My Unfair Godmother

by Janette Rallison

  He was right. I couldn’t get around him, and his partner was coming up behind me.

  I held my hand up to shield my eyes. The policeman in front of me became a blur against the light, but I could tell he was shaking his head in disgust. “You’re in a heap of trouble. You know that, don’t you?”

  I did. I was in trouble. And Bo didn’t care about me.

  Chapter 2

  The police car was parked close to the street. The officers made me walk to it with my hands on the back of my head. I thought this was the most humiliating moment in my life, until they had me stand, feet apart, with my hands pressed against the side of the car. Then one of the police officers frisked me with the back of his hands. Which is still pretty much like being felt up by an old man. All this while a stream of cars drove by. I could tell the drivers were watching me because they slowed way down. I prayed none of them were kids from school.

  In the reflection of the car window, I noticed my french braid hadn’t worked to keep my hair in place. A big strand had pulled loose. Well, that was going to look great in a mug shot.

  After Officer A-little-too-eager-to-frisk-teenage-girls made sure I didn’t have any weapons shoved in my clothes, he handcuffed my hands behind my back and made me sit in the police car. He had a bulge of fat underneath his chin and only the suggestion of hair draped over the top of his head. Leaning into the car to look at me, he said, “So did you do this by yourself, or did your friends help?”

  I had no friends. I didn’t say anything, just looked straight ahead.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer. The handcuffs were too tight and bit into my wrists. I opened and shut my hands, trying to ease the pinch.

  He had taken my cell phone from my pocket when he frisked me, and he flipped it open. I wondered if he was going through my text messages with Bo. He wouldn’t find my name from that. Bo called me Babe.

  The officer snapped my phone shut. “Your parents will need to come pick you up. If you don’t give us your name, you’re going to be at the station for a long time.”

  I still didn’t say anything. I had the right to remain silent.

  He sneered and leaned closer. I caught the smell of stale coffee on his breath. “You hoodlums always think you’re so tough. Takes a lot of guts to break windows. You’re real brave coming out after dark to spray paint buildings.” His voice gained momentum. “You’re nothing but a messed-up punk who can make this easier, or who can sit there glaring and make it harder.”

  I wasn’t glaring; I was in shock. I was trying not to shake, not to cry.

  “Fine then,” the man said. “Let’s go to the station.” He slammed the door and got in the front of the car.

  Well, Bo was right about one thing. Tonight he took me to do something I’d never done before.

  • • •

  When I got to the police station, Officer Cop A. Feely marched me through the lobby, past the receptionist, or sentinel, or whatever you call the lady in the police shirt who rules over the lobby. Then he took me down the hall to a holding room. He strutted during all of this, like I was some elk he’d bagged.

  I’ve always been a law-abiding citizen. Once when I bought a pair of jeans, I picked up a keychain from a countertop display and absentmindedly walked out of the store with it. I was only a few feet down the street when I realized I still had it, but I totally freaked out. I was convinced the store manager would rush through the doors after me and no one would ever believe I hadn’t purposely shoplifted it. I hurried back to the store, holding the keychain out like it was about to burst into flames.

  But now with an officer marching me through the station, I felt like scum. And I hated him for making me feel that way. I also hated the receptionist/sentinel for looking smug and unconcerned, and just for good measure, I hated anyone in the world who happened to be wearing a dark blue shirt at that moment.

  The officer led me to a room, took off my handcuffs, and motioned for me to sit down. “You ready to tell us who you are?”

  I sat down and shook my head. Once I told them my name, they would ask other questions like who had been with me tonight. I didn’t know how to answer that yet.

  He walked back to the door and sent another threatening look in my direction. “The detective will come talk to you in a minute.” Then he shut the door.

  A two-way mirror lined the wall in front of me. I wondered if there was anyone behind it, or if the police only spied on hardened criminals. A black camera sat perched in the corner of the ceiling. I might be recorded. Great. I would have to be careful about what I said.

