Rogue (14 page)

CHAPTER 29

THE FIRST WORD MS. LATIMER SAYS TO ME WHEN SHE
arrives is “why?” She tells Dad and me that I failed every one of the state exams except science. On that one, I received a perfect score.

“I like science,” I answer.

“Don't. Smartmouth. Me,” she says.

“Kiara . . .” Dad's voice is like a rumbling echo.

But I didn't smartmouth her. She asked me why I scored so well on the science test when I did so badly on the others.

Dad examines the piece of paper with my results. “There must be a mistake. She's never failed anything.”

But there isn't a mistake. I made sure of that. And now I have to take it back.

“I'm as surprised as you are,” Ms. Latimer tells my father. “We ran the multiple-choice answer sheets through the Scantron twice. But she didn't answer entire sections, and her essays had errors as well.” She casts a glance in my direction. I look away. “It seems as if she was trying to fail.”

Dad steps toward me. “Kiara, did you
want
to fail those exams?”

Eyes fixed on my shoelaces, I answer, “Yes.” And then I think of the party and my videos, and the words pour out. “It wasn't because of you, Ms. Latimer. You were a good teacher. Dad was going to send me away for the summer, but I didn't want to go because I didn't want to leave my friends.” I take a breath and rush to speak before Dad or Ms. Latimer stops me. “But now my friends are going away and the police are coming for me because of the party, so please let me retake the test. Please. I promise I won't flunk it this time.”

“The police?” Ms. Latimer and Dad say at the same time. Jinx.

“Yeah, uh . . .” My hands shake. How do I explain that I shot a video of a lot of underage drinking?

Dad covers his face with his hands and then runs his fingers through his hair. “Ms. Latimer and I need to discuss this. Without you. Please take those bags up to Chad and wait in your room until we're done.” He waves his hand toward a half-dozen bags of clothes and toys for Chad that the neighbors brought over this morning.

“Why can't I listen if it's about me?”

Dad's voice is hard. Mean. “Because it's not your decision. You've made a lot of decisions recently, and they haven't been good ones. Your teacher and I are going to decide what we think will be the best for you.”

“Don't send me to juvie. They'll stick a knife in me.”

“Calm down, Kiara. No one said you're going to juvie,” Ms. Latimer says.

“I was at that party. In College Park. Dad had to pick me up from there.”

“I doubt they're looking for you. They're probably looking for the kids who brought the liquor.” Ms. Latimer wags her finger at me. “But unless you start making better choices, Kiara, you
are
going to end up in a place you don't want to be.”

If she doesn't mean the police and juvie, she probably means the special-needs class in high school. I should have kept my mouth shut, but when people ask me stuff, I have to tell them the truth.

“But if I go to Montreal, you won't put me in special ed, right?”

Cold silence.

I press on. “I agreed to go to Montreal. So I'm going, okay?”

Ms. Latimer speaks first. “I don't know where you are going. Given all the circumstances . . . your assault of that girl—”

“She pushed my lunch tray to the floor.”

Instead of telling me not to interrupt, Ms. Latimer talks right over me. As if she's not even talking to me but to Dad even though she's using
you
like she's talking to me. “Your pattern of willful, defiant behavior . . . we may have to think about a more restrictive environment for school.”

Dad gets into the act. “You need more structure than I can give you. If you can't go to your mother's because of summer school, I don't know what we'll do.”

My hands curl into fists. My brain sizzles and presses against my ears. All I want to do is get out. Start over. See my mother.

Who now actually wants me.

While stomping up the stairs, I yell down, “Why don't I get something I want for once?”

Dad fires back, “Why don't you think of someone besides yourself—for once.” His words sting like shotgun pellets.

A bag with a Lego castle, a Nerf gun, and a football sits on the landing. I drag it the rest of the way to my brothers' room and bang on the door.

The response is weak, muffled. “Just a minute.”

Chad opens the door, wearing Max's torn and oversize pajama pants and the Boston College T-shirt I refused to wear. His face is pink and swollen, with scabs where he scraped it riding. His hair is askew, and the white crust still covers his lips. The new bandage Dad put on his arm Saturday night is dirty and curled around the edges.

I hold the bag out to him. “Here you go. Someone dropped off some toys for you. There's clothes too, since all yours got burned up.”

I expect Chad to be happy that he has new toys and stuff, but he doesn't say a word. He peers into the bag for a few seconds and then lets it slide out of his hands and onto the wood floor with a dull thunk. I go downstairs to bring the clothes, hoping also to hear what Dad and Ms. Latimer have planned for me, but they've moved to the kitchen and are speaking with hushed voices.

When I deliver the bags to him, one at a time, Chad piles them in the space between the radiator and my brothers' bunk bed without even looking inside.

