'Shhhhh…' Cheddar hissed.

'Apparently he was with a gang and was coerced…' Brazil went on.

'No, I wasn't,' Weed objected. 'I was just with Smoke and Divinity. Dog, Sick and Beeper wasn't there.'

'Immaterial,' said the judge.

'Point is,' Brazil went on, 'Weed carried paints into the cemetery with the intention of defacing Jefferson Davis's statue.'

'I didn't know who it was,' Weed cut in. 'And I didn't de-face him. He still has a face. You go look.'

'Your Honor.' Public Defender Cheddar's voice was tight and high. 'I don't think my client understands the bit about self-incrimination.'

'He said he did,' Judge Davis replied.

'Yeah,' Weed told Cheddar.

'Please continue, Officer Brazil,' said the judge.

'Weed painted a Spiders basketball uniform on the statue and at or around five A.M. left the cemetery by climbing over the fence again.'

'It wasn't that early,' Weed protested. 'I know, 'cause the sun was starting to show up and that always happens after six 'cause that's when I get up, too, because I gotta make my own toast and jelly before I go to school 'cause my mama works too late to get outta bed that early.'

Mrs. Gardener bent her head. She hid her face, wiping tears.

'Immaterial,' said Judge Davis.

'And besides,' Weed declared, 'it's just poster paint. You go look. A hose will get it off, but they been so busy studying what to do about it they never even wet their finger and touched it to see if it would stick. First rain's gonna ruin it,' he concluded with a trace of disappointment.

No one spoke for a moment.

Papers shuffled.

The C.A. was staring off, not present.

Brazil was amazed.

It took several synapses before Cheddar got it.

Then it's not really defaced,' Cheddar announced as if her voice was a gavel.

'How do you know?' Weed objected to his attorney. 'Anybody looked at it today?'

Nobody had.

'Then don't be telling…'he started to say before Cheddar clamped her hand over his mouth.

'How many times I gotta tell you to keep your mouth shut so I can do my job!' Cheddar exclaimed.

Weed bit her.

'Lord in heaven!' Cheddar exclaimed. 'He bit me!'

'Not hard,' Weed said. 'But she started it. What if she cut me with those nails? You seen them things up close?' He rubbed his mouth with his sleeve.

'Order!' Judge Davis declared.

'What if I clean up the statue?' Weed said. 'If you want me to, I will.' It was a big sacrifice for Weed to make, but he knew Twister's monument couldn't last forever. 'All I want is to be locked up except for Saturday when the Azalea Parade is.'

'We're not there yet, Weed,' Judge Davis told him firmly. 'I can't decide anything until I've heard the evidence. And please refrain from biting your counsel again.'

'What if I promise to fix the police computer? Would you let me play my cymbals in the parade?' Weed went on.

'He's referring to what the press has been calling "Fishsteria,"' Brazil told her.

Cheddar was visibly alarmed. 'He has that?' she asked, her face stricken.

'He caused it,' Brazil said.

'Your Honor, may I approach the bench?' Cheddar panicked.

She lunged forward and grabbed the edge of the bench, standing on her tiptoes, leaning as close to the judge as she could.

'Your Honor,' she whispered excitedly, but everyone could hear. 'If what's being said here is my client's the one spreading that fish sickness, then I need to know if others are in danger of catching it!'

Cheddar shot Weed a menacing look.

'Others meaning me,' Cheddar went on. 'He bit my hand, Your Honor.'

'I don't think we're talking about that sort of disease,' Judge Davis told her with a glint of irritation. - 'Your Honor,' Cheddar said in a more demanding tone, her nails flashing as she gestured. 'How do I know for an absolute true fact that he doesn't have some sort of bug of some type that all of us should be concerned about! Especially me because his teeth made contact with my skin!'

She held up her hand like the Statue of Liberty.

'Doesn't look like he broke the skin,' the judge observed.

Then you're saying you're not going to send him to mental health or someplace where they can do tests?' Cheddar's voice rose to a shriek.

'That's what I'm saying,' Judge Davis said.

'Then I quit!' Cheddar threw her hands up, red and gold flashing.

'No you don't 'cause I fired you first!' Weed called out as Cheddar grabbed her falling-apart briefcase, papers spilling, and rushed out of the courtroom.

'Your Honor,' Brazil spoke up. 'The truth is, we really need our COMSTAT telecommunications system up and running again.' He was out of line, but didn't care. 'The network's down all over the world because of the fish thing.'

'Officer Brazil, that is irrelevant to this case.'

'Of course,' Brazil mumbled a deliberate challenge to Weed, 'he probably couldn't fix it anyway.'

'Can too,' Weed said.

'Oh yeah?' Brazil taunted. 'Then how?'

'Just take out the program I did when I punted and messed up the HTML interpreter in AOL.'

Judge Davis couldn't help herself because like all else in the world, she used AOL and lived in fear of color bombs, IM bombs, HTML Freeze/Lag, HTMO errors, a combination of the above, or possibly the less innocuous but more annoying Blank IM bombs.

'What's punting?' she asked Weed.

'The bug's in autowrap in the text handler,' he informed her as if his explanation was as obvious as colors. 'See, if you use VBMSG subclassing, you know? To hold the window open and do some other things I told it to do, you know? 'Cause, see, like I said, there's this bug. So I told it to put my map on there and hold it. And the Anti-Punt program won't work, either, because I made my program hit Reply on the IM.'

Amazement stilled the room. Brazil was writing everything down. The C.A.'s mouth was open in disbelief.

'But I never meant for my fish screen to go everywhere,' Weed added. 'Someone must've stuck all these addresses together, and it ain't me who did.'

'Does anybody understand what he just said?' the judge asked.

'I sort of do,' Brazil said. 'And he's right about the addresses.'

'It won't take me but a minute to show him how to fix it, then you can lock me up," Weed said. 'And I can do the parade and get locked up again.'

He looked up at her, fear shining in his eyes. He could tell Judge Davis understood something bad would happen if she let him go home. He turned around and looked at his mother.

'It's okay, Mama,' he said. 'It ain't got nothing to do with you.'

Tears filled her eyes, and his got a little swimmy, too.

The C.A., whose job it was to punish to the fullest extent of the law, finally argued the case.

The release of him is an unreasonable danger to the property of others.' He quoted the code. 'I think there is clear and convincing evidence not to release him.'

The judge leaned forward and looked at Weed. She had made up her mind. Weed's heart jumped.

'I find there is probable cause for the state,' the judge let everybody know, 'and an adjudicatory hearing will be held twenty-one days from today. The state may summon witnesses, and the juvenile will remain in detention. But I order that the juvenile be released into the custody of Officer Brazil this Saturday.' She looked at Weed. 'What time is the parade?'

'Ten-thirty,' Weed said. 'But I gotta be there earlier than that.'

'When does it end?'

'Eleven-thirty,' Weed said. 'But I gotta stay longer than that.'

'Nine A.M. to one P.M.,' the judge said to Brazil. 'Then back in detention pending the court date.'