When a kid my age walked past me in handcuffs wearing a t-shirt that read “fuck you, you fuckin’ fuck,” I knew I was in the right place. When you’re desperate to escape an abusive school environment, juvenile hall seems like a vacation.

I figured the judge would lock me up for at least six months. I imagined bunking with the type of kids who treated me like crap in school: the students who smoked cigarettes in the bathroom, carried a switchblade, stole their parents’ cars, and seemed unfazed by the sting of tequila. Except, I wouldn’t have a history with anyone in juvie. Maybe the kids in lockup wouldn’t hate me as much.

Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately), my only visit to juvie was for a meeting with my probation officer.

We sat across from each other at a long table in a private room. I’d be lying if I tried to describe what she looked like, but I remember her demeanor: cold and callous. Making eye contact with her felt like being speared by a cactus.

She remained expressionless while my mom tried to convince her I wasn’t really a juvenile delinquent; I just made a stupid, impulsive decision. I was gifted and bright. I learned to read when I was two. I wanted to study veterinary medicine in college. I wasn’t a violent person; I wouldn’t hurt a fly. But cacti probation officers don’t care about anyone’s feelings. She wasn’t there to learn about my promising future. She was there to lay down the law; to warn me about the dangerous path I was on. According to her, I was headed for a life of crime.

I wasn’t anything like my classmates who came to school with ankle bracelets, but there I was, having a meeting with my probation officer. My probation officer. Nobody in junior high had a probation officer unless they did something really bad.

“You know, it’s not okay to take things that don’t belong to you.” Her words slid off the end of her nose and onto the table, falling short of my ability to care. “There’s no excuse for your actions.”

I didn’t say a word. Considering what I had been planning, the diary I stole from one of my bullies should have been the least of her concerns.

“What are we going to do with you?” Gravity sucked her lips into a deep frown. “If you continue down this path, you’ll come back here in handcuffs and you won’t be going home.”

I wondered if I could get that in writing.

“I know you teenagers think you’re invincible, but drugs will ruin your life. You think smoking weed is cool, but it’s killing your brain and if you don’t stop, you’ll end up living on the streets or rotting in jail.”

Drugs? I tilted my head like a dog and stared at her in silence trying to figure her out. I had just been charged with terrorist threats for threatening to kill a classmate and narrowly escaped charges of extortion for threatening to burn her diary… and my P.O. wanted to talk about drugs?

I had never smoked a cigarette and not one drop of alcohol had ever touched my tongue. I didn’t know the difference between marijuana and meth. Do you smoke it? Snort it? Inject it? Those anti-drug programs never taught us how to actually do drugs. All I knew was to avoid shady looking people in white vans handing out small plastic bags full of candy.

Apparently, she thought I was one of them – one of the kids who drank beer behind 7-11, snorted their parents’ cocaine, guzzled tequila from the bottle, shoplifted for fun, and lit fires in the trash cans at school. My egotistical 14-year-old mind thought my classmates who did those things were losers. I had to correct her misconceptions.

“I’m not into drugs or alco-“

“Stop.” She flailed her hands like a babysitter about to be hit by a stray toddler. “I’m not interested in excuses. You either take full responsibility for your crimes or I’ll tell the judge you’re being uncooperative.”

The way she was talking you’d think I got caught washing down a peanut butter and pot sandwich with a beer at lunch. Either I got extremely lucky and the cops didn’t read my notebook, or they didn’t understand what I wrote.

Despite my impulses I remained quiet, doing my best impression of “cooperative.” It was a role I’d learned to play just long enough to find out if I was willing to endure my prescribed punishment.

I wasn’t afraid of going to juvie. I was afraid my probation officer held the power to silence me forever and I’d never get the chance to tell anyone what was really going on at school. She wanted me to accept responsibility for being victimized by kids I never provoked. I wasn’t allowed to defend myself against false accusations of doing drugs. I hadn’t been allowed to speak on my own behalf since my arrest and now I had to be whoever my prickly probation offer said I was.

I understood why she thought I was on the fast track to becoming a career criminal. I was sitting in the same chair many of my peers sat in to discuss possession of drugs, weapons, gang activity, alcohol, and violent fights. No doubt, those were all dangerous activities to get involved in. But I was a different kind of dangerous. I was an injustice collector; a ticking time bomb waiting for a reason to lash out against the next person who crossed my path – friend or foe. I wasn’t on a path of self-destruction through mind-altering drugs and alcohol. I wasn’t trying to alter my experience of life; I was trying to end it. I wanted to burn the world, starting with my school.

Driven by an insatiable desire for revenge, I made no attempt to hide my contempt. But, even when looking directly into my eyes she didn’t see my white-hot rage. Nobody did. It would be decades before I realized why.

The day of my arrest, the school administration confiscated several notebooks filled with fantasies of committing suicide and mass murder at my junior high, yet nobody was addressing the contents. I named specific people I wanted to kill and drew images of those people and school buildings blown to bits. I recorded an audio cassette tape full of death threats against one of my bullies and ended the tape with Green Day’s ‘Having a Blast,’ and left it in her locker. That tape is the reason I got arrested.

Oddly, my P.O. didn’t seem concerned that I had been charged with terrorist threats. All she cared about was the diary I stole and promised to burn if my bully didn’t stop telling everyone I was gay.

After several months passed I became increasingly anxious about going to court for my hearing. I was certain I’d be locked up for what I had done. After a few months of constant anxiety, I was told the judge dropped my case. Just like that. Without meeting me? That was a shock. They let me off the hook and although I didn’t understand why, I didn’t ask.

At the time, I didn’t know it was rare for teenage girls to plan a school shooting. That rarity afforded me every benefit of the doubt. Girls aren’t a credible threat. Girls are unlikely to commit mass murder. Brenda Spencer was an anomaly.

Perhaps I should have titled this chapter The Perks of Having A Vagina.

Click here to read Chapter 2: Cat in a Sweater