The Humper Game Pt. 01 Ch. 08

He took up his gavel. He said, "We will recess for half an hour while the judges consider the verdict and, if appropriate, the sentences. Feel free to stand up and move around some, but do not leave the building, and be back in your seats in half an hour. A warning will be sounded five minutes before that. If no decision can be reached in that time, we will either announce an extension of this recess, or recess until tomorrow." He banged the gavel once.

I got up immediately and headed for the men's lavatory. I knew where it was from previous events in this building, and I was the second or third person into it. It was on the other side of the auditorium from me, near the main entrance to the building, but I went out in the hallway and around to get there. I wasn't near being desperate yet, but I was ready to go.

When I went back out into the hall, intending to get a drink of water, Jenny, Barbara, Claire, and Ellen were waiting for me. I told them where I was headed—the water fountain was just down the hall a little way—and they walked there with me.

"Well, I see why you didn't want to say anything about it to us, either after that rainy Monday or any time since. And I guess all that didn't leave many questions unanswered, did it? Including your heroism. You really went out there thinking you would distract them so Maggie would escape, and then take what they gave you? I knew you were brave, but I'd have to say that you were being stupid, if I could think of one single safer thing you could have done that would have had a chance of accomplishing anything.

"I've said it before, but you make me so proud to be your friend." Jenny sounded like she was almost in tears at that point.

I walked up the hall a little farther, where no one was around. I gestured the four of them in close to me, and spoke to them very low. "I didn't think it appropriate to say up there, and please don't ever say it to anyone else. My best hope was to jump Wagner from behind and kill him or at least injure him enough to put him out of the action, and I would have been going for kill. You know that's not the way I want to be, but this on top of everything he'd ever done to me, it just—um, boiled over. And you have to admit, that offered some hope of making the others forget Maggie long enough for her to get away. Do I need to say that I would have felt the same if it were any of you? Or anyone else?"

Barbara said, also very low, "I couldn't believe his father, could you? 'No matter what my son does, nobody has any right to do anything to him.'" She was obviously boiling herself. Barbara was as convinced as Mr. Miles that rules are for everyone and that it matters that they are. One of many things to love her for. She went on, "And the same for that speech supposedly in defense. How do you get through to people like that?"

"I think you don't. There's nothing you can say or do to someone who thinks like that, to change his mind and heart. I know what my grandfather would have said, and I don't have a better answer. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, and only the sovereign action of God's Spirit can break through. I don't buy the whole picture, but hearing what those two said, I don't have a better answer, and it makes me half convinced at least." I hadn't ever talked to them about my grandparents, or at all about religion in any personal way, either, and they all kind of stared at me in surprise. Ellen, though, looked way more surprised than the other three.

I added, "At any rate, it really looks like something did get through to Bruja. You've all seen as much as I have, how differently she has acted, ever since."

No one said anything for a bit. Finally, though, I had a thought, and I said, "Barbara, you do realize he didn't intend that as any kind of defense, don't you?"

She looked surprised, and I thought the rest did too, except Ellen kind of nodded.

I said, "He's not that dumb. He could see that nothing he might say could make his situation any better. The evidence really is clear, so much so that there's absolutely nothing that could counter it. They're guilty, without question. What he wanted to do was something like giving us all the finger, figuratively. 'You can do what you want to me, but I'm glad we did it, and you can all just go to hell,' or something like that." I was feeling really, really depressed at this point—not to mention angry.

Barbara said, "Phil, you're right, and I should have seen that. It sure doesn't make me think more kindly of him, though. Or any of them." She paused just a moment, and then said, "Phil, I'm sorry it happened, and I'm really sorry for your sake that you got mixed up in it. But it sounds like it's a really good thing you did, for Maggie and probably for some other people, too. Especially girls."

The warning signal sounded, followed by Mr. Peters's amplified voice, saying, "Please, everyone return to your seats now. Thank you." I hurried one way, the girls the other. I was in my seat well before the five minutes were up.

Mr. Peters said, "The judges are ready with the verdicts. In this case, the verdicts are very easy to announce. All defendants are found guilty on all charges." There was a lot of applause from all over, and he picked his gavel up and rapped twice, sharply. The noise subsided, but not instantly.

He went on when it was quiet again. "In the case of Miss Bruja, the judges felt that the evidence for the count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping was slightly weak, and we might have asked for further testimony on that issue had she not pled guilty to the charge."

Bruja stood up. "Mr. Peters?"

"Yes, Miss Bruja? You may speak."

"I wasn't as, as instrumental in planning that part as in the rapes, but I was present as they discussed what they were going to do, and I went along. I am guilty of that, too." She sat down.

"Thank you for clearing that up. We have also decided on the sentences. It is not our normal policy, as it is in the States, to announce separate sentences for each offense and declare them consecutive or concurrent. We have done this when there was doubt about some of the charges and whether additional evidence might turn up requiring reconsideration, or when the offenses were handled in separate trials. We might also if we were trying unrelated charges together, but that also is not our normal policy. We attempt to give sentences based on the weight of all the offenses, taken together.

"Here, then, are the sentences."

He listed them individually, but he might as well not have. For the boys, all the sentences were twenty years' imprisonment, to begin immediately. For Bruja, the sentence was five years' imprisonment, suspended.

