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“Time’s up,” he snapped.
As we passed our papers down to him, a few people opted to save themselves the embarrassment and simply stood up and left. I counted.
Sixteen. At the rate he was going would there even be twelve of us left?
“The four students who just left, never speak to them again,” he stated as he took the quizzes and dropped them into the trash. “This quiz wasn’t meant to test your analytical abilities, it was meant to test your mental strength. Can you work under pressure? If you can’t, then you don’t deserve to be a lawyer. However,” he boomed, “that is just my opinion. There is a loophole for ninety-nine percent of everything, and after a week here, the four students who left—I no longer care to remember their names—did not grasp the lesson that Ms. Cunning understood on the first day; you have the right and the ability to present your case and therefore defend your right to remain in the class.”
Was he praising me? No. He couldn’t be.
“Even if you don’t have the strength now, you fake it. You fake it as if your life depended on it. You research the hel
l out of it, and even if you’re dumb enough to get the date wrong, or finish a quiz early without properly quoting the text, or me, then you still fake it. Because if you can believe your lie, you can sell doubt to others. To win a case, all you have to do is instill doubt in the thing opposing you.”
Asshole! Praising me, my ass. The son of the bitch was still making a fool out of me. Damn I hated him. I hated him so much, I wanted to claw at his face.
Or his back. The thought slyly slipped into my mind and I flushed.
Damn it. Why can’t I think straight? Why?
“Who here has heard of the Richard Archibald Case?” he asked, and we all raised our hands.
He pointed to a guy who sat behind me. I turned to look at him, and I noted that he wore a plaid shirt and cowboy boots, and that his eyes were blue, and his hair was a dirty, sandy blonde.
“Atticus Logan, rise and use this moment to impress me.”
“Alrighty then—”
“Sit back down, Mr. Logan,” he said, causing a few snickers. “Your southern charm might be nice for some people, but here you’re wasting words, which means you’re wasting my time. Next, you, girl in the glasses, Ms. Vega is it?”
She stood up quickly, knocking over her all of her things, but she wasn’t even bothered. “Richard Archibald, age sixteen, son of the multimillionaire, Andrew Archibald. On Friday September 12th, he was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of two high school students, who attended one of his parties, where he gave them the new heroin pills that are now on the streets. It’s basically heroin in a capsule.”
“Thoughts?” he asked.
“Second-degree murder is ridiculous,” someone up front said.
“Wasn’t one of the kids his ex-girlfriend? And they said that he knew the batch was bad. The prosecution could call it a crime of passion,” Vega added.
“Hearsay.” Levi replied.
“He deserves manslaughter, but I doubt he will get it,” I stated out loud, and they all turned to focus on me.
“Go on,” Levi prompted, leaning against his desk.
“Come on, whether or not he knew the batch was bad doesn't matter. The substance is still illegal, and therefore, any death attributed to it is a crime. If this kid wasn’t rich and white, this wouldn’t be news. He would be made to serve his time, and we would move on.”
“Why is it always race with you people?” Atticus snapped behind me.
“Excuse me?” I exclaimed. “With ‘you people’? Did I just become the poster child for black people everywhere?”
“There you go, twisting my words. I’m just saying that whenever anything happens, ‘African-Americans’ are always the first ones to pull out the race card. I bet if the kid was rich and black, it would still be news.”
“Oh, that’s such bullshit. If he were black, the media’s reaction wouldn’t be one of surprise at all. After all, a black kid with drugs is a thug. A white kid with drugs has made a few bad life choices. There is a systematic issue in our legal system—”
“Oh please, go preach to someone else. This kid didn’t force anyone to take the drugs. They may be underage, but they’re all smart enough to know what could happen to them. Blaming this kid is wrong, and saying he deserves manslaughter, is lazy.”
“I moved to the north to get away from ‘you people.’ ” I muttered.
“And I came here to piss people like you off, sweetheart.”
