I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader (25 page)

“I’m in a jail cell! A jail cell! I can’t be in a jail cell!” Mindy babbled, pacing back and forth in front of me and Daniel.

“Mindy, just try to calm down,” I said in a soothing voice. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No! No, it’s not!” Mindy shouted, her eyes wide. “My father is going to kill me! He’s going to send me to boarding school. I’m never going to see civilization again!”

“Oh, would you just shut up?” Lumberjack Bob said from across the cell. He’d been banging his head back against the whitewashed wall for about an hour.

“You shut up!” Mindy shouted, surprising us all. She reeled on him and got right in his face. “This is all your fault! It’s
your
fault I’m in a jail cell!”

Damn. Go on with your bad self
, I thought. Mindy yelling at Bobby was like the island of Bermuda launching an assault on Washington. It just wasn’t done.

“She has a point,” Tara said. Her arms and legs were crossed tightly and it was the first time she’d spoken since we got there.

“Oh, so this is
my
fault?” Bobby said, turning on her.

“It was your stupid idea!” Tara shouted.

“I didn’t see you arguing against it!”

“Yes, I did! I said we should wait! I said it would be too obvious if we did it today!”

“You guys! The cops can hear you!” Felice whisper-shouted, her eyes darting toward the front of the cell. “They can use anything we say against us!”

“Hey! We were all there! We’re all at fault!” Whitney said, ignoring her.

“Nuh-uh!” Sage protested. “You guys didn’t tell the rest of us what we were there
for!
We were involuntary accomplices. We shouldn’t even be here!”

“Give me a break, Sage, I know you were listening on the steps,” Whitney said, leaning back. “You knew exactly what we were doing.”

“I was not!” Sage said, her mouth dropping open indignantly.

“Please, you so were,” Daniel scoffed. “You sit on those stairs and listen in on Whitney twenty-four/seven.”

Sage turned purple. “How could you . . . you know that’s a secret!”

“Not anymore,” Whitney said with a laugh.

“Oh, so what—now that we’re broken up, we get to tell everyone all our secrets?” Sage said, sauntering over to us. “What if I told everyone about your cheesy-ass songwriting hobby?”

“My songs aren’t cheesy,” Daniel said flatly.

“Oh, please,” Sage said, looking down her nose at him. “‘Thorns of Love’? How is that not cheesy?”

Makes sense if he was with you when he wrote it
, I thought.

A couple of the guys laughed and Daniel reddened.

“Tryin’ to be the next Justin Timberlake, yo?” Bobby asked.

“It’s not idiot pop songs,” Daniel said. “It’s music. No lyrics.”

“Yeah, music with lame titles,” Sage said.

Daniel pressed his hands into the bench at his sides and looked Sage right in the eye. I could feel his tension.

“Are you sure you want to keep going down this road?” he asked pointedly. “’Cause I really don’t think you do.”

Everyone in the cell held their breath. It was obvious that Daniel had something even worse on Sage than her cheesy-songs dig, and we were all pretty much salivating to know what it was. Sage and Daniel had a stare-off for what felt like an hour before she finally turned away, flounced over to the bench across from us and sat down.

“I have a proposition,” Felice said. “How about we don’t talk until our parents get here?”

Unfortunately, my parents were in Las Vegas. I didn’t tell anyone this, but I wasn’t sure I was ever getting out of there. Gabe wasn’t home when I left and no one else had the number of my parents’ hotel. If Phoebe was still there, she might be able to find it in the kitchen, but she didn’t even know my parents were away. This cell could very well be my new home.

Tara and Bobby scowled at each other, then turned their backs on one another. Mindy sat down next to me and put her head on my shoulder. Sage scowled across the cell at her as if touching me was the ultimate betrayal. I looked at Daniel and we both sighed. It was going to be a long night.

“
Where is she? Where’s my sister?
”

“
Gabe! Over here!
”

I woke up with a sharp pain to the temple. A fluorescent light hovered overhead and my back felt like it had been cracked in ten places. I lifted my head, which was resting on a bunched-up varsity jacket. I blinked at it. The name
DANIEL
stared up at me in gold lettering on the breast. He’d left me his jacket as a pillow.

“Annisa! Are you okay?”

I sat all the way up and winced in pain. The cell was empty and I had fallen asleep. How the hell had I fallen asleep in this place?

I blinked a few times and saw Gabe and Phoebe standing at the bars at the front of the cell, staring in at me like I was a monkey at the zoo. Gabe and Phoebe. In my half-asleep state it took me a second to process how that had happened. Then relief washed through me. I was saved!

“Hey, guys,” I said, standing up. “Are you getting me out?”

“They won’t let me ’Cause I’m not your guardian,” Gabe said, clutching the bars. So much for the relief. He looked around, then lowered his voice. “Annisa, what the hell did you do?”

“Nothing!” I said, walking over to them. “The seniors took us over to West Wind and I knew we were doing a prank, but they never told us what. I swear, Gabe, I had no idea.”

“Not surprising,” Phoebe said. “No one ever told us what was going on when
we
were sophomores.”

“I think that’s one tradition we need to do away with,” I said, leaning my head against the bars. “Mom and Dad are gonna kill me.”

“Yeah, they’re not happy campers,” Gabe said.

My heart thumped. My parents weren’t technically due back until Monday. “Are they coming home early?”

“Yeah. They’re somewhere over Texas right about now,” he replied, checking his watch. Then he smiled. “I gotta say,
of the two of us, I never thought you’d be the first one to end up behind bars.”

