You get busted.  You do the time. 

At first I had Community Clean-up.  Maybe everyone there felt this way, but what I did was nothing compared to everyone else's crime.  One guy robbed the Lucky 7 convenience store with a sawed-off shotgun.  Another guy stole a pick-up truck and led the police on a car chase for over 3 hours.  He's 15.  I know what Phil and I did was wrong, but at least we didn't terrorize anyone, and no one got hurt. 

I'm not trying to justify breaking the law.  Wrong is wrong.  I was doing it to protect a life, Nim's life, but at a certain point, I think when mom threw me the icy dagger-eyes in court, I knew that no one wanted to hear about it.

Dad should have been a judge.  Somehow he managed to dole out the harshest sentence of all.  Being grounded for the rest of the year is a much worse punishment than picking up trash.  I can just see him in front of some unsuspecting defendant, dad would be able to figure out the worst possible thing for that person, and that's what the sentence would be. 

But he did get me moved to community service at the aquarium.  It's pretty cool to be working there.  It's like everything I've been doing with Nim, it all happens at the aquarium…whether it's finding the right food blend or keeping his home environment clean and comfortablecleaning his swimming pool.  It all happens at the aquarium, except on a much grander scale.  They have the resources behind them.  And everything's down to a science.

I wonder where Nim is.  I wonder if he's doing okay.  I miss him, but I just hope he's doing okay.