Rogue (10 page)

CHAPTER 20

I WAKE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING AND CAN'T GET BACK
to sleep. I think of Mrs. Mac leaving and what she said about me doing great things and the world being a better place because of me. If so, I need to start putting more things in my good column.

But what?

Around nine, I hear the Elliotts' van coughing to life and driving away. The sounds of the Elliotts leaving give me an idea. Now that they're gone, I can sneak into the backyard and clean it up. Then Mrs. Mac's yard won't be a mess, and Chad and Brandon won't get in any more trouble with their mom.

Saturday is Dad's day off—his one day to sleep in—and I slip downstairs without waking him. Remembering the bottle of muriatic acid I found under the porch steps, I grab a pair of work gloves, a bandanna, and an armful of black garbage bags from the basement.

I squeeze through the hole in the fence and cross the park. As soon as I step onto the curb on the Elliotts' side of Cherry Street, I hear rustling. And Chad's and Brandon's voices.

I press myself against the house, where they can't see me. I thought the whole family had left together, but I was wrong.

Chad's voice drifts toward me. “Get under the back stairs where you stuffed the trash bags. Mom and Dad said we better have this cleaned up by the time they get back, or else . . .”

So their parents left them alone? And they don't have much time to clean up whatever mess Mrs. Mac saw.

I've tied the bandanna around my neck to keep from inhaling any chemical fumes, and now I tug it over my mouth and nose. Several garbage bags slide from my grasp. I leave them at the corner of the house and creep forward.

When I see their yard, I gasp. I wasn't prepared for so much trash—everywhere are sooty two-liter soda bottles like the ones Antonio caught us with, bottles of Drano, and piles of random garbage.

And most of Mrs. Mac's garden is dead.

The two boys, their blond hair shiny in the morning sunlight, stand next to the rusted metal stairs to the basement. Brandon gets onto his hands and knees beside the stairs, where there's a space large enough for a cat to crawl into, but not a boy in kindergarten. He sticks both arms in, then his head, and tries to wriggle his shoulders inside.

He's going to get stuck,
I think.

But he doesn't. After a while, he inches himself out of the hole, holding a roll of empty bags. Dirt streaks his face and covers his hair and skinny arms.

He didn't have to do that. I brought bags.
But it's too late.

Chad carries a bag to a toxic pile and starts filling it. “So you didn't clean up any of this yesterday when Mom told you to?” he asks Brandon.

“I was waiting for you.” No wonder Brandon kept asking me if I knew where his brother had gone. Brandon continues. “I started, but it was too hard. I hid the rest of the bags under the stairs till you got back.”

I remember Brandon telling me why Chad got in trouble with his mother:
'Cause he's late. He's always late.
And I told Brandon that Chad should be able to ride his bike.

Still, there's no way Brandon could have cleaned up this whole mess by himself.

And who dumped this garbage in the yard in the first place? Not Chad and Brandon, but parents who didn't care about them or Mrs. Mac's yard.

I can't let Chad and Brandon do this all by themselves and with nothing to protect them from the chemicals. I step into the yard. Chad and Brandon face the other direction and my feet don't make any noise on the damp ground, so they don't notice me at first.

Then Brandon calls out, “Hey, look, there's Kiara!” He runs toward me and wraps his grubby hands around my legs. “You look like a cowboy!”

“You shouldn't be cleaning up this stuff without gloves.” I take off my gloves and wave them above Brandon's head.

“Can't hear you,” Brandon says, and I realize I didn't remove the bandanna covering my mouth.

I drop the gloves, untie the blue cloth with its white curlicue pattern, and tie it around Brandon's neck. “There. Now you're the cowboy.” I pat his dust-caked hair.

“Yay! I'm a cowboy!” Brandon runs to his brother and pretends to shoot him, both thumbs up and index fingers outstretched. “Bang, bang, you're dead.”

Bang. You dead.
I wait for Gambit to respond with his famous line. Instead, Chad lifts the bag to his shoulder like a skinny blond Santa Claus. “Get out of here, Kiara. This is none of your business,” he says. I wonder what kind of trouble he got into for riding his bike at the BMX track rather than helping Brandon with the nasty garbage.

I inch backward. “I can bring you gloves too, Chad. And help you guys clean up.”

“We don't need you,” Chad says. “Go.”

Why don't you care about getting poisoned?
Before I leave, I pick my gloves off the ground and slide them over Brandon's little hands. Then I pull up the bandanna to cover his nose and mouth. His hands and face are dirty but soft and unmarred—not hard like his brother's. Chad snorts and goes back to picking up trash bare-handed, the black bag dragging across the dirt and weeds.

I started out the morning ready to put more things in my good column. But Chad doesn't want me here.

