I’m sure that’s why he’s picking me up from school today. When your parents break up, you get double the punishment for getting in trouble. He must have spent the whole weekend thinking up serious consequences for Creeper’s shattered window, because the office secretary didn’t tell me he was coming until ten minutes before school got out. His car sits idling at the end of a long line behind the buses while I wait in a crowd on the sidewalk in front of the school. I imagine Justine in our bus seat, alone, waiting for Mrs. Storm to pull away. It’s only been a couple days since she wrote me that note, but I don’t think she’s ever going to speak to me again. Rightfully so, I guess. Finally the bus engines rev. They leave, and the cars move forward. Dad stares out the windshield as I get in and slam the door. We don’t say hello. He looks over his shoulder and cuts left around the car stopped in front of us. He makes a quick right out of the parking lot and a quick left into the curving roads and empty softball fields and playgrounds of Sharp Park.