“Aren't you going to open them?” I ask after I hand him the final bag, with four brand-new pairs of blue jeans. Boys' size 12. His size. I found out when I threw his ruined pants away Saturday night.

Chad shakes his head. “Don't matter.”

I don't know if I'm supposed to keep saying I'm sorry for what happened to his brother and parents and his house when I already told him yesterday. He still seems sad, and I want to cheer him up because even though he's going away, he was my friend. And unlike Dad and Ms. Latimer, he isn't acting like a jerk and telling me I need “structure.”

“I thanked all the people for you, so you don't have to write them a thank-you note if you don't want to.”

He shoves his hands into the pajama pockets. “So what? I'm never gonna see 'em again.”

“Are you going back to Iowa?”

Chad doesn't answer. Instead, he pushes past me, hitting my upper arm with his shoulder, and walks barefoot toward the bathroom. I follow him. He slams the door behind him and after a few seconds I hear him peeing. But when he's done, he doesn't come out. I don't hear him washing his hands either.

I knock on the door. “What are you doing in there?”

“Go away.”

I shrug and go to my room, but I leave the door open because my room is across from the bathroom and I'll see Chad when he comes out. I bring the article on foster homes back to my screen and rehearse the lines:
Foster parents offer loving homes to children who can no longer live with their parents and need a safe place to go.

The bathroom door clicks open. Chad steps out. I rush out to the hall.

“Did you wash your hands?” I ask him.

“Yeah.” He spits onto his hands, rubs them together, and holds them up to my face. Gross. I step backward and stumble into my door frame.

Chad wipes his spit-covered palms on my brother's pajama pants. I straighten up and step toward him. “I was looking up foster homes. Maybe if things don't work out in Iowa, you can find one near here, and we can still be friends.”

“You don't know nothing,” he says.

“I read about them on the Internet. They're loving homes with nice people who'll take care of you and keep you safe.”

“Didn't your teacher tell you not to trust the Internet?”

I nod because Ms. Latimer once said Mr. Internet didn't have all the answers and I needed to know the source of his information. But my source this time was the state Department of Children and Families site, and the state wouldn't lie. I open my mouth to tell him, but Chad cuts me off.

“I gotta get to Brandon.”

“They took him to some other state,” I say. “I heard it on the news last night.”

“He's all by himself.”

“I know.” I bet Brandon's scared. I would be if I woke up hurting, all alone, and far from where I lived. “How are you going to get there?”

Chad clenches his fists. Heat rushes through me, and I'm sweating and shivering at the same time. In my mind, I see Chad slamming his fists against his head, his mouth wide open, screaming,
Why Brandon? He didn't do nothing to no one!
But there's nothing I can do. According to Dad and Ms. Latimer, I can't even take care of myself.

I turn away from Chad and go into my room. Outside my window is the park and beyond that the empty sky where his house used to be. I lower the shade, and my room grows dim even though it's just past noon. I run my finger along the spines of my X-Men comics, arranged in chronological order on my bookcase in the corner opposite my bed.

So many heroes. Why can't I be like them?

I pace my small room. Bookcase to door, door to bed, bed to desk, desk to bookcase. Thinking.

I left the six wrestlers on the corner of my desk, behind my computer monitor. I was going to ask Dad to send them to Brandon, but I don't know if he'll do anything for me now because he's so mad at me.

I gather the wrestlers and go out into the hall. Chad is no longer there, and the door to my brothers' room is closed. I knock.

“Go away. I don't wanna talk.”

I set the plastic figures beside the door—in case Chad has special powers that I don't have and can get himself to his brother hundreds of miles away.

CHAPTER 30

SIX OF CHAD'S FRIENDS ARRIVE ON MONDAY AFTERNOON
after school lets out. For them, he leaves his room. They bring him a new backpack and another bag of stuff. I recognize a couple of them from school and say,
Hi, how are you?
A few mumble hello back, but the others walk off. I'm not surprised. They're the troublemakers from the regular classes who've tripped me and called me names ever since kindergarten. All of them are in the class below anyway. Two used to be in my class until one flunked fourth grade and the other flunked the year after.

My heart squeezes when they stand in our front yard talking. After a while, they go upstairs and I try to listen to what they're saying, but they don't seem to say much. Sometimes they explode into laughter loud enough to hear downstairs, but I don't hear Chad laughing. I can't imagine him ever laughing again after he tried so hard to protect Brandon and failed.

But maybe he doesn't need me to help him. He has other friends.

They leave before dinner. Chad asks to have his food brought upstairs, and Dad sends me with a plate of the spaghetti and meat sauce that I cooked. Even though Dad makes dinner most of the time now, I offered to do it tonight so he'll stop being mad at me. My brothers' bedroom, hardly larger than mine, smells sour and sweaty from the crowd of boys who were cooped up there. Two empty and crushed bags of Doritos lie in the middle of the floor. I pick them up and drop them into the trash can next to the double desk. Bags of clothes and toys remain piled up beside the radiator, and the backpack is under the bed. When I tell Chad I made the dinner, he sticks out his tongue but takes the plate anyway.

