Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill) Read Online Free PDF Page A

now I’m going to talk to you, and if Mr. Mitchell is wise, he’ll keep his mouth shut while you hear what I have to say. You’re fifteen years old, but our office is pushing to have you tried as an adult, and frankly, if this goes to trial we’re probably going to get a conviction. You’re looking at—at the very least—two to five, and I guarantee you that you do not want to do one minute of that time. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
    Tomas nodded. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t born yesterday. Back in El Paso, the vatos from Nuestra Familia had talked freely about life in el jugado, and that was a place Tomas had long ago decided he never wanted to go.
    Ms. Kenyon looked satisfied. “All right. Now. This case doesn’t have to go to trial, and you don’t have to go to prison. We’re willing to cut you a deal. This is a one-time offer, and it’s only on the table while Judge Lyons is out of the room. Here it is. You agree to attend St. Rhiannon’s School in Upstate New York for the next three years—on parole—and you come out with a high school diploma and a clean slate, records sealed, or you can go to trial and go to prison. Your choice.”
    “Well I think—” Martin Mitchell said.
    “He’ll take the school,” Mamacita said quickly.
    “I have to hear it from him,” Ms. Kenyon said. “Tomas?”
    It felt like a reprieve, but he wasn’t quite sure he trusted this fancy-looking dark woman. Still, what could it hurt? Especially since he hadn’t told anyone anything. If this estúpido school didn’t look like a good thing—and he didn’t see how it possibly could—he could just run away from it, come back to the city and Señor Prestamo, and take up again where he’d left off. Only he’d be smarter this time. He’d make sure nobody got hurt—except for people who really deserved it. And he’d figure out some way to make sure Mamacita got the money for what he was doing this time.
    “I’ll go to the school,” he said reluctantly.
    “Good.” Ms. Kenyon smiled. “I’ll call them and make the arrangements, and I’ll give your mother a list of things she can send with you. It won’t be much. St. Rhiannon’s is very strict. But I think you’ll like it.”
    He didn’t think he would. But that didn’t matter. Tomas didn’t expect to be there very long.
    That had been at nine o’clock yesterday morning. By noon of the following day Tomas Torres was beginning to think agreeing to go off to some school in “Upstate New York” had been a very bad idea.
    Last night he’d thought it was a great idea, because he’d spent last night in Juvenile Hall, and if prison was anything like that, it was definitely some place he didn’t want to be.
    Yesterday afternoon, when he’d met with his probation officer for the first time—and found out he wouldn’t have to see him at all while he was up at St. Rhiannon’s—he’d also thought going off to this place would be great. Mr. Blaylock had treated him like something he’d scraped off his shoe, like he was sure Tomas was not only guilty—and he hadn’t even had a trial—but like he was never going to be able to make something of himself ever. If this was the way they treated guys who came out of prison, no wonder so many of them went right back in.
    Blaylock had given him a long list of things he couldn’t do while he was on probation—drink, carry a gun, use drugs, get a credit card, vote, buy a car without permission, hang out with criminals, commit another crime—half of which Tomas couldn’t do anyway because he was fifteen and the other half of which he didn’t really want to do in the first place.
    This morning he hadn’t thought much about the school at all when Blaylock came down to his nice cozy little cell to get him and turn him over to the driver of the dark maroon van with “St. Rhiannon’s School for Gifted and Exceptional Students” painted on the side in a funny sort of script. He hadn’t slept