Obviously it was something big enough to warrant a Post-it note parental conference. Since truly heinous crimes usually skipped the request for face time and went straight to an all-out in-your-face trial with immediate conviction, I could rule them out. So, logistically speaking, I was working with a casual sin. The type of crime that generally had a weeklong statute of limitations, because if I didn’t hear about it within a week, I considered it gotten away with and forgotten. That should have narrowed it down. It didn’t.

Thanks to having Kori Kitzler as a best friend, a lot could happen in one week.

“Miss Serena Moore?”

I glanced up at the expectant Mrs. Talaber and her permanently pursed lips. I hadn’t heard a single syllable of her lecture.

I slid my elbow over “Felonies” as she approached. “Yes?”

I felt the sudden pressure of everyone’s eyes on me, a feeling I never enjoyed. Which is why I could never be a cheerleader. Well, that and I can’t do a herkie. Whatever the hell that is.

“What strikes you as different when reading this sonnet by Shakespeare?”

Time to fake it. I glanced down at the text in front of me and skimmed the poem, hoping that we hadn’t flipped pages while I wasn’t paying attention. I’m guessing she didn’t want my revelation on Shakespeare’s sexual orientation, so I hedged. “His obsession with immortalizing his lover’s youth.” Wasn’t that what all of his were about?

“Yes. Well, that is a very good analysis. Let’s give it some more thought, shall we? Miss Mancini, how about you?” We both turned to find Marci positively glowing—as any good cheerleader would—from the attention. “What strikes you as unique about this type of sonnet—as it pertains to today’s lecture?”

“The rhythm. It’s not a-b-b-a; it’s a-b-a-b.”

“Very good. Exactly.”

Whatever. At least I knew she wouldn’t be calling on me again, which was all the more reason to continue what I was doing. My brain scoured the past week, while I jotted down all of the possibilities. When I exhausted every potential crime, I categorized and tallied them.

I tapped my pen on “Petty Offenses.” These consisted of things that could easily be defended with a simple yet effective, “Give me a break.” This week those included countless acts of illegal music downloads, six counts of looking at explicit photographs and lewd jokes online, lost effing count of using profanity (but, damn it, I’m trying), and one count of hacking into various JV cheerleader blogs to slam on the varsity cheerleaders, thereby creating a Kismet High civil war. (Although “hacking” is probably too strong a word, seeing as how they all had the same predictable password: Adrian17. What is it with cheerleaders and quarterbacks anyway?)