Strays Read online

  “Do you mind?” I asked. What right did she have to look through something so intimate? It should have been fairly obvious to her that it wasn’t filled with English exam answers.

  She flipped though the pages and paused at my most recent entry. Why did I have to write the title in block letters? I knew she had arrived at her own name when her expression suddenly registered the shock of someone who has been slapped across the face.

  “Interesting.” She looked at me.

  “I told you I wasn’t cheating,” was all I could think of to say to her.

  “I think you’ll find this is worse. Much, much worse. Pack up your things and come with me.”

  I quickly rose to my feet and lunged for the book. It was mine. She had no right to be looking at it, but she held on tight. It was an intense game of tug of war. Who knew Schneider had so much strength? I wasn’t gaining any ground by pulling the book, so I tried a new strategy and pushed the book forward with all of my strength, accidentally throwing Mrs. Schneider off balance. The book was back in my possession, but the force of my jostling had sent her flying backward and down to the ground. I hadn’t meant to push her. I just wanted my book back. This was merely physics at work.

  Another teacher proctoring the exam rushed to her aid and helped her up.

  Schneider snatched my notebook and grabbed my unfinished English final from my desk, and, as she instructed, I packed my pen and water bottle in my backpack. I slid the loop of my bike helmet around my wrist, and it clanked against each desk I passed as I followed Schneider toward the exit door of the gym.

  Turning to the other proctor, Schneider whispered, “I’ll be right back.”

  As I was being escorted out of the building, I accidentally happened on Andy’s once-familiar blue eyes. They showed no sign of compassion or empathy. In that moment, I let him go forever.

  *

  Things went quickly from bad to worse. I was turned over to campus security—a large balding man who stood next to me outside the gym, speaking into his walkie-talkie.

  “I have the suspect in custody,” he answered when the voice of Mr. Cagle, on the other end of the contraption, asked, “Where’s Ms. Moody now?”

  Joe (as his nametag indicated) seemed to be living out his fantasies of feeling very important.

  We stood there for a long time. So long, in fact, that some speedy exam takers handed in their finals and were exiting the gym when the cops finally did show up.

  “Seriously? The police?” I questioned Joe, confused at the sight of the man and woman in uniform.

  “Hit list. Death threat. You caused a big stir in there,” said Joe, adjusting his security belt.

  No one was supposed to read that list. Those were my private thoughts. But none of that seemed to matter now.

  Mr. Cagle emerged from wherever he was to shake both officers’ hands. I stood next to Joe and watched them speak, and then Mr. Cagle entered the gym and produced Mrs. Schneider, who had to come out presumably to give them a statement. She presented my black book and handed it over to the police officers, who took a look at the inciting page, nodded, and placed my journal in a large Ziploc bag.

  They then approached me.

  “Iris Moody,” said the woman, “you are under arrest for violating California Penal Code Section 422.”

  I had officially become a criminal.

  *

  We used to play a game at recess in elementary school. The boys would be the captors and run around chasing the girls. I know—totally chauvinistic. When they caught us, they’d grab our wrists tightly and hold them behind our backs as they led us to the sandbox jail.

  Being cuffed by real officers on my high school campus was much more painful than my memory of make-believe.

  “Let’s go,” said the male cop as he gently nudged me on the shoulder, urging me to walk as though I were a horse tethered to a wagon. Ashley happened to be walking by as they led me to the car. Her mouth was agape. Her eyes said, “Who are you?”

  Mine answered back, “I don’t know.”

  *

  I’m not saying that jail is the kind of place I ever want to be again, but I will say that there was something kind of nice about sitting with my thoughts for six hours (yes, it took that long for them to reach my dad). After going through the motions—mug shot, emptying out my pockets, removing my gold necklace, and giving them all of my personal information—I was led to an empty cell and tried to take as much pleasure as I could from the silence. No exams, no Andy, no catty friends, no Dad.

  My meditative bliss eventually wore off, and, after a crappy meal consisting of mushy beans, corn, and turkey, a guard came to my cell.

  “Moody, it’s time to go.”

  I followed the guard to the registration officer from earlier; she handed me a sealed envelope containing my gold necklace and pocket contents.

  “Dad knows best. Just remember that,” she offered.

  Not my dad, I wanted to say, but I just nodded and took my things. Dad was talking to the female officer as I slowly approached them.

  “She’s a good kid,” he was saying. “I just don’t understand how something like this could have happened.”

  “Make sure you both show up to her court date. Judges like to see that incarcerated teens have family support.”

  Great. Incarcerated teen. My new label.

  Dad and I walked to the car in silence. I had to break the tension.

  “Dad.” It came out quieter than I had intended.

  When he turned to face me, he didn’t even make eye contact and instead looked beyond me to the cars in the lot.

  “What in the world did you do?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I mean, I was pissed off. I just wrote down—”

  He interrupted me. “I had to walk out on a quarterly meeting with corporate. Do you know how embarrassing that was? How it could affect my promotion? I had to meet the cops at our house. They tore the place apart!”

