But in the end it was good enough to save Carla. Or at least to keep her out of jail.
I decided to skip the rest of school and take Lulu to the Bug Box. Mom said it was OK and let me borrow her car, since Lulu wasn’t allowed to ride on the back of my motorcycle. I was surprised Mom agreed to it, and surprised that she didn’t say anything about the interrogation. Maybe she was like me, just hoping and praying that we could make this thing go away and get back to our lives the way they were.
Lulu loved the Bug Box, this strange little bug museum that a local exterminator guy opened up next to his exterminator business south of town. I guess they took kids there on field trips or something, and he got donations that way, for educational tours. Otherwise I wasn’t sure how the Bug Box stayed open. It was really just a big room with dozens of terrariums filled with all sorts of spiders and bugs and pests. Wolf spiders, black widows, tarantulas. Lots of cockroaches, which swarmed all over one another and seemed to multiply while you were looking at them. You needed a magnifying glass to see the bedbugs and fleas and termites. They had a couple of ant farms mounted to one wall so you could check out the tunnels and nests and stuff. There was also a big fire-ant hill in this one big case, with the Latin name that I always remembered for some reason: Solenopsis invicta. I looked it up, and invicta means “the unvanquished.”
The Bug Box might have been Lulu’s favorite place in the world. Most kids are afraid of bugs, but not her. She especially loved the daddy longlegs and the praying mantises. The proprietor guy let her hold them, and Lulu laughed and laughed and laughed while the daddy longlegs crawled all over her.
Afterward, on the way to the grocery store to pick up some food to take to my dad’s, Lulu and I sang this daddy longlegs song that Granny taught me when I was little.
There were a bunch of different verses about him being on your knee, and your shirt, and your chin, and finally your hair. By the time we got to the grocery store, Lulu was practically shouting the words, which was how she sang when she got excited, and I was practically shouting them with her.
I used my car-wash money to buy that week’s groceries for Dad. Mom never asked me to; I just sort of started doing it every other week when I realized Mom was skipping lunches because we didn’t have enough to go around.
I was pretty sure Dad was out in one of his sheds when we drove up to Granny’s, because a door slammed back there, and then another that I recognized as the back door to Dad’s wing of the house.
Lulu heard it, too. “Is that Granpa?” she asked.
“Yeah. Pretty sure it is.”
She pulled a box of spaghetti out of one of the grocery bags. Lulu always liked to help, but she was too little to carry much. She grabbed a pomegranate, too. I didn’t know why I bought that. Or the avocado. I wasn’t even sure he ate stuff like that. I just hated the idea of him sitting in that drab house all day, eating nothing but drab food. He should have something beautiful and exotic around, like a pomegranate or an avocado, even if he never ate a bite.
“Can we see him?” Lulu asked.
“Probably not,” I said. “You remember how we talked about Granpa, how he has a hard time being around other people?”
She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t understand. She was three years old. Of course she didn’t understand. I was seventeen, and I didn’t, either.
We left the food on the porch the way we always did. Lulu ran off to pick dandelions, and I knocked on the door and waited. Not that I expected Dad to answer. It was just the routine. Then I told him — or told the door — about what had happened with Carla and me and the drug bust. I told him about meeting with the detectives that morning, and agreeing to take the blame, and Carla’s promise to straighten out her life. I told Dad I loved him and I missed him and I wished I could see him. I pressed my palm to the door for a minute, pretending I could feel him doing the same from the other side, feel the heat of his hand through the wood. Then I left to collect Lulu and go pick up Mom from work and get ready for basketball practice.
But when I got to the bottom of the steps, I stopped for some reason and turned back around. Something was lying on the porch where I’d just been standing. Dad must have slid it out under the door. I went back to pick it up: a picture of him when he was a lot younger, standing in his swim trunks in shallow waves at the ocean, cradling a little baby with one arm, a shy look on his face but still managing to smile at the camera. A little girl was clinging to his leg and looking up at him, as if wishing he would pick her up, too. That was Carla. The baby was me.
