"Jen, wait, this is stupid," I said.
"Come on, Becca, nothing's going to happen."
Next thing I knew we were in mom's car, leaving the Dixon Mall, now driving through the residential neighborhoods of Dixon. I had walked out of the main entrance of the mall just as Jen pulled up in our mom's minivan.
Jen was always like this, always taking risks, always taking chances, always pushing the boundaries, the limits. I remember dad saying the first born child was the risk taker, the one who tested the limits of the parents. The first born was the child who blazed the trail for the younger siblings. Well, if getting into trouble, getting grounded, and getting detention at school was what all that meant, then that was Jen. She knew she wasn't supposed to drive mom's car without permission, not until she brought her grades up anyway. The rules were different at dad's. All he asked was that Jen at least ask for permission. He tended to spoil us.
"Jen, stop, really, we are so going to get busted," I said.
"Who's going to know?" For all of the confidence Jen lacked at school, she more than made up for when she was breaking rules.
"Mom's going to know, Jen!" I was yelling now. "What's it matter if anyone else does? We're so dead. She's going to absolutely kill us!"
"Will you relax? It's Wednesday, mom has night class. She said she had to go to the library after so it'll be way after ten by the time she's home. And what are you worried about? You aren't the one driving. I'm the one who took the car. I'll handle it"
That, too, was Jen. She was always overconfident. Always assuming she could get away with anything. She did get away with some things, but not enough to keep being so reckless.
So there we were, cruising along Warner Street, the elms and oak trees towering above the road, their heavy branches hanging down, obscuring the street lights. This made Warner an even darker road to drive at night. Maybe that's why Jen didn't see the stop sign. She drove right through it, right through the intersection, not noticing the police car on our right. I didn't see the police car either, but I sure saw the stop sign.
"Are you trying to get busted?" I asked. "That was a stop sign you just ran."
"I didn't see it," Jen said. "It's so dark on this street."
Just then blue and red lights began flashing behind us; high beams flooded the inside of our car. The bright lights made me squint and I could see Jen squinting as she turned to look over her shoulder. "Cops!" She yelled. Who else did she think it could be? Who else had flashing lights like that? Of course it was the police.
"You've got to pull over, Jen, you've got to just stop," I told her. Man, we were so busted. Jen kept driving. She didn't even notice we were going too fast. "What are you doing? You've got to pull over!" I could hear my voice growing shriller. What was she thinking?
We came to another intersection with a stop sign and, fortunately, no other cars were there because Jen ran that stop sign, too, when she made a right turn. We were picking up speed, accelerating slowly. Jen's face was emotionless, her mouth set in a firm line. She wasn't looking over her shoulder anymore, wasn't looking in the rear view mirror. The police car behind us turned on its siren. That is when I felt very scared. The siren was so loud, the lights so bright. Every time I turned around to look I was blinded by the high beams of the police car.
"Jen! You've got to stop!" I was panicking now. I could feel my heart thudding into my chest, my breath was short. I could feel the car picking up speed. The houses shrouded in darkness rushed by my window faster and faster. Jen was weaving now. We blew through another intersection and stop sign, then another. As we flew through another intersection we narrowly missed clipping the front end of a pickup truck entering from the right. The other vehicle's horn blared, but we barely heard it as we were going very fast.
The police car was right on our tail now. And still we were accelerating. I turned to look back, to see how close the police cruiser was, but the swirling lights and spotlight blinded me. And then I felt the minivan slow down. Jen had taken her foot off the accelerator and started to brake. She slowed down the minivan, turned on the blinker, and slowly eased the minivan over to the side of the road.
The police cruiser had pulled in behind us, its siren had stopped its blaring. The lights were flashing, swirling around. The officer slowly climbed from his car and made his way up the side of our van. Our mom was going to be so mad at us. I'd be grounded until I graduated from college. Why had I climbed inside the van? Why hadn't I stopped Jen? What could I have done? I just knew mom was going to say that I could have done something.
The officer was stern as he wrote Jen the ticket. He told her she was lucky he wasn't arresting her. I felt I should have received a ticket, too, a ticket for doing nothing. But I wonder about that now? Did I really do nothing? Wasn't my crime doing nothing? Couldn't I have done something? What could I have done?