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  No one was saying anything, so Marvin started in again.

  “Your Honor, Rachel’s parents are sorry they couldn’t be here today, but circumstances prevented it. They would like me to assure the court that they believe Rachel is basically a good kid. You know how teenagers can be, a little high-strung, and maybe things have gotten a little out of hand. But—”

  Judge Interrupter struck again.

  “Counselor, I’ve heard every excuse you can imagine. Rachel has been on a downward spiral toward serious trouble for months, and obviously her parents haven’t done anything about it.” I would have enjoyed this if the judge hadn’t been talking about me. I wished Charles and Cynthia had been there to hear it.

  The judge turned back to me.

  “I think a stint in Juvenile Detention might be the wake-up call you need.”

  She raised her gavel. “Thirty days—”

  Marvin started to stand up and say something, but I beat him to it. I hadn’t spent all that time in my room watching Law & Order reruns for nothing.

  “I object!” I shouted.

  Everyone went quiet and stared at me.

  The judge peered down from the bench with one eyebrow cocked.

  “You object?” she said.

  I had also read that you only got to take showers every other day in Juvie. I’m a stickler for good personal hygiene.

  “Yes, I object,” I said. Uh-oh. Better think of something quick. In my head I ran through every courtroom and lawyer movie and TV show I could think of. What would that cute guy on The Practice do now?

  “On what grounds?” the judge asked. The courtroom was completely quiet. The judge looked like she was waiting for my next move.

  “I object because…because…you can’t handle the truth!” Yeah, Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. That should work. I had just seen it on cable the week before.

  The judge sort of smirked again.

  “I’ve seen that movie too, Ms. Buchanan, but I’ll humor you. What exactly is the truth that I can’t handle?”

  Dang it. Now I had to do more thinking. This was not a good day.

  “The truth is this is a gross injustice. The punishment you’re suggesting is way out of proportion to the alleged crime. Not to mention the fact that I’m clearly not receiving competent representation here. I mean, have you listened to his voice? It’s a wonder the entire courtroom isn’t asleep. Besides that, Marvin doesn’t know anything about Juvenile law—not that he needs to know anything, because I didn’t break any laws. Furthermore, as I’m sure you’re aware, there is a constitutional amendment against cruel and unusual punishment, and sending me to the Juvenile Center would certainly qualify as such.” And that was definitely the truth, because I’d read in the article that you were also denied Internet access, and if that isn’t “cruel and unusual,” I don’t know what is. Might as well just shoot me in the head.

  I held my breath. Marvin was giving me dirty looks, obviously upset with my crack about his lull-you-to-sleep voice.

  “Are you quite finished?” the judge asked.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “All right. I’ll make you a deal, Ms. Buchanan. If you’ll tell me right now who was with you when the car was stolen, I’ll reduce your charge from a felony to a misdemeanor. Then you won’t go to juvenile detention. The clock is ticking, Ms. Buchanan.”

  That’s her idea of a deal?

  I couldn’t think clearly. She said I wasn’t giving her a choice? This just wasn’t an option for me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Excuse me?” said the judge.

  “I said no. I’m not telling you anything about who I was with that night. I didn’t take the car and I didn’t resist arrest or any of that other stuff you’re trying to pin on me. But I’m not naming names. I won’t sell out my friends just because you think you can boss me around.” There, that ought to teach her.

  “Rachel, perhaps—” Marvin started to speak. But I gave him my best glare and he shut up.

  “Let me get this straight,” the judge said. “Your so-called friends,”—and she made that little “air quote” marks motion when she said it; I hate it when people do that—“the ones who actually stole the car, drove the car onto a lawn, and then left you facing arrest…these are the people you’re protecting?”

  “That’s right. I guess you’ll just have to send me to Juvie. But friends are friends, and I’m not pointing the finger at them to save myself. You probably wouldn’t understand that, since I doubt someone as mean as you has any friends. I don’t think it’ll do any good to send me to Juvie, but if you have to, I guess you have to send me.”

