Vicious Rebel (82 Street Vandals #2) - Heather Long Page 0,51

them out from where I’d hidden them.

Ms. Stephanie never took away from me what I’d rightfully collected. At her little sigh, I stole a peek at her. She rubbed at the corner of her eyes. Ms. Stephanie was a pretty lady, with dark hair and eyes. She had a pretty smile. But she always seemed tired.

I was probably the reason she was tired.

Mommy said it was always my fault she couldn’t sleep. Then Dad put her to sleep forever, and they put Dad in jail. The crayon snapped in my fingers, and I glared at it. Then tossed it in the trash can in the corner. Plink. Plink. Both pieces landed.

I picked up a new black crayon and went to work on the outfits again. Stupid coloring assignment.

“Jasper,” Ms. Stephanie said again. “Do you mind if I color with you?”

“Only if you use the black and gray.” If she tried to put that green or blue on here, I’d… Well, I couldn’t hit her like I had that other boy, but I’d tear up the page. That would be fair.

“Is that what prompted the fight?” She picked up the gray crayon and studied what I was doing before she began to shade in the cloud. That was perfect. It had been a dark and rainy day. The clouds had been getting grayer and grayer until they were almost black all day long.

“I guess.” I shrugged.

“You guess, or you know?”

I stole another look at her and saw she wasn’t focused on me but on the page. “I guess. I get into fights for lots of reasons. Most of the time, what the other kids say isn’t why I did it.”

She nodded, then traded her gray out for another black once all the clouds were done. I’d almost gotten all the people into black clothes, but one of the guys had an umbrella and she colored it black too. We sat like that for the next hour, coloring the page, adding touches of black and gray to the trees, until it was all done.

When we finished, she studied the picture with her chin propped in her hand. A knock on the door made me sigh, and I lined the crayons back up. Ms. Stephanie murmured, “We need to go now. The detectives have some questions.”

“They always have questions.”

“I know,” she said softly, then hesitated, but when she ran her hand over my hair, some of the tension leached out of me. “I know all this is hard, sweetheart. But they really do need your answers, then I’ll take you for ice cream after. I have another boy I have to pick up today. Would you like to meet him?”

I eyed her. “Why?”

Instead of scolding me, she chuckled. “Because he’s almost as suspicious as you are, and he’s new to the system. I thought maybe you could give him some pointers.”

Right.

I shrugged. “I don’t care.”

With care, she took the coloring page out of the book for me, and when she offered it to me, I shook my head. Nodding once, she slipped it into her bag.

“All right.” When she stood and held out her hand, I didn’t take it right away. I liked Ms. Stephanie, but that didn’t mean I wanted to lean on her. The last six months had proved everyone was transient in my life. Everyone who mattered left.

I didn’t want her to matter.

Then she wouldn’t leave.

Or if she did, it wouldn’t hurt.

No one stopped us leaving the school. No one questioned her or why she checked me out. In the car, she put me in the backseat and then tried to find out what my favorite music was, but I didn’t care.

At the police station, I went into the room with the colorful walls and all the toys. The cops came in, and like Ms. Stephanie, they sat on the floor or on the little chairs like it made them one of us.

The questions started, all over again.

“When did your dad get home?”

“What did you and your mom do that day?”

“What did they fight about?”

“Did your dad ever hit you?”

“What about your mom?”

Every detail, and I answered the questions all the same. But I didn’t look at them or Ms. Stephanie. I focused on the bird picture across the room. I wanted to be that bird. I wanted to fly away from here.

But I told them that Mommy took me to the zoo for my birthday. We’d looked at all the animals. She bought me popcorn. I got to feed