Not An Accident

by Tampa Tyson

  So, I told her more about the accident. She wasn’t happy, she kept asking me if I’d broken into her house. I kept denying it, I kept changing the subject, I kept doing whatever I could to get her off the point of it. She shook her head several times

  “You know what, Gabby?” she said, “you’re acting like a second-rate kiddo who deserved what you got.”

  “What?”

  “Hannah called me this morning. Said the ski trophy that you were supposed to have gotten went missing last Sunday,”

  Missing?

  “Do I need to spell missing for you?”

  “No— No— I got it,” I said, “I’m just wondering since Hannah said it was missing, does that mean she’d been planning on giving it to me all along?”

  “I never said it was yours, just that Hannah had been planning on giving it to you. And why do you even care? It’s not like you were even at the lodge anyway.”

  “I just care.”

  “Really? You break your wrist and know you ain’t gonna ski again you still care about a dumb trophy that’s just gonna just sit on your shelf and gather dust? My God, Gabby, do you even know what really matters?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “I’m going to find out who took skiing away from me,” I said, “and now you’re on the suspect list.”

  Chapter 8

  Sage crossed her arms and gave me a sharp glare as if she was trying to dare me to arrest her. She seemed to believe it was impossible. I crossed my arms in reply, taking her “dare” at face value. Then, out of the corner, I spotted Stephen standing near a shiny blue cruiser. I could barely believe that I hadn’t heard the siren - that it hadn’t been one. Maybe they’d been trying to sneak up on Sage. “Try me.”

  Stephen approached the car. “Hey,” One word from him and Sage stopped talking, “what’s going on here?”

  “This kiddo here - she keeps denying she ever came to my house.”

  “Really?” Stephen crossed his arms and looked at me. My cheeks swelled, stuffing themselves with air, “why would you do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” I said.

  “You don’t know? I go downstairs, and I see your fingerprints all over my daily planner. Don’t deny it, I know it was you...”

  “Sage, please,” I said, “this is uncalled for.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s uncalled for,” Sage replied, “it’s not taking responsibility for anything.”

  “Sage... Stop.”

  “If you can’t even own up to fingerprints when somebody knows it’s you, how are you supposed to convince people this wasn’t an accident? Far as I’m concerned now, this might just be all your own fault. You only got me on the suspect list cause you wanna blame me.”

  “Sage... That’s not it.... at all.”

  “Then why don’t you two tell me what’s going on?” Sage said, “especially you, Stephen. You’ve been acting extra strangely ever since Gabby got hurt - not giving her any space and—”

  Stephen stepped in between us. “That’s enough, Sage,” he said, “Nicholas and I are tired of you interfering with our protection program.”

  “Are you joking? I’m only trying to help Gabby get a social life. Who knows what you’re making her do, locked up in her room with your overly strict protection rules.”

  “I am making her do nothing,” Stephen said, “those protection rules will expire as soon as she gets her cast off, as soon as she can get back to a normal life. And I don’t want her to risk getting herself hurt while she’s still in fragile condition.”

  “Fragile? Look, Stephen, I’d understand your protection program if Gabby was simply a toddler and didn’t know any better, but she’s 10 now, she’s got the capability to reason. You and Catherine really need to let her work things out for herself or you’ll both get yourself in really big trouble.”

  “You do realize you're being a hypocrite, don’t you?”

  Sage gave Stephen a glare. He clarified. “I mean, when it comes to your brother, do you ever let him make his own decisions?”

  “That’s different. The boy would destroy himself.”

  “Yes, clearly, he would, with no practice in making decisions. Under secure guidance.” Stephen looked at me. “When Dr. Angie gets your cast replaced, Gabby, what color fiberglass do you want? Pink? It gets messy easy.”

  “Pinks fine,” I said, “as long as Mom gets me a waterproof cast.”

  “You’ll still have to keep it dry most of the time. You sure you want pink?”

  “Yeah, Stephen, I’m sure.”

