Rogue (9 page)

CHAPTER 18

FOR SMASHING DAD'S CELL PHONE, I GET MY COMPUTER
taken away. Dad carries it piece by piece to the living room and sets it up again on a table he brought up from the basement. From now until the end of school, he'll let me use it to do my homework, but when he's not watching me, he locks away the power cord.

I might as well forget I had a computer. After the end of school I'm leaving for Montreal, so I'll never get to use it for what I want anyway.

I don't ride to College Park the next day because I don't know how to tell Antonio and the other guys that my video career is finished. Chad rides away as soon as the middle-school bus drops him off, but he comes home two hours later and stays in the park until late at night. I suspect that his parents are cooking again. I don't tell him what happened either.

Three straight days of rain, from Tuesday through Thursday, postpone the moment when I have to tell the truth. I repeat in my mind the words I can't bear to say aloud.
I had a mega-meltdown. I've been punished, but it's your punishment too because you don't get your videos made and uploaded.
I hate it when everyone gets punished because one person messed up. And once they find out I'm the person who messed up, they won't want to be my friend.

So even though I wake up to sunshine on Friday morning, I decide not to go to the bike track. I'd rather just disappear than say what happened and watch them dump me.

Ms. Latimer notices that I'm paying a lot more attention to my schoolwork. “Right in time. You have two weeks until the exams,” she says on Friday. I stare at the useless hulk of my computer in the corner of the room.

“So what happens if someone doesn't pass?” Like Chad. I don't think he has a chance. I only got to tutor him once and he didn't listen to me then.

“Summer school, then a retest. I don't think that's an issue with you.” Ms. Latimer smiles. “You'll make me proud. And in the fall, you'll start high school as if none of this trouble ever happened.”

My chest tightens at the mention of high school. Where I'll be back in class with the mean kids. Or in the ED/LD class, which means Emotionally Disturbed/Learning Disabled. Kind of like the place where Temple Grandin's parents sent her, except not a boarding school. I don't know whether the regular class or the special class is worse. “Are they going to put me with the special kids?”

Ms. Latimer clears her throat. “Look at me, Kiara.” I force my eyes away from the dead computer and toward her face. One time, she told me I should leave every conversation knowing what color the other person's eyes are. Hers are green. Around her neck, a silver cross hangs from a shiny chain. “You've worked hard, and you deserve a fresh start. I'm recommending you see a counselor once a week for anger management but attend regular classes.” She pauses. “Honors classes, of course.”

I gaze at my hands, at my bitten-off fingernails. I don't think Dad told her about my latest tantrum and my punishment. She hasn't asked why my computer suddenly appeared in the living room.

I can't go away all summer, or my friends will forget me. Veg will make the videos again, which means he won't get to ride and no one will want to watch us.

That's right.
Us.
I belong to this group. I'm the invisible one behind the screen.

I saw Veg's videos. Antonio's right. He doesn't hold the camera steady, so the track bounces up and down along with the riders. He doesn't put any music in the background either. You have to use the right music to make people feel how scary and thrilling it is to fly through the air or crash to the ground and flop like a rag doll.

People really do like the wipeouts best. The one of Antonio falling off the bridge into the creek, which I put with the music of Rage Against the Machine, was still leading in hits the night I crashed and flopped by not convincing Mami to let me stay. I have no idea how “Hanging Chad” is doing. If he asks me, I have nothing to tell him.

Rogue wouldn't let Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants snatch her back once she'd joined the X-Men. Maybe my X-Men can come up with a way to keep me from having to leave. But that means I have to tell them the truth first—and hope they'll be on my side.

CHAPTER 19

AFTER MS. LATIMER DRIVES OFF, I GO TO THE BACKYARD AND
pretend I'm playing in the cypress trees next to the bayou where Rogue used to play before her mother left. Now that it's the middle of May, the oak tree's leaves have finally burst from their buds, making a canopy of green that nearly blocks out the sun. Like the trees of Cajun country. Like the posters on my bedroom wall.

I hear the afternoon bus's squealing brakes, and a little later Brandon comes out of his house with his box of wrestlers. “Have you seen my brother?” he asks.

“No. Is his bike there?”

Brandon crosses the street, peers into the garage, then disappears from my view. I guess he's checking inside the garage, blocked by his family's van in the driveway.

He skips across the street to the park, where I wait for him. “No bike. But his school stuff is there.”

