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changed his behavior in the slightest. Which was why they'd decided against it this time.
    "Four weeks," the judge repeated firmly. "From three p.m. to five, Ms. Gross's office. Be there, James. Or I'll up it to six weeks."
    SU
    James kicked the chair he'd been sitting in, punched Ralph's arm angrily, and called Maggie names she had only heard in movies, but Susan, the judge, never gave an inch. She finally put an end to James's tantrum by banging her gavel on the desk and adding a hefty fine to the detention.
    "Hey, that ain't fair!" James's blonde girlfriend shouted. "You already gave him detention, you can't fine him, too!"
    "Sure I can," Susan answered, standing up. "I just did. Pay the bailiff, James."
    The "bailiff," a thin, pale girl named Wendy, went even paler at the idea of being approached by the volatile defendant, but she needn't have worried. James threw the money at Ralph and ordered him to pay, then stalked out, dragging his girlfriend along with him. When he reached the doorway, he turned and snarled over his shoulder, "You all think you're so hot! You sit there in them chairs like you're something special. This ain't a real court. You're just pretendin', like brat kids playin' grown-up. I lose my job over this, you all better watch out, that's all I've got to say."
    When James had gone, Thomas Whittier turned to Maggie and surprised her by asking, "You really think that's all he's got to say?"
    "No way. I think James Keith has plenty to say, and I think we should take him seriously. Helen's right. He's a bomb waiting to go off. I wish we could have expelled him, but we don't have the power to do that. Only Mrs. Marsh can do that, and even
    then she has to let him have a hearing in front of the school board."
    Surprised that she was actually talking to him, Maggie's lips clamped together. Then she relented. He'd been rude. But now he was being friendly. And she'd been rude, too. Time to make amends. She lifted her head to look straight at him and apologized, "If I was rude, Fm sorry."
    He laughed."//?"
    "Okay, okay, I was rude. Like I said, Fm sorry."
    "You're forgiven. So what's next?"
    What was next was the case of two girls, best friends, who had cheated on an important test and been caught. They sat white-faced and silent during their hearing, and never opened their mouths, not even when the judge asked for comments from "the accused." The jury went easy on them. No one liked the idea of cheats at Bransom, but their lawyer insisted it was the first time they'd ever done anything like that, and both girls were so shaken, the jury felt they'd learned their lesson. They were ordered to take another test, a different one, and to write a one-thousand-word essay on the merits of honesty.
    The third case was also a girl. Tall, thin, and bony, dressed entirely in shiny black leather, crew-cut hair dyed black, lips flaming red, the accused slid into her seat and slumped down in her chair, impatiently tapping the heels of her black boots on the hardwood floor as her name was announced. "Chantilly Beckwith."
    Helen laughed. "Chantilly? As if. Her real name
    is Alice Ann Beckwith. I went to grade school with her. She had blonde hair then and was real shy and quiet, just like me."
    Alice Ann, a.k.a. "Chantilly" Beckwith had been accused of beating up another girl. Maggie was shocked by the crime. The closest they'd been to violent crime so far was the tossing of a frog out of a biology classroom window. And that had supposedly been a rescue mission, intent on saving the poor creature.
    Like James Keith, Alice Ann did not take well to her punishment, which was a recommendation of suspension, the strongest the peer jury had to offer. The jury couldn't actually suspend anyone, but the administration would take their recommendation under advisement. In the meantime, Alice Ann still had her real court trial to deal with. The victim's parents had pressed charges. Alice Ann was not a happy camper when she stomped from the