  “My stuff?” I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks as I thought of strangers looking through my belongings.

  “Our stuff, but yeah, mostly yours. They confiscated your computer. And took some journals.”

  My old diaries had been lined up in chronological order under the bed.

  “They read them?” I asked, panicked at the thought of more of my private thoughts becoming public.

  We had reached our car.

  “Well, I don’t think they plan on using them as doorstops,” said Dad.

  “That’s bull—” I began.

  “Watch your language,” Dad snapped. He unlocked the door, then got into the car and slammed the door shut. I sat in the backseat, as I had in the police car.

  After staring at the steering wheel for what seemed like ages, he lifted his head and finally spoke. “What’s gotten into you lately, Iris? First the grades. Now death threats and physical assault?”

  I felt the tears well up in the corners of my eyes. I tried to form my thoughts into articulate sentences before speaking. I was about to tell him everything—lay it all on the line: how the breakup affected me, how I’d been feeling so isolated and depressed. How it felt as though no one wanted to hear anything negative come out of me so I just kept it all inside. But before I could get the words out, Dad spoke again.

  “I don’t have time for this, Iris. Things are happening for me at work. Big things. I’m up for that promotion. I just really need to focus right now.”

  I felt so stupid for assuming I was going to have a heart-to-heart with a man who was so self-consumed he didn’t possess the ability to see the person sitting two feet away from him. Fighting a burning feeling inside my throat, I said the words he wanted to hear.

  “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  At home, we didn’t say anything to each other for the rest of the evening, each of us holed up in our respective ends of the house.

  *

  By morning, the stress from the day before had gathered between my shoulders and at
the base of my neck. On the table was a note from Dad, scribbled on a paper towel: Making up for lost time at work. Stay out of trouble.

  I made a fresh pot of coffee, poured myself a bowl of cereal, and sat at the kitchen table. At least with my computer confiscated, I didn’t have to deal with any of the girls’ IMs. And Dad had stripped me of all cell phone privileges, so I could avoid their texts as well. God knows what rumors had circulated about me yesterday. The only thing I had going for me was that school was out for the summer—so if anyone wanted to talk about me, they’d have to do so off campus.

  When the house phone started ringing, I thought it best to ignore it and just let the machine pick up.

  “Iris, this is Mrs. Harrison. This is a very uncomfortable call for me to make because I know how much Conor and Hunter love you, but in light of recent events, I’m going to have to cancel my babysitting request for this summer.”

  In the background, I could hear Conor calling my name before Mrs. Harrison hung up.

  My stomach cramped up. It was one thing to let myself down, but now I’d disappointed these two boys.

  I wondered how she had gotten wind of my situation and then remembered that the whole reason I had gotten the job in the first place was because my PE teacher, Coach Lutz, knew Mrs. Harrison because they lived on the same street. He must have called her as soon as word got out at school.

  My dream summer was turning into anything but.

  four

  Dad thought he was punishing me by grounding me for an entire week. Little did he know the last thing I wanted to do was interact with anyone. I was happy to stay on the couch, consume mass quantities of the free juice that he brought home (beet-carrot-apple was my favorite), watch my nature shows, and listen to my music. My two current favorite shows were The Underwater World and Abe Lives with Apes. Living in the ocean, living in the jungle—I’d take either of those habitats over my own.

  About a week after the incident, I went back to the police station to collect my confiscated computer and journals. Dad had picked up my totaled bike and had given me his to borrow, but it was a guy’s bike, which meant that sitting on it for long periods of time became quite uncomfortable because the saddle was too narrow.

  “Did you find lots of incriminating evidence?” I asked the officer who handed my laptop back to me.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said, referring to my upcoming court date.

  I was appointed a lawyer (Nathaniel Spencer), and Dad gave me my cell phone back and let me leave the house only to meet with Mr. Spencer to discuss my case. Mr. Spencer said the best we could do was defend my actions and hope for the best. He said it all depended upon who the judge was the day of my trial and what kind of mood he or she was in.

  Great.

  The police must have been sorely disappointed by my hard drive. No bomb-making recipes, no plans to follow through on my threats. Just a lot of bookmarked nature websites and a collection of e-mails from Ashley wondering what in the world was going on, each subsequent e-mail decreasing in friendliness. In her first e-mail sent after my arrest, she sympathetically checked in about what she had heard at school. In the second, she mentioned she’d be out of town (San Francisco) and that I should call her when she got back. By the third e-mail she laid out everything that bugged her about me and wrote that maybe we should take the summer off as friends. I had managed to completely alienate my closest friend just by being this version of myself. How could I blame her for criticizing me?

  But I was still too hurt to respond, and I convinced myself that I didn’t need her anyway.

  The television would become my new best friend.

  But then, toward the end of the week, I tortured myself by going online and looking at photos of the girls in San Francisco. There was stupid Lydia Cordova posing with my friends on the Golden Gate Bridge, in front of Coit Tower, and in Golden Gate Park.

  I had been replaced.

  *

  Dad was standing in the kitchen hovering next to the coffee machine on the day of my trial. “So what are you doing with yourself today?” Dad acted like he had genuinely forgotten.

