All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook (6 page)

W
hen I step out of the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility, all I feel is wrong and dizzier than before.

I make my way onto the backseat of Thomas VanLeer's SUV, which has a new-car smell that crawls straight up my nostrils. “Got your seat belt on, Perry? Need any help with that?”

“No. Thank you.” I could remind him that I am eleven, and that I ride in a car to school every day, that I know how to buckle up. But I do not feel talkative. I see him looking at me in his rearview mirror.

“So, Perry, this is a new chapter for you.” He cranks the steering wheel as we begin to roll. I look back and see Mom and Big Ed and Fo-Joe and the warden all standing at the glass, each with one arm raised. I'm not sure they'll see me, but I press my palm against the glass inside the SUV.

“You'll love the house,” VanLeer is saying. “You'll feel
right at home. You'll have a nice bedroom. A real bedroom. And you can make it your own. We can paint. Put up posters. Whatever you want.”

I know he's still checking the mirror. I won't look up there. I'm watching Blue River.

“I understand that you'll miss your mom—and that's normal. I don't want you to worry. You'll still see her. We'll follow the schedule. Meanwhile, you'll get to know our routines . . .”

He is talking too much. That new smell of the SUV is too much. My head feels some kind of horrible.

“You'll have a first family supper with us this evening,” he says. He laughs and adds, “They know you're coming! They're setting a place for you at the table. Are you hungry now, Perry? Home is not far away, but we could stop. Ever been to the drive-through? Do you like milk shakes? French fries?” His tone changes. “Normally I wouldn't suggest snack food before supper. But this is no ordinary day . . .”

My horrible floating head bobs. Once. Twice. I'm in a predicament. There is a floor mat at my feet. I lean up. The seat belt stops me. I'm trapped. I turn my face to the side and lose my lunch all down the inside of Mr. VanLeer's car door.

M
r. VanLeer pushes the door to his home open for me. I step inside. The walls feel close. The ceilings are low. The air is warm and smells sweet and spicy. Better than new-car smell. And throw-up.

“Ah! I think that's Thai food,” says VanLeer. “Don't I smell coconut?” He cocks his head at me. He should know to stop talking about food by now. Maybe he thinks I am empty. “My wife took a wonderful series of cooking lessons in foreign cuisine,” he tells me. Then he calls out, “Hello! Robyn? We're here!”

I wait for Mr. VanLeer's family, even though I'm dreading it. I'm sure my face is gray. They are going to find out that I threw up in their car. A woman comes around the corner from what must be the kitchen. Her face is turned downward for a moment. Her head is all long light curls just
like Zoey Samuels's mom. Another look and I realize she
is
Mrs. Samuels.

“Wha—” I don't get any words out. Something else catches my eye, and that something is Zoey. She leans around the corner.

“Z-Zoey?”

“Yeah.” She gives a little shrug. “Hi, Perry.” She winds her finger into her hair then makes a fist. I know Zoey. She does that when she's nervous.

“Tom!” I say it louder than I mean to. Everything is silent for a few seconds. I look at Zoey and say, “Thomas VanLeer is Tom.”

I watch her eyebrows arch up. “Yeah,” she says. “My stepdad. Tom.”

Mr. Thomas-Tom VanLeer has been very busy this whole time with his head inside the closet, pushing his coat onto a hanger. I'm not sure he has heard me. But Zoey's mom has. I'm not sure whether to call her Mrs. VanLeer or Mrs. Samuels, but she is giving me a kind smile. I think my mouth is hanging open.

“We're glad to have you here, Perry,” she says. Her head tilts in that friendly way. “Can I get you anythi—”

“Water,” Mr. VanLeer says, springing back out of the coat closet. “He needs a drink of water.”

He herds me into the kitchen, almost stepping on the backs of my sneakers as we go. He drags the warden's suitcase in behind us and sets it down. He pulls a glass from the
kitchen cupboard and accidentally clanks it against the faucet as he fills it. Everything about him has sped up since my great moment inside the SUV. Throw-up has a way of making people hurry. He hands me the glass, and I take a tiny sip.

“And let's run a load of wash,” he says, nodding at Zoey's mother. “Perry's jacket is a bit . . . soiled.” He tries to talk plainly, like nothing is wrong with puking in a car or down your own sleeve.

