A soft hand touched my forehead. It was my mother’s.
“He’s awake,” she said, and then my dad appeared at her side.
“You had us scared there for a little while, Dylan,” he said with a big grin.
My mouth was drier than the sun, but I still managed to form some words. “Did I get shot?”
“No, you didn’t get shot,” Mom said. “But you had some pretty bad stuff in you.”
I remembered the drug—Dragon Ice. “That wasn’t my fault,” I explained. “I did not take any drugs. Not on purpose anyway. I swear. There was something in this diet soda I drank.”
Mom patted my shoulder. “We know, Dylan. We know.”
Dad goes, “That doesn’t mean you’re totally off the hook, young man.”
But Mom’s like, “Not now. We can talk about that later.”
“How about Randy?” I asked. “Is he okay?”
Dad nodded. “He’s okay. It was a close call for both of you.”
“And Ashton Browning?”
Mom and Dad glanced at each other, then Dad goes, “Audrey got her whole confession recorded on her phone. Pretty smart girl.”
And Mom’s like, “You know what? It looks like you may have your biggest news story yet.”
CHAPTER 45
Mom was right—my next article for the school paper was big. You might even say it was a corker. This time Ms. Jansen pretty much ran it as written, except for fixing some spelling and punctuation. But it wasn’t the whole story. The district attorney banned me from telling that until the trial.
Of course, by the time the school paper came out, Audrey, Trix, Randy, and I had been all over the real news—photos and/or videos of me at the hospital, the four of us at a press conference, outside our high school, in front of Gangland with our arms looped around each other’s shoulders. One photographer even got me to wear the old porkpie for a picture—it had a bullet hole through the crown.
Ashton and Tres were all over the news too. This time it was their turn to star in a video that showed them fighting through the mob of journalists on their way from the cop car to the jail while questions whizzed at them like fastballs. Ashton threw her hands in front of her face. Tres draped his black-leather sport coat over his head like a hood. They weren’t in jail long, not with their daddy’s money behind them.
But they would be someday. The DA pledged to try them as adults so they wouldn’t get away with nothing but a couple of years in juvie.
By the time my article came out in the school paper, I’ll admit I was pretty famous, though that didn’t stop us from throwing a celebration at Topper’s later that afternoon. On the way to the front door, Audrey, Trix, and Randy walked in front of me so Rockin’ Rhonda couldn’t see what I was carrying. Ever since she busted her old stringless guitar over Dickie’s shoulder blades, she’d had to make do with an imaginary one. But no more.
She was singing “Jailhouse Rock” when I walked around my crew and showed her what I had for her: a brand-new acoustic guitar. Well, it wasn’t exactly brand new—I bought it at a secondhand store—but it did have all the strings intact and in tune.
“Lord, have mercy,” she said as I laid it in her hands.
Then she started crying and I started crying and everybody started crying.
“You deserve a better one for what you did for me,” I told her. “But this is all I could afford right now.”
She whanged a good loud strum across the strings and started singing the chorus to “With a Little Help from My Friends.”
I patted her shoulder. “We’ll catch you with some change on the way out.”
Inside, we took our regular booth, and Brenda brought the menus over. “You all order as much as you want,” she said. “It’s on the house.”
I’m like, “For real?”
She grinned. “It’s not all the time we get people off the news in here.”
As she walked away, Randy goes, “Well, it’s not a hundred grand, but I’ll take it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’d probably drink another dose of Dragon Ice if it was free.”
Randy ripped a high-pitched fart, which seeing as how we were in a restaurant was totally uncool.
Looking at the menu wasn’t necessary. I knew a Number 11 was in my near future. Sure, I’d made up my mind to cut back on the burgers, get in better shape, but now wasn’t the time for that—too much celebrating to be done.
There wasn’t time to browse the menu anyway. This man and woman and their little boy recognized us from TV and came over to the table to offer their congratulations. The kid looked up at me and goes, “Is that the hat?” I was wearing the porkpie.
And I’m like, “It sure is.”
“Can I touch it?” he asked, all wide-eyed.
“Sure.”
I handed it to him, and he put his finger through the bullet hole. “Wow.”
“I could get used to this celebrity treatment,” Randy said after they left.
“It’s okay,” I said. “But it’d be better if I wasn’t grounded on the weekends.”
Trix’s like, “You’re kidding—you’re still grounded?”
“Until next week. Unless your dad can get me off.” Her dad was acting as our lawyer. It wasn’t exactly his usual line, but I’ll say this—the dude was good. He even handled some of the stuff with the press for us.
“Hey,” Randy said. “I just hope he can get us some coin for telling our story when the trial’s over.”