by Tampa Tyson
I looked around the room again. Even the photo on the wall, a photo of a skier. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before, Dad,” I said, “I mean, it’s special.”
“Wait till you see what they serve,” Dad said, “you’re gonna love it.”
I turned back to him. “I just know it.”
I looked out the window again, watching the kids play on the ice until I heard a waitress coming by. "Your breakfast is ready," she said. A moment later, I watched, stunned as she laid out two heaping plates of chocolate chip pancakes.
“What do you say, Gabby?”
“Thank you.” I could barely hear myself speak, my voice was so quiet. My muscles had become stiff, I couldn’t feel the pain in my arm, and the world became so quiet I could hear my heartbeat.
It took a moment for the shock to wear off, and when it did, I discovered Dad had cut my pancakes and put some of the chocolate syrup on them. We ate pretty much in silence, exchanging only pleasantries, Dad talking very little while he ate.
Finally, Dad put his fork down, next to his empty plate, “Gabby, we need to talk.”
“What?” My voice came out garbled— I was still in the middle of chomping down on my pancakes.
“Your best friend was arrested yesterday.”
Chapter 10
I gagged on my mouthful of pancakes and spit them out. “What?” The whole restaurant (there weren’t many people) seemed to be looking at me, even though nobody except Dad was staring directly into my eyes, “How?”
“I’m not sure how it got to this point, Gabby,” Dad said, “all I know is that Nicholas sentenced Kayla to house arrest last Saturday. Underage drinking, apparently.”
Impossible. I’d been with Kayla when she’d gone to the party and we carried 100 bottles of Sprite, not 100 bottles of beer. Either somebody had snuck in the beer or they juiced some of the communal stuff. Maybe I’d been affected, maybe that’s why I slipped without realizing it. Maybe I’d only imagined all those construction barriers. Maybe this was an accident.
“Nicholas also found out that Kayla was throwing an unsupervised party,” Dad said, “care to elaborate for me what you two had been planning?”
“Well, we’d been planning to throw the party at the lodge,” I said, “but then I lost my phone and the power went out, so I couldn’t call...”
“Mm... hmm.”
“I didn’t intend to lose my phone, Dad,” I said, “I thought I had it tucked away safely in my gym bag.”
“Mistakes happen. Did Kayla ever tell you she was on house arrest?”
“No, never,” I said, “she came the other night trying to convince me to investigate, but heh... I didn’t listen to her. You know, Stephen and Mom...”
“That’s interesting,” Dad said, “you see, Kayla gave me a whole different story. She said she came over to convince you to investigate and you helped her. Care to explain that?”
“She’s wrong,” I said.
Dad crossed his arms his head and leaned back in his chair. “Guess Stephen’s right about your friends then,” he said, “they’re liars.”
I rose to my feet. “THEY”RE NOT!” My left hand skimmed the area of my fork and knocked it off the table. The restaurant patrons, who had earlier only been glancing, to be looking at me, now glared at me, and I blushed. When I turned back to Dad, he’d grabbed my pancakes, moving them out of the way. I slowly sat back down.
“You know, Gabby, in a court of law— “Dad said as he slid my pancakes back over to me — “you would have just incriminated yourself.”
The blush that had appeared in my cheeks felt warmer and warmer by the second. “Alright, Dad,” I said softly. “I’ll admit it. Kayla and I have been investigating.”
Dad said nothing. “Do you even care?” I said, “you go through all this to get a confession out of me and you don’t care?”
“Your life is your decision, Gabby,” Dad said, “I am not in charge of it.”
“Then why did you make a big scene?”
“I didn’t do nothing, I was just talking.” Dad leaned forward, “Stephen told me that he thought Kayla was just being selfish when she came to visit you, but I don’t quite believe him.”
I decided to humor him. “Why not?”
“Because her house arrest was only a week and she’s now in juvenile detention for two.”