“So, would you mind, Robyn?”

“Not at all.”

“Good. Now, I've got to go back down to the car—just for a minute.” He quickly grabs paper towels and spray cleaner from under the VanLeer kitchen sink. I should offer to clean that car door. But Thomas VanLeer is halfway down the hall. He calls over his shoulder. “And hey, Zoey, sweetheart, you can go ahead and show Perry to his room. And the bathroom, so he can wash up. Show him the whole house.” He disappears with his cleaning supplies.

The room takes a breath. In the silence, I'm still holding the glass of water, which I do not want. I'm thinking about rules and wondering if it is okay to just set this glass down on the counter. Or do I put it in the sink, or inside the dishwasher? Mrs. Samuels or VanLeer reaches to take it from my hand.

“Looks like you are done with this,” she says softly. Then she helps me out of the jacket so easily that I feel bad about what's all over it.

Zoey watches. I still cannot believe that I'm in her house on this horrible day.

“Hey, Mom,” she says, “my jacket could go in too.”

“Good idea,” says her mom.

Maybe not, I think. But I can't seem to say the words.

Zoey's mom carries my jacket. Zoey grabs my backpack. I pull up the handle on Warden Daugherty's rolling suitcase and follow them down the hall.

Z
oey and I stand in the bedroom in the VanLeer house. I am supposed to sleep here. I'm in a fight with myself; I don't want to look around the space, but I have to. It is very square and the walls are the color of Mom's morning coffee. That's with two big splashes of milk. The bed is a mound of brown and white pillows and covers and it looks like a giant dessert. All the furniture is dark wood. Lamps with big flared heads stand all around the room. Then there is Zoey, who is shifting in place.

“There isn't that much to show you,” she says. She points around the room saying, “Bed. Nightstand. Dresser. Window. Curtain. And the closet is here.” She pushes on a narrow door. I see a tiny empty room. “We can move your furniture around if you want.”

“I don't have any furniture,” I say.

“Well. The stuff in this room,” she says. “You know what I mean.”

A few seconds grind by. I think of the gray clocks at home. I scan the coffee-colored walls and don't find a clock here. I have to have a clock . . .

“Perry,” Zoey whispers. “Are you all right?”

“When did you know?” I ask. I'm giving her a stone face. I can't help it.

Her shoulders slump. “They told me on Friday at supper. Perry, I'm sorry. There was no way for me to tell you. I know this is your worst-case scenario. I knew it the minute I heard. But I was hoping—”

“What? Hoping that I'd like being yanked out of Blue River as long as it was to come live with you?” My face turns hot. Zoey looks stunned.

“No. But Tom might have been thinking that. Maybe it's better than . . . well, I don't know . . . At least I'm not Brian Morris, or . . .” She sighs and does not finish that sentence. Zoey Samuels is having trouble talking to me. That never happens. After a few seconds she asks, “Do you want to put your stuff in the dresser?”

“No.”

Later, I stare at the swirls of plaster on the ceiling. I am used to seeing square tiles. But it is just one of the hundred or so things that are not right. This bed does not feel like mine. I am lying down but off-balance, too high from the
floor. There is something wrong with the little bit of supper in my belly. I'm not sick from it. It actually tasted good. But I ate it with the wrong people. Right about now, I'd be happy to hear Miss Sashonna say, “It's not fair!”

Lights from somewhere outside cast weird shadows on the walls, and I have a strange sense of how far down the hall the bathroom is. I didn't think to ask if I could just go ahead and use it in the night. The shower in there is messed up. The water comes out of the little spout at the bottom—like for filling the tub—but nothing comes out of the showerhead at the top. I crouched under the low spout and splashed water onto me to clean up. Maybe only the bathtub part works. I'm not used to that. There are no tubs at Blue River, except for the little plastic one that I outgrew a long, long time ago.

I hope I won't need to get up in the night. I'm afraid I'll knock over one of the lamps in this room where I am
not
sleeping. Meanwhile, I forgot to ask what I'm supposed to do in the morning, which is slowly, slowly getting closer.

