Rogue (7 page)

CHAPTER 14

I DON'T SEE BRANDON OR CHAD GET OFF THE SCHOOL BUS
the rest of the week. I watch for them through the hole in the fence as I work on Max's old bike using the directions Mr. Internet gave me. I sand the rust from the frame, crankset, and cassette; tighten the cables; straighten the brakes; clean and oil the chain; and inflate the tires. Now that I'm five foot four, the bike fits me perfectly. It's heavier and harder to pedal than Mrs. Elliott's bike, but it will get me to College Park. On Thursday, I ride to the pharmacy in Willingham to buy black nail polish. The lady at the register stares at me, and I look away. I think she remembers me from when I bought the Sudafed and now believes I'm one of those creepy druggies who dresses all in black and paints her fingernails and toenails black too.

On my way back home, I see Brandon standing next to the concrete platform in the park. He clutches the edge of the platform and doubles over, coughing.

I ride up to him. “You okay?”

Brandon gasps for breath. His mouth looks like that of a fish taken out of the water. “Chad . . . says . . . I got . . . puny-monia.”

I laugh at the way Brandon says it, even though it's not funny that he's so sick. “It's pronounced
new
-monia.”

“
New
-monia,” he repeats.

“Is Chad sick too? I haven't seen him.”

“He said he was getting medicine. But he ain't back yet.”

Brandon coughs again. I hear him sucking mucus into the back of his throat. “You shouldn't be out here if you're sick. You should be in bed,” I tell him.

“Mommy says I need fresh air.”

Or to stand lookout.
Which means they're cooking at home again. Are they still making Chad carry the bottles too?

Friday it rains. Before I have a chance to take my bike to the trail Saturday morning, Chad shows up with his mountain bike and a scratched BMX bike.

The bruise on his cheek is faded. But he has a scrape on his forehead.

“Maybe you should wear a helmet. Those bikes can be dangerous.” I point to his BMX bike and think of the pictures in that
Ride BMX
magazine he was reading in the drugstore. Everyone in the pictures had a helmet because it's easy to fall doing tricks and crack your head open. “We have a helmet you can use.”

Max left his old helmet in the lean-to, and he's at college, so he won't mind if I loan it to Chad. I run through the house and out the back door. Max's helmet is balanced upside down on a ladder and covered in cobwebs. I wipe the helmet on my jeans. Strands of spiderweb cling to my thumb and forefinger.

When I return, Chad has leaned his mountain bike against the tree. He sits on the BMX bike, rolling it back and forth. “Here,” I say, holding the silver helmet out to him.

Chad pops a wheelie. “I'm not taking your crummy helmet. You wear it.”

Cobwebs still crisscross the inside, and dust coats the felt pads. “Yuck.” I set the helmet on the top step, by the front door. I figure I can clean it before I ride to College Park. “Want to show me some tricks?” I ask Chad.

Chad walks the front wheel in a semicircle. “No. I want you to talk to your friend about letting me ride on his track.”

“M-my friend?” I stammer. Antonio said that he's my friend—and that Chad's trouble. But my stuck tongue tells me I don't really know what Chad is, and I'm not sure Antonio's enough of a friend that I can ask him.

Chad pivots to face his mountain bike. “You can ride the boy's bike.”

My mouth goes dry. “I'm not carrying your . . .”

“I don't got any. See for yourself.”

I approach the mountain bike as if it were a bomb, slide my fingers into a saddlebag, wriggle them around. Nothing but warm air. The same with the other bag. “So you just want me to talk to Antonio?”

“Yeah. But I gotta make a stop first. You don't have to go in.”

One stop turns out to be all the drugstores in College Park. One of those that kept Sudafed on the shelf last Sunday now locks it behind the pharmacy counter, Chad tells me. And the other one only has three boxes. Chad limps a little when he goes inside, and when he comes out almost empty-handed, his face is pale. The three boxes fit inside the pocket of his cargo shorts.

We ride to the bike trails, my stomach tightening the closer we get. Will Antonio tell Max if I bring Chad back—even though Chad doesn't have any dangerous chemicals on him?

All this is so new for me. I know what it's like to be excluded, to have no friends. I don't know what it's like to be invited and then have a friend who I'm trying to get invited too. “What do you want me to tell Antonio?” I ask Chad, because he's supposed to be my tutor in these things.

He rolls his eyes toward the sky and says, “I'm doomed.”

Because you don't think I can do a good job?
Swallowing hard, I pass Chad and turn into Beresford Estates without a backward glance. I'll show him I can talk to Antonio. I don't need any help.