It made perfect sense - if Kayla had been focused on her own benefit, she wouldn’t have come and seen me until her house arrest was up - but she’d come before it was up. “I still can’t believe she didn’t even tell me.”
“I know, it’s a shame,” Dad said, “and we’re even worse off.”
“How the heck are we worse off?” I asked.
“Stephen’s convinced the court to put a 24-7 order of supervision on you.”
My thoughts were spinning at the injustices of it all, but I had no desire to further embarrass myself, so I simply gritted my teeth. “That’s not too bad, Dad.”
“Say that to parents who must work irregular hours,” Dad pursed his lips, “your mother's clients live in other cities and when my boss calls me, there's no time for delay... What does Stephen think he's trying to do— get us fired?’”
“Dad!”
Leaning back in his seat, Dad scratched his neck. I leaned back too, the pleasant silence having been replaced by an eerie stillness. I wanted to break it, but I wasn’t sure how. Then the waitress came over and gave us our bills, and the silence broke.
As Dad pulled out of his wallet, reaching in for a wad of cash, the waitress carefully repeated the amount of money he was handing her. “That’s your tip,” he then grabbed his coat and draped it over himself, “ready to go?”
I nodded, and as soon as we were in Dad's car, the glowing signage of the 24-hour pancake restaurant blinking in the early morning, the sounds of horns and car lights. I took a chance. "What happened, yesterday, Dad, while you were gone?” I asked.
“Not much,” Dad answered.
“But you were gone all afternoon,” I said.
“Nicholas just wanted some help questioning Sage and Kayla.”
“Did you play good cop, bad cop?” I asked.
“We would have, but neither of us wanted to be the bad cop,” Dad said, “So we tried talking to both of the suspects together, but we ended up having to go one-by-one as the suspects kept accusing each other of lying.”
I was surprised he’d put Kayla on the suspect list. “This wasn’t Kayla’s fault,” I said.
“Nicholas didn’t think so either,” he said, “but given she’d thrown an unsupervised party, he had to do something.”
So, he put Kayla on house arrest - for 1 week, and she broke it, without letting me know. Had she been too scared that if I knew, I wouldn’t have helped her? “Dad?”
“Yeah, Gabby?’
“If you and Mom ever both have to work, couldn’t you just take me to the courthouse with you?”
Dad turned around and resting a hand on my shoulder and smiled. “You’re too young for most of the cases,” he said, “But you’d make a great detective.
Chapter 11
On our way home, Dad told me how Officer Nicholas had discovered the alcohol in Kayla’s home. “People were stumbling, right and left, as they came out of Kayla’s house,” Dad said. “And when one of the party-goers tripped into a neighbor's yard, the neighbors called the police, apparently thinking the kid was a zombie.”
“Very funny.”
“Nicholas was the only one willing to go to the scene,” Dad said, “turns out the kid had just run through some thorn bushes.”
I could see why somebody would think of a drunk kid as a zombie, especially if all their clothes, and maybe even their shoes, had been ripped to shreds. If only there was some way I could have helped that kid... “I gotta keep investigating, Dad,”
“I know, Gabby,” Dad pulled the car into the driveway, “that’s why Nicholas and I have arranged that if Robert shows up while we’re not here,
you call him first. He’ll be right over to assist.”
I didn’t know how Robert would feel about having Nicholas watch him, but I figured it’d be a good worst-case scenario. If Nicholas was quiet, that was. We returned home and later that afternoon, Mom called. “How was your meeting?”
“Good, thank you. Listen, how’s Gabby?”
“Oh, yeah, those rules... She’s fine.”
“She’s holding up, right?”
“Right.... yes of course.... but here’s the thing.... my boss... he has a job for me.”
“Do you really need to work?”
“It’s a really important case, yes.
“Great,” Mom said, “I’ve to take over for a therapist in Wisconsin this week and you don’t like it when I let Stephen watch Gabby. You might just have to take her to the courthouse. You know how she acted when she was a toddler, though, right?”