  The minutes ticked by. I wasn’t sure if the detective was busy or whether this was part of my punishment—making me sit here and worry about my fate as a guest in Hotel Convictland.

  Actually, I appreciated the time to think.

  I was seething at Bo. He had taken me to vandalize the city hall on a date, and he didn’t listen when I told him we shouldn’t do it, and worst of all, he left me there.

  You didn’t do that to people you loved. Romeo wouldn’t have left Juliet with a spray can clutched in her hand. But Bo left me. He left me to take the fine or jail time or whatever punishment I was going to get.

  Would I have a criminal record now? My stomach clenched at the thought. Job applications always asked if you had ever been convicted of a crime. Colleges probably asked the same thing. This could change my whole life.

  So maybe the things Nick said about Bo were true. Maybe he wasn’t a misunderstood, brooding bad boy; maybe he really was a jerk.

  Should I show him the same loyalty he’d shown me and turn him and his friends over to the police? But I hardly knew anyone at school. If I told the police the truth, I would be known as Narc Girl. And Snitch Girl. And Fink Girl. And as many other synonyms as there were for Girl Who Lands Her Boyfriend In Jail. No one at school would want to speak to me, including Bo.

  Although right now I wasn’t sure if I was ever speaking to Bo again anyway, so maybe that part didn’t matter.

  My stomach felt like a lid someone had screwed on too tight. There wasn’t a good solution to this. My dad would flip, and my mom—wherever she was on the road—would flip too. I glanced at the mirror again, at the strand of hair that had come loose from my french braid. I couldn’t leave it like that. When my dad finally came to pick me up, I didn’t want to look like one of those half-coherent criminals who stumbled around on cop shows. Besides, it was easier to fix my hair than think about everything else.

  I looked at my reflection and tried to tuck the strand back into the braid. When that didn’t work, I took the braid out and combed my fingers through my hair the best I could. Which wasn’t all that well. My hair had still been a little damp when I braided it. Now it was wavy and looked wild and tousled.

  A middle-aged man opened the door and walked in. He held a coffee cup in one hand and a file folder in the other. Barely glancing at me, he settled into the chair on the other side of the table. “When the criminals are so bored they’re doing their hair, it means it’s time to talk.”

  They had been watching me. I felt myself blush. I wanted to say, “I wasn’t trying to make myself look nice for you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” But I had already decided not to say anything. Instead of meeting his eyes, I scrutinized his tie. It was pale blue with little cacti on it. Arizona: not just a place, a fashion statement.

  “So, Tansy, do you want to tell me what happened tonight?”

  I let out a gasp. I had no idea how he’d guessed my name. No, guessed wasn’t the right word. If he were guessing, he wouldn’t have come up with Tansy. In my entire life, I’d never met another Tansy. My father chose the name from some old book he loved.

  The detective smiled at my reaction. “You’re not in Queens anymore. People talk in small towns. They know things about each other.”

  How did he know I was from Queens? I had never seen him before in my life.

  He tapped his pen against the
table impatiently. “Who was with you tonight?”

  I clutched my hands in my lap and didn’t answer.

  “Are you saying it was only you?” he asked. “Because if you’re taking responsibility for the damage, replacing those busted windows will run you between fifteen hundred and two thousand dollars. Hiring someone to repaint the side of the building will cost a few hundred more. If you want us to send the bill to someone else, you need to tell us who.”

  I tried not to let him see me flinch. I didn’t have that much money and my dad was about to lose his job. Still, I didn’t want to let this guy intimidate me into turning over my boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend, probably. I hadn’t decided yet. After all, Bo might show up on my doorstep with flowers, begging for my forgiveness. He might offer to pay the fine.

  “You know, this isn’t the first building that’s been vandalized in the last month.” The detective held up a folder to show me the proof. “We’ve got a dentist’s office, a gas station, and a McDonald’s. Same sort of handiwork we found on the city hall. We’ve been searching for the vandals, and tonight we caught you.” He leaned back in his chair, his hands folded smugly in his lap. “It would be a shame if these got pinned on you too.”

