The Lemonade Crime (8 page)

Evan mumbled something, and Jessie had to ask him to repeat what he said.

"I took it from your lock box," said Evan, looking at her like he wanted to squash her like a bug.

Nobody said a word. Everyone stared at Evan, and Evan stared at Jessie.

"You
stole
it?" asked Paul, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Man, you never told us
that
part of the story," said Adam, shaking his head.

"Wow. You stole money from your little sister?" said Scott, smiling for the first time all afternoon. "That is
low.
"

Jessie looked down at the ground. She knew that Evan was staring at her with a look that said,
I wish you'd never been born.

"Excuse me?" said a voice from the audience. Jessie turned. It was Megan, and she was raising her hand, like she was in class.

"The bench recognizes Megan Moriarty," said David.

"The bench can't recognize someone from the audience," said Jessie. "The audience isn't allowed to talk during a trial. This is all wrong."

"Well," said David. "I'm the judge, so I get to decide. Megan!"

"Was that my money, too?" Megan asked. She looked straight at Evan. "Was half of that two hundred and eight dollars mine from the lemonade stand?"

Jessie's mouth fell open, but no sound came out. Evan dropped his head into his hands.

Things were coming out in this trial that Jessie had never expected to come out. Like the fact that Evan had stolen the money from Jessie before Scott stole the money from Evan. Or the fact that half the money he'd lost had been Megan's money. And just because Evan had planned to return the money to Jessie a day later—and she'd forgiven him for taking it in the first place—and just because Jessie and Evan had worked really hard to earn back all of Megan's money so that she'd
never know
she lost it—those facts didn't seem to matter much at all. In the eyes of everyone, it looked like Evan was a thief. A lying thief.

All of a sudden, words started to fly out of Jessie's mouth. "He didn't steal it," she said. "
I
told him to take the money. I gave it to him for safekeeping. He
didn't
steal it." Jessie turned to Megan. "It's my fault your money got stolen."

Evan looked at her. Megan looked at her. Scott looked at her. Everyone in the courtroom stared at Jessie. And all Jessie could think was that she had just told a lie in court. And everyone knew it.

Sixth Amendment
(
),
n.
The part of the U.S. Constitution that explains the rights of anyone who is accused of a crime and brought to trial, including the right to legal counsel.

Jessie whispered, "The prosecution rests," and she and Evan went back to their seats. Evan kept his eyes nailed to the ground. He didn't trust himself to look at Jessie. If he did, he knew that all his anger was going to spill over like lava pouring out of a crack in the earth's crust. He'd been humiliated—in front of the entire fourth grade. And even though he knew that Jessie hadn't done it on purpose, it was still
all her fault.
If she hadn't called him as a witness. If she hadn't made David the judge. If she hadn't given Scott Spencer that stupid arrest warrant in the first place, none of this would have happened.

David banged his gavel three times. "Will the lawyer for the defense please step forward?"

Evan saw Scott twist his head around and look at the parking lot. "We gotta wait a couple more minutes," said Scott, matter-of-factly. "My mom's not here yet."

"If she doesn't come," said Paul, "does Scott have to forfeit?"

David flipped through his cards. "Jessie? Does Scott forfeit if his mom doesn't come?"

"Here she is!" shouted Scott, jumping up from his ball. "I told you! I told you!" He turned to Jessie. "Now you're going to see how it's done by a
real
lawyer. She's going to make you look like a fool!" Scott ran off to the parking lot, where a large gray SUV was pulling up to the curb.

Evan watched as Scott ran up to the car and leaned in at the open window, talking with his mom. Scott turned around and pointed at all the kids, sitting in the courtroom. Evan could just barely see Mrs. Spencer, her hands on the wheel, the engine of the car still running. Then Scott stepped back from the car, and it drove away.

Scott came walking back and sat down on his basketball. He shrugged, but Evan could tell it was an act. "She can't stay," said Scott. "She's got a big meeting. Real stuff, not kids' stuff." He shrugged again and looked straight ahead at David, avoiding everyone else's eyes.

"So...?" said David. "What do we do now?" Everyone in the courtroom turned to Jessie, who had been keeping quiet ever since she sat down.

Evan looked at Jessie. She wasn't smiling, and that surprised him. After all, this meant they won, right? At least, that's how it worked in basketball. If the other team didn't show up or didn't have enough players, then they forfeited the game, and that meant your team won automatically. Usually, Evan hated forfeit games, even if it meant winning. He'd rather play and lose than win by forfeit. But this time, Evan would take a win any way he could get it. The image that had been haunting him for days—of standing up at Morning Meeting and apologizing to Scott—began to fade, and a new one took its place: Evan playing with his new Xbox 20/20—with all his friends over at
his
house.

