Free Ruby on the Outside by Nora Raleigh Baskin

you found out?” I asked Rebecca.
    She got quiet for a bit.
    She didn’t answer me but I could tell whatever she found out wasn’t what she thought it was going to be. Let’s just say that conversation with Rebecca didn’t exactly inspire me to want to run home and do the same thing.
    At least not that day.

    But after Margalit went home, stuffed on Entenmann’s, I stay up in bed to work on my story. Our story. I touch my pencil to the paper at least five times before I realize I can’t think of anything to write or draw. Margalit and I are both supposed to write a whole new elf chapter before camp tomorrow. But I am stuck. Is this what they call writer’s block?
    I can’t even think of a name for my character.
    I have the story notebook propped up on my knees, under the covers, all cozy for the night. My teeth are brushed. The house is quiet.
    Under the green, green grass, I begin. No, not under the grass. You can’t be under grass, can you?
    Deep, in the dark, dark woods, Edgar the Elf makes his journey.
    Edgar the Elf is stupid. I don’t like that, so I erase it.
    Peter the Elf.
    Nah.
    Josh the Elf?
    Josh?
    Josh Tipps. Why is that name stuck in my head?
    Glens Falls? Why does that come into my head?
    Saratoga. Glens Falls.
    Glens Falls. Saratoga.
    Josh Tipps.
    I can’t write. My brain won’t let me think about anything else.
    I look over at my computer on my desk. It’s off for the night. Our computer teacher at school say it’s better to just leave it on, sleeping, but Matoo can’t stand leaving anything on. She unplugs the microwave when we are not using it. She even turns the router off at night, so computer waves can’t penetrate our brains while we are sleeping.
    But sometimes she forgets.
    I slip off my bed and into my desk chair. The computer hums to life when I press the power button. If the Wi-Fi is still on, the Internet availability icon will show full access. It takes a while for everything to boot up and come flying onto my screen in bits and pieces.
    The Internet is working.
    I open Safari, type my mother’s name and “Josh Tipps” into the search box, and while the little icon loops in circles I hold my breath.

Chapter Fifteen
    While they thought I was sleeping, my mother and Nick Sands drove eighteen and a half miles away to a drugstore. There is video recording the entire two-minute-and-forty-two-seconds exchange between Nick and the boy behind the pharmacy counter, so there really wasn’t much for the defense attorney to argue.
    According to the Saratoga Daily Gazette and the district attorney of Saratoga County, Nicholas Sands, age 26, and Janis Sands, age 23, walked into the CVS on Congress Street in Glens Falls, New York. They wandered the cosmetics aisle for a while. Mrs. Sands picked up some shampoo. They then proceeded to the back of the store and approached the teenager working as a clerk in the pharmacy that night. There is a heated discussion that at some point turns aggressive on the part of Mr. Sands. In the video Mrs. Sands stands somewhat behind her husband but does not appear to be in distress, nor does she appear to be participating unwillingly.
    At some point during the argument, which became increasingly more heated, Mr. Sands pulled a gun from his pocket and shot the CVS employee. He then fled the scene. Mrs. Sands is seen, in the video, climbing over the counter, where she remained on the floor beside the victim until police arrived.
    There is more.
    Nick Sands, who had several previous drug offenses, was charged with second-degree murder but was able to reduce his sentence, from life behind bars to eight to ten, by giving the district attorney information that led to the arrest of a well-known local drug dealer. Janis Sands was sentenced to twenty to twenty-five years in a maximum security prison.
    The computer screen is the only light in my room. It is like a beacon, but it does not lead me to safety.