ferrell finally heard from the school board. They said there wouldn’t be anything on my permanent record about being in juvie if I want to come back and finish my senior year. “Plus you can play basketball again,” she says. “So long as you stay out of trouble.” It takes a minute for me to register what she’s just said. But once I do, I’m so happy that I drop the receiver. It makes so much noise hitting the wall that I lose phone privileges again, but I don’t even care.

The next time I call Carla, Lulu answers. I grin when I hear her voice. I can’t believe I ever thought the wind through the leaves was my favorite sound in the world. It’s got nothing on Lulu.

It’s a couple of days before Christmas, and she asks if I want to hear her sing a Christmas carol. I’m so thrilled I can hardly stand it, only instead of “Silent Night,” she sings “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which totally cracks me up.

She tells me, as if I didn’t know, that it’s about a girlfriend and her boyfriend and they want to be together for Christmas.

“Just like I want you to be here for Christmas, too, Aunt Sadie,” she adds.

When I ask what she’s doing lately, she tells me about all the great things she and Carla have been up to — Christmas shopping, going to see Santa, going to Washington to see all the Christmas trees from all fifty states they have decorated near the White House. It’s hard to hear at first — all that I’ve been missing out on, all the sorts of things Lulu and I used to do, but that she’s doing now with Carla. But it’s also kind of wonderful, too — everything I had hoped for.

Then, without missing a beat, Lulu starts in on the family gossip, surprising me with how much older she suddenly sounds, even at three and a half. She says Moo-Moo has been going out with this guy Dave, but Carla doesn’t think it’s serious. Then she tells me Carla dated her new boss a couple of times, but that Moo-Moo doesn’t think
that’s
serious, either.

I ask Lulu what “serious” means, and she whispers into the phone: “It means you kiss them.”

“Ew,” I say. “Gross.” I tell her I think Carla and Mom should both join a convent, and Lulu asks what that is.

“It’s a place where there are only girls,” I say. “And they dress funny. Like in
The Sound of Music
.”

Lulu wants to know if they would take her there, too, and I say, “Of course.”

“And you, too, Aunt Sadie?” She sounds worried.

“Sure,” I say. “It’s not like I have a boyfriend or anything.”

Lulu is quiet on the phone for a minute, then says, “If you wanted, you could.”

Christmas is hard. We don’t get any visitors since it falls it the middle of the week. The same with New Year’s. But then I get another letter from Dad, another envelope from him, anyway, with that faint, spidery script of his. There’s a poem inside, an old Indian prayer that I recognize. Granny used to have it tacked to the wall next to the desk where she paid all her bills and wrote letters and stuff.

Hold on to what is good

even if it is a handful of earth
.

Hold on to what you believe

even if it is a tree which stands by itself
.

Hold on to what you must do

even if it is a long way from here
.

Hold on to life

even when it is easier

letting go
.

Hold on to my hand

even when I have gone

away from you
.

Like everything else, I have to give this back to the guards to keep until I’m let out. But I already have it memorized by the time they come to collect the mail.

Not long after that, I get a letter from Kevin.

I don’t open it at first, just stare at the handwriting, which is big and loopy like a girl’s. I must look weird or upset or something, because Kerry, Fefu, and Good Gina come over to see if I’m OK. I nod and wave the envelope.

“From my old boyfriend.”

Good Gina gives me a hug. Kerry pats me on my shoulder. Fefu just wants to get back to playing checkers.

I finally open it.

He says he hopes I don’t mind him writing.

He says he’s been thinking about me a lot lately.

He says he ran into Carla and she cussed him out in the middle of a sidewalk downtown. He told her about a hundred times that he was sorry, and then she told him about me rescuing C. Miller and chasing down Bad Gina.

He says he’s told everybody at school.

He says he started playing indoor soccer at a place called the Field House, and he went with his dad to visit colleges last weekend, and his youth group went on a mission trip to Louisiana to build houses for hurricane victims.

He says he hopes I’ll write him back, and he hopes we can keep writing to each other.

It’s a sweet letter — in a way it’s almost as sweet as the one from Dad with Granny’s poem.

I lie in bed that night for a long time, thinking about Kevin’s letter and his request that I write him back, not so much about whether I’ll do it — I’m sure I will — but about what I’ll say, and how I’ll say it. How do you put into words all the ways in which you’ve changed? The language I spoke before juvie doesn’t seem adequate anymore. It’s probably time I learned a new one.

I close my eyes. I haven’t figured it all out yet, but I’m not worried. There’s plenty of time. Even drifting off to sleep, I can still do the math: three months down, three to go.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My deepest thanks to Kaylan Adair, who saw better than I did — and, thank God, let me know it — the book
Juvie
had the potential to be. Thanks to Janet Watkins, who really should be on the Candlewick payroll for her careful reading and insightful editing and all-around support. And thanks to Kelly Sonnack, who continues to be such a wonderful advocate for me and all the writers and illustrators fortunate to have her as their agent and friend. Thanks also to the many people who helped during the writing of
Juvie
in all kinds of ways, whether they know it or not: Jill Payne and my CASA family; Ainsley Brown; Anne and Carl Little and my UU family; everyone in my yoga family; Stacey Strentz McLaughlin; Patrick Neustatter; Neva Trenis; Wayne Watkins; Johanna Branch; Clyde Watkins; Nora Lea Watkins; Ted and Anita Marshall; a certain DEA friend who is undercover so I can’t say his name; the amazing Rabe family, who bring great light into the world wherever they are; everyone who fought to save Government Island; plus our book and library friends — Paul Cymrot, Emily Simpson, Sydney Simpson, and Sean Bonney (and Jack and Cable and Quinn and Ellie and little Maple). Special thanks to Maggie and Eva and Claire and Lili and Marty and Pete. And more special thanks to our Circle friends, Marylise and Damian Cobey, Chris and Beatrice Kerr, Steve and Becky Slominski, and all the kids, who fill our house and our hearts with love and a whole lot more.

Hardcover ISBN 978-0-7636-3839-9
Paperback ISBN 978-0-7636-4835-0
Also available as an e-book and in audio