I will have to wait for six days just to tell Mom how I got sick, how VanLeer has turned out to be Zoey's stepdad, how the shower doesn't work right, and how every single thing is different here. I lie in the strange bed, aching to talk to Mom. Suddenly I know that this is what new residents feel like on their first night at Blue River.

I am a new intake at the VanLeer house.

I
t turns out that the way you wake up here is: Mr. Thomas VanLeer stands in the doorway and hollers you right out of bed. I am feet on the floor before I have a single thought. It's not mad hollering. He's clapping too. Maybe he thinks he is cheering me out of bed.

“How did you sleep, pal?”
Clap!
Mr. VanLeer bangs his hands together again. “That's a heck of a soft bed, isn't it?”

I look at the bed and blink a few times. I don't know how I got down from there so fast. Did I really sleep? How many minutes? I saw the sunrise . . .

“Mrs. Samuels finds the nicest things for our home—”

Oh, it is Samuels! I think. She probably kept that name so people wouldn't be confused about her being Zoey's mom.

“That bed came from an old farmstead up near Lincoln . . .”

Mrs. Samuels arrives at the door. She touches her husband's arm and looks in at me. “Good morning, Perry,” she says. She is sweet and quiet. “Breakfast will be ready in just a little bit. We'll let you get dressed now. Come to the kitchen when you're ready.” She loops her hand into the crook of Mr. VanLeer's elbow. She smiles and closes the door.

I look for a clock again, then remember that there isn't one. Before I dress, I stand by the window and look out across the flat yard where the tall trees stand. By the look of the sun outside, I can guess that it's time for morning release at Blue River. I curl my hand around nothing but air and lean toward my thumb. Low and slow, I whisper.

“Good morning. This is Perry at sunrise. It is Monday, September twelfth. If you want to know how I slept, well, I didn't.” I stop to breathe and a huge sigh comes out of me. “I don't know what you're having for breakfast. I'm not sure what I'm having for breakfast.” I stop and imagine the click of the locks, and that one enormous yawn that all of Blue River makes every day. I wonder how Mom is waking. My eyes begin to burn. The sand in them loosens. I wonder if she and Big Ed sat in the common long after I left. It might have been allowed. Special circumstances. I wonder if she ate dinner and if she tossed and turned all night. It catches me—a cold stone in my throat. I want Mom so much. I want to go home.

I should be crouching into runner's stance facing Block C right about now. But this morning there's nothing to run toward.

Z
oey's mom is driving us to school. I sit in the VanLeer SUV with my nose tucked inside my fleece. It wears a whole new smell: VanLeer laundry soap. Zoey keeps looking at me. I stay tucked.

Inside the school, I stand beside Zoey but I am searching the lobby for Miss Maya Rubin. When I see her, I know that she has been watching for me too. We put our hands up to wave at the same time. I go right to her. “Miss Maya, have you heard from the warden this morning? I'm just wondering if my mom is all right.”

“I'm sure Jessica is fine,” Miss Maya tells me. But Miss Maya is not a resident of Blue River, so she doesn't know for sure. “She'll be wondering the same about you, Perry. This whole thing is . . . well . . .” She shakes her head.

I think she's hesitating because Zoey has followed me.

“It's unexpected,” Miss Maya says. She leans around me just a little to say a cheerful good morning to Zoey. Zoey nods. The hallway is beginning to buzz like a hive. I step closer to Miss Maya.

“Can you call Blue River today?” I ask. I'm low-talking. I'm not so sure I want Zoey to hear me. She knows it. She looks off to one side and pretends not to listen.

“I know of no rule that says I may not,” says Miss Maya. Her eyes open wide and she flashes a grin.

“I just want to know how everything is.”

“Sure. I'll try to call during my lunch break,” she promises. “I should at least be able to reach my aunt. I'll give them the message that I've seen you today. That will comfort everyone.” She smiles and turns to go.

In the middle school we change rooms for different subjects. I'm dragging myself from class to class. Twice, I walk right up the back of somebody in the hall and have to say I'm sorry. One of those times it is Zoey, and I accidentally pull her shoe off her heel. She hops out of line and backs against the rain forest bulletin board. I step out with her.

“You gave me a flat, Perry.”

“Sorry,” I say.

