Cages

by Peg Kehret

  As she stepped out into the main corridor of the mall, someone touched her elbow.

  Turning, Kit saw one of the women who had been trying to decide which purse to buy.

  The woman held a small black folder toward Kit. She flipped the folder open.

  There was a badge inside.

  “I’m with store security,” the woman said softly. “I’d like you to come to the office with me to discuss some missing merchandise.”

  Kit stood stone still. She thought security guards wore uniforms. This woman wore a black miniskirt and a pink print shirt and open-toed shoes with high heels. But the badge was authentic and the look in the woman’s eyes told Kit that she was authentic, too.

  Kit wished that the floor of the mall would suddenly open and let her drop out of sight. She wished the piano player would strike a mighty chord that would send her magically up the escalator and out through the ceiling. She wished a fire would break out and everyone would have to run outside and the smoke would be so thick, she could slip away unseen.

  “This way,” the woman said.

  Perspiration trickled down Kit’s arms. The chocolate stars which had melted so gently on her tongue now threatened to erupt violently from her stomach.

  How could I have been such a fool? she thought. I don’t need a gold bracelet and I sure don’t need to get picked up for shoplifting. What would her mother say? And Wayne. Wayne would never let her forget it.

  Maybe the store would let her go with only a warning. It was her first time, after all. She had no record; she’d never been in any trouble. Maybe the store would go easy on her and her mother would never find out.

  She remembered seeing signs in the past that said, “Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted.” Had she seen such a sign in Pierre’s? She couldn’t remember.

  The woman said nothing more. As they walked, Kit felt conspicuous, like a giant spotlight was on her. When they went through the jewelry section, the clerk who had waited on Mr. Homer and Marcia looked over at Kit and smiled. Then she saw who Kit was with. She frowned and quickly checked the boxes of gold jewelry which had been out on the counter. The next time she looked at Kit, she didn’t smile. Kit’s cheeks burned and she walked faster, staring at the floor. She would never be able to come into Pierre’s again.

  Her coat felt invisible; the bracelet, deep in her pocket, must be obvious to anyone who looked.

  Why had she thought she could get away with it? How could she have been so stupid? She could just hear Marcia, telling everyone how Kit had been so envious of her new gold choker that she stole some jewelry for herself. Marcia would embellish the story to make herself the only reason Kit had taken the bracelet.

  She wished a bolt of lightning would strike her dead before they got to the office.

  “Here we are,” the woman said, as she held a door open.

  Kit took a deep breath and went in.

  DO you know why you’re here?”

  The security officer put her arms on her desk and leaned toward Kit, watching her intently.

  Kit stared down at her lap. Maybe she could still bluff her way out of this. “No,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky and she pressed her lips together, trying to get control of herself.

  “You are here,” the woman said, “because you were seen shoplifting.”

  Kit’s head jerked up.

  “You can either tell the truth and we’ll do this the easy way,” the woman said, “or you can refuse to cooperate, deny everything, and we’ll do it the hard way.” She paused a moment. “Now, I’d like you to give me the merchandise you took.”

  Kit hesitated. What did the woman mean when she said they could do it the hard way? She decided not to find out. She slipped her hand in her coat pocket, pulled out the gold bracelet, and dropped it on the woman’s desk.

  The woman reached for the telephone. “I’ll call your parents,” she said. “What’s the number?”

  Kit told her.

  “Are they both at that number?”

  “My mother is. And my stepfather.”

  “What’s your mother’s name?”

  “Dorothy Gillette. But do you have to call her?” Kit leaned forward, her hands gripping the arms of the chair. “I’ve never taken anything before and I swear I’ll never do it again.”

  “I have to call,” the woman said, as she punched the numbers.

  Kit closed her eyes. That was it, then. Her mother would find out and so would Wayne. Probably the whole school would know, even Tracy and Miss Fenton. Any faint chance she might have had for the Ninth Grade Scholarship had just blown out the window.