“Right.”
“Look, I’ve got to go.... just remember you’ve got to come to the hospital appointment with us on Saturday...”
Dad hung up. Then he turned to me. “So...” he began, “I suppose you want to come and see the courthouse.”
I nodded. “I expected that,” Dad said, “I should warn you though, Gabby Myers, the judge doesn’t like having kids in the courthouse. He sees them, he usually confines them to the lobby.... and Stephen would still be keeping an eye on you.”
I groaned. My life was sinking. To an all-time low. And it was all because of this stupid injury.... a stupid broken arm. Why did I have to have it? Why did I get so unlucky? “You know what, Dad?” I said, “I think I’ll stay.”
“You sure?”
“It’s not like I do much for you for the courthouse anyway,” Except sit there, “besides, if Robert shows up, don’t you think it’d be better for him to be in a place where he has a better chance of talking to me?”
"I suppose you're right,” Dad said. “Alright, I’ll have Stephen watch you this week.”
“Works for me.”
As the following week was my spring break (my school had their spring break the week before Easter and Easter was on April 10th, there wasn’t much I could do at home except sit around bored. I tried to spend most of the time sleeping, but sometimes I’d feel too alert, too alert to really say much. Then I’d call either my Mom or Dad, telling them how bored and lonely I was. Usually, Dad couldn’t respond, but My mom always did. She, however, didn't really listen to me...... she was like "Why don't you watch a movie?"
“I don’t want too.”
“You’ve got to find something to do.”
Then I’d pace around the house, bored, until Stephen decided to make me some microwave popcorn and gave me a bunch of candy. For some reason.... probably a sugar crash, the candy was enough for me to fall back asleep.
However, it kinda inferred with my sleep cycle, I’d spend half the night gorging on candy because there wasn’t anything else to do and I wasn’t tired enough to sleep. By Thursday night, I thought I heard Mom suggesting to Dad that he buy me a sleep aid... She didn’t want me constantly disturbing his sleep. “She doesn’t need a sleep aid,” he said, “she needs her friends.”
I heard the phone hung up and then, this time, unwilling to disturb them, I lay in bed all night. I slept through the whole night, waking up highly alert.... unable to sleep for most of the next day. However, I think it was a good thing...... as, on Friday, Robert finally came.
He didn’t come until that afternoon after I'd nearly emptied the cabinet of snack packs, pretzels, candy, popcorn, and crackers. At the time of his arrival, I was digging more into the cabinets, trying to find one last little bit of snack.... but then I heard a crash.
I stopped in place. Then deciding I didn’t want to make Robert suspicious, I grabbed the first snack pack I could find.... an unopened pack of potato chips, and pinching it between my left fingers, I crackled it.
Apparently, I crackled it too much, as the bag popped open and broke itself open. crackling bag of potato chips popped and broke, sending a handful of slices flying. I lifted the bag before all the potato chips could simply spill out, but the commotion was enough to cause Stephen to come in. He quickly looked at me, and then he shook his head.
Blushing, I whimpered softly, offering a false apology. Stephen then picked up the chips, complaining how I really didn’t understand how much he was going through for me. “I think you should go to your room and think about this.”
“Yeah, I’ll go.” I started to walk away, around the corner.
But I really didn’t care how much he was doing for me. All I wanted him to do was stop.... stop trying to protect me so much. It bothered me. So as soon as Stephen retreated to his post at the front porch, I sneakily opened the stairs to the basement.
Then, after locking the door, I tiptoed down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as I could while trying to clench onto the wall... When I got to the bottom stairs, I saw him. Robert.
He was sprawled out on a brown couch— a brown couch that had stopped glistening even in the brightest of lights. When he noticed me, he perked up, sitting up straight. There a was a huge smile on his face, a huge smile that made me smile back.
“This is a nice basement, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” my eyes were staring at the empty hole in the wall- the empty hole that probably led to the secret passageway Kayla had been talking about, “how did you get in?”