Zoey sighs and hooks her finger into her shoe to fix it. We go on in to science class, where I get a jaw-killing case of the yawns. I'm wishing for lunchtime to come. I'm not hungry. All I want to do is check back in with Miss Maya.

Standing in the lunch line, Zoey says, “Okay, so just tell me. Are you going to stop talking to me permanently because of all this?”

“No,” I say. “I'm just tired.” It's the truth. I'm sleepwalking. I mean to tell Zoey this, but then someone tall elbows past us. I mistake him for a teacher and step out of his way. Then I realize that he's one of the kids who was with Brian Morris that first day of school. He's the one who complained when my unswipeable card held up the lunch line.

“Hey!” Zoey says to him. “Check it out.” She points to herself and to me. “Other hungry people. In line.”

“I'm not waiting while someone takes forever to get his special card swiped,” the boy says, and he looks straight down from the top of his tall self, right at me.

“Shut your trapola about that,” says Zoey. “It's been fixed.”

Another boy slides in front of us. Then another. Then Brian Morris, who also mumbles, “Move over, Mad-Zoe.”

“Hey! Neanderthals! What gives?” She's getting loud.

“Shh . . . Zoey . . . ,” I say. But that's all I've got. I'm too tired.

Miss Jenrik's jewelry jingles when she swipes my card. She punches the right code in on the first try. While she is swiping Zoey's card she asks, “Did somebody cut that line today?”

“Yes!” Zoey tells her.

“Thought so.” Miss Jenrik tucks a tail of her flamingo-pink hair back. She glances past us to the table where the boys have gone to sit.

“It doesn't matter,” I say.

“It does matter,” she corrects. “People have to wait their turn. So, listen . . . I have another code for you,” she says. “It's baloney.”

“Baloney?” Zoey is very interested.

“Yep. You know why? Because we never serve baloney here. So if I hear someone say the word
baloney
, these multiple-pierced ears of mine will perk right up.” Miss Jenrik flicks at her hoops and feathers. “I'll deal with that baloney because there is no place for it in this cafeteria. Promise you.”

“All right,” says Zoey Samuels, and she stands tall.

I give Miss Jenrik a weak smile and move on.

We have to squeeze by those boys to make it to the place we like to sit. Today, I would've settled for any other spot in the cafeteria, but Zoey is leading. The boys grumble. They make room for us as if we were a pair of cactus plants.

We sit. I lean on my elbows, cheeks in my hands, and look down at the food in the compartments of my lunch tray. The largest one holds three breaded chicken fingers. Another is filled with a scoop of hash browns, another with three baby carrots, two cherry tomatoes, and a piece of broccoli all tucked together. There is an oatmeal cookie in the last small square.

“Perry? Are you going to eat?” Zoey asks.

It could be that a little while has gone by.

“Yeah,” I say. But then I just sit there some more. I'm thinking about the vegetables. There are never enough vegetables for the residents at Blue River. Not the fresh kind. Same for fruit. If I get an apple on my lunch tray I sneak it back to Blue River and split it with Mom.

I think of home and how much I want to go to sleep in my own bed again. I'd like to do that right now. I can see Mr. Halsey jumping in the common with the bag of broccoli. Wait. Impossible. My face is still in my hands. The skin on my cheeks is stretched. My elbows slide. My tray moves forward toward Zoey's tray then stops. My head is nodding. Something isn't right. Halsey is jumping with bags and bags of broccoli . . . throwing them over the red railing . . . again and again. But there was only one head of broccoli . . . broccoli . . . My head is broccoli . . . and it's going to fall off my shoulders. Then . . . it does. BAM!

“Perry!” Zoey is suddenly on her feet. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Perry!”

There is food all over the table. Zoey is screeching.

“Perry, you're bleeding!”

My nose feels runny. I blink and put the back of my hand up there and it comes away bloody. Brian Morris and his new friends are sliding away, leaving the table, and taking their lunch trays with them. I hear gasps and groans.

“Blech! Sick!” and “Nasty!”

It takes a few seconds for me to realize that my nose is killing me. Zoey is leaning toward me, offering her napkin. But it's as if she can't reach me across that mess of tumbled lunch.

I feel far away from everything today.