  The woman said, “Mrs. Gillette? This is Hannah Rydecker. I’m with the security department of Pierre’s. Your daughter was shoplifting and I would like you to come down to the store and get her.”

  Kit listened while the woman told Dorothy where to come. After she hung up, she said, “Your mother is on her way. We’ll release you to her custody until the Juvenile Court decides how to proceed.”

  Kit wanted to run. She wished she could dig a hole and crawl in it and hide. She didn’t want to go to Juvenile Court. She didn’t want to be guilty of shoplifting. Most of all she didn’t want to see the look on her mother’s face when Dorothy got to Pierre’s.

  There was no way to run and no place to hide. Frankie’s line from the play popped into her mind. “I feel just exactly like somebody has peeled all the skin off me.”

  Kit slumped in her chair and waited.

  The woman began writing, filling out some kind of form. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Kit Hathaway.”

  The woman wrote it on the form.

  “Age?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Is this shoplifting incident related to any drug problem?”

  “No.” Why would she think that?

  Mrs. Rydecker seemed to believe her. “A lot of shoplifting is drug related,” she said, as she continued to write on the form. She leaned back in her chair. “A police officer will be here soon. He’ll have other questions for you.”

  Kit wiped the palms of her hands on her jeans. The walls of the office seemed to be closing in on her. Feeling trapped and helpless, and far more scared than she’d ever been before, she fought to hold back the tears.

  The officer who arrived was in uniform. The name plate above his badge said, “Sergeant Adams.”

  The woman handed him the form she had filled out and he read it quickly.

  “Have you mirandized her yet?” he asked the woman.

  “No.”

  The officer stood beside Kit and spoke rapidly. “You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in court. You have the right to consult with a lawyer and to have a lawyer with you during this interrogation. If you are indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent you.”

  Kit could see no point in remaining silent and she didn’t think a lawyer would help. She had already admitted her guilt by giving the bracelet back. The woman had said it would be easier for her if she told the truth and that’s what she planned to do.

  “Are the statements in this report true?” Sergeant Adams showed Kit the form that Mrs. Rydecker had given him.

  “Yes.”

  “You are under arrest for shoplifting.”

  “Under arrest? But I gave the bracelet back. I told the truth and I thought . . .”

  Sergeant Adams interrupted. “Did you take the bracelet?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Kit shrugged.

  “Did you need money for drugs?”

  “No.” Why did they keep asking her if she was on drugs? Did she look like an addict?

  “Do you have a problem at home?” Mrs. Rydecker asked.

  Kit looked at her. Mrs. Rydecker smiled. Kit shook her head.

  “No trouble with your folks?”

  Kit thought about Wayne. She remembered him yelling after her, “Animal!” But she didn’t w
ant to talk about that. Certainly not with strangers.

  “Sometimes people shoplift because they have problems they can’t cope with,” Mrs. Rydecker said. “If that’s the case with you, you can tell us about it and we’ll try to help.”

  Kit shook her head again. She didn’t want any social worker coming around, poking into her family’s personal business. By the time someone got there, Wayne would be sober and he and Dorothy would deny that there was any problem and Kit would be in a worse mess than she was already in.

  “What’s the price on the bracelet?” the police officer asked.

  “One-hundred-forty-nine dollars,” the woman said. “You are fortunate,” she told Kit. “This theft is a misdemeanor, which means we can release you to your parents. More than $250 and it would be a felony.”

  She waited, as if expecting Kit to react but Kit didn’t know what to say.

  “For a felony,” the woman continued, “you’d have to go to the Youth Security Center tonight. Not a pleasant place.”

  “Not pleasant,” echoed the officer. “That’s an understatement. But we have to take you people somewhere.”

  Kit didn’t like the way he said, you people, as if she were a criminal. Then she realized that, in his view, that’s exactly what she was. She had broken the law; that made her a criminal. She wanted to convince him that she wasn’t as bad as he thought she was.

