Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers

Toon, and me into the large intake room and cuffed us to wall rings behind the long bench. We were about three feet from each other with me on one end of the bench, King Kong on the other, and Toon in the middle. Mr. Pugh walked over to the door, turned, and gave us the finger before he left, slamming the door behind him.
    “I wish I could reach your black butt,” King Kong said. “I’d tear your damned head off.”
    “If you can sing it, you can bring it,” I said. “I ain’t going nowhere. You’ll get your chance. Then we’ll see what happens.”
    “You won’t be able to sucker-punch me nexttime, faggot,” King Kong said.
    Then Toon turned and spit at King Kong, which surprised me because I knew King Kong was just looking for a reason to beat Toon silly.
    But I liked that. Toon couldn’t fight and he was little and kind of punkish, but he still made a statement.
    King Kong started telling Toon what he was going to do to him, how he was going to shotgun him and make him call him uncle and a whole bunch of other crap. Toon looked up in the air and shook his head like he wasn’t hearing him.
    Mr. Cintron came in with Mr. Pugh a moment later and told Pugh to uncuff Toon.
    “Mr. Deepak, you are scheduled for one day in detention quarters and one week’s loss of privileges,” he said.
    Mr. Pugh took Toon out of the room. All the while Mr. Cintron was looking at some papers he had in front of him. I thought he was going to come down on me the hardest. He didn’t say anything until Mr. Pugh came back and he motioned for him to uncuff King Kong.
    “Mr. Sanders, you are scheduled for five days indetention quarters and one week’s loss of privileges,” Mr. Cintron said.
    Mr. Pugh took King Kong out but not before that stupid jerk could give me another dirty look.
    “Reese, when you’re standing up, perhaps reaching for something in your closet, and you sit down suddenly, do you get headaches?” Mr. Cintron asked.
    “No, sir,” I said. “I never get headaches.”
    “Well, that’s kind of funny because your brains are up your ass,” he said. “Aren’t they?”
    “No, sir.”
    “What do you want to call this institution?”
    “You mean Progress?” I asked.
    “Yes.”
    Mr. Pugh walked back into the room and came over to where we were.
    “A juvenile correctional facility, I guess.”
    “James, you ever see a basket of crabs?” Mr. Cintron turned to Mr. Pugh.
    “Yeah, I’ve seen them,” Mr. Pugh said, smiling.
    “What happens when one of the crabs tries to get out?” Mr. Cintron asked.
    “The other crabs pull him back in,” Mr. Pugh said. “No way one of them is getting out unless therest of them are half dead.”
    “Ninety percent of the inmates here aren’t going anywhere with their lives and they know it. It’s not because they can’t, it’s because they simply won’t. They know it, and every time they see somebody who looks like he might break the cycle and do something with his life, they want to pull him back in,” Mr. Cintron said. “Especially if you look like them, if you come from the same environment they come from. If you turn your life around, you’re putting the blame on them for not turning theirs around. Sanders will take another year on his time before he’d let you alone. You don’t get it, right?”
    “I get it now,” I said.
    “No, you don’t get it,” Mr. Cintron said. “You know it, but you don’t know it well enough to control yourself. You have five days in detention and one week’s loss of privileges. Take him out of here.”

CHAPTER 21
    The detention cell is a little smaller than the rest of the cells and just about bare. There’s a small window near the ceiling, but it’s too high to see out of. If you run across the floor and jump up, you can see the sky, but that’s about it. The toilet is fourteen inches high, which means you have to squat down to use it. There is a water fountain, with a button on top. When you push the button, the water