Mom looks tired when she comes that first Sunday afternoon during visiting hours, which is really just a visiting half hour because that’s all we’re allowed. She’s already there waiting when the guard brings me in. I keep my head down as I take my seat, hoping that my hair mostly covers my face for now. We sit in facing cubicles separated by a Plexiglas divider that runs from the floor to the ceiling and have to talk on telephones though we’re only inches apart. I put my hand on one side of the Plexiglas, and she puts hers on the other. I can’t feel her, of course. It’s just as close as we can get to touching. She starts off smiling, but a look of horror takes over when I raise my head and push back my hair.
She skips the preliminaries. “What happened?”
I touch my nose and imagine what she sees: the swelling, the bruises, the black eyes.
“Nothing,” I say. “We were playing basketball and it got a little rough. I’m OK. It looks worse than it is.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am telling the truth,” I say. “I tried to drive the lane when I should have passed off and got sandwiched between two girls. It happens. Really, Mom, there’s nothing to worry about. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. Like I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me about this. We just talked on the phone two nights ago.”
I take the phone away from my ear and tap myself on the forehead with the receiver. “I’m sorry,” I say when I bring it back down. “You were at bingo. I didn’t want to bother you about it. So how are things, anyway?” I ask, trying to change the subject. “What about Carla and Lulu? Why didn’t Carla come?”
Mom doesn’t answer. “Turn your face to the side,” she says, and I do. “Now the other way,” she says, and I do that, too.
“Is it broken?” she asks.
“No,” I lie. “Just sore.”
“What about the black eyes?”
“The nurse said that’s just the way the bruising spreads. I didn’t get attacked or anything. It was an accident. Honest.”
“Well,” she says, “I’m going to speak to whoever’s in charge.”
“No, Mom,” I say. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to call any attention to myself in here. You’re supposed to just keep your head down and do what you’re told to do. Please. Don’t make a big deal out of this.”
Mom still fumes. I lie some more and tell her the nurse came down and checked up on me several times after it happened, and the guards did, too. That seems to placate her, and she finally gets around to filling me in on Carla and Lulu, though there isn’t much to tell. Carla says she’s gone to AA again. She says she put in a couple of job applications and got the community-college spring catalog. I want to believe in Carla, but figure there’s only about a fifty-fifty chance that what she told Mom is true. But maybe part of it is.
The conversation shifts back over to me way too soon, but I have to leave so much out about what has been going on in juvie that I quickly run out of things to talk about. We’re both ready to say good-bye when the time is up.
I don’t start missing her until about two seconds after she leaves.
I avoid Bad Gina, and the Jelly Sisters, and pretty much everybody for the next couple of days. The trick is to sit close to the teachers during GED classes and pretend to be fascinated by such mind-numbing trivia as the fact that Virginia has a state drink (milk), a state shell (oyster), and the distinction of being one of a handful of states that isn’t ju
st a state (but also a commonwealth).
I can’t hide during gym, though, and on Wednesday Officer Killduff orders everybody to run wind sprints — even me. I don’t try to race, just keep up with the others until half of them drop out, exhausted, gasping like fish. Then I go down, too. I’m pissed off that I have to do it with my broken nose, which still aches, but manage to keep my mouth shut.
Officer Killduff stands over us as we sprawl there on the court, grinning his sour grin. He nudges Bad Gina’s friend Weeze with his boot. She’s lying flat on her back, heaving with every breath. “Looks like we got us a beached whale here,” he says. “Whole school of them.”
“You mean ‘pod,’” someone squeaks. We all look up, surprised. Nobody talks back to Officer Killduff, even I know that. It’s Karen, the middle-school girl. I don’t think I’ve heard her speak the whole time I’ve been in juvie.
He steps over to where she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. I can see her staring at his black, spit-shined boots. Maybe she’s looking at her reflection, at her long brown hair hanging straight down her cheeks like curtains.
Officer Killduff taps his boot. “Say again?”
She lifts her gaze to his knees. All the other girls just keep staring, eyes wide.