The damp ground smell, mixed with pine sap, hits me as soon as I enter the canopy of trees. My tires kick up mud that pelts my ankles where I've rolled up my pant legs. The tree that blocked the path has been cleared and the trail stretches out ahead of me. I pass the sawed-off trunk of the fallen tree with only the briefest glance at its exposed rings. The trunk is the diameter of a basketball. The tree had many years ahead of it.

“Beep, beep,” Chad calls from behind. I veer to the right, and he pulls even with me on the wide trail.

“Maybe he's not here,” I say, disappointment muffling my voice.

“Then we ride until we find it.” He lifts the front end of his bike and leans backward slightly so he rides only on his rear tire.

“How did you do that?” I ask when his front tire returns to the trail.

He doesn't answer. I know the answer anyway. Lots of practice. A few scrapes and bruises.

Chad and I ride alongside each other into the maze of trails. Even if we get lost, I figure we'll find the BMX track eventually.

The main trail, wide enough for our two bikes, splits into three trails, each one narrow and twisty. The first one we take dips and rises before it leads us right back to where we started. We then take the third trail, which crosses a creek twice, once over a bridge, the other splashing through the water. After following the creek for a while, we head back uphill. I pass Chad because his BMX bike doesn't have low gears. Rotting leaves and pine needles cover most of the trail, but near the top of the uphill part, we hit sand that makes my bike fishtail.

We emerge from the sandy section at the bottom of a grassy hill. Chad stops. He leans against the handlebars, panting, clutching his right side. His eyes are squeezed shut. Faint voices, voices of older boys, rise from the other side of the hill. My stomach does a quarter turn. If Antonio is here . . . What am I supposed to say to him? What would Rogue tell Wolverine so he'd let Gambit join the X-Men?

Laying my bike on the ground, I climb the hill. When I get to the top, I see an open area with BMX bike jumps made of sand, tires, and plywood. The meadow surrounding it slopes gently upward to more woods. I stand at the only steep side, but the entire BMX track appears carved out of the meadow below.

I gape at the massive sandbox that makes real people appear as small as action figures. Antonio isn't there, but two other boys wearing helmets ride on separate mounds, and a bigger kid with sideburns sits next to a wheelbarrow. He holds a video camera.

I scoot back down the hill before they see me. “I found the track, but Antonio's not there,” I whisper.

“Good. I'm riding,” Chad says. He pushes his bike up the hill. I leave mine at the bottom and follow, feet dragging, certain that if Antonio isn't there, the others will kick us out.

Chad stumbles once on the way up. But at the top he waves, yells, “Look out!” and flies down the hill into the pit.

He zips up a mound, catapults straight into the air, and turns 360 degrees—twice—before riding down the other side of the mound. I suck in my breath.

“Did you see that?” a biker shouts.

“What?” The kid with the camera stands and whirls around.

“You missed a double 360. All the way from the peak.” The first kid turns to Chad. “Who are you?”

Instead of answering, Chad circles the pit, climbs the mound again, and makes a three-quarter turn in the air. His long blond hair flies out around him. The three other boys stand in a clump, watching. They ask him where he learned to ride like that.

“Around,” he answers. The trick he did for me is nothing compared to the ones he shows those kids. The one with the sideburns lifts the video camera to eye level. Recording Chad.

Ignoring me.

I stand at the top of the hill, invisible again.

The BMX track is just another lunchroom table where New Kid has found his group of friends and left me by myself. I feel like crying, but if I do, all three of these boys will also know I'm Crybaby Kiara.

So I call out to Chad, “I have to go. I'll leave the bike in my backyard.”

I don't think he hears me.

CHAPTER 15

CHAD NEVER COMES TO PICK UP THE BIKE. I SEE HIM IN THE
afternoon, limping along the perimeter of the park, hunched over, head down.

He probably wiped out, the crazy way he was riding.
Serves you right for pretending I'm not there,
I want to tell him. Instead I lower the blinds.

A distant banjo and guitar greet me when I wake up the next morning. Outside, Dad and Mr. Elliott are playing again. After getting dressed, I roll Chad's bike from under the lean-to, through the gate, and around the block into the park. I'm going to return it because he didn't pick it up and I don't need him or his bike. I can ride Max's bike to meet Antonio.

Much as I wish I could stay and listen to the music, I can't because I might say something to get Dad and me hurt or killed. Like,
How could you think I was so desperate for a friend that I would break the law and put myself in danger?
So when they stop for a break, I push the bike forward and mumble, “Chad left this at my house.”