  My stomach lurched. Bo hadn’t vandalized those other buildings, had he? Tonight had happened because he was mad about my father and stepmother losing their jobs. He had thrown those rocks for me.

  “You’re making that up about the other buildings,” I said.

  Without a trace of emotion, the detective flipped open the folder, took out a picture, and slid it to me. “Look familiar?”

  It didn’t. The photo showed a gas station with red slashes across the side of one wall, like a giant cat had scratched it. Why would Bo have sprayed graffiti on the other buildings?

  The detective put the picture back in the folder. “I don’t think you realize how much trouble you’re in, so I want your parents to come down and talk with you. Then you can decide what to tell me.” He pushed himself away from the table. “If you’re a smart girl, you won’t take the rap for someone else.”

  He stood up and motioned me to follow him out of the room. When we reached the lobby, he said, “Take a seat. It will be a while before Mary gets around to calling your parents. It’s been a busy night.” He glanced over at the waiting room’s other occupant, a teenage guy. He sat in the middle of the only row of chairs, flipping through a magazine without paying attention to it. Before the detective left the room, he sent me a humorless smile. “Hope you’re not out past your curfew.”

  I sat down on the last chair in the row. I had remained outwardly calm so far, and I’d been proud of myself for staying tough. But now my hands shook. I wasn’t tough. And I was alone sitting in the police station. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, but the tears ran down my cheeks without permission. The most I could manage was to choke back the sobs that pulsed in my throat.

  I hadn’t noticed the teenage guy move, but he sat down on the chair next to me, holding out a box of tissues.

  “Thanks.” I took a couple and blew my nose. I had never blown my nose in front of a stranger, let alone a guy who was my age and good-looking. And he was good-looking. I wouldn’t have even glanced at his face, except I wondered if I knew him from school, and once I saw him, the handsome thing was sort of hard to overlook. He had wavy brown hair, tanned skin, and dark brown eyes that made him look like he’d stepped off a movie set somewhere. He wore a pair of faded blue jeans, the kind that have been worn comfortably thin, and an olive green T-shirt that fit snugly across his broad shoulders.

  I hoped he had already graduated from high school, because the fewer people from Rock Canyon High who knew about my trip here, the better. Then again, he was here too, so he couldn’t look down on me for being hauled into the police station.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice a soft lull in the large room.

  I nodded, then laughed at my automatic reaction. I clearly wasn’t okay. I took another tissue from the box and wiped tears from my cheeks, trying to pull myself together. I must have looked like a mess. “So what brings you here?” I asked.

  He grinned like it didn’t matter. “Same thing as usual. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You drive your truck through a park, do a few spinouts, and these guys get all bent out of shape.” He stretched out his legs. “What about you?”

  I let out a grunt. “I should use my one phone call to contact The Guinness Book of World Records. Because I’ve just had the worst date in history.”

  “A date, huh?” The guy looked around the lobby. “So where did he end up? Do they have him in the back?”

  Now that the police were gone, I suddenly wanted to talk about what had happened. I wanted some sympathy before my father came down to the station and ripped into me. “No, he left with his friends when they saw the police coming. At least, that’s what I assume. I was around the back of a building making a phone call.”

  “Oh.” The guy nodded philosophically. “Girls using cell phones while on dates. I see your boyfriend’s point.”

  I smiled despite myself. “That’s not how it was.”

  “Just joking.” He held up a hand like he was taking a pledge. “Personally, I would never leave my girlfriend talking on a cell phone while the police closed in.”

  Hmm. I guess that made him a loyal criminal. I shouldn’t have found that attractive in a guy but I did.

  He surveyed me, his dark eyes resting on mine. “So what was so important that you had to make a phone call while your boyfriend was out committing a crime?”

  “I was asking advice on how to make my boyfriend stop committing the crime.”

  “Ahh.” The guy drew out the sound. “That’s irony. Or bad timing.”

