Juvie Read Online Free PDF

out.”
    She hands me two blankets and two sheets.
    “Once a week you turn them in for washday. You wet the bed, that isn’t our problem; it’s your problem.”
    “Do many people wet their beds?” I ask.
    “Now, what did I tell you about asking questions?”
    “My bad,” I say.
    “You right it’s your bad. And there’s another thing: you don’t look at the guards unless they tell you you can look at them. You keep your eyes to yourself besides that. And when you’re walking in the hall, you stay in line with your unit and you keep your hands behind your back and you don’t look anywhere but right in front of you and you don’t talk; you don’t say one single word. You just go where you’re told to go and stop when you’re told to stop. Understood?”
    “Understood.”
    I put on the underwear and bra that aren’t mine, and the starched red jumpsuit that isn’t mine, and the socks and sandals that aren’t mine, and carry the extra underwear and the blankets and sheets that aren’t mine back to the intake desk with Officer Wallace and his flat face and his computer.
    “Sit down,” he says, indicating a chair across from his, positioned so I can’t see what’s on the screen. “These are questions you’re required to answer. We already know the answers to some of them. They’re included to see if you’re being truthful. You are required to be truthful.”
    The jumpsuit fits surprisingly well, but it itches, and I shift in the chair to scratch the middle of my back, but then I think that maybe it makes me look nervous or uncomfortable answering questions, so I stop.
    “Ready to start?” Officer Wallace says. He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “First question: State your full name.”
    “Sadie Ruth Windas.”
    “Age?”
    “Seventeen.”
    “U.S. citizen?”
    “Yes.”
    “Race?”
    “White. Caucasian, I guess. But part American Indian. One-sixteenth, or thirty-second. I forget. I think my great-great-grandmother was Indian. That’s what my granny told me.”
    “We’ll go with white.”
    “OK.”
    “I didn’t ask you.”
    “OK.”
    “Last time you thought about hurting yourself?”
    “I’ve never thought about hurting myself.”
    “Any suicidal ideation?”
    “What’s that?”
    “That’s thoughts about hurting yourself.”
    “I’ve never thought about hurting myself.”
    “Mental-health history?”
    “No mental-health history. That is, no mental-health problems.”
    “Ever been sad?”
    “Of course.”
    “Depressed?”
    “I guess. Yeah.”
    “Ever been diagnosed with clinical depression?”
    “No.”
    “Medications?”
    “No medications.”
    “Violent episodes?”
    “No violent episodes.”
    “Most recent episode.”
    “No episodes.”
    “You are required to answer truthfully.”
    “I haven’t had any —” But then I stop. Because there was this one incident recently, during a game, and what if they know about it somehow and this is a test?
    “Well?”
    I’m suddenly glad for the rule about not looking at officers. I study my hands for a minute. “There was this one thing,” I start. “At an AAU basketball game, like a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, the other team’s center was beating up on our center, Julie Juggins, and the referees weren’t calling it. So I kind of grabbed the girl’s ponytail and jerked back on it — harder then I meant to — and she fell on the court and landed on her elbow. I got a technical foul and got kicked out of the game.” My gut twists just thinking about it. I’d never done anything like that before, I hated the idea of it being entered into an official file on me.
    “Was she injured?”
    “Not really. They iced her elbow and then she was back in the game.”
    “When was this?”
    “I already said. It was a couple of weeks ago.”
    “Charge?”
    “From the basketball game?”
    “No. We’re done with that. From the arrest.”
    “Don’t you already have all that?”
    “Answer the question.”
    “Felony