Read Online The First Stone by Don Aker - Free Book Online Page B

and the court proceedings. He’d heard all of it so many times he could recite it chapter and verse. He glanced at Hank Elliott, who must have heard hundreds of court-now-in-session intros, but the lawyer appeared to be listening intently as though it were his very first time. The guy was a trained chimp.
    â€œYou may be seated.”
    About time , thought Reef, as everyone settled into their seats. Let’s get this show on the road .
    The judge perched a pair of dark-rimmed glasses on the end of her nose and opened a thick file. She paged through it silently, as if entering each piece of paper in some photographic memory bank. Reef got the feeling, though, that she knew every detail of the file already, that this was a performance just for his benefit. Well, fuck you, Judge. It takes more than a dwarf in a black bathrobe to scare me .
    Judge Thomas closed the file and leaned back in her chair. At that angle, her eyes barely topped the judge’s bench, and Reef grinned as he imagined her feet dangling above the floor.
    His grin did not go unnoticed. The judge frowned. “Counsel, would you and your client please stand?”
    Elliott stood so quickly that Reef wondered if there were a spring-loaded ejection device in the lawyer’s seat. Reef ambled to his feet.
    â€œChad Arthur Kennedy, under Section 430 of the Criminal Code, you are guilty of two counts of mischief resulting in the vandalism of a privately owned truck and an accident that damaged six vehicles and injured three people, one of them seriously.”
    A murmur rippled across the courtroom, and Reef could hear a few people mutter their disgust as if all this were a big surprise. Assholes. Hadn’t he pleaded guilty almost three weeks ago? What a show.
    The judge waited for silence, which fell almost immediately. “Do you have anything you wish to say?”
    Reef had plenty to say, but Elliott, who’d chosen notto have him testify for that very reason, had made him promise he would keep quiet, even made him practice the five words a few times: “No, Your Honor, I don’t.”
    â€œWell then,” she continued, “I am prepared at this time to sentence you.”
    Another ripple, this one lasting longer than the first. Thomas glared at the spectators and silence returned to the courtroom. “This case has attracted the attention of the general public as well as many members of the media. All of us here have seen many editorials in the paper and on television regarding the need to get tough on youth crime, to make examples of the perpetrators of these heinous acts that will deter others from performing similarly in the future …”
    Reef watched as her lips moved, but he no longer heard what she was saying. Words, words, words. Meaningless, like the “KEEP OUT” signs on The Pit. His whole life had been a “KEEP OUT” sign. He’d listened to it described in detail over the last few days as though listening to people talk about someone else, someone not even in the room.
    Elliott had called three people to speak in his defense. The first was Royce Gould, a social worker, who gave a detailed account of the poverty of Reef’s early childhood, the emotional abuse he’d endured from an alcoholic grandparent, the short-lived experiences in numerous foster homes since he was nine. Next was Karl Barker, who offered—in Karl’s eyes, anyway—valuable insight into life spent with troubled teens. Thelast person was a surprise: Elvira Gregory, his eighth-grade English teacher, who commented on Reef’s vast potential as a student—potential that, upon cross-examination, the Crown attorney had shown to be unfulfilled.
    â€œâ€¦ but the courts are not institutions to be manipulated by public opinion. If the public is dissatisfied with a law, it is the duty of each citizen to become actively involved in the repeal or amendment of that law. The forum for discussions such as