Before, After, and Somebody In Between by Jeannine Garsee

into Anthony, lurking in the back stairwell. Not doing anything in particular, just… lurking.
    “Hey, baby,” he whispers, slurring the words. “Lookin’ for me?”
    Horrified that I even touched him, I leap through the door and zoom to the library, nagged by the vague realization that I’m surrounded by psychopaths twenty-four hours a day.
    Only hunger forces me to go home when the librarian locks the doors behind me. I stumble into the house, half-dead from frostbite. Momma’s already home, and I know her shift doesn’t end till eleven thirty.
    “Why, hi-i-i there, sugar pie!” She grabs me, hugs me, and slides a sloppy kiss over my face. I push her away, sickened by the stench of booze.
    “You’re drunk!” I screech, rubbing spit off my cheek.
    “Yeah!” she screeches back. “I just quit my job!”
    “What? Why?”
    “All those damn nurses, always accusing me of stuff I didn’t do. I finally told ‘em where to get off, and now I’m celebratin’!”
    She quit her job? Now we’ll never get away from Wayne!
    With a half-scream, half-roar, I lunge into my room and start heaving stuff against the walls—and that’s when I notice it.
    My cello’s gone.
    Did I leave it at school? No-o, I remember practicing, and then—shit!
    My feet come alive and I fly from room to room, searching everywhere and anywhere, but my cello is gone. Gone, gone, gone!
    Fear has no place in my panic-stricken fury. I race back out to the kitchen where Momma’s fishing for munchies. “Where is it? Where’s my cello?”
    Momma stares blearily. “What’re you talking about?”
    “Did Wayne take it? Did he?” Who else would do something this shitty?
    “I don’t even know where he is! He’s been gone since I got here.”
    “Well, I know he took it, and you better make him give it back or I’m calling the cops! I’ll show ‘em what he did to me, and then he can rot in jail!”
    “What’d he do to you?”
    I yank my jeans down a couple of inches to show her the marks. “All because I didn’t want to cook him supper.” She looks at my hip, but her face registers nothing. “Goddammit, Momma, are you even listening to me?”
    “I hear you! And you stop cussing at me like that, or I’ll call the cops myself and have ‘em throw you in the loony bin. I’m about sick of your mouth!”
    “Good, I hope you do it! Any place is better than here.”
    I huddle back on my bed, seething with rage and desperation. Now what do I do? That freaking contract’s up in a couple of weeks, and Grandma Daisy sure doesn’t have the money to pay for a cello. Besides, she trusted me. What if the music store sues her? Aunt Gloria will kill me!
    Well, now I can forget about my lessons. Forget about any scholarship. Forget about joining the school orchestra. Hell, without my cello, why bother with school at all? Might as well throw in the towel and drop out now, just like—
    Like Anthony.
    That’s when it hits me: maybe I’m wrong.
    Maybe it wasn’t Wayne at all.
    Because who’s the creep who tried to buy it, and then copped an attitude when I told him to go blow? What was he up to today, skulking around in the stairwell? He could’ve marched right in and helped himself to anything in the house. A locked door wouldn’t stop him, that’s for sure.
    I stare up at one of my Elvises with his massive sideburns and glittering white Las Vegas suit, trying to think of a plan that doesn’t involve bloodshed.
    Anthony did it. He stole my cello. And I swear to God I’m going to make him pay, but how? How?
    Suddenly, I know.

18
    I cut gym the next morning because I’m black and blue, and the last thing I need is for Lopez to notice. I skip music, too, because I can’t face Mr. Hopewell. I spend last period in the school library, plotting my revenge.
    “Where’s your cello?” Jerome asks as we walk home through the cold rain.
    I pretend to be fascinated by something across the street so he won’t notice my quivering lips. “The