Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) by Caitlyn Robertson Read Free Book Online

“challenge,” they were to
turn around and walk back to their seat. If they weren’t challenged, they were
to walk to the jury box and take their place. They would be sworn in once all
twelve jurors had been chosen.
    The registrar had a wooden box on a stand
in front of her, and she began turning it as if she were going to call out
Lotto numbers. Then she pulled a number out and checked it against her list.
“Shatner, William,” she announced.
    Honey blinked, a bizarre image flitting
through her head of Captain Kirk walking toward the jury box as he asked Scotty
to beam him up. It was a young man who came forward, though, smartly dressed, a
look of irritation sweeping briefly across his face as he entered the
courtroom. He walked past the lawyers, who looked him up and down.
    “Challenge,” said the defending lawyer.
    The young man stopped, turned and walked
back, rolling his eyes. Why had the lawyer challenged him? Presumably because
he thought the guy may be overly sympathetic toward the prosecution.
Interesting.
    She watched the next names come out of the
barrel. Another man, slightly older, this time allowed to pass. A young woman,
younger than herself, challenged by the prosecuting lawyer. An older woman,
unchallenged, who took her place on the stand. A very old man, white-haired,
unchallenged. Then another younger man followed by a younger woman, both
challenged.
    Honey’s heart began to sink. The more
challenges, the more likely it was she’d be called.
    And sure enough, with only three places
left to fill, the registrar said, “Summers, Honeysuckle.”
     She got to her feet and squeezed awkwardly
past the others in her row, clamped her handbag underneath her arm and walked
into the main courtroom. She fixed her gaze on the floor, saying in her head
over and over again Please challenge! Please challenge! She felt the
lawyers’ eyes on her, but her feet kept walking and nothing was said, and then
she was at the jury box, and the woman standing there asked her whether she
wanted to swear on the Bible or take an oath. She took the Bible, climbed the
steps into the jury box and took her seat.
    Crap.
    Why hadn’t she been challenged? All the
other young women—anyone who looked remotely like they might sympathise for the
defendant—had been. Her head ached and she felt sick. Why hadn’t she returned
her form saying she was getting married at the weekend?
    Two middle-aged men filled the final two
places in the box and that was it—they were done. The judge told them they were
to make their way to the jury room and choose a foreperson, and that they
should inform the registrar if they knew the defendant or were aware of the
case in any way.
    They all shuffled out of the box and
followed the registrar out the courtroom, down a carpeted hallway and into a
room at the end. The room had a long table with twelve seats around it, a
coffee machine, a water cooler, a door to a tiny garden and a bathroom off one
end.
    The registrar gave them all a note pad and
a pen, and told them to take a seat and choose a foreperson to speak for them
in court. Then she left the room, shutting the door behind her.
    “God damn it,” said one of the men. “I
really didn’t want to do this today. I’m right in the middle of an important
project.”
    “Me neither.” An older woman sat in one of
the chairs with a long sigh. “I was going to Auckland to visit my daughter if I
wasn’t chosen.”
    The elderly man with white hair also sat,
and gradually they all took their places.
    “Where do we start?” someone asked.
    “Why don’t we go around and introduce
ourselves,” suggested the elderly man. “I’m Tom. I’m retired, but I used to be
a gardener.”
    They went around the table, each saying
their name and their occupation. When her turn came, Honey said, “I make sweet
pastries in a café—I guess that’s why I’m called Honey.” She’d meant it as a
joke. Nobody laughed. Everyone looked nervous. She bit her lip,