“Pod,” she says, squeaky voice rising higher. “A pod of whales. You can call it a school, too, but usually you call it a pod of whales.”
“A pod,” Officer Killduff repeats, his face twisted in a strange way, as if he’s stepped in gum, or shit, and hasn’t figured out how to get it off his shoe. “Well, aren’t you just the little encyclopedia.”
“Yes, sir,” Karen says. “It’s from Trivial Pursuit. We used to play it. At my house.”
Officer Killduff squats. She lowers her head so the curtains of hair close in front of her.
“Well, that’s just by God fascinating,” he says. “Thank you for setting me straight.”
“You’re welcome,” Karen squeaks from behind her hair.
“‘You’re welcome,’” Officer Killduff repeats, looking over at Officer C. Miller. “You hear that? ‘You’re welcome.’ Now, how polite is that?”
C. Miller seems reluctant to play along. “It’s polite, all right.”
“Polite as all get-out,” Officer Killduff says. He seems to go deep into thought for a minute, stroking his chin, furrowing his brow, the works. Then he speaks again to Officer C. Miller, though really it’s to all of us.
“And for a reward for all that politeness, and all that fascinating information about the whales, how about we let this one pick the next activity?” He thumps the floor with his knuckles in front of Karen. “How about that?”
“I guess she earned it,” Officer Miller says.
Officer Killduff nods. “I guess she did earn it,” he says. “So there you go. What’s it going to be, Encyclopedia Brown? Dodgeball? Jump rope? More wind sprints?”
“Really?” Karen asks, as if she actually thinks getting to choose is going to end up being a good thing. “I really get to say?”
“Really,” Officer Killduff says.
“Well, can we go outside?” Karen asks. “Like for recess?”
Officer Killduff laughs so hard I think he’ll fall over. Why can’t she just keep quiet? I figure we’ll be running wind sprints for the rest of the gym hour once Officer Killduff finishes making fun of her.
He keeps laughing his sardonic laugh and shaking his buzz-cut head, as if he still can’t believe what she said, or that she spoke at all. Finally he stands up. “Well, why the hell not?” he says. “Let’s all go outside for recess. Officer Miller, if you’d be so kind as to radio to control. And ladies, if you’d be so good as to get up off the floor and get in a nice line over there by the door.”
We do what he says, everybody bewildered. I take my now-customary place in the back of the line, behind Karen, but Officer Killduff has other plans. “No, no,” he says to Karen. “This was your idea. I’d like you to lead our little pod out to sea. Why don’t you swim on up to the front of the line, if that’s what you’d call it — a line of whales?”
Karen says, “OK,” and “I guess so,” and slides up ahead of the Jelly Sisters, who nearly always lead. I haven’t seen the sky in nine days. Even lined up at the door to the yard, I still can’t see it. None of us can. There aren’t any windows in our part of juvie, none even in the gym. It’s all I can do to keep from lifting my gaze from the floor, to catch the first glimpse of the outside world once the door opens. I can’t wait to be out, even surrounded by a thirty-foot fence — to breathe fresh air, to feel the sun on my face, to hear blue jays squawking and the wind in the trees.
Officer C. Miller speaks into her radio, and the door buzzes and clicks and swings open to the yard.
Where it’s pouring down rain.
All the girls huddle under the eave, pressed against the dirty concrete wall to escape the rain. There doesn’t seem to be a gutter on the roof, so if you don’t stay close, water drips on your head. Everybody is cursing Karen under their breath, just loud enough for her to hear. I’m pretty sure even Fefu is doing it, too, in Spanish.
“Putita estupida.”
Officer Killduff and Officer C. Miller stand outside the door under an awning, just out of earshot. Officer Killduff lights a cigarette, which surprises me since he’s so buff, the kind of fitness freak you just know spends hours a day in the weight room. C. Miller waves the smoke away from her face and edges away.
