Free Hit and Run by Norah McClintock Page A

house.
    â€œMom’s home,” she said. “She’s heard the whole story.”
    I wanted to ask how she had heard, but figured the message had probably been passed through the mom network and not through Jen. Jen never mentioned me to her parents—out of sight, out of mind.
    â€œIt was stupid,” I said. “I don’t even know why I did it.”
    Jen’s green eyes widened in surprise.
    â€œYou mean, it’s
true
?” she said. It took a moment for her astonishment to sink in. Jen had thought I was innocent. Maybe she’d even argued the point with her mother. And now here I was telling her the opposite. “You really stole from that truck?”
    I had been embarrassed when the two cops took me out of the school and I saw kids watching at the windows. I felt stupid when Billy showed up, all mad because he had to take time off work on my account. But now I was ashamed of myself. I knew Jen spent a lot of time trying to convince her parents that I was okay. I could imagine her doing the innocent-until-proven-guilty thing with them at the dinner table last night. So I told her that Ihad tossed my box a block from the truck.
    â€œYou shouldn’t have taken it in the first place,” she said. She looked and sounded exactly like her mother. But she was right, that was the thing. I didn’t argue with her. I agreed with her. She liked that.
    â€œSo, what’s going to happen?” she said. She started walking slowly and waited for me to fall into step beside her.
    I told her about my court date and about what Billy had said. I didn’t tell her how it had all started—how Vin and Sal had just been trying to cheer me up about good old Patrick. I didn’t tell her, either, that Vin and Sal had been in on it with me and that I had refused to give them up. I didn’t think she’d find that as admirable as Billy had.
    I spotted Vin almost as soon as I got to school. He was at one end of the parking lot, leaning against a lamppost. He must have been looking for me, because he immediately shoved himself off the post and started toward me. When Jen saw him coming, she said, “See you later.” Her voice wasn’t exactly ringing with anticipation, and I started to think about Patrick again. I don’t know what she had thought of him on Saturday night when she’d been entertaining him, but I’d have bet a month’s wages that he was looking pretty good to her right now. I bet he’d never done anything as stupid as getting arrested for stealing cupcakes. Bet he never would, either.
    Vin came up to me, but he didn’t talk to me. He didn’t even stop walking when he got close. Instead he acted like a spy or an undercover cop. He walked rightby me, and as he passed I heard him say, “Backstage after homeroom.”
    I didn’t ask what the matter was. I didn’t have to. After ten years, Vin’s paranoid mind was no mystery to me. I figured he was afraid the cops were watching, which didn’t make much sense to me. Sure, the bakery company was going to press charges, but we had stolen pastries, not money or audio equipment. Still, maybe if Vin was the one who had been nailed and I was the one who was worried about what the cops thought or what they had found out, I would have acted the same way. So I didn’t talk back to him. Didn’t even look at him. I just met him backstage like he asked.
    The place was deserted. The auditorium is used for public meetings, concerts, the annual school play, and assemblies. The rest of the time, it fills up with dust.
    â€œWhat’d you tell them?” Vin asked after he checked to make sure there was no one around. He didn’t ask me how it had gone or what had happened. He didn’t even ask what the cops were going to do to me.
    â€œNothing,” I said.
    â€œHow come they knew to arrest you?”
    â€œSomeone saw me. Whoever it was knew my name, where I