The Lemonade Crime (5 page)

Evan laughed. "You're such an idiot!" He shoved Adam. Adam grinned, faked like he was going to throw a punch, then got on his bike, and rode away.

Evan was just about to push off on his bike when he saw Ryan and Paul walking together toward the path. He rode across the blacktop and crossed in front of them right before they came to the fence. Before Evan could say anything, Paul slung his arm around him, nearly knocking him off his bike. "Hey, Evan, I totally owe you one. Thanks for taking the blame, you know, when Charlie got off his leash."

"Yeah, sure. No big deal," said Evan, shrugging. Evan and Paul did that all the time for each other: swapping the blame so that they wouldn't get in trouble with their own parents. Parents always went way easier on other people's kids than they did on their own.

"You want to come over?" Evan said to Paul and Ryan, balancing on his bike without pedaling forward.

Paul shook his head. "No, we're going to Scott's."

Evan slammed his feet to the ground and stared at the two of them.

"He said we could try out the 20/20," said Ryan. "It's supposed to be awesome. You should come, too."

Evan felt like he'd been sucker-punched. "No way!" he shouted. He stared at Paul and then Ryan with an expression that said,
Traitor!
but neither one of them said anything in return. Finally, Evan said quietly, "I can't believe you're going over to his house."

Paul shrugged. "He didn't do anything to us."

"Some friend you are," said Evan.

"C'mon, Evan," said Paul. "You don't even know for sure that he took the money..."

"I know!" said Evan.

"You should come," said Ryan. "Everyone's going over there after school."

A picture came into Evan's mind of the whole fourth-grade class marching over to Scott's house. All his friends. And where would he be? He'd be at home, with his little sister. "Who?" he asked. "Everyone, who?"

"All the guys," said Paul. "You know, me and Ryan and Jack and Kevin. All the guys."

"Not Adam," said Evan, thinking to himself that at least he had one friend who was loyal.

"Well, he's gotta help his mother with some stuff," said Ryan, "but then he's coming over after that. Like in an hour."

Evan shook his head in disbelief. His best friend. Stabbing him in the back. He yanked his handlebars away from Paul and Ryan and rode off without saying another word.

due diligence
(
),
n.
Taking the time and making the effort to do a reasonably-good job at something; the opposite of negligence.

"Can we take a break now?" asked Megan, sitting up on her knees. She held the blue marker in her hand as if it were a lighted candle. Her fingers were covered with ink in all colors, and she had a pencil stuck through the base of her ponytail.

Jessie was lying on her stomach with her whole box of colored pencils spread out in front of her. There was no way they could take a break now! The trial was tomorrow. There was still so much left to do.

She'd already interviewed the five witnesses who were going to testify—Paul, Ryan, Kevin, Malik, and Jack—to find out exactly what they remembered about the day of the crime when they were at Jack's house. She'd written out index cards for David Kirkorian that told him exactly what he was supposed to say during the trial.

Now she was finishing up coloring the map that showed where each person would stand or sit during the trial. And she still had to write her closing argument!

Jessie felt—for the first time in her life—as if she was about to take a test and she hadn't studied long enough.

"Let's just work a little longer," she said. "Are you almost done with the nametags?"

Megan showed Jessie the twelve jury nametags,

the five witness nametags,

and the judge's nametag.

"Those are good," said Jessie. "Now you just have to do the ones for the audience."

Megan groaned. "This is why Evan calls you Obsessie Jessie."

Jessie hated that nickname. She hated all nicknames! Why had Evan told Megan about that?

"I am not obsessed. I just work hard. It's called
due
"—she thought for a minute, but couldn't come up with the name—"something." She scrounged under the papers that were scattered on the floor and found "Trial by Jury," the booklet her mother had written. She started flipping through the pages.

"But we've been doing this for hours!" wailed Megan. "I want to go outside."

"Due diligence!" said Jessie. "That's what it's called. Doing your job so that later, no one can blame you and say you didn't work hard enough."

"Well, due diligence is BORING!" said Megan. She picked up the ruler that Jessie had been using to draw straight lines on her map and began to balance it upright in the palm of her hand. She was pretty good at it. Jessie was impressed.

Suddenly, Megan asked, "Do you think you can really prove that Scott stole Evan's money?"

Jessie felt her throat close up for an instant.

That was the question she was most afraid of. That was the question that had kept running through her mind last night as she lay in bed, trying to fall asleep.

"I don't know. I'd better be able to." Jessie imagined standing up in front of the whole class and apologizing to Scott. It made her feel like throwing up.

Megan put the ruler down and flopped onto the floor, spreading her arms and legs out like a starfish. She picked up the map Jessie had drawn that showed where everyone would be in the courtroom.

The courtroom wasn't a "room" at all. It was the grassy part of the school playground—the part that was farthest away from the building and the blacktop and was shaded by a row of large elm trees. Jessie had drawn exactly where they would set up the milk crates and the jump ropes and the balls and who would sit where. Everybody's name was marked with some kind of symbol.

Megan stared at the map. "It's like I can almost imagine the whole thing happening," she said. "There's just one thing." She turned the paper one way, then the other. "It's not symmetrical. See?"

Jessie looked at the map. What was Megan talking about?

"It's supposed to be balanced, right? Everything even. But look." Megan pulled the pencil out of her ponytail and drew a light, dotted line down the middle of Jessie's drawing.

"Scott doesn't have a lawyer," she said. "The sides aren't even, so it's really not, you know,
fair.
I mean, to Scott."

"Well, it's his own fault," said Jessie. She'd worked too hard on her map to hear any criticism of it.

"But still," said Megan. "Isn't it the law that everyone gets to have a lawyer if they get arrested? Even if you're poor and even if no one likes you. And even if everyone thinks you're guilty. You get to have a lawyer. That's how they always do it on TV."

Jessie shrugged. "He wants to defend himself. You're allowed to do that in a real court."

Megan shook her head. "He only said that because there was no one left to pick. I mean, no boys." She looked at the map again. "It just doesn't seem right."

"What are you saying?" Jessie wished people would just be clear about what they meant. "Are you saying I'm wrong?"

Megan crossed her arms. "All I'm saying is that it isn't fair if Evan has a lawyer and Scott doesn't. And you know it, Jessie. You know it better than anyone else. You're—the Queen of Fair."

Another nickname! Was it an insult? The way Megan said "the Queen of Fair" didn't sound like an insult. But Jessie wasn't sure. Sometimes someone said something one way and meant it exactly the opposite. That was called
sarcasm,
and Jessie always missed it, like a pitch thrown too fast, leaving her swinging at nothing but air.