she knew we were all there, helping Griffin. That kind of bad press could ruin my acting career.”
“Would you stop thinking about yourself for once?” snapped Savannah scornfully. “Think about Griffin. House arrest! Just looking at my Luthor,tied up in our yard, reminds me of how Griffin must feel. If he’s half as depressed as poor Luthor —”
“Depression is the least of his worries,” Pitch put in. “He’s in major, major trouble. He’s going to take the fall for this, and we all know he doesn’t have that ring. Egan does.”
Ben nodded. “There are good principals and bad principals, but Dr. Evil is in a class by himself. How could anybody do this to a kid?”
Pitch was bitter. “We can’t let him get away with this.”
“I don’t care what he gets away with,” Ben said unhappily. “I just want Griffin back.”
Melissa’s voice was quiet, but as usual, her words cut straight to the heart of the matter. “If Griffin was here, he wouldn’t be complaining about how unfair it is. He’d be thinking of a way to fix it.”
Helpless glances were traded up and down the table. It seemed that the one team member who would know what to do was the one who was missing in action.
11
T here were no lockers at Jail For Kids. The JFK faculty didn’t think it was a good idea to provide their troubled students with ready-made hiding places. As a result, everyone carried around a heavy knapsack of books and possessions, creating traffic jams in the halls and countless sore backs.
One of Sheldon Brickhaus’s favorite “greetings” was to come up behind Griffin and pull on his pack so hard that the straps cut off the circulation to his lungs. It always got a panicked reaction from Griffin, punctuated by a cry of shock and terrified wheezing.
Today, however, it passed almost unnoticed, which Shank found surprising and unsatisfying.
“What’s up with you, Justice? You’re a shadow of your former self.”
“Leave me alone,” Griffin grumbled, too wrapped up in his own problems to worry about what Shank might do to him. Things were so awful that any change counted as an improvement, even being pounded into hamburger by his JFK classmate.
Shank was not the type to be driven off. “Okay, give it up. What’s wrong?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Griffin was bitter. “Look around you! Maybe you think you belong in this dump; I don’t.”
The short, powerfully built boy was skeptical. “Yeah, but you didn’t belong here last week, either, and you weren’t like this. Something happened over the weekend. What?”
Even through his deep funk, Griffin couldn’t help noticing that Sheldon Brickhaus was a lot sharper than the mindless sawed-off muscle-headed bully that he chose to present to the world.
Still, Griffin was in no mood to bare his soul to a Hummer with size-fourteen construction boots. “What do you care?” he muttered.
“What are you talking about? We’re
friends
!”
Search as he might, Griffin could find no insincerity in Shank’s concrete features. This serialtorturer actually considered himself a friend! Griffin could only imagine how he treated his enemies.
Surviving the rest of the school day brought no relief. He peered bleakly through the flyspecked bus window at a town he barely recognized. Cedarville, where he’d lived his whole life, seemed as alien as the surface of Mars.
Except for a thirty-second conversation with Ben on Saturday, he’d had no contact with his friends since the courthouse debacle. Oh, yeah, and Ben waving from a distance this morning. It was better than nothing, he guessed, but his friend sure hadn’t tried to get any closer. Were Griffin’s friends abandoning him? He couldn’t blame them if they were. He certainly didn’t want them to share his fate, but it hurt to be facing this alone.
His mother was waiting at the bus stop. Another humiliation. Twelve years old, and Mommy had to walk him the forty feet to his front door, thanks
“Would you stop thinking about yourself for once?” snapped Savannah scornfully. “Think about Griffin. House arrest! Just looking at my Luthor,tied up in our yard, reminds me of how Griffin must feel. If he’s half as depressed as poor Luthor —”
“Depression is the least of his worries,” Pitch put in. “He’s in major, major trouble. He’s going to take the fall for this, and we all know he doesn’t have that ring. Egan does.”
Ben nodded. “There are good principals and bad principals, but Dr. Evil is in a class by himself. How could anybody do this to a kid?”
Pitch was bitter. “We can’t let him get away with this.”
“I don’t care what he gets away with,” Ben said unhappily. “I just want Griffin back.”
Melissa’s voice was quiet, but as usual, her words cut straight to the heart of the matter. “If Griffin was here, he wouldn’t be complaining about how unfair it is. He’d be thinking of a way to fix it.”
Helpless glances were traded up and down the table. It seemed that the one team member who would know what to do was the one who was missing in action.
11
T here were no lockers at Jail For Kids. The JFK faculty didn’t think it was a good idea to provide their troubled students with ready-made hiding places. As a result, everyone carried around a heavy knapsack of books and possessions, creating traffic jams in the halls and countless sore backs.
One of Sheldon Brickhaus’s favorite “greetings” was to come up behind Griffin and pull on his pack so hard that the straps cut off the circulation to his lungs. It always got a panicked reaction from Griffin, punctuated by a cry of shock and terrified wheezing.
Today, however, it passed almost unnoticed, which Shank found surprising and unsatisfying.
“What’s up with you, Justice? You’re a shadow of your former self.”
“Leave me alone,” Griffin grumbled, too wrapped up in his own problems to worry about what Shank might do to him. Things were so awful that any change counted as an improvement, even being pounded into hamburger by his JFK classmate.
Shank was not the type to be driven off. “Okay, give it up. What’s wrong?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Griffin was bitter. “Look around you! Maybe you think you belong in this dump; I don’t.”
The short, powerfully built boy was skeptical. “Yeah, but you didn’t belong here last week, either, and you weren’t like this. Something happened over the weekend. What?”
Even through his deep funk, Griffin couldn’t help noticing that Sheldon Brickhaus was a lot sharper than the mindless sawed-off muscle-headed bully that he chose to present to the world.
Still, Griffin was in no mood to bare his soul to a Hummer with size-fourteen construction boots. “What do you care?” he muttered.
“What are you talking about? We’re
friends
!”
Search as he might, Griffin could find no insincerity in Shank’s concrete features. This serialtorturer actually considered himself a friend! Griffin could only imagine how he treated his enemies.
Surviving the rest of the school day brought no relief. He peered bleakly through the flyspecked bus window at a town he barely recognized. Cedarville, where he’d lived his whole life, seemed as alien as the surface of Mars.
Except for a thirty-second conversation with Ben on Saturday, he’d had no contact with his friends since the courthouse debacle. Oh, yeah, and Ben waving from a distance this morning. It was better than nothing, he guessed, but his friend sure hadn’t tried to get any closer. Were Griffin’s friends abandoning him? He couldn’t blame them if they were. He certainly didn’t want them to share his fate, but it hurt to be facing this alone.
His mother was waiting at the bus stop. Another humiliation. Twelve years old, and Mommy had to walk him the forty feet to his front door, thanks
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