True Blue (10 page)

Are you getting enough of a story? Or are you getting tired of it? I see you looking at your watch—and you’re jiggling your coffee cup. You can go if you want to. I know I said there’s a lot you don’t know, but maybe you don’t have to hear it after all. The door’s not locked. No one is holding you against your will.

So go, if you’re going to, but stop wasting my time pretending you’ve got to be somewhere at this hour. It’s four in the morning, the hour of nothing and we’re in the middle of nowhere. But march out into it, if you want to. Leave before I finish my next sentence. I don’t care about manners.

But you won’t, will you? You won’t go because my story isn’t finished and because I’m a minor celebrity, and it makes you feel special to be hearing my story.

* * *

I dropped by Casey’s home later that afternoon, knowing that if I delayed it by even an hour, I’d never do it.

Mrs. White came to the door. There was some reservation in her greeting, and she did not ask me in.

“Michael is not well. He misses Casey, and it’s difficult to get him to the jail since those vandals poured paint in the gas tank of the van.” She sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. “Every day I call the police to see if they’ve caught the people who did this to us, and every day they tell me to be patient.”

She brightened a little when I gave her the beetle book and said she’d tell Casey’s lawyer to arrange things at the detention center to allow her schoolwork in.

She had a few kind words for Miss Burke, and then she said, “I know people are backing you into a corner, Jess, getting you to say things you don’t mean. I hope things get easier for you soon.”

I wanted to hug her but she stayed half-hidden behind the door. I could smell chicken stew cooking on the stove. Mrs. White did not ask me to stay for dinner. I went home.

I reported to Miss Burke before classes started the next morning. She was delighted to learn she could get schoolwork to Casey through Mela Cross. Her face suddenly looked younger, and I remember thinking what a powerful thing forgiveness is. Miss Burke was forgiving herself for not speaking out about Casey sooner. Her spine, curved in the way that happens sometimes with old ladies, actually straightened out a bit.

“I’ll talk to her other teachers today,” she said. “Thank you, Jessica. You are a real friend to Casey, and that’s something to be proud of. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you. It will probably get harder once the trial starts, but you won’t mind that, will you? That’s the price of friendship. I have had a few close friends in my life, too, women who have known me better than I knew myself—”

The five-minute bell rang and I had to excuse myself and hurry to class. Before I left, she grabbed my shoulder with her old-woman hand and gave it a squeeze. I could feel her hand on me all the rest of the day. She did it to express her support, but all it did was remind me what a coward I was.

At lunchtime, I was working on the checkout line in the cafeteria when Nathan pushed himself forward.

“To the back of the line, young man,” the lunch supervisor ordered.

Nathan stepped aside to let me keep checking people through while he talked.

“I just came from the teachers’ lounge,” he said.

“They let you in the teachers’ lounge?”

“No, no, outside of it. There was a ferocious argument going on inside, about your friend Casey.”

I didn’t like the way he said, “your friend Casey.” It made me feel involved in a way I didn’t want to be. Still, Nathan was someone who for years had never even acknowledged that I was human. And he must be answered if I was to avoid going back to sub-human status.

“What about Casey?”

“You won’t believe this. Old Lady Burke was defending her, practically screaming at the other teachers. She was yelling so loud, a lot of students could hear.”

“Miss Burke?” I couldn’t believe it. Miss Burke never raised her voice.

“Burke was yelling that the other teachers should hand over their course work to Casey while she was locked up, that anyone who didn’t should be ashamed of themselves. She said that Casey is the most talented student to ever attend Galloway High. Some of the other teachers yelled back that they wouldn’t lift a finger to help a child killer. And then it got personal.”

I was so absorbed in what Nathan was saying, I let several kids through the line without charging them for their tuna surprise, then I took someone’s money and had to be prodded into giving them change.

“One of the teachers, I think it was Higgins, yelled that Burke was clearly senile and needed to be in a home, and another woman—I couldn’t tell who—yelled that she was going to go to the principal because someone as warped as Burke shouldn’t be around children.”

“And then what happened?”

“And then the vice-principal appeared and chewed me out for loitering in the hall, so I rushed down here to tell you.”

I was flattered that he’d told me before he told anyone else, until he told me the reason.

“I figured you might know something.”

I shrugged. “I guess Casey’s other teachers don’t like her as much as Old Burke does.”

“She sure flipped out.”

“I’ve got her class right after lunch,” I said. “If she says or does anything else strange, I’ll let you know.”

Nathan said he’d meet me later and I got on with my job. I felt important. I was a sort of spy for the group.

Miss Burke wasn’t in the biology room when I got to class. Ten minutes into the period, she still wasn’t there. The classroom buzzed with speculation. News of the fight in the teachers’ lounge had gotten around. Kids were saying things like, “Maybe she’s been fired.” “Maybe she had a heart attack.” None of us came close to imagining what was really going on, but we soon found out.

Miss Burke’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Good afternoon, students,” she began. “I’m sorry to interrupt your classes, but I need to speak to all of you about one of your schoolmates. I need to speak to you about Casey White.

“There’s been a lot of foolish talk branding Casey as a murderer. Lots of people in this town—and, I’m ashamed to say, inside this school—are jumping on the Casey-is-guilty bandwagon. I want you to stop and think now. Put down your books and your pens, listen to me, and think.