Dad and I eat in near silence. Despite my effort to help out, I think he's given up on me. I still don't know what's going to happen, if I'll have to go to summer school or get to go to Montreal, and where I'll be in the fall. So before he finishes eating the last strands of his spaghetti, I ask him.

“We're not sure yet,” he answers. “We have to sign you up for summer school. But your teacher's going to see if you can retake the tests you didn't pass. If that's the case and you pass, you can leave for Montreal right away and go into regular classes in the fall.” He raises his voice. “With counseling and a behavior contract.”

“I'll pass them this time. I promise.” But will Mami want to have me after all the trouble I've caused? And if I go, how can I help Chad get to Brandon—if Chad even needs me and if there's something a kid like me can do?

I'm just a weird girl. Not a superhero. I have no special powers. And Chad can get his own friends to help.

I scrape the hard plastic tabletop with my fingernail. “Do you think Mami will come home sooner? Like if I go and talk to her?”

Dad pushes his chair back from the table and releases a long sigh. “I hope we can work things out.”

“I told her we needed her here.” I pick off a piece of rice stuck to the table. “But she wouldn't listen to me.” I promise myself to keep trying, as soon as I get to Montreal.

“She has to make up her own mind. And apart from the money, music means a lot to her.”

I think of all the time Dad spends in the pantry. And the times he played with Mr. Elliott, which got us into this mess. “It means a lot to you too.”

He nods slowly.

I go into the pantry for the banjo that now belongs to Chad. Maybe he'll want to bring it with him when he goes to see Brandon. And he'll need to take it with him when the lady from the county comes to send him to Iowa or put him in the foster home. It doesn't sound like he wants to go to a foster home any more than he wants his brother alone in the hospital. I wouldn't want to live with a bunch of strangers either, no matter how loving they're supposed to be.

My father's hand on my shoulder makes me jump. I scream.

“I'm sorry,” he says, stepping back into the kitchen.

“You freaked me out.” Carefully, I lift the banjo by its skinny neck.

“Where'd you get that?”

“It got blown out of their house and landed in our tree.” I carry it out to Dad. “Look, not a scratch. I'm giving it to Chad, but I'm not sure he knows how to play.”

Dad takes the banjo and examines it on all sides, turning it like he's roasting a pig on a spit. “His father said he started to teach him.”

I put one hand on my hip. “Really?”

“That's what Big Chad said.” Dad hands the instrument to me. “Take it to him. I'm sure he'll be glad to have it.” My father touches my shoulder, and this time I don't flinch. “That was very thoughtful of you. Rescuing it.”

“See? I don't just think of myself.”

“No, you don't.” He gives me a faint smile.

“Were you and Mr. Elliott friends?” I ask Dad, because he called Mr. Elliott Big Chad the way a friend would do. But a friend wouldn't have snitched to the police.

“We liked to play music together,” Dad says. “But that doesn't mean we were friends.”

“What's the difference?” Mr. Internet said friends are people who have interests in common with you. He told me to get involved in things other people like to do. Like riding bikes and making videos of them on their bikes.

“Friends care about each other. And help each other because they care.”

I still don't get it. Enemies don't play music together. When Mami and Dad stopped playing music together, Mami left. “So if you weren't friends, what were you?” I lean the banjo against my leg, with the heavy bottom part on my toe of my sneaker.

“Acquaintances. Acquaintances may work with each other or share one or two things in common, but that's it.”

“So they don't care about each other or want to help each other?”

“Right.”

I think through all the people I wanted to be my friends. Like Melanie Prince-Parker, who didn't want to be my friend. Antonio, who said he was my friend and Chad was trouble. Antonio really did seem to care about me, but now I don't know if the police are looking for him because of the party and if I'll ever see him again.

Chad.

I'm not sure I can count on Chad being my friend. Or if he can count on me being his friend because I'm not helping him get to Brandon or stay out of a foster home where he'll have to live with strangers.

“Do you feel bad for what happened to Mr. Elliott? Because you called the cops on him?”

Dad sighs. “He and Lissa put two boys in danger.”

The night of the party I asked Dad what he planned to do about Chad's back. Does that make me responsible too? “Maybe I should have called.” And if I'd called earlier, maybe Brandon wouldn't have gotten burned.

But maybe Chad would have been inside and gotten burned. Or maybe the house wouldn't have blown up, and no one would have gotten burned.

Dad rests his hand on my shoulder. I can tell he's thinking too. “You should have told me sooner. But no. This wasn't something for a child to do.”

