Read Online On the Other Side of the Bridge by Ray Villareal - Free Book Online

praising his mother’s meatloaf was his reward to her for believing his story.
    He started to leave when his mother stunned him with another shocker. “Listen, Otis is pretty sure that the boys who broke into the warehouse are students from your school. He told me that the big kid, the one called Slurpee, looked old enough to be in high school. But Madison is a little too far from the warehouse, so Otis is sticking with his hunch that the vandals are Wyatt Middle School students. Anyway, he’s thinking about going to your school tomorrow to talk to your principal. Otis wants to look through yearbook photos to see if he can identify this Slurpee kid. If he can, maybe the boy will lead him to the others who vandalized the warehouse with him.”
    Lonnie’s knees buckled, and this time he did pee in his pants a little.
    They were done for. If Mr. Barnaby showed up at his school, it would take him only minutes before he recognized Herman Gilmore from his yearbook photo. And shortly after that, Lonnie and Axel would be called out of their classrooms to go to the office, where Herman would be sitting with Dr. Lambert, the principal, and Mr. Barnaby, spilling his guts. The second they walked inside the office, Herman would point to them and say, “Yeah, those are the guys who were with me at the warehouse.”
    Lonnie tried calling Axel, but his cell phone went to automatic voice mail. Didn’t he ever charge that thing? He tried Axel’s house phone and Daisy picked up.
    â€œHey, Daisy,” Lonnie said, “put Axel on the phone for me, would you?”
    He heard a muffled voice in the background to which Daisy replied, “It’s
el vago
!”
    God, he hated that name.
    Axel’s mom took the phone. “I’m sorry, Lonnie, but Axel can’t talk to you right now. He’s got a lot of homework. Would you like to leave him a message?”
    Yeah, tell him that the cops are gonna arrest him at school tomorrow for breaking into the Martex warehouse. They’re gonna lock him up in jail, and he won’t get to go to college ’cause you’re gonna kill him
.
    â€œNo, just tell him to call me as soon as he gets a chance,” Lonnie said.
    After he hung up, he let himself drop on his bed. How was he going to get out of this? What lie could he possibly come up with to convince his parents and Mr. Barnaby that he hadn’t been at the warehouse? He racked his brain for answers but found none. Even if he denied the whole thing and claimed that Herman was making it up, he knew Axel would cave in and start blubbering like an idiot. He’d tell the whole world that they had gone inside the warehouse.
    Lonnie once heard someone — Brother Elrod, maybe — say that confession is good for the soul. Perhaps it was time to come clean and finally tell the truth. His mother might not believe that he hadn’t caused any of the destruction, but at least she could let Mr. Barnaby know he had been involved. That way, Mr. Barnaby wouldn’t need to go to Wyatt Middle School, and Lonnie and Axel and Herman could avoid the embarrassment of being hauled off to jail, handcuffed, in front of everyone.
    While he and his mother ate dinner, he thought of worse-case scenarios. They were kids, so he didn’t think the police would put them in jail. But their parents would have to pay for the damages, even though he and Axel weren’t responsible for any of it. After all, they couldn’tprove that they hadn’t busted the windows and trashed the office.
    Axel’s parents would undoubtedly forbid their son from ever hanging out with
el vago
again. They would say Lonnie was a bad influence and that Axel needed to make other friends. Lonnie would be grounded for at least a month. His parents would take the TV out of his bedroom, and he wouldn’t be able to leave the house for anything, except to go to school and church. As a personal punishment to himself, Lonnie