Witch and Wizard - James Patterson [11]
And…
How Dad always said he had to be our father, not our friend—and that there was an important distinction between the two—but somehow he ended up being our best friend anyway.
And…
How we went on all of those great family trips to art museums such as the Betelheim and the Britney. And then those potentially corny family camping trips, one every season—no matter how cold or rainy it was—and we learned how to survive in the world, but more than that, to love what was out there, just waiting to be discovered.
Like this great oak tree that was in our yard—the one that Whit and I learned to climb almost as soon as we could walk… and fall.
And then… there were two guards at my door.
With handcuffs.
And leg shackles.
“For me?” I beamed at the two creeps. “Aw, you shouldn’t have.”
Amazingly, neither of them thought that was the least bit funny.
“Come on, witch!” one guard snapped. “It’s your day in court. Now you get to meet The One Who Judges… and you’re definitely not going to like him.”
“Of course,” said the other guard, “that’s only fair—he’s definitely not going to like you either.”
The guards thought that was hysterical.
Chapter 16
Whit
SUNLIGHT—the first we’d seen in what seemed like ages—came streaming through thirty-feet-high windows in the courtroom, almost blinding us. I squinted and tried to shield my eyes, only to whack my forehead with my handcuffs. Klutz much?
I had thought by now I’d be hard to shock, but I couldn’t believe the scene in front of me.
A mammoth portrait of The One Who Is The One hung at the center of the room, like he was a conquering general or the emperor. There was a huge metal cage in front of the judge’s desk—yes, a cage, like for shark diving. One guard held the door open, and the other one pushed us into it.
Into a cage.
In a courtroom.
“I’m almost getting used to looking through bars,” Wisty said, sounding resigned. Not like Wisty at all.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered sharply. “We’re getting out of this madhouse. I promise.”
But how? I scanned the courtroom. Surrounding us was an impenetrable wall of indifference, even hatred. Plus at least a dozen armed guards.
A judge—The One Who Judges, I assumed—glowered from a high platform right in front of us, his thin, greasy gray hair stuck down to his scalp.
On the right-hand side of the courtroom, behind a low wall, a jury stared vacantly at us. They were all grown-ups, all men, and apparently they seemed to think two innocent kids appearing on trial in a cage was nothing unusual.
So it was official now: the world had gone totally crazy.
Chapter 17
Whit
THE ONE WHO JUDGES put tiny glasses on his long, beaked nose and scowled down at us. I read his gold plaque: JUDGE EZEKIEL UNGER.
He picked up a piece of paper. “Whitford Allgood!” he read in a stinging voice. “Wisteria Allgood! This trial is convened because you are accused of the most serious crimes against the New Order!” He glared at us.
There was a standing-room-only audience of grown-ups behind us. I turned to see the crowd better. The few of them who looked at me were cold-eyed and full of hatred.
I rubbed my forehead against my arm as the judge angrily read a bunch of legal-sounding gibberish.
I peered at the jury—surely some of them had to feel sorry for two kids who looked hungry and dirty? Kids in handcuffs, in a cage, with no lawyer? But their faces were frozen in expressions of condemnation. It was as if they were being paid to dislike us. Was there some neon sign above our heads that read SCOWL instead of APPLAUSE, like on the live TV shows?
“What have we done?” Wisty suddenly yelled at the judge. “Just tell us that. What are we accused of?”
“Silence!” the judge shouted. “Listen, you contemptuous girl! You are a most dangerous threat to everything that is proper and