Kids on bikes were not common sights, not on Park Street anyway. But every afternoon during the week at least one—Theo—came flying along.
To his knowledge, Theodore Boone was the only thirteen-year-old in town with his own law office. It wasn’t much of an office—just a tiny room at the rear of his parents’ building with a door that opened onto a small gravel parking lot used by his parents and the other members of the law firm. Law offices never have enough storage room because lawyers are mentally unable to throw stuff away—and they create an enormous amount of paperwork—and Theo’s office had once been used to store old files, along with cleaning supplies. Once he took over and cleared the space, he installed a card table as his desk. In the attic, he found an abandoned swivel chair that he held together with wire and superglue. On one wall there was a poster promoting the Minnesota Twins, his team, and on another wall there was a large cartoonish drawing of Theo that had been given to him on his twelfth birthday by April Finnemore.
On his desk he usually kept notebooks and school supplies, and under it there was usually a dog—Judge. No one would ever know Judge’s age or where he came from, except that he came from the dog pound and was once within twenty-four hours of being put to sleep, forever. Theo had rescued him in Animal Court two years earlier, gave him a new name, and took him home, where he slept peacefully through the night under Theo’s bed. During the day, Judge roamed quietly through the rooms and offices of Boone & Boone, occasionally napping on a small bed under Elsa’s desk near the front door, or under the large conference table if the lawyers weren’t using it, or hanging out in the small kitchen in hopes someone might drop some food. Judge weighed forty pounds, and though he ate human food, he never gained an ounce, according to the vet who saw him every four months. Judge preferred saltier foods—chips and crackers and sandwiches with meat—but he rejected almost nothing. When there was a birthday he expected cake. If someone, usually Theo, made a run to Guff’s Frozen Yogurt, Judge expected his own scoop, preferably vanilla. And Judge was perhaps the only member of the law firm able to choke down the dreadful oatmeal cookies brought in at least one dark day each month by Dorothy, Mr. Boone’s secretary.
About the only food Judge did not like was dog food. He preferred to eat what Theo ate, which was Cheerios for breakfast with whole milk, not skim, then whatever the rest of the family had for dinner, with a few random office snacks thrown in during the day while Theo was at school.
Because he was surrounded by lawyers, Judge knew that time was important. Appointments, conferences, court dates, meetings, schedules, and so on. Every member of the firm kept an eye on the clock, and the clock seemed to rule everything. Judge had his own clock, and he knew that on Wednesdays, as on most days, Theo arrived after school around 4:00 p.m. For this reason, Judge parked himself under Elsa’s desk promptly at 3:30 and went back to sleep. But it was dog sleep, the kind that’s not too deep, more of a light nap with the eyes half open and the ears listening and waiting for the sound of Theo bouncing up the front steps and securing his bike on the front porch.
When Judge heard these sounds, he stood and began to stretch as if he hadn’t moved for hours, then waited with great anticipation.
Theo came in the front door with his backpack and said, “Hello Elsa,” the same thing he said every day. Elsa jumped up and pinched his cheek and asked him how his day had been. Just okay. She straightened his button-down collar and said, “Your father said you were outstanding during the debate, is that so?”
“I guess,” he said. “We won.” Judge by now was at Theo’s feet, tail wagging, waiting to be rubbed on the head and spoken to.
“You look so cute in a real shirt,” she said. Theo was expecting this because he was usually greeted by some comment dealing with his wardrobe. Elsa was older than his parents, but she dressed like a twenty-year-old with strange tastes. She was also like a grandmother to Theo, a very important person in his life.
Theo spoke to his dog and rubbed his head and asked, “Is Mom in?”
“She is and she is expecting you,” Elsa gushed. The woman had incredible energy. “And she is very disappointed she missed the debate, Theo.”
“No big deal. She does have a job, you know?”
“Yes she does. There are some pecan brownies in the kitchen.”
“Who made them?”
“Vince’s girlfriend.”
Theo nodded his head in approval and walked down the hall to his mother’s office. The door was open and she waved him in. He took a seat and Judge plopped down beside him. Mrs. Boone was on the phone, listening. Her high-heel shoes were parked off to the side, which meant she had had a long day in court. Marcella Boone was forty-seven, a little older than the mothers of most of Theo’s friends, and she believed women lawyers were still expected to dress at a higher level when they went to court. Office attire was more casual, at least for Mrs. Boone, but court dates meant a sharper outfit and high heels.
Mr. Boone, upstairs, rarely went to court and rarely cared how he looked.
“Congratulations,” she said, hanging up. “Your father says you were magnificent. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, Theo.”
They talked about the debate for a while, with Theo detailing the good points made by the team from Central and the counterpoints made by his side. After a few minutes, though, his mother detected something else. Theo was often amazed at how his mother could sense something was wrong. Often when he tried to play a joke on her, or fool her with some silly gag, he got nowhere. She could look at his face and know exactly what he was thinking.
“What’s the matter, Theo?” she asked.
“Well, you can forget about me and the cello,” he said, then told the story of the music class that no longer existed. “It doesn’t seem fair,” Theo said. “Mr. Sasstrunk was a great teacher. He was excited about the class, and I think he needed the extra money.”
“That’s awful, Theo.”
“We talked to Mrs. Gladwell, and she explained all the budget cuts that have been ordered from the home office. Coaches, janitors, cafeteria workers. It’s really bad and there’s nothing she can do about it. She said we could complain to the school board, but if the money’s not there, then the money’s not there.”
Mrs. Boone swung her chair around to a small sleek cabinet and began searching for a file. Upstairs, when Mr. Boone searched for a file, he simply began rummaging through the stacks of disorganized papers piled in some unknown order on top of his desk. He also kept stacks of materials under his desk, beside his desk, and it was not unusual to see documents that had simply slid off the piles and onto another spot on the floor. Mrs. Boone’s office was intensely modern and neat, with nothing out of place. Mr. Boone’s was old, creaky, saggy, and a mess. However, as Theo had witnessed many times, Mr. Boone could find a file almost as quickly as his wife.
She swung back around to her desk and looked at some paperwork. “This young woman came in last week for a divorce. Very sad. She’s twenty-four, with one small child and another on the way. She doesn’t work because she’s busy being a mom. Her husband is a rookie policeman here in the city, and there’s only one paycheck. They are barely surviving as a family, and there’s no way they can afford a split. I recommended they see a marriage counselor and get serious about working things out. She called yesterday to inform me that her husband just learned he is being laid off by the city. The mayor has ordered every department to cut their budgets by five percent across the board. We have sixty policemen, so that means three will lose their jobs. My client’s husband is one of them.”