Driver's Ed by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

demanded Kierstin. Police set her off. She saw a uniform or a blue light and she took the offense.
    The cop knew her type, just as he knew the sign-stealing type. “Kids don’t think.”
    â€œSome kids think,” she argued.
    She was boring him. He said, “I meet the ones who don’t.” The officer explained that it was state policy now to display car accidents rather than pretend they didn’t happen. Therefore the wreck would lie on the lawn to sober the kids up. Speaking of sober, he added, the victim had been. Could have been plenty of alcohol in the vandals, though.
    Christine coughed and fussed with her hair and her scarf. She looked like a person fidgeting with small decisions before making the big one. Christine, who had objected to the sign game.
    Joss looked at Christine. Chase and Taft looked at Christine. Kierstin and Cristin looked at Christine. The eye pressure of peer pressure.
    Morgan knew he should tell first. It would go better if he admitted it before they forced him to. I could leave Remy out, he thought. But would Nickie leave Remy out?
    And the biggest
but
of all … would his father and mother go with him to the police station? He was no longer the kid they had in mind. The kid they had in mind did the right things.
    The policeman got in his squad car.
    The right thing would be to walk after the cop. Sir? May I talk to you for a minute?
    Christine gave a funny little sigh and put a Kleenex to her eyes.
    The cop started his engine and drove off with a sort of efficient speed, as if he could not get away from these kids and their sign-stealing fast enough.
    Morgan replayed the night in Nickie’s car. This time Good Morgan Campbell thought ahead to the consequences, because he was not a slime who keyed cars or spray-painted bridges.
    But I am a slime. I’m glad I got away with it. I want to go on getting away with it.
    He had a premonition of the headline: GOOD KID KILLS .
    Kierstin poked Taft in the butt and got a nice reaction, equal parts irritated and flirty. Joss turned a cartwheel, whether to celebrate being alive when Denise Thompson was dead, or because the dead didn’t matter, or because she was practicing for cheerleading, Morgan didn’t know. Mr. Fielding wandered back in. Remy had wrapped herself so tightly in her jacket, she might have been bandaging cracked ribs.
    He wanted Remy to be okay.
    It would be wrong to tell. It would not bring back Denise Thompson. If he told, his life would be over. It wouldn’t matter what he got on college boards. What college would take an application from a kid who had killed somebody?
    It was just a sign. I didn’t kill her. All I did was take a sign.
    He went carefully back inside, refusing to turn around and look again at the moralizing exhibit on the grass.
    â€œH ey, man,” said Nickie behind him in the hall.
    So he hadn’t skipped school. “Nicholas,” Morganacknowledged. He kept walking. Kept hoping, somehow, that he was not friends with Nickie again.
    Nickie caught up to him. Morgan was on his way to Phys Ed. The halls were packed with boys leaving and arriving at locker rooms. Nickie muttered, “Weird, isn’t it?”
    The last word Morgan would have used was
weird
.
    â€œI mean,
we did that
,” said Nickie.
    â€œShut up.”
    â€œI think about it at night,” said Nickie. “A person was alive and now she’s not. We managed that.”
    â€œ
Shut up
,” breathed Morgan. It could not be pride he heard in Nickie’s voice. Nickie could not be proud that he had “managed” to end a life.
    â€œIt’s sort of the ultimate cool, isn’t it?” said Nickie.
    Morgan thought he might be having a seizure. The inside of his head changed colors and noises exploded between his ears. His balance shifted and he stumbled.
    â€œThing is,” said Nickie, “my parents wouldn’t understand.” He took Morgan by the