The Twelfth Card

this had to happen to you . You’re one of the good ones. I never spent any worry on you.”
    “A cop,” Geneva whispered in disbelief.
    Jonette laughed in a high, girlish voice. “I’m the man , yep.”
    “You’re so down,” Geneva said. “I never guessed.”
    Mr. Bell said, “You remember when they busted those seniors who smuggled some guns into the school a few weeks ago?”
    Geneva nodded. “A pipe bomb too, or something.”
    “It was going to be another Columbine, right here,” the man said in his lazy drawl. “Jonette’s the one heard about it and stopped the whole thing.”
    “Had to keep my cover so I couldn’t take ’em down myself,” she said as if she regretted not being able to bust up the kids personally. “Now, as long as you’re going to be in school, which I think is pretty wack, but that’s a different story, long as you’re here, I’ll keep an eye on you. You see anything makes you uneasy, give me a sign.”
    “Gang sign?”
    Jonette laughed. “You’d be a claimer in any gang, Gen, nothing personal. You go throwing me a flag, I think everybody’d know something was up. Better you just scratch your ear. How’s that?”
    “Sure.”
    “Then I’ll come over and mess you up some. Give you some shit. Get you out of wherever you are. You cool with that? I won’t hurt you. Maybe just push you round a little.”
    “Sure, good . . . Listen, thanks for doing this. And I won’t say anything about you.”
    “I knew that ’fore I told you,” Jonette said. Then she looked at the officer. “You wanta do it now?”
    “You bet.”
    Then the pleasant, soft-spoken policeman got a dark look on his face and shouted, “What the hell’re you doing in here?”
    Screeching: “Get yo’ motherfuckin’ hands off me, asshole!” Jonette had slipped into character again.
    The detective took her by the arm and shoved her out the door. She stumbled into the wall.
    “Fuck you, I’ma sue yo’ fucking ass for abuse or some shit.” The girl rubbed her arm. “You can’t touch me. That a crime, mother fucker !” She stormed off down the hall. After a pause Detective Bell and Geneva stepped into the cafeteria proper.
    “Good actress,” Geneva whispered.
    “One of the best,” the policeman said.
    “She kind of blew your cover.”
    He handed her back the social studies book, grinned. “Wasn’t exactly working.”
    Geneva sat down at a table in the corner and pulled a language arts book out of her knapsack.
    Detective Bell asked, “Aren’t you eating?”
    “No.”
    “Did your uncle give you your lunch money?”
    “I’m not really hungry.”
    “Forgot, didn’t he? All respect, he’s not a man who’s ever been a father. I can tell. I’ll rustle you up something.”
    “No, really—”
    “Truth is, I’m hungrier than a farmer at sundown. And I haven’t had any high school turkey tetrazzini in years. Gonna get me some of that. No trouble to get a second plate. You like milk?”
    She debated. “Sure. I’ll pay you back.”
    “We’ll put it on the city.”
    He stepped into the line. Geneva had just turned back to her textbook when she saw a boy look her way and wave. She glanced behind her to see whom he was gesturing at. There was no one else. She gave a faint gasp, realizing that he was indicating her.
    Kevin Cheaney was pushing away from the table where he and his homies sat and started loping toward her. Oh, my God! Was he really coming this way? . . . Kevin, a Will Smith look-alike. Perfect lips, perfecter body. The boy who could make a basketball defy gravity, could move like he was a break-dancer competing in a B-Boy Summit show. Kevin was a coal institution at all the jams.
    In line, Detective Bell stiffened and started forward but Geneva shook her head that everything was fine.
    Which it was. Better than fine. Totally def.
    Kevin was destined for Connecticut or Duke on scholarship. Maybe an athletic one—he’d been captain of the team that won last year’s PSAL basketball championship. But he could make it on grades too. He didn’t have the same love of books and school that Geneva did, maybe, but he was still in the top 5 percent of the class. They knew each other casually—they shared math class this semester and would also find themselves together in the hall or in the school yard from time to time—coincidentally, Geneva told herself. But, okay, fact was that she usually gravitated to where he was standing or sitting.
    Most of the down kids