by a familiar sinking feeling as I stared at the spilled orange liquid: eighty thousand dollars for possession, fifty-five thousand for pollution, plus the mandatory court appearance.

If the officer’s in a good mood, he might stop there.

“Why are you looking down?” he said. “Look up at the sky.”

An impulse surged in me, enough to snap me out of my frozen state and bring me to look him in the eye. “Is that an order, sir?”

“Absolutely not.”

I narrowed my eyes, not sure what to think about him. I could see his badge, the only mark he wore that hinted at his employer, and I knew that he could fine me and test me and arrest me and whatever else the laws said, and that I should have been trying to think of excuses and defenses, figuring out the patrolman’s soft-spot and how to take