Read Online Ruby on the Outside by Nora Raleigh Baskin - Free Book Online Page B

heard of Glens Falls,” I blurt out.
    â€œBecause, Ruby,” Matoo says. “You used to live right near there, in Saratoga.”
    â€œOh.” And a warning light goes off in my brain. A little late, however because Margalit is all over this one.
    â€œYou did? You lived near Glens Falls?” Margalit says. “Where? Usually when I tell people where I’m from they never heard of it. It’s not that far from here really. When did you guys live there?”
    Us guys didn’t. Just me. And my mom.
    â€œIt was a long time ago,” Matoo answers quickly. She pats both her hands on the tabletop firmly. “Well, that’s it. Do you girls think you could take Loulou out for a walk before it gets too dark?”
    â€œOh, really? I’d love to. Can we?” Margalit jumps up.
    And she forgets about Glens Falls. But I don’t.

    â€œYou can just look it up.”
    Rebecca had all the answers. She was older than me and had been coming to the Bedford Hills children’s center much longer. She had both her mother and father in jail and she knew a thing or two about jails and prisons, parol hearings, clemency boards, and, well, pretty much everything, and when I first met her, she scared me.
    She was one of those tough girls. You can find them everywhere, not just in prison. I heard that there are plenty of tough girls in the middle school, ones that sneak out of the cafeteria to hang out in the bathroom, leaning on the wall or blocking your way to the stall. I heard some girls hold in their pee all day because they are too scared.
    But after I got to know her, Rebecca wasn’t really like that. She just wanted other kids to think she was.
    â€œLook what up?” I asked her. We were both sitting in the seats inside the trailer. It was raining and instead of making us wait outside getting wet, like we usually have to, they let everyone pile inside the trailer and wait. There was a little corner with little-kid seats and some old books. Rebecca looked funny sitting in one of those seats. I bet I looked funny too, but she must have been at least thirteen. It was just a little while after Tevin stopped coming.
    â€œYou can look it all up,” she said. “Go on the Internet. Google your mother’s name. It’s all public record. Court documents, newspaper articles, even transcripts of the trial if you know where to look. If you know how to search.”
    It seems funny now, that I never thought to do that. But at the time, it seemed perfectly normal.
    â€œDid you do that?” I asked Rebecca.
    I knew that her dad was in jail too, and she had told me that visiting her dad in prison in Ossining made Bedford Hills look like a four-star hotel.
    â€œSure I did,” Rebecca told me. “When I was about your age. Maybe a year older, like around twelve. I learned everything, and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.”
    I can see Matoo sitting in one of the regular seats by the door, waiting our turn to show our papers, show my birth certificate, empty our pockets, sign the papers, and begin the process all over again, for the hundredth time or more. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been here once or a million times, it’s the same every time.
    â€œWhat?” I asked Rebecca. “What isn’t pretty?”
    â€œWell, let’s just say ‘criminal justice’ is an oxymoron.”
    I had no idea what she meant by that, but I could tell she was angry.
    But I knew better than to ask. Tevin talked, but most kids didn’t. And you never ask. We just don’t talk like that in the children’s center. Nobody says stuff like, What did your mother do? Do you think she’s guilty? Do you think she did it? Or if she did it, do you think she deserves this ?
    I never thought like that. Why would I? I can’t change it. Matoo says the past is the past. What good does going over it do? What good is talking about it?
    â€œSo are you glad