Julia stretched her legs, pushing against the grated cage that separated the rear and front seats of the police cruiser. It had been a longer drive than she had been on before, coming upstate from West Chester County, and the State Police, naturally, didn't care for the comfort and legroom of the people they detained, even if those people were only barely legal. The officers riding in the front seat threw a cautionary glance her way her toes rattled the cage. "Sorry," she said. "Kinda cramped back here, ya know?" Both officers turned their attention back to the road ahead without acknowledging her comment. Julia rolled her eyes, and tried to peer through the gap between the seat in front of her and the side of the car. It wasn't much, but she could see just enough through the front windshield to not feel completely trapped.
Why they were still treating her like a threat, she had no idea; even the court judge had deemed her incident two years prior an accident; it was her other misdemeanors that had ultimately earned her the room in juvie. "You know," she mused to the two stoic police in front of her, "that if I really wanted to make a break for it, I'd have already zapped both of you." A light crack popped from her left index finger; she had her issues with control, but she had been getting better, and supposedly the place she was going would help her refine that. Both men gave her another side eye, more annoyed than before.
"Just be quiet," said the driver. "And sit still. We're just about there." He pointed ahead.
Through her limmited line of sight, Julia made out the emerging structure: a large, sprawling brick building on an emaculate lawn, with grounds that stretched a good distance in every direction. As the squad car drove closer, she could see that other students, and possibly teachers, were beginning to convene and make their ways into the school. As they drove further down the main driveway, Julia could see more than a few faces eying the car. Some were surprised to see the police coming through, while others wore expressions that suggested that it wasn't the first time someone had arrived in such a fashion; she guessed that the unfazed ones had been around the school a while longer, and had likely seen just about everything.
The car came to a smooth halt outside of the main entrance, were a cluster of students had gathered. Julia's door swung open, and the officers pulled her from the vehicle. Both wore neoprene gloves, similar to what a lineman would wear. The driver uncuffed her hands, and pulled her forward until she was standing in front of them, facing the building. "So agressive," she spat. She shook off the soreness and patted herself off. "You just gonna stand there then? You got me here; job done, mission accomplished."
"Not until we see you walk through those doors, the driver said, his partner nodding in agreement.
"Fine then." Julia turned her attention to the man standing by the school's entrance in time to hear his name. 'Dr. Andre Saunders,' the head of the school. She knew the name. The people at juvie had told her that it was Dr. Saunders that had smoothed out the arrangement for her to attend here; they had also told her she'd best thank him, as he might have spared her an exteneded sentence into prison after she had turned eighteen.
Two students stepped forward from the crowd receiving their class schedules, and passing through the threshold and out of sight. As the second student reached the Dr. Saunders, Julia began weaving her way to the front of the crowd. The thought of the officers eying her up any longer motivated her to the front the mass, where she inadvertently cut off another student as she approached the principal. "Julia Lee Strauss," she said firmly. "And thank you for inviting me to come here," she would add as she took her schedule. She slipped through the front doors into the grand foyer, watching the cruiser pull out from the corner of her eye.
She emerged quickly into the foyer, coming to an immediate stop as a pair of her peers seemed to have had a collison of sorts. A female student was ripping into a guy for not paying attention to where he was going; she recognized both of them as the students that had gotten their schedules just moments prior. "That's one way to meet people, I guess," she chuckled as the girl stormed off.