I laughed bitterly. “No kidding.”

“Annisa, thank you so much for leaving me behind,” Phoebe said. “I don’t think my parents could handle bailing me out of jail on top of everything else.”

“No problem,” I said, noticing for the first time that she had some color back in her face and was looking a lot less miserable. “I’m glad one member of the squad is record-free. Maybe you can compete solo at regionals.”

“Do you think they’re gonna keep us out of it?” she asked.

“How could they not?” I said sadly. “But whatever. I’m just glad you were at my house to get the call.”

“Yeah, imagine my surprise when I came home to find this beautiful girl waiting for me to tell me that my sister has been picked up by the cops,” Gabe said, smiling at Phoebe. I noticed for the first time that he had dropped the surfer-speak. Maybe he forgot it in all the drama.

“Please,” Phoebe said, flushing. “I look like death.”

“Then death is looking good these days,” Gabe said.

“Okay, I don’t need nausea on top of everything else,” I told them.

“Come on, kids.” The officer who had blinded me earlier came into the holding area. “You’ve been in here long enough.”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “We’ll be right outside,” he told me. He reached through the bars and ruffled my hair like he always did when we were little. “Don’t worry. Mom and Dad will be here in a few hours.”

Phoebe lifted her hand in a wave and she and Gabe followed the officer out.
Mom and Dad will be here in a few hours . . . to ground me for life
, I thought.
Yeah, that’s comforting.

I walked over to the bench and picked up Daniel’s jacket.
He must have put it under my head when I was already sleeping. Just the thought of him carefully lifting my face and slipping it under there . . . 
sigh.
It was so perfect, I was sorry I’d missed it.

I unfolded the jacket and slipped my arms into it, savoring the warmth. I wished there was a mirror in the cell so I could see how I looked in it, but no such luck. In the pockets I found one stick of gum—cinnamon—a folded-up five-dollar bill, a Blockbuster card and a guitar pick.

It was so cool. Like a secret little tour of his life. I sat back on the bench to daydream. Maybe Daniel could keep me company for a little while. . . .

My mother hugged me so tightly when I stepped out of the cell, I thought she was going to crush me. She looked perfect, as always; the only evidence of her worry and the redeye flight was a conspicuous lack of blush. When I pulled back from her, she placed her hands on either side of my face, looked me in the eye and shook her head.

“Mom, I didn’t do anything. I swear,” I said.

“Isn’t that what everyone says in this situation?” she asked.

“Yeah, but this time it’s true,” I said, half pleading. “Come on, Mom. I wouldn’t do something like this.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I probably shouldn’t believe you, kiddo, but I do.”

My entire body uncoiled. As long as my parents were on my side, I was fine.

“Who’s Daniel?” she asked, her brow creasing as she looked down at his jacket.

I smiled. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

She wrapped her arm around me and walked me out to
the waiting room, where my dad was signing something at the front desk. Gabe and Phoebe rushed over the second they saw me. Phoebe hugged me almost as hard as my mom had.

“You’re sprung!” Gabe said, knocking me on the shoulder.

“What’s going on over there?” I asked as my mom joined my father.

Phoebe and Gabe pulled me into a little huddle and lowered their voices. “It sounds like West Wind isn’t pressing charges,” Phoebe said. “Something about the scare of being thrown in jail being enough punishment.”

“Please. Like a little jail time is gonna scare
my
sister,” Gabe said, grinning.

“Shut up!” I said. “My juvenile delinquency phase is officially over.”

“Annisa.”

My heart twisted at the strained tone of my father’s voice. I turned around and he landed a perfunctory kiss on my forehead. I could tell he was really mad.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, Dad. I’m fine,” I said.

“Good. Then let’s go.”

My heart was pounding as we headed in a group toward the door, wondering what was going to happen when they got me home. A lot of explaining, definitely. A grounding, probably. This was so unfair. I’d already spent a good eight hours behind bars and I hadn’t even done anything. Well, except that I left the house when I knew I should have stayed right where I was. Lesson learned.

“Oh, and Mr. Gobrowski?” the officer behind the desk said.

We all paused and turned around. “Yes?” my father said.

The middle-aged man smirked and knocked his pen against the counter, looking at Gabe. “Sorry, I meant the younger Mr. Gobrowski,” he said. “I assume you’ll be paying that fine by the end of the week.”

We all turned to Gabe, who had a sort of kill-me-now look on his face.

“Fine?” my mother said. “What fine?”

“I was going to tell you about this later,” Gabe said.

“Tell us about what?” my father asked, his voice shaking.

“Hey! It’s just a ticket!” Gabe said. “Annisa’s the felon!”

“Hey!” I said, whacking him with the back of my hand.

“Gabriel,” my father said. “
What . . . fine?
”

My father never called my brother “Gabriel.” It rendered my brother speechless.

“I’m afraid your son was issued a ticket on Friday night for noise violation,” the officer supplied helpfully.

What!?
I thought. Gabe’s party had been shut down by the cops? How did I not know this?

“Noise violation?” my mother said.

“He threw quite a party,” the officer said with a grin. “From what I understand, kids are going to be talking about it for years.”

His job done, he turned and walked back into the offices, leaving my little family unit (plus Phoebe) in agonizing silence.

“Gabe!
Again!?
” my mother asked, disappointment all over her face.

“In the car,” my father added. “Now.”

Gabe and I exchanged a look of doom as we led our parents out the doors. We were totally done for.