  “I never took anything before,” Kit said.

  “That’s what they all say,” Sergeant Adams said.

  “But it’s true,” Kit said. She could tell he didn’t believe her. What good did it do to tell the truth if they weren’t going to believe her? Why did he have to treat her like scum, anyway?

  A little voice inside Kit’s head answered her own question. “Act like a criminal and that’s how you’ll be treated. You wouldn’t have to listen to this if you had not taken the bracelet. You wouldn’t be in this office at all.”

  She said nothing more. She just stared at the floor and waited for Dorothy to arrive. It seemed like hours.

  Wayne didn’t come with Dorothy. Thank goodness for that, at least. It was bad enough as it was.

  “I’m sure Kit didn’t mean to steal it,” Dorothy said, when she saw the bracelet. “Isn’t that right, Kit? You didn’t mean to steal it?”

  “She meant to steal it, Mrs. Gillette,” Sergeant Adams said. “She just didn’t mean to get caught.”

  “Kit has already admitted that she took the bracelet,” Mrs. Rydecker said.

  Dorothy turned to Kit. “Why?” she said. “Why would you take that? You know better. You know it’s wrong to steal.”

  Kit said nothing. What could she say? That she took the bracelet because Marcia got the part of Frankie and Marcia’s father bought her a gold choker and Marcia was a jerk? Or that she took it because her father died ten years ago? Even to her own ears, those excuses made no sense. But there wasn’t any other explanation.

  Dorothy’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Kit. “Did you do this to try to get back at Wayne?” she asked. “Because of the glass?”

  Kit shook her head.

  “What glass?” asked the woman.

  “Oh, nothing,” Dorothy said. “Just something that happened at home.”

  “Tell us about it,” the woman said.

  Dorothy opened her purse, removed a tissue, and blew her nose. The woman and the officer watched her intently. Kit realized her mother was sorry she had mentioned the glass and was stalling, trying to decide what to say.

  “It was just a misunderstanding,” Dorothy said. “My husband’s hand slipped and the glass he was holding fell and broke and he asked Kit to help clean it up. That’s all. Just a little mishap.”

  “Is that all, Kit?” the woman asked. “Is that what happened?”

  “Are you doubting my word?” Dorothy said.

  “Not at all. I’m only asking Kit to tell me her version of what happened with the glass.”

  Kit hesitated. Here was her chance to get even for all the times Dorothy had pretended everything was OK when it wasn’t. Here was her chance to make her mother admit the truth about Wayne, not just to Kit but to these people with authority. If she told Sergeant Adams and Mrs. Rydecker that Wayne was drunk and that he threw the glass and it smashed into the refrigerator, and when she refused to clean it up he yelled at her and called her an animal, she knew they would ask more questions. They would want to know if this sort of thing had happened before; did he get drunk often? She could tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and maybe her mother would face reality instead of pretending that Wayne was the world’s perfect person.

  She looked at her mother. Dorothy’s eyes were red. She had obviously been crying before she arrived at the store and she had cried again when she heard what Kit had done. Her mother looked suddenly old, more like Grandma Hathaway. Even her hair seemed more gray than Kit remembered.

  Dorothy watched Kit warily, waiting for her response.

  “My version is the same as hers,” Kit said. “Wayne accidentally dropped a glass and broke it. It doesn’t have anything to do with the bracelet.”

  “She’s never shoplifted before,” her mother said.

  “Never shoplifted or never been caught?” Sergeant Adams said.

  “Never shoplifted,” Kit said.

  “Then you are lucky we caught you,” Mrs. Rydecker said.

  “Lucky!”

  “Yes, lucky. If you hadn’t been caught, you would have been tempted another time. You would have thought it was easy. You would have kept on taking things until you found yourself in serious trouble.”

  “She’s in serious trouble now,” Sergeant Adams said.

  Sergeant Adams gave Dorothy some papers to sign. “You’ll get a notice in the mail,” he told Kit, “telling you when and where to appear.”