“Have any of you ever been wrongly accused? Do you remember what a frustrating, lonely place that is? People who you thought were your friends accusing you? People turning on you, eager to believe the worst? Didn’t you want to say to them, ‘But it’s me! You know me! You know I wouldn’t do such a thing!’ Maybe you even did say that, but it didn’t do any good.

“You all know Casey White. Many of you have gone to school with her since the third grade. You know she is not the sort of person who could commit this horrible crime. Casey is part of our school community. She has won awards for this school with her scientific pursuits. She has distinguished herself and brought honor to this school. And now she is being treated with dishonor.”

The classroom door slammed open. We all jumped.

“Miss Burke has locked herself in the intercom office!” a kid yelled out and then ran down the hall spreading the news.

I was the first one out the door, but others were close behind me. By the time we reached the office door, a crowd of students had already gathered. Teachers tried to chase them back to their classrooms, but everyone ignored them.

Miss Burke kept talking about Casey’s accomplishments, her good spirit, her generous nature. Everything she said was met with derision by the crowd. Someone even shouted out that ridiculous nursery rhyme, “Miss Burke and Casey, sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G…”

Students kept spilling into the hallway. I could hear the principal’s booming voice on the edge of the crowd, trying to push through to the office, probably with an extra set of keys, but no one would let him pass.

“Detentions will be given out!” teachers warned.

No one cared.

Miss Burke kept talking. “I have been on this Earth for many more years than any of you, more than anyone else in this school. I have seen injustices visited upon the world by greed and ignorance. I have seen the world explode in war and witnessed the sad march of humanity struggle with starvation and unnatural disaster. Throughout the whole sad history of the human race, there have been moments when things could have gone the other way, when individuals could have chosen a different path and raised us up out of the mud.”

And then something started happening to the kids crowded in the hallway. They began to quiet down. Miss Burke was starting to turn them. Soon, the only voices that could be heard—other than Miss Burke’s—were the teachers yelling at us to get back to class.

“A school is a community, just like a town or a city. The world outside has an impact on us, like it does on any town or city, but we have an advantage. We are an enclosed community. We can set our own standards. We have a chance to be better in here than the world is outside. Do we dare to take that chance? Are we brave enough?

“I think we are. I think the students of Galloway High can rise above the garbage that the world throws at us—the lies and the simplistic solutions. We can become better than the world, and we can start to do that right now.

“We can begin by putting a higher value on friendship than the world wants us to. Casey White is our friend. She has not been found guilty of any crime and I don’t believe she ever will be. We can refuse to abandon her. We can stand with her, the way we would want our friends to stand with us if we were ever in trouble.”

“Cops!” someone cried, and, sure enough, the police were suddenly in the hallway, shoving and even lifting students out of the way. They cleared a path for the principal. Kids booed and threw stuff at him as he approached the office door with his keys. Books and school supplies—even shoes—flew through the air. The police didn’t bother to seek out the culprits. They pushed and hit anyone they could reach. I don’t know if the kids were upset because the principal was about to silence Miss Burke, or because he was breaking up the fun. I still don’t know.

Several cops went into the office with the principal. They even had their guns drawn. The intercom office was a small room inside the larger office. How Miss Burke had managed to clear and lock both offices, I’ll never know.

We could hear her being pulled from her seat in front of the microphone. We heard one of the cops begin to place her under arrest, and then the intercom cut off. It took only a moment for them to bring her out.

The principal led the way, frowning. The cops were huge men in dark navy with their caps pulled low over their foreheads. Miss Burke was handcuffed behind her back, the way Casey had been. Two cops, one on each side, held her arms tightly. At first glance, she looked small and pale between them.

The crowd of kids hooted and applauded as she was taken away. Again, I don’t know if it was in appreciation for her speech or for the show. She didn’t acknowledge any of us. She walked calmly and proudly between the two cops, who had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed at having to keep a strong grip on a tiny, old, handcuffed lady in a lace-trimmed flower-print dress.

I looked more closely. Miss Burke was not small at all. She was tall, tall. Her head was high and her eyes were sparkling. She was smiling, and in that moment, she looked thirty years younger.

We got a substitute the next day. We were informed that Miss Burke would not be returning. The substitute found Casey’s insect collection in the storage room and put it up on display in the classroom. Next afternoon, all the cases had been smashed on the floor, the insects ground up on the linoleum. The substitute ranted and railed, but no one helped him clean up the mess. Not even me.

August 29

Day 9

Casey and I plan some activities for the sleep-out, but it is almost the end of camp and everyone is sick of being organized. The kids are tired and by the time we get the sleep-out space set up and wood gathered for the fire, they are content to sit around and talk and eat. Hot dogs sizzle in the coals, marshmallows catch on fire, and the combined smells of wood smoke and summer night are delicious.

By the beam of a flashlight Casey finishes the bedtime book we’ve been reading aloud to the kids since camp started. We are reading From Anna by Jean Little. At the very end, Anna sings “Silent Night,” and the campers usually start singing, too. That’s what happens this time, and we work our way through Christmas carols and the usual list of camp songs until the singing gradually winds down. Talking takes its place, the sort of truth telling that happens best when you get around a campfire. The kids talk about bullies at school, problems with their parents, grandparents they’ve lost—the usual things.