  I hoped the outfits in Juvie wouldn’t clash too horribly with my complexion.

  Marvin took a huge breath and threw his head in his hands, muttering, “Oh my God” under his breath.

  For a moment I thought the judge almost smiled, but from what I’d seen of her personality so far, that seemed unlikely. And then she got an almost evil glint in her eye and I wondered if I’d pushed it too far with that crack about her not having any friends. She didn’t say anything else for a really long time. She just sat there staring at me like she knew something about me but couldn’t quite place it. Then she finally spoke.

  “All right, Ms. Buchanan. Frankly, I think you’re being stupid. I do admire loyalty, even misguided loyalty. However, you’ve committed a crime and I have an obligation to the people to protect their lives and property. And I won’t even mention your deplorable behavior in my courtroom. So I can’t simply let you off the hook, but there is an alternative option.” She kept staring at me. It was giving me the creeps.

  “Anything. I’ll agree to anything.” The plain truth of it is, I felt like I was inches away from being sent to the slammer, and the very thought terrified me. I don’t like admitting to myself that I’m scared of anything, but right then I was more scared than I’d ever been.

  The judge steepled her fingers.

  Somehow I sensed a smart remark wouldn’t be so smart.

  “Your Honor,” I remembered to add at the last minute.

  “I’ll be frank with you, Rachel,” she said. First time she called me Rachel. I felt us growing closer. “I don’t want to send you to Juvenile Detention. I think you’d survive it fine, but I don’t think it would do any good.” Me? Survive Juvie? Who was she kidding? I’d be dead in an hour.

  “So this is the alternative.” Oh boy, here it comes, I thought. I saw myself in one of those really tacky orange jumpsuits, picking up trash along the Santa Monica Freeway, part of a rebellious, yet quietly heroic, teenage chain gang.

  “I’m listening,” I said. She cocked her head and looked like she was about to come down on me again, so I hastily added “Your Honor.” Dang, I kept forgetting that.

  “I’m on the board of directors of a boarding school in eastern Pennsylvania, near Washington, D.C. It is a school for students of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds. Many come there for the excellent education. But many of them are like you, Ms. Buchanan: troubled, on the wrong side of the law. Some are orphans, some are unwanted by their parents, others are there for a variety of other reasons. The school helps turn them around.

  “So this is my deal,” she went on. “You will attend this school for a minimum of one year. Complete the year and you’ll have all the charges dropped from your record. You’ll be free to come home or stay at the school. It will be totally up to you. But leave the school before the year is up, get kicked out or in trouble in any way, and it’s right back to California and the William G. Wilson Hall for Juvenile Delinquents.”

  I couldn’t believe this! She wanted to send me to some weirdo school in Pennsyl-freakin’-vania? With a bunch of creeps and nutcases from all over the place? No way. Me and my big mouth. Why can’t I ever just shut up? Instead of thirty days in the slammer, she now wanted to send me away for a whole year? What kind of idiot did she think I was? Juvie had to be better than this�
�or maybe not, but at least it was only a month, assuming I lived that long.

  Plus, I’d have to leave Beverly Hills and all my friends. I am such a California person. Were there malls in Pennsylvania? I didn’t think I could even spell Pennsylvania. I was about to say something, but Marvin beat me to the punch.

  “Your Honor, this is highly irregular…the sentencing guidelines…”

  It was becoming clear that Judge Kerrigan had little patience for ol’ Marv—about the only thing we had in common.

  “Counselor. I’m guessing you haven’t been in a courtroom in twenty years.” Hah! She had that right. As far as I could tell, Marvin pretty much stayed within three feet of Charles most of the time, and I’d had to give him directions to the courthouse on the way over here! “I’ll bet you’ve never been in a juvenile court in your life. So I don’t think you really want to debate the finer points of juvenile law with me, do you?”

  Marvin got that I’ve just been slapped look on his face again, then took his cell phone off his belt and asked the judge if he could call my dad. She nodded.

