MCP51-C: Lucky Strike

MPC Name:
Order In the Court

MPC Number:
51-C

Reward Requested: Posts



The off-white canvas speckled with flecks of dark gray. Like tiny creatures floating in a milky substance, frozen in time, a surface with many unappreciated details, laid down with no thought to all the intricacies it contained. Meaning nothing. No one stops to consider it. If they did, they'd see all these tiny details. But they don't. Why would they? It's unimportant. It's just for walking on. Utility. Whichever government official chose that pattern for the floor of the courthouse probably didn't even think about it much beyond the fact that they needed some ceramic flooring.

Iona kept staring at the ceramic tile beneath her feet. There was a crowd of people around her, some assuring, some crying, some silently seething with anger and disappointment. Iona's mother had fluctuated between all three several times within the last hour.

Iona's mother had been doing so several times in the last hour because the line to be seen by the judge was quite long--but not unusually long. Iona had attempted many times over the last hour-or-so to reassure her mother that this was her first offence and that she would probably get away with just the one hearing, that the case would never make it to the Sheriff's Court, and that she'd get a slap on the wrist at worst. All the while her eyes remained locked on the innocuous ceramic beneath her feet. Her mother, through her sobbing tears and pulsing anger, returned with assurance of her own.

"We will settle it with lay members," said her mother, "You won't see any jail time."

"Good luck," someone said. Iona turned to see who it was, though she knew it was Robbie. The curly-blonde boy was smiling. "We both know Micky banjoed that clerk right in the gob. Broke his jaw, he did. Upstanding member of society, he was and all that. Heard he might even be a friend of that judge. Lucky if they don't put us under the Young Offenders."

Iona's mother sneered at him. Iona looked at him with detached bemusement. He was smirking quite a lot for someone facing the prospect of jail time. Everyone in the council housing complex knew that wee Robbie Gow had prior offences.

Robbie ran a masculine hand through his curly blonde hair, blue eyes whispering something to Iona. Fear, maybe? She didn't think for a second that Robbie wasn't sweating this. The lad was full of shite, after all. Always acting tough. He was the first to bolt out of that discount store after Micky yelled back "Rob! I donnae fink he's moving., mate..." 

Previous to the fiasco, Ion had been hanging with Micky and Robbie. They were smoking behind a local pub. The sky was cloudy, threatening rain like it always was this time of year. It was a bit chilly, but Iona was determined that her fishnet top would be visible beneath her blouse, and so she'd forwent wearing a jumper. Predictably, Micky was quick to offer his jacket, which Iona refused.

"Then y'ehl jist be cold, ya eejit," she said.

Somehow, the conversation turned to Micky complaining about his Da threatening to throw him out when he turned eighteen. Robbie found time to start bragging about how he knocked some tosser flat out on his erse. Iona was bored out of her mind. She didn't really know where the idea had come from, and once it had formed in her mind she could not shake the concept from her brain. 

"Yeah, I snatched his weed, " said Robbie, "Got it back at the flat. You three in, yeah?"

Iona crossed her arms, not refusing, not affirming.

"Yeah, Iona!" said Micky, excitedly, "That's what we need. Let's get high!"

Iona just stared. She didn't judge. She had a sort of out-of-body experience at that moment. It was like she was just watching herself be propositioned by these two boys. She could see just a bit into future, back at Robbie's flat. She could see them sprawled out in a hazy room. Robbie's mother probably off her ass in the other room, under the tranquilizing effects of a stolen Xanax prescription. She watched an unfettered Micky make yet another clumsy pass at her, to which she felt more pity than anger, let alone any kind of reciprocal feeling. And then she woke up to the present.

"You got any beer, yeah?" asked Micky.

"Maw's prolly got a few, yeah," said Robbie.

Iona turned to them both from where she'd previously sat, staring out into the bleak future.

"Ya lads wanna knock over a convenience store?"

In the actual future, Iona was thinking how dumb she was, then. Not as dumb as the lads, obviously, for they'd agreed with little to no question. Micky, who was no doubt imagining some kind of Bonnie and Clyde scenario, and Robbie, who was just as bored as she was.

