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He looked at me thoughtfully. " You were the aggressor? Are you saying that Mr. Finch hit you in self-defense?" It was clear he didn't believe me.
"See," I said, "I thought he was fixing to hurt Vile—Violet—so I jumped him. He was just striking back. He didn't mean to really hurt me. I know he didn't. It was more or less an accident."
"I see." The judge exchanged glances with Pa, who nodded his head. His Honor called one of the constables and told him to take Elliot and me out to the bench in the vestibule and then go buy us each a bottle of Moxie, which we couldn't drink in the courtroom but we could out on the bench where we'd sat before.
"Ed?"
I nearly dropped my Moxie. "Vile! Where you been?"
"Around," she said. She stared at my drink.
"Here," I said. "Have some. It's right tasty."
She took a long drag from my bottle. I could see she was reluctant to hand it back.
"Nah, you keep it. I had plenty."
"You wan' mine?" Elliot held out his bottle.
She nodded. Vile finished off both bottles of Moxie without hardly taking a breath. "Thanks for coming," she said, giving me and Elliot the empty bottles. "I was just listening in there before I came out here." She jerked her head at the courtroom door. "I think they're going to let him go."
"Good," I said. "That's good."
"Who's your pal?" she asked, nodding at Elliot.
"It's my brother," I said. "Say hello to Violet, Elliot."
"Hey, Bilet," Elliot said. "How you?"
"I'm doing great," Vile said. "Just great, thanks." It was the first time I'd seen her really smile.
My head was throbbing fierce, and all I wanted to do was stretch out on the bench and go to sleep, but I was determined not to go puny in front of Vile. It seemed years before the doors finally opened and people begun to filter out of the courtroom. The ones from Leonardstown smiled at me and Elliot, gave Vile a stare, and hurried on out. Pa and Zeb were about the last ones out the double doors. Zeb was kind of shuffling from one foot to the other, not daring to raise his head.
"It's all right, Paw," Vile said. "Ed don't hold nothing against you."
"Ed?" Pa looked puzzled.
"It—it was kind of a game," I said. "Vile—Violet knows good and well that my real name is Robbie, don't you, Violet?"
"Huh?" She gave me one of her sharpest looks. "Oh, yeah. Sure, Robbie?"
"Violet," Pa said, "you and your father will be coming back to Leonardstown with us." He pulled his watch out of his pocket. "But we're going to have to step on it if we're going to make the last train."
"Robbie cain' walk too good," Elliot said.
"Want a piggyback, son?"
As embarrassing as it was to climb on Pa's back like I was a five-year-old, I was grateful to Elliot. Vile or no Vile, I'd done all the walking I could manage for one day.
15. The End and Beginning of Many Things
THE COURT PUT PA IN CHARGE OF ZEB FOR THE NEXT three months. Pa got him a job working at the Leonardstown Hotel, where they could have a room and three meals a day. The judge had said Zeb could remain in Pa's custody as long as he went to work every day and didn't touch alcohol. The damage to Wolcott's Drugstore was considerable, but Mr. Wolcott agreed that Zeb could pay him a bit out of his salary every week to help make restitution.
If there was a sheriff on Zeb's tail, the officer never appeared. By September Vile had stopped snatching every handbill in sight. Seems she couldn't read well enough on the run to see if they pertained to Zeb or not, so she stole them all, just in case.
I thought at that point that everything was going to end happily ever after, but it didn't quite work out that way, and since I am back on the Ten Commandments, I have to tell you the truth of things. First of all, school opened like always. For me it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I sat right behind Rachel Martin again. Miss Bigelow, despite the business about the snake, decided to come back another year. She'd gotten prettier over the summer. I wasn't the only one who thought so. Willie even remarked on it out loud. She was nice, too. Miss Bigelow, I mean. Rachel Martin continued to ignore me.
Miss Bigelow was especially good to Vile, who she never failed to address as Violet and made everyone else do the same. It didn't make a bit of difference, though. Vile cordially hated going to school. She was so far behind every other eleven-year-old that she claimed it was like drinking pure bile to recite her lessons. She used to say that school was worse than jail. "And here I was so worried about poor old Paw getting caged up, and I'm the one who's lost their freedom."
