Do Not Pass Go by Kirkpatrick Hill

Author:Kirkpatrick Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2007-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

On Deet’s next visit the woman at the desk was wearing tights with thick fluorescent green ankle socks and Nike trainers. A long T-shirt hung almost to her knees, and she had a sweatband on, as if she was going to go out running at any minute. Her clothes were bold and startling, but she herself seemed nervous, as if she didn’t want to be noticed. It was really odd.

Andy was there again, but the other visitors Deet hadn’t seen before.

One of them was a pleasant-looking young woman with a girl a little younger than P. J.

“When can Daddy come home? What’s Daddy doing in here? Why can’t he come with us?” she asked her mom, twisting around one of the uprights that formed the entranceway to the visiting room.

Deet thought the mother might be embarrassed to have her little girl ask something like that in public, but the mother answered cheerfully, didn’t try to hush the little girl or speak softly herself.

“Well, you know when you do something wrong, you have a time-out? Well, Daddy did something wrong and he’s having a time-out.”

The little girl nodded gravely and went on twisting herself around the pole.

Andy smiled. He bent over and whispered in Deet’s ear, “Good explanation.”

There were lots of kids visiting that day. A tightlipped, gray-haired woman had brought two kids, about eight and ten, Deet guessed. The kids looked at home in the waiting room, as if they’d been visiting the jail for a long time.

The oldest, a boy, sat down beside Deet and looked at him with frank curiosity. “Who are you visiting?” he asked Deet.

“My dad.”

The boy nodded. “We’re visiting my mom. She was arrested for embezzling.”

“Oh,” said Deet, feeling a little shocked. Embezzling sounded like a pretty sophisticated crime. Sort of premeditated. Now it was his turn to tell what Dad was in for. Why couldn’t he be as up-front as this kid? Why couldn’t he just say, Oh, bummer, embezzling. My dad was busted for drugs. My dad was arrested with methamphetamines. My dad … Forget it. He couldn’t say anything like that, so he asked, “Will she be here long?”

“Two more months. Embezzlement is a white-collar crime and it has a presumptive sentence.”

Deet tried to look as if he knew what the boy was talking about.

“That’s my grandma, and that’s my sister Meghan.”

“What’s your name?” asked Deet, for something to say.

“Ian Foster Carmichael,” the boy said, chin up and eyes bright. Having a mom in jail hadn’t damaged his self-image, Deet thought. Meghan looked like Jam—long, wispy blond hair, brown eyes, fidgety. In her hair was a purple plastic barrette that she’d obviously been adjusting herself, because it was crooked and the hair was bunched up under it. Deet wished the grandma would unclasp it, brush down Meghan’s hair, and put it back in right.

The last visitor to come in was a tall, wild-haired black woman with a little boy, maybe two years old, on her hip. After she’d taken off his snowsuit, he was all over the waiting room, his mom loping after him, calling out commands he ignored.

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