“Speak up, girl,” Mr. Elliott says.

“Chad. Left. This.”

Dad glares at me. I don't care. Mr. Elliott doesn't deserve my good manners.

He sets his banjo on the platform, grabs the handlebars, and leans the bike against the concrete. “Is she your only one, J.T.?”

“No, I got two boys—Eli and Max. Both of them at college.” Dad sets his guitar next to the banjo.

Mr. Elliott holds out his hand, with its stained fingers. “Got pictures?”

Dad takes his wallet from his back pocket. The top photo is of all five of us together, before Eli, Max, and Mami left. I was around ten then, and both Mami and I wore embroidered peasant-style blouses. My hair came to my shoulders and curled under my chin. There was a gap between my teeth. I wore braces all through sixth grade to get rid of it.

Dad digs under the photo for more, but before he can take them out, Mr. Elliott lifts the wallet from his hand for a closer look. He then pulls his wallet from his pocket and hands a worn photo to my father.

“Here's Lissa with baby Brandon. He was a real sweetie.” Mr. Elliott taps the photo with the corner of Dad's wallet. “The other one busted our chops from day one. Colic. Wouldn't sleep . . .” I peer over Dad's shoulder at a skinny woman, her long straight hair parted in the middle, holding a smiling, round, bald baby in her lap. She's smiling too, her thin lips pressed together. Baby Brandon has a pair of teeth on top that glisten like tiny pearls.

Dad has photos of all of us. Mr. Elliott has the one with Brandon and his mother and another of Brandon that looks like it was taken at the hospital, with him all red and wrinkled and wearing a blue knit cap. Nothing of Chad. Even though I'm mad at him for ignoring me and hanging out with the older boys, I wonder what he looked like as a little kid, if he looked like Brandon does now—sweet and innocent rather than hard and mean.

Dad and Mr. Elliott are still looking at family photos when I go back inside. I drag Max's bike outside, ready to go. Chad has made his own friends at the BMX track. I don't have to ask Antonio to let him ride there. But Antonio did say he wanted me to return to the trail—he just didn't show up yesterday. Remembering that kid with the sideburns and the video camera, I get an idea. If I record the stunts, maybe they'll notice me, talk to me, want me to stick around.

Dad keeps our video camera in his tiny recording studio. He bought it a little over a year ago, and I used it to record Corazón del Este's concerts. Most of the time, I'd set the camera up on a tripod and let it run. Sometimes I took handheld footage, getting right in front of the musicians or sneaking backstage to shoot them from behind, which was my favorite because it sort of made me part of the band too.

I posted the videos on YouTube—Dad's idea to get more people to hire us. We got over a thousand views in all and a few people left thumbs-ups. When someone wrote,
Nice- looking band. Great costumes,
I ran bragging to everyone in my family because it was hard to get the colorful outfits they performed in to stand out with the bad lighting. But even though the band looked good, Mami said we didn't get enough gigs to pay the cost of the camera, even with Dad's employee discount at Tech Town.

I wait until after breakfast, when Dad leaves for work. Then I put the camera into my backpack and ride to College Park.

Like yesterday, the mountain bike trail is deserted. The extra day of sunshine has chased away the musty smell, but the breeze makes me shiver where the trees block out the sun. I think about turning back. Antonio never gave me his phone number. Maybe he didn't mean it when he said he wanted to see me again . . .

“Hey, Max's sister! Like your bike.”

Antonio rides downhill toward me on the trail next to the creek. Even with his helmet on, I recognize the solid jaw, the skin almost as dark as mine. I squeeze my brakes and glide to a stop on the bridge.

He stops at the edge of the creek just before the bridge, lifts his leg over the bar, and slides to the ground. His face glistens with sweat. Today he wears a long-sleeved shirt, but with the sleeves rolled up to the middle of his forearms.

“I fixed it up,” I say.

He strips off his gloves and runs his finger along the top bar, stopping at the bumps where I sanded and repainted the frame. “Nice job. What did you use for paint?”

“Nail polish. Looked it up on the Internet.”

“I guess you can get away with buying that stuff easier than I can,” he says.

I swallow the tightness in my throat. “Where were you yesterday?”

“You stopped by?”

“Yeah.” I say nothing about Chad.

“I had a race down in Mystic.”

I examine Antonio's bike up close. Its metallic red paint is nicked and dulled, but the bike is way fancier than Chad's, with shock absorbers underneath the seat as well as on the front fork. The wheel rims are black rather than chrome. It's the kind of bike someone would use for racing. “How did you do?”