Karen starts crying after a few minutes, standing as far away as she can from the huddle of girls. The only one farther away is me. Finally I guess Karen can’t take it anymore, pushing herself away from the wall even though the rain is still coming down. She wanders toward the outdoor basketball court, which is just an uneven patch of hard-packed dirt with a couple of hoops but no nets, then she negotiates her way around what looks like deep mud puddles toward the fence farthest from the building. Once she gets there, she leans against it and stays.
“Good,” Chantrelle says. “Serves her right. I hope her ass melts out there.”
“I know, right?” Good Gina says. They’re standing closest to me now, so I still have a buffer between me and the Jelly Sisters and Bad Gina and Weeze, just not enough of one. “I mean, what was she thinking talking like that to Killduff?”
“Yeah,” says Chantrelle. “He was playing with her, like a cat and a mouse. She too dumb to even see that. Probably thought she made her a new friend in juvie. Probably can’t wait to get her phone call this evening. ‘Hi, Mommy, I made me a new friend. Officer Killduff. He so nice, let me play out in the rain and I didn’t even have to have me an umbrella.’”
I don’t want to stick around to hear any more. The poor girl is just eleven or twelve; how could she have known any better? Plus I don’t want Bad Gina or the Jelly Sisters to have a chance to come over next to me and maybe start up a conversation, or interrogation. So I step away from the wall and into the rain, too. It drips down my neck and down my back, soaking me quicker than I anticipate, but I lower my head and keep walking, following Karen to the back fence and away from the other girls.
“Hey,” I say when I get there. She’s sniffling.
“Hey,” she says, wiping her nose. “You’re not going to be mean to me, too, are you?”
I smile. “No. Just got bored standing over there. Thought I’d come stand over here for a while. It’s such a great view.”
We stare together out at an empty parking lot, and a dirt field beyond that, and then a desultory stand of skinny pines and scrub brush and a heavy gray sky.
“What grade are you in?” I ask, casting around for a way to start a conversation, maybe make her feel a little better about things.
“Seventh,” she says.
“What school?”
She tells me. It’s in one of the counties west of town.
“How long have you been in here?”
“Just two weeks,” she says. “I was the last one to come in before you. I have my second cour
t hearing tomorrow, I think.”
“Are you nervous?”
“A little, but not too much. My mom says they’re going to let me out. She says my lawyer thinks just a couple of weeks of juvie is enough for the judge. I hate it in here. Everybody is so mean. Everybody gets mad at you and makes fun of you if you say anything. Those two black girls, I think they’re sisters, they keep taking my dessert every night. They practically got in a fight over my Jell-O one time.” She pushes her wet sheets of hair behind her ears. “Don’t you think everybody is so mean?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”
She studies my face. “Well, look what those girls did to you — to your nose. Don’t you think that was mean?”
“It was probably an accident,” I say, lying because I don’t feel like getting into it. “That’s all. Another week and you won’t even be able to tell it happened.”
“I don’t know,” Karen says. “It looks terrible. It’s all purple and black around your eyes, and your nose is all swollen up, and your face is kind of green. I mean, if that ever happened to me, I wouldn’t even leave my room for like about a month. I wouldn’t go to school or anything. If anybody ever saw you looking like that, they’d take pictures on their cell phones, and that would be the picture they used for whenever you called them or texted or whatever.”
I’m starting to regret coming over.
“So why are you in here, anyway?” I ask to change the subject.
She laces her fingers through the chain-link fence. I glance at the concertina wire; I imagine it would shred your hands if you ever tried to climb over.
“It was like this misunderstanding,” she says.
“About what?”
“About these silver dollars this girl had. She had about a hundred of them she kept in a jar, from her pop-pop or something. Her grandfather. I can’t remember. But that’s real money, anyway, even though you never really see coin dollars very often.”
“I think I’ve heard that,” I say.
“So anyway,” she continues, “what happened was I didn’t think she would ever use them or anything, so I thought I would take them when I found out you can actually spend them like real money. There were some clothes I wanted to buy at Justice. I really love Justice. They have a store at the mall. Have you ever been there? Do girls your age still go there, to Justice?”
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