  I decided the only thing that would work now was out-and-out defiance.

  “I’m not going to some lame school in Pennsylvania. I’ll do my time in Juvie instead.”

  “She’ll go.” Marvin, taking a stand at last. Except—what?

  “What!” I said.

  “You heard me. I’ve just spoken to your father. He thinks it’s an excellent idea, and tells me to instruct you to stop arguing with the judge and make the arrangements.”

  “I’m not going.”

  Marvin shrugged and held out the cell phone like he was daring me to hear it for myself.

  This day just kept getting worse. I had figured we’d breeze in, let Marvin schmooze the judge, get a few extra months tacked onto the probation, and be home before lunch. Now I had to make Sophie’s Choice. How much does that suck?

  I looked at the judge, and there was definitely a trace of a self-satisfied smile on her face. I’d been had. I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

  “Listen, Rachel,” she said. “I know that this school can help. It will change you. For the better. You might even find whatever it is you feel is missing in your life, that is causing you to act like such an idiot.”

  I resented that. “I’m not an idiot,” I protested.

  “I didn’t say you were an idiot. I said you were acting like one.”

  Oh, that judge.

  “So. What’s it going to be, Rachel? Jail or a second chance?”

  I felt totally alone. No parents. No friends. Marvin was useless.

  “Okay. I’ll go. I’ll go to the stupid school.” From everything I’d read and heard, Juvie was not a fit for Rachel Buchanan. Besides, a nugget of a plan was starting to form in my head. Maybe I could get out of this somehow, but not if I was in the slammer. It would have to be easier to escape this mess from a boarding school than a prison. Even if the school was in Pennsyl-freakin’-vania.

  Still, it felt like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla was sitting on my chest.

  “Excellent,” the judge said. She looked at Marvin. “Counselor, let’s begin the paperwork. Rachel will have one week to say good-bye to her friends and travel to Pennsylvania. She will report to Mr. Jonathon Kim, the headmaster of the school. He will compile and send quarterly reports on her progress and behavior to this court and her parents.” She dismissed Marvin with a wave.

  We stood up from our chairs and started toward the door of the courtroom. Marvin put his hand out as if to shepherd me to the door. I turned back to the judge.

  “Your Honor, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “How do you know this is such a great deal for me? You said you were on the board of this school. But what is that, a couple of meetings a couple times a year? You seem so sure it can turn my life around. But how do you know? What is so special about this particular school?”

  This time the judge actually smiled. Clearly, for at least three-tenths of a second, her lips moved in an upward direction. And I think she even made a chuckling sound. But I wasn’t sure, because it could easily have been a witch’s cackle. Or the death rattle of some primitive beast that lived in a cave and came out only at night to feast on human flesh.

  She opened her desk drawer, pulled out a brochure, and handed it to me. On the cover of the brochure were the words “Blackthorn Academy” in large white type, plus a picture of what looked like a giant wedge of stainless-steel cheese cut into the side of a mountain and surrounded by about five million trees.

  The judge got a really mysterious look on her face.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Welcome to Blackthorn Academy

  So in seven short days I was gone from Beverly Hills and all of my friends. I couldn’t believe how fast it happened.

  I don’t really remember much about leaving the courtroom or the ride home. That night I called Jamie, and she couldn’t believe it when I told her. The next day at school, word had spread like wildfire. Rachel Buchanan, of the Beverly Hills Buchanans, was being sent up the river. Even if the river was really a “special school.”

  When Boozer heard the news, he said he was sorry, which was cool, and that he wanted to throw me a big going-away bash, which was sweet, except that knowing Boozer, the going-away bash would probably involve large crowds, numerous illegal substances, and quite possibly the Los Angeles Lakers cheerleaders. That would be all I needed, to get busted at a rave right before leaving for my jail sentence…I mean, my jail/school sentence.

