THE HEARING WASN'T anything like I thought it would be.
Besides Darry and Soda and me, nobody was there except Randy and his parents and Cherry Valance and her parents and a couple of the other guys that had jumped Johnny M/n and me that night.
I don't know what I expected the whole thing to be like--- I guess I've been watching too many Perry Mason shows. Oh, yeah, the doctor was there and he had a long talk with the judge before the hearing. I didn't know what he had to do with it then, but I do now.
First Randy was questioned. He looked a little nervous, and I wished they'd let him have a cigarette.
I wished they'd let me have a cigarette; I was more than a little shaky myself.
Darry had told me to keep my mouth shut no matter what Randy and everybody said, that I'd get my turn.
All the Socs told the same story and stuck mainly to the truth, except they said Johnny had killed Bob; but I figured I could straighten that point out when I got my turn.
Cherry told them what had happened before and after Johnny M/n and I had been jumped--- I think I saw a couple of tears slide down her cheeks, but I'm not sure. Her voice was sure steady even if she was crying.
The judge questioned everyone carefully, but nothing real emotional or exciting happened like it does on TV.
He asked Darry and Soda a little bit about Dally, I think to check our background and find out what kind of guys we hung out with. Was he a real good buddy of ours?
Darry said, "Yes, sir;' looking straight at the judge, not flinching; but Soda looked at me like he was sentencing me to the electric chair before he gave the same answer.
I was real proud of both of them.
Dally had been one of our gang and we wouldn't desert him.
I thought the judge would never get around to questioning me. Man, I was scared almost stiff by the time he did. And you know what?
They didn't ask me a thing about Bob's getting killed. All the judge did was ask me if I liked living with Darry, if I liked school, what kind of grades I made, and stuff like that.
I couldn't figure it out then, but later I found out what the doctor had been talking to the judge about.
I guess I looked as scared as I really was, because the judge grinned at me and told me to quit chewing my fingernails. That's a habit I have.
Then he said I was acquitted and the whole case was closed.
Just like that. Didn't even give me a chance to talk much. But that didn't bother me a lot. I didn't feel like talking anyway.
I wish I could say that everything went back to normal, but it didn't. Especially me. I started running into things, like the door, and kept tripping over the coffee table and losing things.
I always have been kind of absent-minded, but man, then, I was lucky if I got home from school with the right notebook and with both shoes on.
I walked all the way home once in my stocking feet and didn't even notice it until Steve made some bright remark about it.
I guess I'd left my shoes in the locker room at school, but I never did find them. And another thing, I quit eating. I used to eat like a horse, but all of a sudden I wasn't hungry.
Everything tasted like baloney. I was lousing up my schoolwork, too.
I didn't do too badly in math, because Darry checked over my homework in that and usually caught all my mistakes and made me do it again, but in English I really washed out.
