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I walked for hours because I didn’t know where I was going or how to get home. First fear and then rage filled me with energy, my fury carrying me along like some magic carpet on the wind. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that Rae and Taylor. Their meanness in conspiring with those boys was lower than anything I could remember. I had never been so betrayed. How could I have been so trusting, so gullible? I blamed myself for wanting to believe in them, for being desperate to have friends.

Despite the rage boiling inside me, I was a lot calmer because of the distance I had made between me and Ashley’s house. Now, as I walked, I felt the ache in my calves and thighs and some sharp pain on my right side where a bush branch had slapped against me. I realized my feet were muddy and wet, too. The slight drizzle had stopped, but my hair was wet, soaked from the rain and my own sweat.

Finally, I stopped at a fast-food store and got some directions. I didn’t realize just how far out of my way I had gone until the counter girl explained the directions back to my uncle and aunt’s home. Grudgingly, I started out again, worried about every car I saw pass me by, half expecting some of those boys to jump out and attack me.

By the time I turned into my aunt and uncle’s housing development, it was close to midnight. I was tired, damp, and dirty, and there was that long rip through my skirt. Aunt Mae Louise was surely going to raise the roof, I thought. How was I going to explain all this?

What caught me by surprise, however, was the sight of a police patrol car in our driveway. I stopped to think. Why would the police be here? Did it have something to do with what happened tonight, or did it have something to do with Mama? A part of me wanted to turn and run again, but my curiosity was strong, too. I had no reason to run, I told myself. I didn’t do anything bad. Bad things were done to me.

Before I could decide which way to go, the front door opened and the policemen stepped out, with Uncle Buster beside them. They all saw me standing half in shadow, half in the light at the foot of the driveway.

“Phoebe?” Uncle Buster called. “That you, girl?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You come right up here,” he said sharply.

I walked up the driveway slowly. He turned and shouted into the house.

“She’s home, Mae Louise!”

I heard her running up the hallway to the front door.

“Where have you been, Phoebe?” Uncle Buster asked me.

“I got lost,” I said, looking from one policeman to the other.

“Everyone’s been looking for you, girl,” Uncle Buster said.

Aunt Mae Louise came up behind him.

“Where you been?” she shouted at me.

“She said she was lost,” Uncle Buster said.

“Oh, she’s lost all right, but unlike the prodigal son, she’s not lost and found, no, sir. Not by a long shot. How could you do something like this now? With your daddy not even cold in his grave, how could you be so bad?”

“What did I do?” I moaned. I looked at the scowling policemen and realized they weren’t here about Mama. They were here about me. Those boys had told some other lies. I began to babble. “They’re the ones who deceived and trapped me. They’re the ones who lied.”

“What are you talking about? They lied? Talk about lies. You said you were going to that girl’s house when you were going to a party with lots of boys instead,” Aunt Mae Louise said sharply. “You don’t know how to do anything else but lie and you’re still doing it now.”

“That’s not true,” I moaned.

“You hurt a boy real bad tonight,” Uncle Buster said. “He’s in the hospital. You know that?”

“He deserved it. They all deserve to be in the hospital.”

“Oh, just listen to her,” Aunt Mae declared to the policemen. “She’s much too much for us to handle.”

“You’ll have to come with us to the police station,” one of the policemen said. “Serious charges have been lodged against you, miss.”

“Charges? What about what was done to me?”

“You’ll have your chance to tell your side of it,” he said.

“Oh, sure. I’ll have lots of chances,” I snapped back at him.

“Come along,” he said, moving to take my arm.