“Didn’t Kayla tell you? There’s a secret passageway in your basement.”
I looked at the fireplace lying just next to the hole in the wall. It looked like it was made of fake brick.... after all, if the brick had been real, it wouldn’t have been movable, would it?
“You wanna sit down?” Robert patted the empty space next to him.
I didn’t move.
“Don’t worry, I won’t bite you.”
I sat down next to him. “So, did Kayla tell you about the secret passageway?”
“No.” I wasn’t about to tell Robert that I hadn’t believed her.
“Can’t say I ain’t surprised,” Robert stood and picked up the false fireplace. Now I could see the front. It looked so real from the front, nobody would ever suspect there was something behind it, “I thought Kayla would have told you about the passageway by now- she said she would- or maybe you just didn’t believe her.”
“Yeah, possibly.”
“There’s no need to feel ashamed ‘bout telling me the truth,” Robert said, “honestly, I probably wouldn’t have believed Kayla myself- if she’d hadn’t showed me it. Would you like to come see?”
I briefly considered letting Robert take me on a tour of the passageway, but then I thought better of it. After all, Stephen was still upstairs, and I didn’t want to inadvertently spill the beans to him about the passageway. “Yeah, thanks- not today.”
“Why not?”
I tried to think of a good excuse, but I couldn’t. If I said that Stephen was upstairs and had put a restraining order between me and Robert, Robert might get angry enough to lose control. Then Stephen would come down, get the police, and Robert would either end up jail or on house arrest with a stranger. The problem was, not saying anything was just as bad. “Kayla’s already shown me the outside.”
“But you’ve never seen the inside!”
“Robert, it’s just not a good day.”
Robert slouched, his arms crossed, his face toward me. The light in his eyes blackened leaving behind a misty brown. I wished Kayla was here. She’d tell me what Robert’s stare meant. All I could do now was simply assume the worse- and work on averting it.
“Tell you, what, Robert,” I said, “give me your phone number and I’ll call you when I’m actually able to talk.”
“That won’t work,” Robert said quietly, “not at all.”
“Why not?”
"I don't have a cell phone, Sage doesn't have a home phone, and somebody went and dismantled the phone at the rink.”
“The rink?”
“I mean
t the construction site that was supposed to become a rink, Gabby,” Robert said., "there was a pay phone there the night of your accident but then Stephen came and dismantled it a couple days later."
I wondered how Robert could have known that if he’d hadn’t been there at night. Maybe he’d seen the phone in the morning. “When did he remove it?” I asked.
“I don’t remember the exact date,” Robert said, “I'd thought I'd come here and see you. You haven't been coming to see me since last Friday, anyway.”
“Yeah, it’s been kinda— crazy,” I said, “look, Robert, I appreciate you coming all this way over to see me, but you have to..."
“I’ll go, Gabby,” Robert said, “but you have to promise me you’ll come see me.”
“Robert.... please...”
“I got something to show you— at the construction site— I think you’d really like it.”
Part of me started to wonder if Kayla had been right to put Robert on the suspect list. He had access to the construction property, he could have been around that day (as he’d said) and now he even had a motivation- he wanted to show me something- something he wouldn’t have been able to show me if I’d been at the ski lodge.
However, compared to the other side of me that wanted to cut Robert- the judging part wasn’t so strong. Robert, after all, seemed like a decently nice child, and an honest one at that. He'd have admitted if he'd done something wrong- or would have he? "You do realize your sister’s in juvie, don’t you?”
“I know,” Robert said.
“And you’re not bothered?” I spoke without thinking. Of course, he wouldn’t have been bothered- he’d been complaining about his sister.
“Rules are rules,” Robert stated, "you shouldn't mistreat somebody you love- somebody who treats you with absolute respect.”
Still felt like I had to investigate.
Chapter 12
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “So, after you parents tied, your sister treated you with “absolute disrespect, is that right?”