Jessie said, "David, you say, 'Will the lawyer for the defense please step forward,' and then Scott says—well, whatever he wants to say in his own defense, and then he says, 'The defense rests,' and that's it."

"And then the verdict!" said Salley Knight, who was in the jury box. "Then we vote and give the verdict!"

"Right," said Jessie, glumly.

What was her problem? wondered Evan. They were sure to win if Scott had no defense lawyer.

"Ahem." David cleared his voice. "Will the lawyer for the defense please step forward?"

Everyone turned to look at Scott, but it was a voice from the back of the courtroom that broke the silence.

"That would be me." Megan stood up from the audience and walked to the front of the courtroom.

What?

At first Evan thought he must have heard wrong.

Did Megan Moriarty just say that she was going to defend Scott Spencer?

"You can't do that," said Evan, jumping up from his seat. "You're ... you're..." He wanted to shout,
You're supposed to be on my side, not his!,
but he couldn't say that. Not in front of the whole fourth grade.

"Hey!" shouted David, banging his gavel once. "Order in the court. Plaintiff, sit down. If you keep making a disturbance, I'll have you thrown out of court!"

"Oh, right! Like you could!" said Evan, but he sat down on his basketball anyway.

"Jessie," said David, holding up his watch. "It's three-thirty. I've got to go in ten minutes. Is this allowed?"

Jessie nodded her head. "Yes. It's ... fair."

Evan couldn't believe it. Was this really happening? Was the girl he was
in love with
about to destroy his one and only chance for revenge against his sworn enemy?

Megan turned to Scott. "Do you still not want a girl lawyer?"

Once again, Scott shrugged. "You're all I got. I guess it's okay."

"All right," said Megan. "This won't take long. Can I call my first witness?"

David nodded, and Megan moved to the front of the courtroom.

circumstantial evidence
(
), n. Indirect evidence that makes a person
seem
guilty. For example, if a suspect is seen running away from the scene of a crime, a jury might assume that he's guilty of the crime, even though no one saw him commit it.

Megan started with Jack. She asked him three simple questions and told him to answer with just one word:
yes
or
no.

"Jack, did you ever see the money in Evan's shorts pocket?"

"No."

"Did you see Scott Spencer take anything out of Evan's pocket?"

"No."

"Since that day, have you ever seen Scott Spencer carrying around two hundred and eight dollars?"

"No."

Then, one by one, she called Kevin, Malik, Ryan, and Paul to the witness stand and asked the same three questions. Their answers were all the same—
no.

Listening, Jessie felt miserable—but she was impressed. In less than five minutes, Megan had unraveled her whole case against Scott Spencer. The truth was, nobody had actually
seen
anything that day at the pool. It was all just guessing about what had happened to Evan's money.

The whole time Megan was asking the witnesses questions, Jessie worried that Megan was going to call Evan to the stand for cross-examining. She knew that Evan would rather pull his hair out, one strand at a time, than get back up on that witness stand. But instead Megan called a different witness—one that even Jessie didn't expect.

"My last witness," Megan said to the jury, "is Scott Spencer."

Scott Spencer had been slouching forward, sitting on his ball, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes on the ground. Now he straightened up and squared his shoulders. He looked as surprised as anyone to hear his name called out in court.

"I don't want to," he said. He looked defiantly at Megan and then at David, as if he was going to challenge both of them to a fight.

David pointed his gavel at him. "Well, you have to. You've got to do what your lawyer says."

Jessie was fairly certain that this wasn't true. She thought she remembered a rule that said you didn't have to testify against yourself in court, but she wasn't positive, so she didn't say anything.

Scott stood up, shoving his basketball with his heel so that it rolled a few feet toward the back of the courtroom. He walked to the podium and put his right hand over his heart and raised his left.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" asked the judge.

"Yeah," said Scott, but he said it long and low, like the word was being pulled out of his mouth on a rope.

"I just have one question," said Megan, "and it's an easy one." She put her hands on her hips and faced him straight on. "Did you really pay for your new Xbox 20/20 with your own money?"

"What?" said Scott, like he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. He turned to David K. "I'm not going to answer that. I don't have to answer that question."

"Yes, you do!" said David. "Or I'll hold you in contempt." He banged his gavel sharply once to let Scott know that he was serious.

Jessie looked at Scott and knew exactly how he felt.
Everyone
was staring at him.

"Well—I—" Not a single person made a sound. Even the branches of the elm trees stopped moving, the gentle rustling of the leaves dying down to silence.

"Remember," said Megan quietly. "You're under oath."

Scott made a sour face. "
No.
I didn't. You happy?" He smirked at Megan. "My parents bought it for me."

Everybody started shouting then. "I knew it! I knew it!" said Adam. David had to whack his gavel about ten times to get 4–0 to quiet down. "The witness is excused! Closing arguments! The prosecution goes first! Hurry up!"