  “You really don’t get it, do you, Stephen?” Sage said, “I’m only trying to keep my brother safe, he has no idea what the word embarrassing means and if it weren’t for me keeping an eye on him and making sure he follows my rules, he’d get himself in trouble.”

  Stephen rolled his eyes. The police car door opened and an officer wearing a badge walked over. “Hello, Sage Smith,” The officer said.

  Sage Smith? The name sounded familiar - hadn’t I heard it before? Oh, yeah, I had. With Robert. Robert Smith.

  “I thought I revealed that name to you in confidence, Stephen,” Sage said.

  “Confidence doesn’t cover legal obligations,” Stephen said, “anyway, Nicholas is here to arrest you.”

  “What for? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Sorry, Sage,” Nicholas put Sage in handcuffs, “we’ve been reading your legal documents and we’ve determined that only those up to 3 years ago count. Anything you’ve done since then has been considered fraudulent- due to the lack of legal parent signatures.”

  Sage shook her head. “That’s dumb,” she said, “insisting teenagers have to have parent or guardian signatures to pretty much do anything. You kinda force these kids through the foster care system when nobody is willing to adopt them. It’s dumb.”

  “I know that, Sage,” Nicholas said, “which is why I’m only going to put your brother, Robert, into the foster care system. You, however, will be going to juvenile detention until we can get you a court date.”

  “Why?” Sage asked.

  “The court needs to make the decision whether you can become an emancipated minor or not. I wouldn't count on it, and even if you do get it, you will have to wait until you’re at least 18 before you can get Robert back in your care.”

  “But I’m already 15.”

  “That’s good, then. That means Robert will only be in foster care for what - 3 years? You’ll get him back before you know it,” Sage didn’t respond, “it’s definitely better than the alternative, sending both of you kids to foster care, making it more difficult for you to find willing foster parents.”

  “But I’d rather do that Nicholas.”

  “Why?”

  “Cause my brother needs me. He won’t survive the foster care system without me around to help walk him through it. He’ll never get fostered ‘less I’m around to help him get fostered. He’ll be stuck in an orphanage, probably freaking out every couple of seconds. Nobody’s going to foster him unless I’m there.”

  “Sage, there are many people willing to foster children like your brother. They are willing to put up with the struggles of raising a child like him.”

  “You don’t understand, Nicholas,” Sage said, “Robert needs me. He’ll go insane if I’m not around.”

  Stephen and I both looked at Nicholas. I kept waiting for him to back down, he looked so sorry for what he was about to do. “I’m sorry, Sage,” he said, “but Stephen has told me that I can’t let anybody get away with bad behavior - no exceptions.”

  “But we’re living on SSI!”

  “SSI? Didn’t your parents give you lots of money? With the way you dress, it sure seems like you got a lot of inheritance?” Nicholas said.

  “I don’t know. I never checked the bank.”

  “Well, it really doesn’t matter. Without somebody to supervise you, you won’t be able to get out on even on ba
il. Until you’re 18.” Stephen said.

  “My brother needs to know.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll let him know,” Stephen said, “and I’ll get whatever SSI payee information that needs to be transferred to Nicholas. He’ll take good care of your brother until he can get him into a foster home.”

  “He won’t be able to handle this, Nicholas!” Sage said as Nicholas dragged her over to the police cruiser. Stephen followed them, helping Nicholas to get Sage into the vehicle. “You should be arresting the girl who broke her house arrest instead of me - you’re gonna be in a world of pain. Are you even listening?”

  “Nope.” Stephen slammed the door on Sage. I could hear her shrieks and screams, but the car door muffled them, making them barely audible, even when Stephen got me out.

  “Sorry about Sage,” Stephen said, “she gets the desire to do power plays all the time. It works with nearly everybody she interacts with too, except when it comes to her brothers. He’s gone immune to it. And me,” He paused, “are you even listening?

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t listening. I was simply thinking. What if Sage was right? What if her brother was insane - insane enough to get medicine only his sister could administer him- insane enough to need 24- 7 round the clock care - and without that, would attack the first person he saw - me?

