Hi-Tops

A MILE IN MY HIGH-TOPS

“You godless heathens!”, The screech weaved in and out of the well kept yards and homes of the town of Coldwell. The obnoxious laughter of teenagers filled every crevasse of the night, shattering the suburban peace.

“Well, geez, when you say it, it sounds like a bad thing!”, rambunctious laughter filled the streets once more, echoed by the rattling of a chain link fence, and the slapping sound of sneaker meeting concrete. Adolescent silhouettes did cartwheels and flips around the deserted cul-de-sacs, letting loose yelps of excited from the pure adrenaline rush that came from being young.

“Well, I did my one good deed for the rest of my life.”, Lucy said as she brought a lightly closed hand out from beneath her worn, leather jacket. The husky pup let out a high pitched yawn and snuggled deeper into her hand. Lucy gave the small animal a sheepish grin and ran a tanned hand through her dark hair in a attempt to not squeal about how cute it was. Caleb, the only boy in their threesome, however, had no such inhibitions. He gingerly lifted the wallet sized pup out of Lucy’s hand before immediately gushing about how “adorwable” he was.

Lucy turned when she heard a slight chuckle behind her and met the wine colored eyes of their last musketeer, Renee. The blond flipped a lone bang out of her left eye and smirked at Lucy. Lucy ginned back at her, the smile was the epitome of her devil-may-care attitude. Her eyes closed to slits leaving only glints of her bright blue eyes visible, and the grin itself was rather lopsided. It was more like a full faced smirk, than an expression of happiness.
Rene nodded over to Caleb, “I think he’s more of a girl than you.”

Lucy let out a barking laugh and spoke in rich contralto, odd for someone her age, “I’ve met transvestite girlier than me. Female to male transvestites.” She emphasized her point by grabbing hold of her invisible nads somewhere through the fabric of her jeans. The jeans themselves looked as though they had seen one to many barbed wire fences, but went well with her “I think they used to be black” hi-tops.

Caleb had, at some point, stopped squealing over the puppy long enough to catch Renee’s comment, and sent a pout her way that totally clashed with his surfer image. The shaggy sun bleached blonde hair that fell into eyes was in dire need of a cut, and he sooner go barefoot than leave the house without his flip flops.

“Caleb stop being a wussy for, like, two seconds and come on. Ms. Geller’s gonna call the cops any second now.” Lucy was already half way down the next block by the time the words reached the other teens. She threw them both a grin over her shoulder and called back, “The sooner we all get home, the sooner we can deny this ever happened.”

Renee and Caleb looked at each other before shrugging and sprinting down their respective blocks, the ebony furred puppy held close to Caleb’s chest.
* * *

The next morning the police came around to each of their houses (“The usual suspects”, they told them), and all three gave blurry eyed “I don’t know’s” with their parents glaring over their shoulders. As soon as the cops left the Asher residents, Milo, the newly christened pup, decided it was the perfect moment to let out a whimper of hunger from Caleb’s Pajama pocket. Caleb turned on his heel to meet his mother’s crossed arms and stern glare.

“See what had happened was…”, Caleb started but was cut off by his mother’s rant.

“I swear Caleb, you three have done some stupid stuff, but breaking and entering!” she threw her hands up in frustration at the end.

“But, mom, Ms. Geller’s dog had one more puppy than she expected, n’ she was gonna drown ‘em. Seriously, who does that?” He held the puppy out in his hand in hopes that its cuteness would win her over. She wasn’t impressed.

”Couldn’t you have just asked Ms. Geller politely…”, started Mrs. Asher but stopped short when she saw her son’s dubious expression.


“Okay, fine, but couldn’t you have asked Ms. Field to talk to her”, Ms. Feild was Coldwell’s resident veterinarian, but she was away at a conference, and Caleb told his mother so.

“Okay, Okay, you didn’t have a lot of options, but still, that’s a crime. No, I don’t care if Renee picked the lock and Lucy actually went in, you’re the one with the evidence.” Mrs. Asher stopped whatever arguments her son had as he transferred the pup over to her waiting hand, and trudged up the stair to get ready for school with his head held low.

After a quick shower, throwing on whatever didn’t smell bad, and a hearty breakfast Caleb said goodbye to his mom and walked out the door. He made his way to the corner of his street, flip plops slapping the entire way, where Lucy and Rene waited.

Lucy chewed on a candy cigarette (“All the fun of looking cool without the lung cancer”, she liked to say.), while leaning against a stop sign. Rene lay in the well manicured grass, plucking out bits and throwing them into the air.

They took one look at his face and grinned, “Got caught?”