House Arrest

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

WINTER

WEEK 1

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

WEEK 4

WEEK 5

WEEK 6

WEEK 7

WEEK 8

WEEK 9

WEEK 10

WEEK 11

WEEK 12

WEEK 13

SPRING

WEEK 14

WEEK 15

WEEK 16

WEEK 17

WEEK 18

WEEK 19

WEEK 20

WEEK 21

WEEK 22

WEEK 23

WEEK 24

WEEK 25

WEEK 26

SUMMER

WEEK 27

WEEK 28

WEEK 29

WEEK 30

WEEK 31

WEEK 32

WEEK 33

WEEK 34

WEEK 35

WEEK 36

WEEK 37

WEEK 38

WEEK 39

FALL

WEEK 40

WEEK 41

WEEK 42

WEEK 43

WEEK 44

WEEK 45

WEEK 46

WEEK 47

WEEK 48

WEEK 49

WEEK 50

WEEK 51

WEEK 52

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Author

Chronicle Ebooks

Copyright © 2015 by K.A. Holt.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Holt, K. A., author.
House arrest / by K.A. Holt.
pages cm
Summary: Young Timothy is sentenced to house arrest after impulsively stealing a wallet, and he is forced to keep a journal
into which he pours all his thoughts, fears, and frustrations.
ISBN 978-1-4521-3477-2 (Hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4521-4084-1 (ebook)
1. Diaries—Juvenile fiction. 2. Juvenile delinquents—Juvenile
fiction. 3. Detention of persons—Juvenile fiction. [1. Novels
in verse. 2. Diaries—Fiction. 3. Juvenile delinquency—Fiction.
4. Detention of persons--Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.5.H65Ho 2015
813.6--dc23
2014022151

Design by Jennifer Tolo Pierce.
Typeset in Bodoni Six ITC and Vine Street.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107

Chronicle Books—we see things differently. Become part of our
community at www.chroniclekids.com.

To my sweet
Ik
e-a-saurus

WEEK 1

Boys d
o
n't write in journals,
unless it's court-ordered.
At least, this is what I've figured.

I
I have
I have nothing
to say.

I am not allowed to have nothing to say.
Except on Tuesdays
when I go see Mrs. Bainbridge
who calls me Tim instead of Timothy.
I sit on her squishy couch
my mouth sealed shut
my eyes burning holes
in the leaves of all her plants.
She says I can call her Maureen.
But who would want to be called Maureen?

Adjudicated delinquent.
I had to look up how to spell that.
Three times.
I don't feel like a delinquent
and I don't know what
adjudicated
means
(even after looking it up).
Sounds like a kung fu move.
I adjudicated you in your face!
HI-YA

A whole year of this journal?
Maybe I will write about the other people I see.
Like José . . . just being José.
I will pretend his life is mine,
like I can still go hang out in our street
whenever I want.
Magnolia Circle. Where I've always lived.
With the manhole cover
that makes a perfect third base.

WEEK 2

How do you let yourself
become a probation officer?
Is there a school for that?
A diploma?
Congrats, James, you have graduated
and are now
a complete
tool.

James recommends
not writing any more things
like that last thing.
Otherwise
the judge will get mad.
Who knew my probation officer
could read my journal?
I would like it on record that that isn't fair.
Do you hear me, James?
Do you hear me, Mrs. Bainbridge?
Do you hear me, Judge?
A personal journal is very crowded
with so many eyes.

James on Monday.
Mrs. Bainbridge on Tuesday.
School every day.
Home every day.
Nowhere else unless Mom is with me.
That's the schedule, Journal.
Got it?
It's pretty simple.
Like a court-ordered cage,
with a Mom-shaped lock.

You better take this journal seriously
,
James told me Monday.
Or they'll throw you in juvie
so fast
your head will spin.
As if my head isn't already spinning.

On that day, weeks ago, I'd lost my head.
Everything foggy and frosty,
everything a dwarf name
from a fairy tale
that doesn't exist.
I remember I was so tired.
So
so
so
tired.
Levi had been sick the night before.
One of those nights with no nurse at home to help.
Mom had her hands full.
And I did, too.
Levi was bad sick.
So I helped.
Running for towels,
for meds,
for the heavy oxygen tanks,
for the suction machine,
for the spare trach tubes,
for the ties to keep the tube in his neck
so he could breathe
which he wasn't doing very well
that night
before the morning
when my head was full of fairy-tale dwarves
named Foggy and Frosty and Sleepy and Crazy.

I will never know what I was thinking when I stole that wallet,
because I wasn't thinking.
I wish everyone would stop asking.
There is no
what
when there is no thinking.
There is just
is
-ing.
Things happen.
Things happened.
Just like that.
Snap.
It is what it is.
It was what it was.
So stop asking.
I was trying to help,
that's all.
But it was the opposite of help,
and I know that now.
I'm not sorry, though.
If you're wondering.
I'm just sorry I got caught.
Because it
would
have helped.
It would have.