  “You mean I still have to go to court?” Kit asked. “Even though I already gave the bracelet back?”

  “If your story checks out,” Sergeant Adams said, “and we find that you have no previous record, you won’t have to go to court. Instead, you’ll appear before a Juvenile Court Committee. It’s a panel of three or four people, volunteers, who want to help teenagers. They deal with crimes that occur in their own neighborhoods.”

  “Are you saying she’ll be tried by a bunch of amateurs?” Dorothy asked.

  “They’ve each taken a training program with the court.”

  “Kit has already admitted her guilt,” Mrs. Rydecker pointed out, “so a trial isn’t necessary.”

  “Then why does Kit have to appear before some committee?”

  “Because she committed a crime,” Mrs. Rydecker replied. “People who commit crimes must be punished.” She turned to Kit. “You will have to pay Pierre’s a sum for civil restitution,” she said, “and you’ll have to pay your debt to society, for breaking the law. The committee will decide the best way for you to do that. The courts are too overburdened to hear cases which can be handled in a better way.”

  “The court committee has legal clout,” Sergeant Adams warned. “If you’re told to appear, you must do it. Otherwise, we’ll issue a warrant for your arrest. You’ll be brought in again.”

  At last, they were allowed to leave. Her mother said nothing as they left the office. Kit trailed her silently through the store, down the escalator, across the mall, and out into the parking lot.

  It wasn’t until they were both in the car that Dorothy exploded.

  “How could you?” she said. “How could you bring such shame on us? We’ve had our disagreements but I’ve always been proud of you, always been proud to call you my daughter. Well, I’ll tell you something, Kit. Tonight I am not proud.”

  All day long, Kit had fought back her tears. She had not cried when she read the cast list, or when Wayne called her an animal. She had not cried when she watched Marcia and Mr. Homer together, or when the police officer announced that she was under arrest. But as she listened to her mother, Kit turned her head away and star
ed blindly out the window, letting the tears fall unchecked.

  NOTHING had changed, yet everything was different.

  As Kit walked into Kennedy School the next morning, she felt ten years older than she had the day before.

  One day earlier, she could think only of The Member of the Wedding and her hopes for the part of Frankie. Now the school play hardly mattered.

  She dreaded the court committee meeting. At least in Juvenile Court there was just one judge at a time. This committee business sounded threatening. Three or four adults, instead of one, and all of them against her.

  What would her punishment be? She supposed she would have to pay a fine, but how much? Where would she get the money? The thought of asking Wayne to pay it made her sick but she really had no other choice. Briefly, she thought of writing to Grandma and Grandpa Hathaway. When she found out how much the fine was, she could ask them to loan her the money; she could do extra baby-sitting to pay it back. But she knew they wouldn’t agree to a loan unless she told them why she needed the money and she would die before she’d let Grandpa and Grandma find out what she had done.

  When she left the house that morning, Wayne was still asleep. She didn’t know if he knew yet what had happened. Probably not. He had been asleep when Kit and Dorothy got home from Pierre’s. Wayne’s binges usually lasted three or four days and during that time, there was no use telling him anything. He wouldn’t understand it at the time or remember it later. She would have to wait a few days to deal with Wayne’s wrath.

  “Are you alright?” Tracy asked, as they ate lunch together in the school cafeteria. “You seem sort of distracted.”

  “I’m OK,” Kit said.

  “Did you do the Triple-B last night?”

  “I couldn’t. Wayne the Pain is drinking again and you know how he gets. I didn’t stay home.”

  Tracy nodded sympathetically. “Where did you go?”

  “To the mall.”

  “Alone?”

  “I took the bus down and Mom picked me up.”

  “Did you get anything?”

  Yes, Kit thought, I got arrested. She felt her face flush. For a second, she was tempted to tell Tracy the whole story. Maybe it would be easier to deal with if she could talk about it.