  “I have my trial this afternoon, remember? You’re supposed to be there.”

  Dad’s big promotion was coming up soon. I figured once he got it, things would calm down again. He’d be in his big new office. Making more money. I only had to deal with this distracted Dad for twenty-one more days.

  “Yeah, kid.” His eyes darted back and forth, searching his porous memory for anything to trigger this promise he’d made to be at my trial.

  “You have to be there,” I said.

  “What time?” he asked.

  “Two-thirty,” I lied, hoping that faking an earlier start time would get him there by three.

  I watched as he entered be at trial into his phone calendar. Sometimes I wanted to grab his phone and hurl it into the ocean.

  “You have to put it into your phone to remember?”

  “Iris, you know how busy things are for me right now. I can’t keep it all straight. If it’s not in my phone, it doesn’t exist.”

  I poured myself the last of the coffee.

  “Iris, no more coffee.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Two-thirty at the courthouse,” I said as Dad dashed out the door to work.

  I took a seat and gave myself a moment to breathe. I’d been dreading this day for two weeks, but at the same time, I was looking forward to getting it over with. I just wanted to fast-forward through time to my life post-sentencing—whatever my fate may be.

  I had only one outfit appropriate to wear in court—the dress I’d worn to my mother’s funeral. Even though it was two years old, it still fit; the rayon stretched as my body grew. When I first bought the dress in a secondhand store on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, I imagined all of the fun parties I’d get to wear it to. It was stylish and graceful but also rebellious, with an aquamarine sheen shimmering underneath the black tulle.

  When my mom died, it was the only dress I owned elegant enough to wear to a funeral, and after that it became my depression dress. If I was wearing it, things were bad. I wore it to Mom’s memorial a year after her death, I wore it the day we moved to Santa Cruz, and now I was wearing it to receive my court sentencing.

  Dad had cleaned out our home in Topanga pretty quickly and thoroughly after Mom died. Her style wasn’t simpatico with mine, so I let go of a lot of her stuff—Dad encouraged its rapid elimination. But I did keep a bunch of her jewelry, which I housed in a keepsake box at the back of my underwear drawer. I riffled through my meager collection and put on two small gold hoop earrings and remembered what it was like to be close to my mom, who always smelled of a mix of citrus and cinnamon.

  *

  I’m not a bad person. I tried to talk myself up as I parked and locked my bike in front of the courthouse. My heart raced.

  The phrase got stuck in my head like the chorus of a catchy song.

  Even though I wanted to run in the opposite direction, I forced my body forward up the courthouse steps. Mr. Spencer was waiting for me in the shade of a cypress tree, finishing a sandwich. A piece of bologna fell out of the side of his mouth. He wiped his hands on his pants and extended his arm to shake my hand. Now there was a smear of mustard across his pant leg. This was the mess of a guy who was responsible for my future? I reluctantly reached out my hand.

  He might have been a disaster, but at least he was willing to help me out.

  For a moment, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. I couldn’t start crying. Not now. If I started, I didn’t know that I would be able to stop. At least when Dad arrived, I could look to him for support if things got rough in there.

  “Are you ready?” Mr. Spencer asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t think anyone could ever really be ready for something like this.

  “One sec,” I said, pulling out my phone. I texted Dad: Are you almost here?

  There was no response. I needed him to show up. Maybe
he was already inside.

  My lawyer led me up the concrete stairs and held the door open for me. Inside, we placed all metal objects—our keys, change, and cell phones—in a plastic container and walked through the metal detector. I followed him down a long hallway and into the courtroom, where I was about to learn my fate.

  Court was already in session when we entered.

  The room felt suffocating, the heat oppressive as bodies crammed together on the benches in the back, a combination of kids and their lawyers. The city hadn’t invested in air-conditioning. Voices reverberated throughout the room. Mr. Spencer and I took our places on a bench alongside a few other people, and I scanned the room for Dad.

  Still not here.

  I checked the wall clock. He was officially late for the fake time I had given him, but not yet late for my actual court time.

  A long-haired teenager sat next to his lawyer at a table across from the judge, who was surprisingly younger than I imagined she would be and, if not for the whole baggy robe, looked like a relatively nice person. Her hair was so curly, it looked like a wig. She was wearing a lace collar underneath her judge’s robe. I wondered if she was considered a fashionista among her peers.

  “Scott Haydon, how do you plead?”

  The boy looked at his lawyer.

  “Not guilty,” the boy said with a slight smirk. The lawyer looked disappointed.

  “Let’s take a look at your paperwork.” The judge riffled through a file. “Mr. Haydon, you are aware that vandalism is a crime you’ve committed not once, not twice, but three times.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Scott Haydon knew how to address her. He’d obviously been through this process before.

  “And you do realize that the fine people of Santa Cruz are the ones who have to pay to clean up the messes you’ve been leaving around town.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Uh-huh, Your Honor,” she corrected.

  I looked over at Mr. Spencer. He was shaking his head.

  “What’s wrong?” I whispered.