  Maybe this was just that. An accident. An insane accident.

  Chapter 9

  When Stephen had gotten me to the front porch, I turned around, watching in silence as the blaring red and blue lights of the police car slowly mixed themselves in with the snowy silence of the winter air. The blue car soon became nothing but a tiny blue dot, barely distinguishable against the partly cloudy winter sky.

  “Well,” Stephen hung one of his arms over my shoulder, “looks like it’s been a long day, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I only gave Stephen a glancing glimpse, but when I turned away, I noticed that the police cruiser had disappeared, “Kinda... Not really.”

  “Well, let’s get you upstairs anyway,” Stephen grabbed my free hand with his free arm, “I need to talk to you anyhow.” As he led me back into the house, we passed by Mom, whose face lit up at the sight of Stephen. She smiled brightly, folded her arms as if she was saying a silent prayer of thanks, and closed her eyes.

  Upstairs, Stephen got me settled in bed, propped up on pillows, and then he closed the door. “Gabby, we need to talk.”

  “I’m sorry, Stephen,” I said, “I just couldn’t help myself.”

  “I know, Gabby,” Stephen said, “I know it’s hard to be confined to your house while you’re recovering, but those rules were made for your safety. Sage wasn’t helping.”

  “What’s the harm in a social life?”

  “Plenty,” Stephen said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve done some research, Gabby,” Stephen said, “and I’ve found out that aside from being Sage’s only brother - and she has no sisters either, Robert accidentally murdered his parents about three years ago."

  Impossible. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier, Stephen?”

  “I thought you wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Now I know I’m wrong,” Stephen said, with another smile, “trust me, I’ll never make the same mistake.”

  This still didn’t seem plausible. “Where did you hear all this, Stephen?” I asked.

  “Oh, at the courthouse,” Stephen said, “Robert apparently got off with the insanity defense and the judge only required him to spend Fridays in outpatient therapy at the hospital. He should have gotten inpatient therapy, that boy. Then he wouldn’t even have gotten the opportunity to hurt you.”

  “Did you see him do it?” I asked, “hurt me?”

  “No, not really,” Stephen said, “but I can infer that it was him.”

  I shook my head. Inference just wasn’t enough. Unless it was supported by good quality evidence, it wouldn’t hold up in court. “Tell me what you saw, Stephen,” I said.

  “Well... First, I saw Robert go into the construction trailer. He looked mad too,” Emotions and speculation, “so I hid behind the trailer, so he wouldn’t see me, but when I came out, the door was open, and you were on the ground.”

  Something felt fishy. Robert had said he hadn’t been at the construction site - had he been lying? And how had I ended up on the ground? “Thanks, Stephen.”

  “You’re welcome, Gabby,” Stephen rose to his feet, “well, I best be going.”

  After sinking into my covers, I closed my eyes and yawned.

  “If Robert ever bothers you, please feel free to let me know.”

  “I will,” When I opened my eyes, I saw that somebody had cleaned off my desk, removing all the sharp pieces of glass. Even though I’d liked seeing them dance, it was nice to know that I wouldn’t cut myself on them anymore.

  And with nothing going on, with the sound of Dad coming upstairs and telling me that Mom had left the house due to some appointment in Wisconsin she couldn’t get out off – “Her appointments tomorrow morning- Early,” – I had plenty of time to think.

  Especially when, after a short while, Dad received a call from his boss saying there was a problem at the police station and that they needed his assistant. I knew there was a problem - why would he go to work and leave me alone unless the job was urgent?

  “Mom might call,” he said through the house, “don’t tell her I ain’t here.”

  Okay. I heard the door open and close - and then it opened again. Nearly jumping out of my skin, I sat up in bed.

  “And come downstairs, will you? I got your lunch on the table.” The door slammed shut, this time not to open again. Still too nervous to climb out of my covers, I shivered at the silence. When I finally felt brave enough to venture downstairs out my own, I was extremely cautious, making sure I held on with all my might to the stair railing.