“He must have gone riding. Ever seen his tricks?”

“Yeah. They're the best.” Brandon flashes his missing-teeth smile. “He says he's gonna teach me when I'm bigger.”

Brandon and I play wrestlers in the park. From time to time he glances toward Washington Avenue, and around five thirty, women's voices from his backyard interrupt our tag team match. I don't see anyone because the garage is in the way. A green station wagon is parked on the street in front of the house. The quieter voice sounds scratchy like Mrs. Mac's, but I miss many of the words. The other person's words I make out.

We have a lease, hear? A lease. Take us to court for this mess—which we're cleaning up—and we'll take you to court for the car accident. Say you were drunk and paid us to cover it up . . .

I squeeze the wrestler tight, as if The Rock could keep me from running across the street to defend Mrs. Mac. She wasn't drunk that night. She gave me a book and tried to help me.

You have no right to sell the house right out from under us.

Mrs. Mac is selling her house?

Chad rounds the corner on his BMX bike and rides toward us with his front wheel spinning in the air, at the level of his face. He wears no helmet. Antonio gave him an old helmet, but he always leaves it at the track, underneath a jump where several of the kids leave theirs.

His brakes squeal. “Wassup, Bran-my-man?” He holds out his palm for Brandon to slap. When Brandon slaps it, Chad laughs and says, “Harder. Put some muscle into it.”

Brandon winds his arm behind him and slams his little palm against Chad's.

Chad laughs again. “There you go.” He musses his little brother's hair. Then he cocks his head toward the voices. “What's going on?”

Brandon shrugs.

“I'm here. You can go in now,” Chad tells him. But Brandon shakes his head. When Chad speaks again, his voice is low and shaky. “No one messed with you?”

“Nuh-uh,” Brandon mumbles. “But there were too many bags, so—”

Chad cuts him off. “I'll take care of it.”

He pushes his bike across the street. A skinny woman who must be Mrs. Elliott pops out from behind the garage. “Where the hell have you been?” she screams. “That old lady's gonna kick us out because of the mess you left!”

Brandon's lip trembles, and he lowers his eyes to his tag team battle. He makes the Miz action figure pound in Kristal's head while John Cena jumps on her feet, pushing them deeper into the mud.

I glance back to the scene across the street. Chad's mother grabs a handful of his T-shirt and drags him inside. I don't see Mrs. Mac.

“Chad gonna get a whuppin',” Brandon says softly.

“Because of . . . the bags?”
What bags,
I wonder.
Could they be moving again? Is Mrs. Mac kicking them out?

“'Cause he's late. He's always late.”

“He should get to ride his bike.” It's the only good thing in his life. He said it himself. He'd even risk a
whuppin'
to ride.

Which is more than I'd do for my videos. Or to stay here with my friends this summer.

I hear someone call my name. It's not Brandon, with his click-clack of wrestlers hitting each other and occasional “Bam” and “Pow” under his breath.

I twist around. Mrs. Mac sits on the concrete platform at the other end of the park. She lifts her head from her hands and says, “Come here, Kiara.”

I tell Brandon to stay where he is, and I go to her. I take a seat on the bench a few feet away, pull my knees to my chest, and wrap my arms around my legs. “What is it, Mrs. Mac?” I ask. I wonder if she's upset because of the way Mrs. Elliott yelled at her.

Mrs. Mac lets out a long sigh. “I wanted to let you know. I'm moving to Philadelphia next week.” She tells me she's going to live in what's called shared housing, but it sounds like a commune of old people. They grow their own food, cook and eat together, don't drive, and live in a way that sustains the environment. It sounds kind of cool, like someplace I'd want to live if I got old and turned into a bad driver. “Will you tell your dad?” she says.

I check my wristwatch. “He'll be home in less than an hour.”

“My sister needs her car back. And . . .” Mrs. Mac clears her throat. “Your dad and I aren't on the best of terms right now.”

I think of my dismantled computer. “Yeah, he and I aren't either.” I run my fingernail along the cement platform. “What did you do?”

“Be a buttinsky.” She winks at me.

“What's a buttinsky?” I repeat the word in my mind because it sounds so funny.
Butt-in-skee.

“Someone who meddles in other people's business. People don't seem to like it much.”

Suddenly I feel hot all over, my mouth so parched I can't swallow. I guess Dad didn't like her telling him that I have the same thing that Temple Grandin does. He still thinks I'm just immature and miss my mother and can't control my temper.

