Juvie by Steve Watkins Page A

arm. “Sorry I kind of went off on you. It’s just really, really hard in here, and I know those Jelly Sisters are out to get me. I don’t even know why. They just are. They think they own the place, and I guess I don’t exactly like doing stuff just because somebody tells me I have to. We get enough of that from the guards, right?”
    “Yeah,” I say cautiously. “I guess so.”
    Bad Gina’s large friend comes back from the restroom then and sits where Bad Gina was sitting earlier.
    Bad Gina doesn’t turn to look, just cocks her head in her friend’s direction. “This is Weeze,” she said. “Her real name is Louise, but everybody calls her Weeze.”
    Weeze grins. “Just since I’ve been in here,” she says. Her teeth are the polar opposite of Bad Gina’s: crooked and stained. She has a broad nose that lists to one side of her face. I can’t see much of her eyes because she has a bowl cut and her bangs are too long.
    Mr. Pettigrew stands up suddenly from his desk, as if he’s just remembered something important.
    “Time,” he says.
    And that’s the end of class.
    The Jelly Sisters glare at me from their end of the table as we pass up our notebooks and fat markers.
    “Watch out for them,” Bad Gina whispers. “Looks like you’re on their shit list now, too.”
    And that’s pretty much how it goes for the next couple of days: boring classes, boring TV, boring meals in Styrofoam boxes, boring interminable nights in our green-walled cells with Cell Seven sobbing until everybody wants to kill her — until, just as suddenly as she starts, she stops.
    Every night is a dark night of the soul, every morning a nervous awakening to this palpable tension between the Jelly Sisters and Bad Gina. The rest of us try to stay out of it, but that’s hard, especially for me, since Bad Gina seems to have decided we’re pals, and seeks me out so often to talk that I can tell Weeze is jealous, and so now I probably have to worry about her, too.
    I decide it’s a bad idea to tell anybody too much of the truth about why I’m in — or about anything else — so when Bad Gina asks, I tell her I stole a car and shot my boyfriend. Bad Gina looks over at Good Gina and Chantrelle, then back at me.
    “In the hand, right?” she asks sarcastically. “Like her?”
    I shake my head. “I wish. It was just in the foot, though. I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”
    She knows I’m lying, but I guess it’s a good enough lie, or a dumb enough lie, that she decides to let it go for now.
    Officer Killduff and Officer Miller march us down to the gymnasium after classes on Thursday. Officer Killduff has been on me since Tuesday if I so much as think about an infraction of any of the juvie rules, and there seem to be rules for everything. C. Miller is a lot nicer, not that we actually talk or anything, but it’s obvious that she’s just trying to do her job and treat us like we’re actual human beings, which is a lot more than I can say for Officer Killduff or any of the other guards I’ve seen so far.
    There’s a full basketball court in the gym, the ceiling so low that the rafters seem to barely clear the top of the backboards. A row of chairs is set up at the center line facing an open half-court, while various bins and equipment bags and torn, duct-taped tumbling mats litter the other half behind the chairs.
    Officer Killduff grabs a couple of basketballs from a sack and tosses them to the open side of the court — the first time that’s happened. I scoop one up, happy for the first time all week, and launch a three-pointer. It has too much arc and nearly hits the rafters, then clangs off the rim. I have to chase the ball myself because the other girls mostly just stand around, waiting for orders or something. Chantrelle follows me over after a few minutes and takes a couple of weak shots that barely graze the backboard, then she and Good Gina break into a slow jog around the perimeter of the gym, in anticipation of what