Serially Strange: Young-Adult Contemporary

The thick metal doors unlock for lunch. One o'clock on the dot, unless Jerry is on duty, then they'll unlock somewhere between five and ten past the hour, because he's crap at his job. 

The guard who stands outside my cell today is new. He has pink cheeks and a piercing in his right ear. He looks like he might be fresh from the Academy, probably only one or two school years older than me. I glare at him as I stroll out of my stone box and hold my wrist out willingly. I take in his features and  note his gorgeous blue eyes as he wraps the handcuffs around my arms and squeezes them closed, then he bends down to cuff my ankles. I can't help but sarcastically tut.  Back in the day, I could hardly be bothered to carry my PE kit around school on Wednesdays, and I was always one of the last picked for team-ups; I’m not going to overpower a group of trained police guards, although I am surprised that they all managed to pass the mandatory fitness test for this job in the first place. 

As New Boy stands back up, his hair flicks past me, and I catch a whiff of his strawberry-scented shampoo. I take a big inhale. Do you know how long it has been since I've eaten a strawberry? If anyone ever comes to visit me, I'll ask them to smuggle me one in. 

We shuffle down the corridor, jangling chains and squeaky shoes filling the silence. To New Boy, it's probably quite intimidating; the most dangerous prisoners in the southwest marching through their cell block. Who knows what this savage seventeen-year-old girl could be capable of when she's in a daze of fury? 

I stare at the back of Danielle Brazier's head as she marches ahead of me. Her bleached hair is growing out, making it look like she's wearing a bumblebee hat. She has a small, bald patch right at the back from a fight she started with Big Bell last week. I bet she won't do that again. Danielle has been in secure detention five times in the last month. I don’t particularly like her, but I'm getting used to her being around. 

The air smells like bleach and tomato sauce, so I cross my fingers that they're serving Bolognese in the cafeteria. It's not as good as the one Dad used to make, but the taste of tomato spaghetti will remind me of home. 

We filter into the large room, lined with rows of metal chairs and tables. The guards station themselves at every angle.

The cafeteria is enormous but manages to feel claustrophobic, like the air’s been sucked out of it. I think it’s something to do with all of the angry faces that are illuminated by the sickly white lights. The secure detention inmates are the last to enter the cafeteria, so people are already clattering around grabbing blue trays and lining up for their fill. The ceiling is low and the panels are stained with black damp that seems to spread further everyday, as if a physical representation of the place. 

New Boy undoes my handcuffs and steps back. Our eyes connect, and I smile. He doesn’t smile back, but I notice his left eyelid twitch. He's nervous. Does he think I will make a run for the plastic spork tray and use one to take him out? Is he aware that he literally has a taser strapped to his leg?  

I grab my tray and line up. Gary is the cook serving today, which puts me off, because apparently he doesn't brush his teeth and he smells like stale sweat. When it’s finally my turn I watch as he slaps the pasta strands onto my tray, his hands painted with drying tomato sauce.

I take a deep breath and slump into the metal seat at table 12. 

"Dude, Bolognese is my favorite." Chantelle arrives at the table and slams her plastic tray down. She always makes too much noise. 

"Same." I try to twirl some of the spaghetti around my spork and the tomato sauce splatters along the table. 

"Have you seen that new guard?" She sits up and stares straight over me. 

"Yeah. He collected me from my cell today." I glance over my shoulder and watch him anxiously shift his weight from foot to foot. 

"I wish he'd come to my cell." 

Pff.. Who doesn't Chantelle want in her cell? 

The tomato sauce doesn't taste like much; it has a bitter tang, like it's been heated up in a plastic tub. I still eat it, though, because I've got nothing better to do. 

"Are you ready for your hearing tomorrow?" 

As soon as she asks the question, my stomach churns like I've been shaken upside down. "No., I don't know what else they want me to say." 

"Just tell the truth." 

"I always do," I snap. 

Chan leans back. She's on edge around me, too. 

"Okay, well, let me know how it goes." She shuffles her feet out from under the table and hurries off with her spaghetti. 

Back at my cell, I lie on the thin plastic mattress and stare up at the ceiling. My dirty red socks rub little black marks across the white stone walls as I wonder, did everyone just miss the signs that my life would turn out this way? 

-

I've always been a bit odd.  

In primary school, I would ask all the kids if they were done with their packed lunches and eat their leftover crusts. I did it for months before the teachers called my mum and accused her of not feeding me. It wasn't that I didn't get fed three sturdy meals a day; I just loved crusts. 

Then, when I was about ten, I got caught stabbing a girl called Beth with a needle. I had set up my own piercing shop in the playground, and she wanted her lobe done. It wasn’t my fault that she wimped out and shrieked like a dying cat. Mr Thompson saw me jamming the needle through her ear, and, of course, that was that. I was expelled.  

Then there was the incident at the town lido. It was the first time I had gone with my friends instead of my family. Nick and I were messing around. He got halfway across the length of the pool with me surfing on his back before his arms stopped flapping, and my progression came to a halt. When I realised that he was motionless, I obviously swam off. He was fine after the stomach pump, but that incident definitely doesn't look good in my current position.  

But you know what? I bet if people were to bring up every weird situation you've been in, you'd look deranged, too. 

And maybe I am, or maybe I'm a girl who liked to eat other kids' crusts, managed to set up a successful piercing pop-up studio at a young age, and accidentally drowned a boy because I was passionate about my surf training.  

Tomorrow, I will stand in front of a judge who has already seen the compelling evidence against me and will label me a murderer. And I'll say the same thing I've said all along. 

"I don't remember."