Hurricane Power (7 page)

Dad put his hands on Carlos's shoulders and faced him directly.

“I think I understand,” Dad said. “Your parents don't speak English. You are in charge of the family. And you're afraid that someone at the hospital will start asking questions about how you all happen to be living here.”

Carlos didn't say anything. But tears began to silently slide down his face.

“Son,” Dad said gently, “I will do everything possible to protect this little girl. And your family. There's a nurse who will help us too. She and her family have faced the same problems you are.”

Same problems? I wasn't sure what Dad meant. But I didn't get a chance to ask.

Carlos finally nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “We go. We have to save Juanita.”

Carlos and I sat in the emergency waiting room of the hospital. It was so quiet we could hear the electric hum of the clock on the wall. Like all hospital clocks, it was big and ugly, designed only to show the passing of time as clearly as possible. Time of hope or nervousness or fear. Time that people spent waiting for news—good or bad.

We had already spent half an hour alone while Dad worked with other doctors
somewhere down the hall. Carlos had said nothing in that half hour.

I decided I wasn't going to break into his silence. I had plenty of questions for him, but this wasn't the right place. Not with him so clearly worried about his baby sister.

I stared at the hands on the ugly white clock. I was thinking about life, about how it didn't seem fair.

Why had Carlos been born into a family that had to share just two rooms? A family that couldn't even get medical help and had to send their oldest son to the hospital with a sick baby because he spoke English and his parents didn't?

Why had I been born into a doctor's family? A family where my brother and I had our own rooms? A family that could afford to send us to university?

Dad had once explained that the answer was less about what was or wasn't fair. It was more about life not always being fair and about helping people whenever we had the chance and...

“That was a funny thing,” Carlos said,
interrupting my thoughts. “You with that pistol.”

I blinked in surprise. That was the last thing I had expected him to say.

“Funny? I nearly got thrown in jail. And that wasn't the worst of it.” I explained the part about the crap that I had rolled into.

For the first time, I saw Carlos smile. “Crap, like from a dog?” he asked.

“A big dog,” I assured him. “A big dog that had eaten way too much.”

He made a face and laughed. Long and hard. It was like once he got started laughing, he was using it as a way to get rid of all his worries. Even if just for a few minutes.

When he finally quit laughing, I spoke again.

“You run fast,” I said. “You really should think about what Jennifer said. About running with the Hurricanes track team.”

I thought about Carlos's family and how Dad had said Carlos was the one in charge. And I knew his family needed help.

“Maybe,” I said, “you could get a track scholarship and go to university.”

His face brightened. “That's what a person needs in America. Education. People who are born here think life is so easy. They don't take advantage of what they can do. People who are born outside, they would die for a chance like that.” His face saddened. “And sometimes they do.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You probably figured it out by now,” he said. “Me and my family, we're illegal.”

Illegal. That's what Dad had meant when he said the nurse had faced the same problems Carlos faced. The big smiling nurse had told Carlos not to worry about the paperwork for now.

“Illegal,” he repeated. “From Cuba. Even with the worst job, living here is ten times better than living where we did in Cuba. But some people don't make it across. I had a friend...”

His voice drifted off. His face got sadder. It didn't feel right to push him to finish.

He took a deep breath. “See, there are these people who promise to be guides, to take you across the ocean. They make you pay plenty.
Sometimes they take you across. Sometimes they just take your money. My friend and his family, they got in a boat. No one has seen them since. It's easy to throw someone off a boat out there—lots of water.”

I shook my head in sympathy. I mean, what could a person say after hearing something like that?

“My father's dream,” Carlos said, “is for all his children to grow up here. Become part of this country. Be citizens and have good jobs and freedom.”

I finally understood why Carlos had not gone to the police when I'd taken his money. But it didn't explain why the school's computer had the wrong address for him. Or what was going on with those two guys with tattoos. And it didn't explain one other thing.

“Carlos,” I said, “how did you know my dad was a doctor? And how did you know where I lived?”

He turned his dark eyes on me. “Please,” he said. “Don't ask. For me and for you—you don't want to know.”

“But—”

“No,” he said, “listen. You talk to me about getting on the track team and trying for a scholarship. That would mean the world to me and my family. But there is no way I could do that. Not with where I am now and what I have to do to stay here. It is only a dream.”

“But—”

“You can't even let anyone know I came to your house. If they find out, they will do terrible things to me and my family. Maybe to you too.”

“They?”

“Please. I have already said too much.” His mouth snapped shut.

I wanted to know so badly that I would have pushed him hard for an answer.

But I didn't have a chance.

Dad walked into the waiting room. He had dark bags under his eyes. And a big grin on his face.

“She'll be fine,” he said to Carlos. “We brought her temperature down and gave her fluids. She's breathing easier, and the antibiotics seem to be working.”

“Thank you,” Carlos said quietly. “Thank you so very much.”

He bit his lower lip, as if he was trying not to cry from relief.

I kept my questions to myself.

The school hallways were empty. Except for the two guys who had threatened Carlos in the library. Their footsteps echoed as they walked toward me. I backed away.

Then my feet got stuck. I looked down. My shoes were trapped in a puddle of black tar. I couldn't move.

The two guys got closer. They flashed their knives at me. Big knives with shiny blades.

I pulled at my feet. I still couldn't move.

I was desperate. I reached down and untied my shoes. I jumped sideways, landing clear of the tar. I turned and ran—and smacked into a wall that appeared from nowhere in the middle of the hall.

I was trapped!