"Miss Bruja, this means that you are on probation for five years, and your imprisonment will begin immediately and run for five years if during that time you are found guilty of a criminal offense on this island, or even a very serious formal offense against your school's rules.

"In a way this is even less severe than it sounds. Failing either of those, and assuming you continue your excellent academic performance, you will be graduating and leaving this island in a matter of months. However, your probation will continue for the full five years. If, at any time during the four and a fraction years after you graduate, you are found to be guilty of such an offense, then should you ever return here you will be imprisoned for five years.

"I must add that your sentence has not been suspended because of your willingness to cooperate in our investigation and your testimony, except indirectly. We do not make such deals, ever.

"This was done for two reasons. One, fairly minor, is that you yourself became a victim. This would not have made much difference, by itself, but we find it to be a mitigating factor. The other is that we see very convincing evidence of a thorough change of heart on your part. Your confession and testimony are an important part of that evidence, but every one of your instructors has noted your changed demeanor and behavior toward others.

"We are concerned about the trend in the States to give lip service to rehabilitation but in fact not to demand serious evidence of its presence. Instead, good behavior while in prison, defined rather superficially, is taken to indicate rehabilitation. We think we have hard evidence of a serious change of heart on your part, and so we are putting you on probation. Please continue as you have begun in the last few weeks. You have our best wishes in this—not just my own, or those of all the judges, but those of all your instructors as well, and I dare say a great many of your classmates.

"This court is now dismissed. Students, please assemble to return to your own building." And he banged the gavel very loudly.

We gathered outside, the whole class. It was later than suppertime, and I hoped that they were going to allow us enough time to eat without too much rushing. The five of us stood at the fringes of the large, milling collection of students, a little apart.

Ellen gave me a brief hug. "Phil, I know you're glad that that is over. What an ordeal for you!—not only today, but waiting for it, and knowing. And the two events with Maggie as well."

Barbara looked at me. From being so standoffish, she had become perhaps the most sympathetic one of them all. She said, "You're still worried about something. I can think of a bunch of things it could be, but two stand out. Wagner's death is one, and the other is Bruja. And I'd guess that it's her."

I spoke quietly, just for the five of us. "You're right. Wagner's death doesn't really bother me as such, not much. It seems to me Mr. Miles is right, that he was incurably, well, selfish and self-centered, unwilling to recognize anyone else as having any rights whatsoever, and he would have continued to abuse others for any reason or none. I am pretty bothered by how much anger and resentment and even hatred I felt when I went out to try to stop them. I wouldn't ever have been brave enough without that, but it's wrong even so.

"But Bruja bothers me a lot more. Mr. Peters was absolutely right. Her behavior is very convincing, and I have no doubt at all that she has undergone a deep change, and I hope it will be permanent. And not just because that would mean an end to a source of constant, minor misery for me. But I should be thrilled to see this in her, jumping for joy, and instead I feel kind of numb. I always told her I would like to be her friend, if she would ever change her own attitude—and now that it seems that she has done it, I'm not sure my own heart is ready for that. But I'm sure that she isn't putting it on." I lowered my voice even a bit more. "Ms. Miller probably could, but I don't think Bruja is that much of an actress. She has changed the way she acts toward everyone, not just me. And, well, she's too quiet, as if she's all torn up inside."

Barbara gave me a hug, herself. We all walked back with everyone else, rather bringing up the rear. Somewhat before we got to our building, she said, "Phil, I understand very well why you're, well, I said 'worried,' but 'troubled' is really what I meant, and mean. I underwent something like what Bruja seems to be, only way less drastic, and I think also a little like what you're feeling. And at least I wasn't having to recognize that I was guilty of something big, the way she is! And you know she meant you, when she said she had treated a couple of people especially badly.

"I think at some point you'll have to come to terms with her and talk to her about it, but for now think it through for yourself."

"Thank you for caring. Well, all of you, but you in particular."

"Don't be silly. You cared for me when I was desolate, and made it possible for me to grow and change the way I needed to. Sooner or later, someone was going to screw me. So far I've outrun everyone, but that can't last forever. And the way I was, if I were still that way I mean, with almost anyone I think it would be miserable and leave me emotionally—I don't know what word I want. Fractured, maybe. Scarred, for sure. It was still hard, but you made it possible."

The kitchen staff had obviously known we would be very late. From a comment or two I heard, I thought they must have been informed of the verdicts and sentences as well. An announcement was made just before we went inside, saying when serving would end, and it made for a short supper period, but not impossibly so.

After we ate, the girls and I studied. Time for this was much shorter than usual. On the other hand, we had no new material to go over and no new assignments. But no one suggested stopping to study biology.

When the ten-minute signal sounded, I got up and got my things together, then spent a couple of minutes kissing them all goodnight. I was very glad to have that all behind me, troubled as I might feel, from having it all brought so thoroughly to mind and also from thinking of what to make of Bruja. I hurried past the monitor's station with a couple of minutes to spare and got to bed as quickly as I could.

Friday passed as though I were in a fog, or perhaps under an anesthetic. The world didn't seem quite real. By Saturday this was less pronounced, though my studying over the weekend was not very effective. The girls did their best to comfort me, and it really did help.

This is the end of Part 1. Thank you for reading this far.

The next part, Part 2, covers events following the trial, through the end of these students' senior year of high school—from Phil's point of view.

Revision: 4/5/2019