  When I went downstairs, I found Dad had made me plain pasta, with chopped hot dogs and a smoothie on the side. Next, to the plate, there were two notes – one a description of why Mom was going to be gone overnight –

  she'd planned this appointment long before I'd gotten hurt and it had kinda escaped her mind while I was intimately recovering.

  Now that the danger seemed to be passed, she said, in her note, she remembered her appointment and with only one day left, there was no chance to cancel. She told me she would call me later to check on me, but I hoped she wouldn’t. I really didn’t want to have to lie to her.

  I sat down to eat, and while I ate, I thought about Robert. How was he going to react to the news that his sister was in prison? Was he going to freak out - or was he going to be happy? He always complained about his sister.

  As soon as I finished dinner, I settled myself on the couch to binge watch TV, with the green smoothie on a coaster beside me and my casted arm covered with a blanket. Alternating between surfing the TV channels and taking sips of my smoothie proved to be highly difficult. And there was nothing good on, not even on Netflix.

  Instead, I got up and turned on the radio, to Minnesota's main radio station. The music made me want to dance, but I didn’t want to hurt myself, so I just tucked myself under my blanket and drank the rest of the smoothie. I sat there, in silence, listening to the radio, slowly sipping my smoothie. I smiled as a funny ad came on. Maybe it wasn’t so bad relaxing.

  Then Dad came home, lectured me for spending the whole afternoon watching TV, and once Mom called and told him that she wanted me to finish the rest my homework, he insisted on helping me. We spent most of the evening arguing among ourselves, however, with me pretending that I didn’t know how to do anything. Somehow, we got the homework done with enough time for a rushed dinner, and then Dad sent me up to bed.

  When he woke me up, he woke me up before my sleep-clogged eyes had ever gotten a chance to settle enough. I could barely see what was going on me, and when Dad transferred me into the car, it only took a few blinks for me to doze off again. When I woke up, Dad was parked in a carpool parking lot. “
Where are we going?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” Dad climbed out of the car, “I need to blindfold you first.”

  “Aww…” Dad got an opaque sleeping mask out of the trunk. He placed the mask over my eyes and tied it in the back, “I can’t see a thing.’

  “That’s the whole point, Gabby.” I heard Dad climb into the driver’s seat of the car and as the car began to move, I felt almost like I was in a dark ride, with no idea wherever the car would speed up, slow down, or simply spin me around. It was nerve-wracking.

  The car finally came to a stop. “Take it off!” I tried to wrench the sleeping mask from my face, but Dad put his hand over it.

  “Not yet, Gabby. Not yet.” Dad unclicked my seatbelt and pulled me out of the car. The mask kept me from seeing what me was around, from knowing if we were in a crosswalk or in a parking lot, "follow me."

  I stood still. “But Dad, I don’t want to trip.”

  “You won’t trip, Gabby,” Dad reached for my left arm but accidentally bumped into my cast instead. I backed only a step away and nearly lost my balance - Dad, however, caught me. “I’ll guide you,” he said.

  Before I knew it, we were sitting on benches covered with cushions, the table between us made of what felt like solid stone. I heard Dad quietly murmuring something to the person taking our order, and once the person had left, he removed my blindfold.

  My eyes rested on the window pane of glass right next to us. Outside, some kids were skating on the ice, slapping little black pucks across it with almost flat wooden sticks, screaming and wrapping their heads around somebody else whenever they got one into one of the red nets- positioned on the opposite sides of the lake. “Where are we?”

  “We’re just around the corner from your ski lodge. Wanna drop by?”

  Thinking only a moment, I quickly declined. Then I surveyed the restaurant, with its calming color scheme.... bits of blue, green, and white. "What is this place?" I asked.

  “It used to be called Bob’s Diner, but now it’s simply The Eatery,” Dad said, “they thought it’d be easier for those who don’t speak English first to better understand it.” He sunk himself deep into the cushions, “it’s really comfortable here, isn’t it?”