Kraven packed the last of the March layout sheets into a broad portfolio. I fumbled to the center table and signed in, then wove a path to my locker, heaving my bookbag back inside and stowing the brown bag that contained my lunch on the upper shelf."—all the way back from Schenectady." I glanced to my left. Gale and two other girls stood near the advisor's desk in the corner, engaged in animated discussion.Gale's brunette friend started to respond, but a crash drown out whatever she meant to say. To my right, Ethan flung open his locker door, flashing an absurd grin as he tried to stay the surge of papers spilling from inside."—until after midnight," Gale told her friends. "With all the paperwork, he sat in that cell for five hours.""It's an atrocity," the brunette announced. I laughed, and Ethan grinned to himself as he shoved pages back into his locker. Gale glared at me from between her friends.I nodded, told them, "Nelson Mandela disagrees."The brunette looked thoroughly confused, but the shorter blonde had caught a full dose of Gale's outrage. "They're just targeting Roy because his dad criticizes the Police Chief." She glanced quickly to Gale, who nodded her encouragement. The blonde added: "it's politics.""I don't want to close the polls early," I said, "but that may be the dumbest fucking thing I hear today.""What do you call it," Gale demanded, "when a kid's just waiting in a school parking lot to pick up a couple of friends, and a police car just happens to show up, and he just happens to get dragged in on a trumped-up vandalism charge that is completely—""This all happened last night?" I interrupted."Yes," Gale said, exasperated. I laughed."That was Roy McCleary doing laps in a Beamer?"The brunette looked confused again.