“Not so good. Fourth. I was in the lead until my asthma kicked up.” He clears his throat. “I'm taking it easy today. Still hurtin'.”

I wish I could touch him, help him feel better, but I keep my hands on my bike.
I'm not Rogue,
I tell myself.
I won't suck out his emotions if I touch him.

I step backward, stumble over a root, and plant my foot in the creek. Cold water rushes over the top of my canvas high-tops. Antonio grabs my upper arm to steady me. I stiffen.

“You okay?” He lets go.

I pull my foot onto the bank. Water streams toward the creek, back where it belongs. I shift my weight, hear the squish, feel the icky cold dampness.

“I'm fine,” I mumble. “It makes me nervous, people touching me.”

“That's like this kid in my calculus class. He sits in a corner because he doesn't want anyone near him, but he's pure genius. He says he has some form of autism.”

I smile. Antonio understands. Like Mrs. Mac. “Asperger's syndrome,” I tell him. “It comes from a genetic mutation. My father had cancer before I was born, and I think . . .”

Antonio holds his hand out, palm up, as if telling me to stop.

“Max must have told you,” I say.

“No. He never said anything.” Antonio bites his lower lip, and I wonder how good a friend Max was if Antonio didn't know a basic fact about our family. “My father had cancer too,” he says softly. “But he . . . didn't . . . make it.”

“He died?”

Antonio nods.

“Is that why you have the Livestrong tattoo?” Today the shirt covers it up, but I know it's there, and it'll be there forever.

“Yeah.”

“Even though Lance Armstrong didn't die either?”

Antonio grimaces, and I realize I said the wrong thing. But he doesn't call me stupid or retard or freak, like most kids would. Instead, he reaches into a cargo pocket, pulls out his wallet, and slides a photo from behind what looks like his driver's license. I notice UNDER 21 in big red letters on the license.

He hands me the photo. The way Mr. Elliott and Dad traded photos with each other this morning. “My father.”

The man has deep-set eyes, a narrow face, and straight, dark hair. Antonio's hair is lighter and wavy, and his face fuller. I think this man in the picture already looks sick, with sunken cheeks and thin lips.

“I'm sorry,” I mumble. I know it's what I'm supposed to say when I hear that someone has died, even though it isn't my fault that he died.

I give the photo back to Antonio. He slides it into his wallet.

Antonio and I never get to the BMX track that day. Instead, he shows me the entire route of trails, though many of them are too hard for me to ride and I have to walk my bike across them or go around them. Standing on the opposite bank, I record him riding the narrow single track that he tells me Ice Age glaciers carved into the rock above the creek. At one point he drops six feet from a rock to a root-rutted dirt path and crosses the creek atop a fallen tree trunk.

“How do you do that?” I ask him while I play back my recording. He stands beside me and peers over my shoulder at the tiny image of his daredevil ride.

“It's all balance. Speed. How you use gravity.” He strips off his gloves and holds them in one hand. I turn to face him.

“But the tree? It's not flat on top. Did you ever fall off one and end up in the water?”

Antonio nods. “Lots of times. You can't slow down. If you get scared and slow down . . .” He makes a chopping motion with his free hand. Like sliding into the water.

“Ouch,” I say.

“Yeah.” He points to a scar that starts at the bottom of his cargo shorts and runs about six inches down his calf. “Got that one in a race a year ago. Thirty-five stitches. Still finished the race, though.”

I play the video again, looking for any wobble on the tree, anyplace Antonio slowed down. I don't find any.

From behind me comes Antonio's voice. “My dad taught me everything about riding.” He pauses. “My bike . . . it used to be his.”

I squeeze the battered red bike's front tire, rock-hard and slick from riding through mud. “I can put music with the videos,” I say, because I already told him I was sorry about his father. “Anything you like?”

“You heard of Rage Against the Machine? They're my favorite band.”

“Max likes them too.” Even though they're totally different from our family's band.

“I know,” Antonio says.

I stare at his hands, at the rope bracelet on his left wrist and the gloves in his right hand. I don't want to be afraid of touching him. He's Max's friend, which almost makes him my big brother too.

I hold my hand out toward Antonio and close my eyes. My fingers close over the stiff, scratchy bracelet. I let my hand slip down until it reaches his calloused palm. He squeezes. A current runs through me.
Wolverine's special powers?
I open my eyes.

Antonio is smiling.