  It seemed as if I spent the week walking through gauze or looking at myself in a fun-house mirror that wasn’t quite reflecting right. By the end of the week, I was freaking out. I didn’t want to go. Even though Charles and Cynthia were no great shakes as parents, this was still home. It was a place to sleep and food to eat and clean clothes whenever the maid did the laundry. I briefly thought about running away. But Charles would just hire a million private eyes to track me down and I’d end up in Juvie anyway.

  Marvin drove me to the airport. Cynthia stayed home because she didn’t think she could handle it (big surprise), and God knows you’d never want to make a scene in public. Charles, of course, had to be out of town for a “deal.” In any case, Judge Kerrigan had made it painfully clear to Marvin that she was holding him personally responsible for me getting on that plane. And if she found out I didn’t get on it, there would be “hell to pay.” Marvin fell all over himself assuring the judge that he’d take care of it.

  So Marvin got me on the plane and wished me well and that was that. Good-bye, Beverly Hills.

  The flight took four and a half hours. When the plane landed in Philadelphia, there was a woman named Mrs. Marquardt waiting for me. She informed me that she was Mr. Jonathon Kim’s assistant and that she would be driving me to Blackthorn Academy. She signed some papers from an airline guy to prove that I’d arrived safely, helped me claim my luggage, and then hustled us out the terminal door to the parking garage.

  During the drive from the airport, Mrs. Marquardt said not a word. About fifteen minutes into the trip, I asked her if she was always so talkative. She just kind of grimaced and made a weird chuckling sound but didn’t say anything. So the rest of the trip passed in silence.

  The landscape south of the Philadelphia airport started to get hilly. Since it was autumn all the trees were turning color, and if you liked that sort of thing it was almost pretty. A little too Amish maybe. But pretty.

  A half hour after we left the airport we exited the interstate onto a series of back roads, and fifteen minutes later we pulled through the gates of Blackthorn Academy. Home sweet home.

  There was a long drive that went past a little guardhouse, where the guard just waved us through. The car pulled up in front of the building featured on the judge’s brochure. It was quite possibly the largest structure I’ve ever seen. The exterior was made entirely of s
tainless steel. It was triangular in shape and it looked like one side of the triangle cut back into the side of the mountain. On the side opposite the mountain were a bunch of athletic fields and then a fence with a wooded area beyond that. All of the windows that I could see seemed to be tinted, so you couldn’t see inside. I’d have to say that my first impression was that it looked a little creepy. Like the setting for one of those teenage horror slasher movies that come out every summer. The fact that the windows were darkened seemed especially unnerving, and I felt like maybe there were people watching me who didn’t want to be seen.

  Then again, I have a very active imagination and I always think that I’m the center of the universe, so of course I would think that.

  Chatty Mrs. Marquardt instructed me to leave my luggage in the car, and to follow her because Mr. Kim the headmaster was expecting me. Like the building, Mrs. Marquardt also gave me the creeps, with her not talking, the choppy little sentences, and the bossing me around like I was a French poodle. There was something out of whack about her.

  But I didn’t have much choice, so I followed her through the main door and into a really elaborate and ornate atrium. The space was five stories high, and you could see rooms and hallways leading away from the atrium on the levels above. It was sort of majestic in a way, but also quite empty and a little spooky at the same time. Where were all the juvenile delinquents like me? This had to be the quietest school ever.

  “If this is a school, where is everyone?” I asked.

  “Class,” said the verbose Mrs. Marquardt. “Come.”

  She marched us across the atrium, through a door at the rear, and down a hallway. We passed dozens of closed doors that looked like classrooms, but saw no one. Again, creeping me out.

  Soon we came to an oak door with a gold nameplate on it that said “JONATHON KIM, Headmaster.” Mrs. Marquardt knocked, and a cheery voice answered, “Come in.”

  It all came down to this. I was going to meet my babysitter. My parole officer and warden. The Keeper of Rachel Buchanan. Somehow I’d have to figure out a way to schmooze this guy for the next several months so that I could get out of here. Mrs. Marquardt ushered me through and then left, closing the door behind her. I was three seconds away from meeting the person who would change my life forever.