Pruitt.
Checking first to make sure the deep, even breathing coming from Trixie’s bed meant that she really was sound asleep, Echo reached under her pillow and pulled forth the black notebook she had surreptitiously slipped beneath it when she’d flopped down on her bed earlier.
Switching on the small blue lamp on her bedside table, she began reading.
Chapter 11
T HE ENTRIES IN THE journal weren’t dated. The handwriting was barely legible, and there weren’t many entries. The first was brief, but bitter:
Everything is ruined. Everything! No reason to live now. Life will never be good again, like it was. Can’t be. It’s not fair. Not fair!
The second entry was angrier, less despairing: Why should I stop living? I haven’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t my fault. It was someone else’s. That’s who should die, not me. But it shouldn’t be a quick, painless death. It should be slow and torturous, deservedly so. Like Ross’s. His death wasn’t quick and painless. Far from it. He was dragged such a long way, his skin being ripped off by the highway, his clothes shredded. I thought he would never stop screaming. I’ll hear those screams in my sleep until the day I die. But then when the screaming stopped, I wanted it to start again so that I would know he was still alive.
But he wasn’t.
I couldn’t go to him, couldn’t help him. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t work, and there was a bone sticking out of my right arm. Even now, weeks later, I’m having trouble writing this.
Whatever sentence the judge pronounces, it won’t be harsh enough. Can’t be. I wish I could be the one to decide what the punishment should be.
The third entry was frightening in its rage:
The judge said “Accidental death!” I can’t believe it!
The judge was wrong. There wasn’t anything accidental about it. It was negligence, pure and simple. Criminal negligence. Ross took the bike in to have it fixed, not to have it destroyed. He thought it had been put back together the way it was supposed to be. He didn’t know the clerk had messed up, forgotten to order the right part. Afraid to admit it. So a part found in the back of the shop was substituted. But that part was back there because it was defective! It had been taken off another bike. The clerk never checked. Neither did the mechanic, because he thought it was the new part that was supposed to have been ordered.
That’s what killed Ross. They gave him back his bike with a defective part, all because of that spineless clerk. If that isn’t negligence, I don’t know what is. Like I said, criminal negligence!
Mom said when she looked up, toward the front of the room, she thought she saw a smile on the face of the person who had trashed our lives forever. A smile! Well, why not? Justice wasn’t being served, was it? There wasn’t going to be any punishment, none at all, so why not smile?
She said it was all she could do to keep from rushing up there and smashing in that face.
If the law isn’t going to seek justice, I’ll have to. I have no choice. This crime can’t go unpunished. That wouldn’t be right. It would make a mockery of Ross’s death. I can’t sit by and let that happen.
And I won’t. I promised Ross. We went to the cemetery a couple of weeks later. Mom cried her eyes out and Dad just kept quiet.
Mom and Dad left and I was alone with him, and I knelt beside the grave. That’s when I promised Ross. “It wasn’t an accident,” I told him. “You and I both know that. I’m going to see to it that you didn’t die for nothing, Ross. I promise.” Then I stuck the flowers I had brought him into the dirt, and went to the car.
Now all I have to figure out is how to keep my promise.
There was one last entry in the black notebook: It’s been a long, hot summer and it hasn’t been easy, but I made it. I spent a lot of long, painful hours thinking and planning, and I’ve already started acting out my long-term plan. I think
Checking first to make sure the deep, even breathing coming from Trixie’s bed meant that she really was sound asleep, Echo reached under her pillow and pulled forth the black notebook she had surreptitiously slipped beneath it when she’d flopped down on her bed earlier.
Switching on the small blue lamp on her bedside table, she began reading.
Chapter 11
T HE ENTRIES IN THE journal weren’t dated. The handwriting was barely legible, and there weren’t many entries. The first was brief, but bitter:
Everything is ruined. Everything! No reason to live now. Life will never be good again, like it was. Can’t be. It’s not fair. Not fair!
The second entry was angrier, less despairing: Why should I stop living? I haven’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t my fault. It was someone else’s. That’s who should die, not me. But it shouldn’t be a quick, painless death. It should be slow and torturous, deservedly so. Like Ross’s. His death wasn’t quick and painless. Far from it. He was dragged such a long way, his skin being ripped off by the highway, his clothes shredded. I thought he would never stop screaming. I’ll hear those screams in my sleep until the day I die. But then when the screaming stopped, I wanted it to start again so that I would know he was still alive.
But he wasn’t.
I couldn’t go to him, couldn’t help him. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t work, and there was a bone sticking out of my right arm. Even now, weeks later, I’m having trouble writing this.
Whatever sentence the judge pronounces, it won’t be harsh enough. Can’t be. I wish I could be the one to decide what the punishment should be.
The third entry was frightening in its rage:
The judge said “Accidental death!” I can’t believe it!
The judge was wrong. There wasn’t anything accidental about it. It was negligence, pure and simple. Criminal negligence. Ross took the bike in to have it fixed, not to have it destroyed. He thought it had been put back together the way it was supposed to be. He didn’t know the clerk had messed up, forgotten to order the right part. Afraid to admit it. So a part found in the back of the shop was substituted. But that part was back there because it was defective! It had been taken off another bike. The clerk never checked. Neither did the mechanic, because he thought it was the new part that was supposed to have been ordered.
That’s what killed Ross. They gave him back his bike with a defective part, all because of that spineless clerk. If that isn’t negligence, I don’t know what is. Like I said, criminal negligence!
Mom said when she looked up, toward the front of the room, she thought she saw a smile on the face of the person who had trashed our lives forever. A smile! Well, why not? Justice wasn’t being served, was it? There wasn’t going to be any punishment, none at all, so why not smile?
She said it was all she could do to keep from rushing up there and smashing in that face.
If the law isn’t going to seek justice, I’ll have to. I have no choice. This crime can’t go unpunished. That wouldn’t be right. It would make a mockery of Ross’s death. I can’t sit by and let that happen.
And I won’t. I promised Ross. We went to the cemetery a couple of weeks later. Mom cried her eyes out and Dad just kept quiet.
Mom and Dad left and I was alone with him, and I knelt beside the grave. That’s when I promised Ross. “It wasn’t an accident,” I told him. “You and I both know that. I’m going to see to it that you didn’t die for nothing, Ross. I promise.” Then I stuck the flowers I had brought him into the dirt, and went to the car.
Now all I have to figure out is how to keep my promise.
There was one last entry in the black notebook: It’s been a long, hot summer and it hasn’t been easy, but I made it. I spent a lot of long, painful hours thinking and planning, and I’ve already started acting out my long-term plan. I think
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