I don't want Mrs. Mac to feel like it's her fault when she tried to help me, so I say, “Dad's been having problems. Because of Mami leaving.”

“I know.” Mrs. Mac pats my knee. I twist away.

“I told her she should come back.” A loose strand of hair tickles my nose. I try to blow it to the side. “But she and Dad are making me go to Montreal for the summer.”

“You should spend time with your mother.” Mrs. Mac pushes the hair from my face. “Yasmín misses you.”

“No, she doesn't. She left without me.” My mind returns to my brothers' conversation. “Maybe she got tired of me acting up all the time.”

“That's not the reason. Her job was only supposed to be for a few months.”

I cut in. “Which turned into another few months.”

“And you were still in school.”

“I'm not in school now.”
But Mami doesn't know that!
Dad didn't tell her because if he did, she'd really hate me.

I swallow, and it feels like bits of glass in my throat.

“You still have the tutor, don't you?”

My gaze drops to my sneakers. “For two more weeks. I don't want to go.”

“Your mother wants to see you. She said when I talked to her—”

“When did you talk to her?” Does Mami know everything, thanks to Mrs. Mac's being a
buttinsky
?

“Oh, I don't remember, dear. Sometime before the accident.” Mrs. Mac reaches out her hand, and this time I scoot back before she can touch me. I don't like her taking Mami's side.

“Why were you and Mrs. Elliott arguing?” I ask to change the subject.

“Have you seen my backyard?”

“Not in a while.” I remember the honeysuckle that Mrs. Mac used to grow there, its sweet smell, and how she used to wear its flowers in her hair. Once when my parents went away for a concert tour, she made me a crown of honeysuckle and let me put on one of her dresses, and she and Mr. Mac called me their nature princess. After Mr. Mac died, the bushes turned brown, and so did the rest of their garden. Then she moved out and Chad's family moved in.

“You should see it.” Mrs. Mac points toward her house. The one she's leaving forever and maybe even selling. “I asked her to clean it up. That's when she started screaming at me.”

“It's not you. She's mean to everyone.” I press my lips together. Just like I can't tell Dad, I can't snitch about the drugs to Mrs. Mac because she's a
buttinsky,
and the Elliotts and the people they work for may even track her all the way to Philadelphia, where a bunch of old hippies would be no match for a drug gang.

“I'm going to miss you, dear Kiara.”

I blink a few times. Dirt in my eye. “I'm going to miss you too.”

“Things have been hard for both of us,” Mrs. Mac says. “I wish there was more I could have done.”

“You gave me that book. About the lady like me who has a talent for understanding animals.” I survey the park, the sun setting pink and purple overhead, Brandon playing in the pile of dirt in the opposite corner where the sandbox used to be. A squirrel skitters across a branch of the oak tree and stops above us. I stare at his fluffy white underbelly and his tiny paws touching his nose, as if he's praying.

Mrs. Mac holds her arms outstretched. When I don't move, she says, “Can I get a good-bye hug, dear?”

“Sure.” Slowly, I embrace her.

“Sometimes it takes time to find your place,” Mrs. Mac says, not letting me go. “But you're a special person, and I know you'll do great things.”

“Special?” Like the special classes they may put me in?

Or the special powers that the X-Men have?

I rest my head on Mrs. Mac's shoulder, feel her damp crinkly blouse against my eyelids. “Special is good,” she says. “You may not understand it now, but one day you will. And then”—she lowers her arms and kisses the top of my head—“the world will be a better place because of you.”

“Like that lady in the book?” I can't tell her I haven't read a word since the day I first met Brandon in the park. The torn dust jacket still marks the place in chapter three where I quit.

“Yes. Like Temple Grandin. But whatever you do, it will be something all your own.”

Now I have to finish the book to find out what she did so I don't try to do the same thing.

I give Mrs. Mac a weak wave as she walks toward her borrowed car, filled with the last of her boxes. Her words echo: The world will be a better place because of
me
?

I figure out the equation in my mind.

In one column: Five music videos with over a thousand hits total. Five bike videos with nearly five thousand hits total. I guess if people watched, the videos made them happy.

In the other column: One knocked-out tooth. At least it was a baby tooth. One ruined birthday cake. A lot of pulled-out hair. One bloody nose and sweater. One busted friendship between a buttinsky and a dad who won't face the truth.

One worn-out and angry mother.

One broken family.