I bring the banjo upstairs and knock on the bedroom door. When Chad doesn't answer, I knock louder. Then I jiggle the knob, but the door is locked. Finally, I hear a dull “who is it?”

“Kiara. I have another present for you.”

“More clothes?” A pause. “Or little kids' toys?”

“No.” I pluck a string and listen to the powerful twang until it dies away. “Way better than that.”

The door clicks open. A bitter smell assaults me. “Where'd you get that?” Chad asks. The room is dim, lit by only one small lamp, and Chad squints in the light of the hallway. He doesn't smile.

“It was blown into one of the oak trees, so I got it down for you.”

Chad twirls the banjo like Dad did. “That's my dad's.”

“He can't use it now. His fingers got melted off in the fire.”

Chad's face goes pale. I glance at the empty plate of spaghetti next to the bunk bed. Thinking about Mr. Elliott's melted fingers makes me queasy too, and I realize I said the exact wrong thing to Chad.

He seems to recover, though. “Hey, I got a surprise for you.” He leans the banjo against the double desk and waves me forward.

“You're playing for me?”

“Nope.” Chad flips a desk chair around for me to sit. Then he slides the backpack from under the bed. It scrapes along the floor like something heavy is inside. He reaches in and takes out a six-pack of beer. Without the beer, the backpack lies flat. He twists one can from the plastic ring, pops the top, and hands it to me. Then he grabs another for himself.

I stare at the gold can.

His friends sneaked him beer in the backpack.

“Drink up,” he says. He takes a long swallow.

I hold my breath and peer into the hole with one eye while squeezing the other shut.

“That's not what you do.” He chugs the rest of his, the way I saw the kids at the party do it, and crushes the can beneath his sneaker.

“I don't want to.” I set mine on my brothers' desk.

“What's wrong? You too good for it?” He leans forward, snatches the can from the desk, and pushes it toward me.

I take it, just to get him away from me. “You're not supposed to be drinking. That's why you wrecked the bike and Josh beat you up.”

“I know you're not going to beat me up.” He belches into my face and I shrink from the musty odor. “'Cause if you do, I won't be your friend.” His tone is high-pitched, taunting me.

“I don't want to get sick like you did.”

“It's not so bad. And the buzz is great,” he tells me.

“Dad says you were learning the banjo.” I try to change the subject, wanting to tell Chad what music means to me and how I loved hearing the chatter between his father's banjo and my father's guitar.

“Yeah?” He lifts the instrument, tunes it, and begins picking with his thumb, index, and middle finger. He plays slower than Mr. Elliott, which makes the tune sad but also melodious. After about a minute and a half, he stops and says, “That's the only song I know, ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown.' And I don't know it too good.”

I don't think his father tried very hard to teach him. Even Dad played faster than that when he took his turn on the banjo.

“Did your dad learn when he was a kid?” I ask.

“Nah. He was already grown up.” Chad sets the banjo on the bed behind him. “I don't remember him playing when I was little, but he went away for a while and when he came back, he was really good.”

“When he went to jail, you mean?”

Chad shudders. “H-how do you know?”

“It was on TV. Three years, from 1996 to 1999.”

Chad swears under his breath.

“It's okay,” I tell him, ready to ask more but not sure how without making him madder.

“What? Your dad a jailbird too?” He taps the bunk bed frame. “That why your brothers way older than you?”

It does explain the gap between him and Brandon, but not between Max and me. “Nope. He had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.” Seeing Chad's puzzled expression, I add, “Cancer of the cells that make up part of the immune system. He wasn't supposed to have kids afterward on account of the treatments.” I didn't intend to tell Chad all this, but now I can't stop.

Maybe it's because I'm in the room where Eli and Max first discussed why I turned out the way I did.

“The chemicals. When chemotherapy destroys the cancer cells,” I explain, “it can also cause genetic mutations.”

“Whatever. You sound like science class.” Chad points at my can. “Go ahead, drink it. I wanna see what you look like drunk.”

I stare at him, open-mouthed. Actually, I stare at his untied sneakers and behind them, the other cans of beer.

“Get it? Science class? Experiment?” He's taunting me again. I know it. “I bet you'll be reee-al funny.”

I shake my head, so hard my neck cracks.

“If you drink the whole can, I'll be your friend.”

His eyes bore into me like someone who knows all my secrets. I set the can on the desk again. “No.” I glance up at him and back to the floor.
Friends care about each other,
I tell myself.
Anyway, he's leaving and so am I. I can't help him, and I can't be his friend.

I stand and step toward the door. “I'm not doing any more things that are wrong just so I can have friends.”

“Suit yourself. I'm not letting good beer go to waste.” He scoops up the can and chugs the rest before I leave the room.