Page 12 of Shelter for Morgan

"But they basically talked over me at first, so I stopped talking all together after I told them to get my wallet out of my hoodie pocket and check it against the registration."

He nodded. "And they didn't do that?"

"Not really. They told me that I could answer their questions at the police station if I didn't want to talk, but I'd already tried and I was pissed, too. I don't think that broad daylight in a quiet suburb was the site for people to launch into a painting project if I was just a tagger or a... youthful ruffian."

His forehead furrowed. "Who said that?"

"Mister Lucas when he called 911 to report rampant lawlessness going on across the street from him."

"Rampant lawlessness." He repeated the words and laughed. "He sounds like the villain neighbor in a nineteen fifties black and white TV sitcom."

Morgan raised both her hands. "Exactly!"

"What did Jacob do when he got there?" He leaned against the wall and watched her closely.

"He was assigned to a precinct out of the area we lived in, so he didn't know the officers who were detaining me. He had to get permission to take an extended break from his patrol and he had his partner with him. The two of them got out of their black and white and made our neighborhood look like a scene from Chips."

Rhett's jaw almost dropped. "Chips?"

She shrugged. "I loved 'classic' TV growing up."

"I'm not sure the seventies qualify as classic, but okay."

"At least I didn't start singing the COPS theme song."

Rhett nodded. "That wouldn't have gone over well."

"It was playing in my head, though."

He folded his arms across his chest. "I'll bet it was."

“So,” she dropped her chin and gave him a look that had his breath catching in his throat, “Jacob took one look at the whole situation and dropped his shoulders in a big bro sigh. ‘Is there a valid reason why you’re going to arrest my sister for spray painting her car? Or is this just a critique on her skills with an aerosol can?’” She smiled, her whole face lighting up with the memory. “According to Missus Klein, who had a better vantage point than I did, the two officers looked like they’d been spanked with a rolled-up newspaper for peeing on the floor.”

Her smile changed, giving her a kind of blood-thirsty look.

“It served them right.”

Rhett turned his head and gave her a bit of a sideway look, being a little cautious. “Did you get a hit in?”

“No, I used a little bit of my High School Theater experience and acted so grateful for my big brother’s help, hugging him around his middle and sniffling about how they had been so mean!”

Rhett was trying so hard to keep his laughter in that his lips had compressed into a thin, pinched line.

She waved a dismissive hand, but he knew it wasn’t about him.

“Jacob didn’t call me out on it when the officers were still there, but after they left, he gave me that ‘daddy’ look and wagged his pointer finger at me. He told me to ‘Behave’ and then he walked across the street to have a talk with Mister Lucas.

“Missus Klein sighed like she was on the vaudeville stage. ‘Goodness, Morgana! What are we going to do with you?’”

“Morgana. That’s your name?”

She shrugged. “Yes. Let me tell you, my classmates gave me so much grief over that name that I just started asking people to call me Morgan.”

He lifted his chin and dropped it slowly in a nod of understanding. “Did that help?”

She sucked in breath through her teeth and then gave him a sheepish grin that he had a feeling was more in jest than natural. “Well, Morgana can get her feelings hurt and be told to turn the other cheek, but Morgan,” she lifted a hand and made it into a fist, “Morgan can jab little Timmy in the nose for acting like an ass.”

She made a jab at an imaginary person between them and Rhett raised his eyebrows before he brought his hands up in mock surrender.

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