I turned around again to face them.

They moved in closer and closer. They moved like zombies.

In my mind, I heard Carlos's words from the hospital waiting room: “You can't even let anyone know I came to your house. If they find out, they will do terrible things to me and my family. Maybe to you too.”

“David...David,” I heard. The voice was a low monotone, like a zombie's. In a weird way, I recognized the voice. It sounded like my math teacher. “David...David.”

What kind of nightmare was this?

“David. David.”

They brought their knives up to stab me. I screamed.

I threw myself to the side. The floor opened up beneath me. I felt myself falling. Screaming. Falling. Screaming.

Thunk
!

I landed.

It hurt.

I opened my eyes. I was no longer in a hallway trapped by guys with knives. I was on the floor of my classroom. With my desk on top of me.

I'd been asleep?

“David.”

It
was
my math teacher's voice. Mr. Johnson was standing over me. I saw his black shoes first and then his black pants. As I looked up, I saw his white shirt and black tie. Then his face. He was rolling his eyes in disgust.

I pushed myself to my feet. Everyone in the classroom had started giggling. I didn't dare look around. I hoped Jennifer wasn't laughing at me.

“If you want to sleep in class,” Mr. Johnson said, “bring a pillow.”

“Um. Yes, sir,” I said. “I'm sorry. I was up late last night.”

“Don't let it happen again.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He shook his head sadly. “And David?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Wipe that drool off your chin.”

Since it was Friday, we didn't have track practice. Fridays were rest days, according to Coach Lewis. A day off, he said, gave our muscles a chance to rebuild and gave our blood sugars a chance to rise.

Instead of going to the gym right after school like I'd done since Tuesday, I went to the main office.

The secretary looked up at me from behind her desk. She had orange streaks in her hair and a round face. Her shirt was purple. She was maybe twenty-five, and she popped her gum as she chewed.

“Yeah,” she said.

I pointed at the computer on her desk.

“I'm wondering if you could print out my registration information for me,” I said.

“You don't know anything about yourself?” She popped a bubble.

“Yes, but I don't know about what's in the computer.”

“You filled out the form when you registered, didn't you?”

“Yes,” I said, “but—”

“So why do you need to see it again?”

I tried not to make a smart comment. “I just need to see it,” I said.

“Got identification?” she asked, popping her gum again. She looked like she enjoyed making me work for this. “We have privacy laws, you know. How do I know you're not trying to find out about some other guy without his permission?”

I pulled out my wallet. I showed her my identification. She looked it over carefully. She studied the photo. She studied my face.

Finally she sighed. “All right then,” she said. “It looks like I can't stop you.”

You sure did your best though, I thought. I kept a polite smile on my face.

“Sit down,” she said. “This is going to take a minute.”

I sat down in the chair she pointed to. I stared at the clock and waited.

I'd had all day—except for my dumb nap
in math class—to think about this. Not that I should have been wasting any of my classroom time, but this whole thing with Carlos was too strange.

If his family was here illegally, how had he been able to register for school? I remembered all the paperwork I'd had to go through to register and get on class lists. I knew there was something strange going on. And for that matter, why had Carlos's address been wrong on the computer? How had he known my dad was a doctor? How had he known where to find me?

Jennifer told me after math class that she had not spoken to Carlos since our meeting in the library. So he hadn't learned about my family from her. The only thing I could think of was the school computer. Coach Lewis had been able to get personal information about Carlos from the computer. I figured maybe Carlos had somehow been able to get stuff about me.

This secretary had just answered one of my questions. I'd wondered how easy it was to get at another student's information. Now
I knew she wouldn't print out the information unless you had a photo
ID
.

That meant one of two things. Either Carlos had gotten stuff about me another way, without the computer system. Or he'd found another way to get into the school computer...

“Here you are,” the secretary said, her gum snapping.

She looked over the printout before she handed it to me. “You aren't much of a rocket scientist, are you?”

I didn't get what she meant. At least, not until I read the printout.

What I read first didn't surprise me. At the top of the printout, I saw my address and what my parents did for a living. That told me that all Carlos had needed was the computer information to know where to find my doctor father and me. But it still didn't tell me how he had gotten into the computer.

Halfway down the page, I found out what the secretary had meant by her little insult about me not being a rocket scientist.

The printout listed all my high school
grades. None of the grades were from McKinley; I hadn't been here long enough. They were all the grades that had been transferred from my old high school.

And the grades were all wrong
.

I was a B+ student.

All these grades showed me at D-.

Someone, somehow, had entered the computer system and changed them.

Ten minutes later, I was staring at a black rose inside my locker, trying to figure out how it had gotten there. That's when my nightmare began to come true. I didn't see it coming in time to stop it.

My locker is at the far end of the school on the second floor. To reach it, I had to go down a narrow hall off the main hallway. Lockers lined both walls. I was completely alone when I found the rose.

I looked closer. It was a regular red rose,
but someone had spray-painted it black and put it inside my locker. In a weird way, it made sense. Whoever had read my computer file could have gotten my locker combination from it too.

But a black rose?

Behind me, I knew the narrow hall was empty, just like in my dream. Half an hour had passed since the final bell had rung. The school was like a tomb. Which wasn't a good setting for a nightmare.

I heard footsteps, just like I had in my dream.

When I made myself look up, they were there. The two guys who had threatened Carlos. The two guys with black roses tattooed on their arms.

Suddenly the rose in my locker made sense. Too much sense.

They walked toward me slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. Which they did. No one else was around.