'He caused it,' Brazil said.
'Your Honor, may I approach the bench?' Cheddar panicked.
She lunged forward and grabbed the edge of the bench, standing on her tiptoes, leaning as close to the judge as she could.
'Your Honor,' she whispered excitedly, but everyone could hear. 'If what's being said here is my client's the one spreading that fish sickness, then I need to know if others are in danger of catching it!'
Cheddar shot Weed a menacing look.
'Others meaning me,' Cheddar went on. 'He bit my hand, Your Honor.'
'I don't think we're talking about that sort of disease,' Judge Davis told her with a glint of irritation. - 'Your Honor,' Cheddar said in a more demanding tone, her nails flashing as she gestured. 'How do I know for an absolute true fact that he doesn't have some sort of bug of some type that all of us should be concerned about! Especially me because his teeth made contact with my skin!'
She held up her hand like the Statue of Liberty.
'Doesn't look like he broke the skin,' the judge observed.
Then you're saying you're not going to send him to mental health or someplace where they can do tests?' Cheddar's voice rose to a shriek.
'That's what I'm saying,' Judge Davis said.
'Then I quit!' Cheddar threw her hands up, red and gold flashing.
'No you don't 'cause I fired you first!' Weed called out as Cheddar grabbed her falling-apart briefcase, papers spilling, and rushed out of the courtroom.
'Your Honor,' Brazil spoke up. 'The truth is, we really need our COMSTAT telecommunications system up and running again.' He was out of line, but didn't care. 'The network's down all over the world because of the fish thing.'
'Officer Brazil, that is irrelevant to this case.'
'Of course,' Brazil mumbled a deliberate challenge to Weed, 'he probably couldn't fix it anyway.'
'Can too,' Weed said.
'Oh yeah?' Brazil taunted. 'Then how?'
'Just take out the program I did when I punted and messed up the HTML interpreter in AOL.'
Judge Davis couldn't help herself because like all else in the world, she used AOL and lived in fear of color bombs, IM bombs, HTML Freeze/Lag, HTMO errors, a combination of the above, or possibly the less innocuous but more annoying Blank IM bombs.
'What's punting?' she asked Weed.
'The bug's in autowrap in the text handler,' he informed her as if his explanation was as obvious as colors. 'See, if you use VBMSG subclassing, you know? To hold the window open and do some other things I told it to do, you know? 'Cause, see, like I said, there's this bug. So I told it to put my map on there and hold it. And the Anti-Punt program won't work, either, because I made my program hit Reply on the IM.'
Amazement stilled the room. Brazil was writing everything down. The C.A.'s mouth was open in disbelief.
'But I never meant for my fish screen to go everywhere,' Weed added. 'Someone must've stuck all these addresses together, and it ain't me who did.'
'Does anybody understand what he just said?' the judge asked.
'I sort of do,' Brazil said. 'And he's right about the addresses.'
'It won't take me but a minute to show him how to fix it, then you can lock me up," Weed said. 'And I can do the parade and get locked up again.'
He looked up at her, fear shining in his eyes. He could tell Judge Davis understood something bad would happen if she let him go home. He turned around and looked at his mother.
'It's okay, Mama,' he said. 'It ain't got nothing to do with you.'
Tears filled her eyes, and his got a little swimmy, too.
The C.A., whose job it was to punish to the fullest extent of the law, finally argued the case.
The release of him is an unreasonable danger to the property of others.' He quoted the code. 'I think there is clear and convincing evidence not to release him.'
The judge leaned forward and looked at Weed. She had made up her mind. Weed's heart jumped.
'I find there is probable cause for the state,' the judge let everybody know, 'and an adjudicatory hearing will be held twenty-one days from today. The state may summon witnesses, and the juvenile will remain in detention. But I order that the juvenile be released into the custody of Officer Brazil this Saturday.' She looked at Weed. 'What time is the parade?'
'Ten-thirty,' Weed said. 'But I gotta be there earlier than that.'
'When does it end?'
'Eleven-thirty,' Weed said. 'But I gotta stay longer than that.'
'Nine A.M. to one P.M.,' the judge said to Brazil. 'Then back in detention pending the court date.'
Chapter Thirty-Five
The morning of the Azalea Parade Weed's soul was as light as light itself. He wished he could paint the way he felt and the way the morning looked as Officer Brazil drove him to George Wythe High School, where the Godwin marching band was waiting and warming up.
Weed was proud and sweating in his polyester and wool blend red-and-white uniform with its many silver buttons and its stripes down the legs. His rolled-heel black shoes looked like new, the Sabian cymbals polished and safely in their black case in the back seat.
Too bad you haven't had more time to practice,' Brazil said.
Weed knew that out of the 152 members of the band, he was probably the only one who had missed a week of practice. He hadn't had a chance to look at his drill charts or work on forward march, pull mark time, pull halt, high mark, backward march, his favorite freeze-spin and especially the crab step, which was unique to the percussion section of Godwin's finely tuned precision marching band.
'I'll be all right,' Weed said, staring out the window, his heart thrilled.
Already crowds were gathering. It was predicted this might be the biggest turnout in the history of the parade. The weather was perfect, in the seventies, a light breeze, not a cloud. People were spreading out blankets, setting up lawn chairs, parking strollers and wheelchairs, and those who lived along the parade route had decided it was a good day for a yard sale. Cops were everywhere in reflective vests and Weed had never seen so many traffic cones.
Brazil was worried. Thousands of people were gathering and those participating in the parade filled the George Wythe High School parking lot. If Smoke had a plan, Brazil didn't see how it was possible to pluck one teenager out of such congestion, especially if no one, except Weed, seemed to know what Smoke really looked like.
'Weed, I want you to make a promise, okay?' Brazil said as Weed collected his cymbal case from the car. 'You'd recognize Smoke or any of his gang.'
'So.'
Weed was in a hurry, anxiously staring off at his marching band, which from this vantage was a patch of bright red and white somewhat lost in a swarm of colorful uniforms and flashing instruments and swords and twinkling batons and twirling flags. Floats hovered restlessly in an endless line. Masons were dressed like clowns. Mounted police were letting kids pet the horses. Antique cars rattled.
'We're better than that,' Weed said, watching the Navy League Cadet Corps practice marching. 'Look at that bus! That band came all the way from Chicago! And there's one from New York!'
'Weed, did you hear what I said?' Brazil asked out his open window.
Sergeant Santa worked the crowd. One of the Florettes lost track of her baton and it bounced several times on the road. People dressed for the Old West were showing off miniature horses that had azalea blossoms in their manes. The Independence Wheelchair Athletic Association was ready to go. Weed was dazzled.
'Weed!' Brazil was about to get out of the car.
'Don't you worry, Officer Brazil,' Weed said. 'I'll let you know.'
'How?' Brazil wasn't going to take any bullshit.
'I'll do a real long crash and flash my cymbals good when I'm not supposed to,' Weed said.