  “That’s my usual luck.”

  He raised an eyebrow at my statement. “Do you come here often?” Then he smiled. He had gorgeous straight teeth. “That sounded like a pickup line, didn’t it? Hey, if your boyfriend is the jealous, violent type, forget I said that.”

  “I’ve never been here before.” I glanced around the lobby at the gray plastic chairs. “And somehow I don’t think it will make my list of favorite date destinations.”

  The guy lowered his voice. “So how did a date with your boyfriend turn into a crime? Did he say, ‘Hey, do you want to catch a movie, and then we’ll hold up a convenience store?’ ”

  “He didn’t tell me where we were going,” I said. “And I thought he was doing it for me—taking on city hall, or at least breaking their windows.” That didn’t make sense, so I added, “Bo wanted to get revenge for me.”

  I hadn’t realized I said Bo’s name out loud until the guy said, “Bo Grimes?”

  “You know Bo?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah, Bo and I go way back.”

  It figured I would run into one of Bo’s friends in the police station. I wondered why I hadn’t seen this guy at Indestruction’s practice. On second thought, I didn’t really wonder that. He probably had some musical taste.

  “Let me guess who his friends were.” He ticked the names off his fingers as he spoke. “Gibbs Johnson, Mike Hunsaker, and Steve and Brandon Hart.”

  “Yes,” I said, with as much surprise as if he’d done a magic trick. “You know them too?”

  The guy leaned back in his seat, trying to hide his smile. “Of course.”

  Of course. The detective had told me everyone knew each other in small towns. Apparently it was true. He had also said that people talked. And judging by the fact that the police knew who I was, people hadn’t been saying good things about me. This night would just give everyone more to talk about.

  I wadded the tissue in my hand. “This is a stupid hick town. I can’t wait to move back to New York.”

  “Right,” the guy said with a slow drawl. “ ’Cause the police don’t hassle teenagers in New York.”

  The guy had a point, but I didn’t concede it. I glanced at the front door. Dad and Sandra would be here soon and I still w
asn’t sure what to tell the detective. It was a desperate thing to do, asking advice from a stranger in the waiting room of the police station, but he was the only one around. Besides, looking into his deep brown eyes, I felt he would understand my predicament. He knew I was in trouble, but he was also cut from the same cloth as Bo—he was someone who bucked the system. I whispered, “The detective said if I don’t tell them who was with me, they’ll pin everything on me—including a bunch of other vandalism jobs. Can they do that?”

  The guy shrugged. “They’ll try all sorts of things to mess with you. Sometimes it’s best to give them what they want.”

  “But I can’t turn in my boyfriend and his friends. How low class is that?”

  “Not quite as low class as leaving your girlfriend to be arrested for your crime.” He sent me an incredulous look. “Do you still want Bo as your boyfriend?”

  The reminder stung. “Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean I want him dragged in here by these minions in blue shirts and charged with a bunch of stuff he didn’t do.” I glared down the hallway where I’d last seen Officer Frisky McFriskerson. “The police are a bunch of power-hungry jerks.”

  “Jerks,” the guy repeated mockingly. He probably would have chosen a stronger word.

  I looked down at my wrists, still seeing the handcuffs that had been there earlier. “I’ve only gone to school here for a month; if I turn in my friends, I’ll never get any new ones.”

  “Maybe you should just try hanging out with guys who aren’t criminals,” he said.

  This is when I realized that even though the guy had said he knew Bo and his friends, he’d never said he liked them.

  My gaze went to his eyes, trying to read his expression. He wasn’t looking at me, though. He waved at someone across the lobby. I turned to see who it was, but the only one in the room was the lady behind the desk. She motioned to someone behind her.

  I didn’t understand what it meant. I turned back to him with a question on my lips. It never got past my lips because the detective opened the lobby door and walked over. I expected him to come talk to me. I braced myself for it, but he barely looked at me. He went over to the guy. “Well?”