They'd entered the store where a tall, but lanky old man was hunched over the counter (strewn with boxes of licorice, mints and those scary-looking over-the-counter boner-pills that promised "hours of stamina" with "very few side effects"). Iona busied herself in the makeup isle, while Micky pretended to be interested in a cooler full of Irn Bru. Robbie's the one that had the knife. Too bad he was too slow for the ex-special forces man who owned the store.

Aw man, they thought he was just an old man. Who knew he was still hiding ropy muscles under that shirt?

He pulled that knife right out of Robbie's hand and by the time Iona had left the makeup isle to investigate the yelp she heard, the ex-special forces man had Robbie in a headlock and pulled the hosiery he was wearing off his head, revealing his attractively masculine face before threatening his heretobefore unmarred handsomeness with his own knife.

Iona screamed, and in up came Micky with a surprise right-hook. Cold-cocked him...or so he thought. The old man staggered back and lost his grip on Robbie. But instead of falling he turned around, regained his ground and set his sights on Micky, knife in hand.

Now, Iona should have thought that the old man would have found it counterproductive had he actually attacked any of his would-be robbers. However, Iona quickly panicked and rushed forward. The old man probably never even noticed her come in, because she caught him completely off-guard. He staggered back and bashed his head on a rack full of Lucky Strike cigarettes. The white packages tumbled down over his unmoving head as he fell to the floor.

It was a freak accident. That's how the five foot girl managed to render a six-foot-tall marine unconscious and unmoving. Robbie didn't see a thing. And Micky...Iona was certain he'd taken the blame.

Iona remembered what was on the packages of those Lucky Strike cigarettes, it stood out because when she was younger the warnings were fare more specific. but had been changed after a recent wave of economic isolationism swept the country. The label on the cigarettes read: "Warning--May Cause Death."

In the present again, Iona looked to Micky, who looked terrified. A sense of responsibility gripped her, then. She knew Micky hadn't dealt the debilitating blow.

Soon after, Iona's number was called. She and her mother were hurried into a small room.

The room looked more like a conference room than a courtroom. At the long wooden table sat three lay members of the council for young offenders, and a judge. The three lay people (all women, one short, one fat and one mean-looking) gave her a quick once-over and then turned their noses to their papers. The judge, a skinny, frail-looking man with kind eyes, smiled weakly. 

"Ah, Miss Mason," said the Judge, "Please, sit down."

Iona obeyed, eyes downcast again, she examined the carpet of the floor and its many-hued, dark, multicolored strands. It was an ugly sort of carpet one always sees in cheap offices, chosen without much thought like the tile. It was just for walking on.

"This is the trial for Miss Iona Eileen Mason, age sixteen," said the Judge, for the benefit of records, "Charges are as stated: Attempted robbery and accessory to assault." The Judge looked directly at Iona. "This is your first offense, correct?"

She looked up at him, taken by surprise. She expected him to ask how she pleaded first.

"Yes," she said.

"Good, good," he said, leaning towards her, still smiling slightly, "It is not the wish of this court to have you detained, Miss Mason. Every child who comes through this door is an individual. Every. One. We want to tailor our reaction to their crimes to fit the individual. Details are important. Your background, your education. You haven't had the easiest childhood. We know this. We're not int he business of exacerbating a troubled youth with the burden of punishment, especially when it may not be the best thing for them. We just need to know: Did you know that Robert Gow was going to pull that knife on the store clerk? Were you at all involved with the assault on this man?"

Iona was silent. She stared down at the floor. Iona's mother chimed in in her stead:

"Shes' never done anything like this," she said, "I'm sure it was those boys. They're a bad influence on her. She was doing fine afore she met 'em, she was. Always helping her aunt oot thit her wee bairns."

Iona could feel the intensity of ten eyes drilling into her, but she kept staring at the floor, as if it weren't just someone else's afterthought.

"Well?" the mean-looking lay member implored.

Iona bit her lip.