Maybe I should only do things that I want to do. Forget about making the world a better place, at least for now. I want to make videos at the bike track and stay in town with all the new friends I've made.

On the way back to my house, I decide three more things. One: If Chad can take a huge risk to do the thing he most wants to do, so can I. Two: I don't have to tell Antonio the truth about why my computer got taken away. I can tell him I spent too much time on the videos and quit doing my homework. That's a much cooler reason for getting into trouble than what I really did. And three: I don't have to tell Dad the truth about anything.

I write Dad a note that I'm going to the town library to work on an assignment for Ms. Latimer—thanks to him not being awake to give me the power cord for my computer. Then I collect my backpack with Dad's camera, roll Max's bike out from under the lean-to, and for the first time all week ride to my friends in College Park.

CHAPTER 21

I TAKE THE END-OF-YEAR STATE EXAMS ALONE, IN A SMALL
room attached to the principal's office. I don't get to see the rest of the school or any of the kids.

I don't belong here anymore.

But I will come back this summer, along with Chad whether or not he wants me. We'll still be friends. I imagine his surprised look when I tell him we'll be in summer school together. Maybe even in the same classroom, once they discover I really know everything and can be his private tutor.

When the assistant principal instructs me, I open the first page of my test booklet. Algebra I.

#1: The equations 12
x
+ 18
y
= 48 and 18
x
+ 18
y
= 63 represent the money collected from the sale of cupcakes and doughnuts on two different days. If
x
represents the cost of cupcakes, how much does each cupcake cost? (A) $1.00; (B) $1.50; (C) $2.00; (D) $2.50.

Easy. Cupcakes are $2.50. I darken the circle next to (A).

Every few times, I get one right. Missing every single question seems too deliberate.

I could have scored at least a 96 on the Algebra I exam.

Instead, I'm getting a 45.

I work out every problem in my head so I know which circles are wrong and which are most likely to be because of a careless error. Where it says to show the work, I make the careless error. Like #1: Not reading the problem carefully enough. Or #3: Solving the equations in the wrong order.

About halfway through the test, I consider erasing all my wrong answers and putting the right ones in. It will be embarrassing to fail a test. I used to cry when I got below a 90. Ms. Latimer will say it's my fault for spending too much time making videos. She may change her mind and recommend me for the ED/LD class.

I know Dad will be angry with me. He's arranging to go on tour as an extra musician with a band after I leave, but now he'll have to stay home and work at Tech Town while I attend summer school. Too bad for him. He should have stood up for me and not let Mami take me away from my only friends.

Mami will be angry too, but it doesn't matter because she isn't coming home anyway. She's busy in Montreal with her new band and the famous singer. I don't think she misses me nearly as much as Mrs. Mac said she does. And now, Max—one of her normal children—is up there for the summer, playing keyboards with the band, while the other normal child, whose name I refuse to mention, has an internship in Boston.

I hand the assistant principal my answer sheet fifteen minutes early.

Next comes social studies.

#1: Farmers in the South who lived on land belonging to a large landowner, and who paid rent with part of their harvest rather than with money, were called (A) sodbusters; (B) migrants; (C) sharecroppers; (D) muckrakers.

Instead of (C), I fill in (A).

Unlike Algebra I, social studies has an essay portion. I'm supposed to interpret a cartoon about the Gilded Age and write a paragraph. I get the dates wrong and write about the Roaring Twenties.

I decide not to fail my science test. I'm already in summer school anyway for math and social studies. Science is my favorite subject. I could teach it, if Chad would only let me, and I can't see myself going over things I recite in my sleep.

I figure on a perfect 100 in science and 45 in Algebra I. I don't know about social studies because they could grade my essay easy. But I got wrong more than half the multiple choice and true-false questions.

Just before opening my English test, I think again about Dad and how he'll probably take away my computer forever. That would mean no classes with Mr. Internet. And no way to upload videos.

I can still meet Mr. Internet at the public library.
Hey, Dad, I'm going to the library to study. So I won't have to repeat eighth grade, you know.
Yes. That's what I'll tell him.

Since they don't let you make and upload YouTube videos at the library, I'll have to ask Antonio. As I guessed, he didn't mind when I told him that I lost my computer for not doing my homework. Veg offered to upload the videos to his computer and edit them for me, but his aren't getting as many hits as mine did. So I'm pretty sure Antonio will say yes to me coming over and using his computer.

I imagine myself with Antonio at his big, fancy house. Making sandwiches in the kitchen, everything shiny and clean, tile floors and granite countertops like in
Hogar,
the home-decorating magazine in Spanish Mami used to read. They keep sending it to us even though she's no longer here.

The assistant principal interrupts my thoughts. “Time's passing. You need to focus on the test.”

I realize I've been staring at the clock. Twenty minutes have passed of my allotted hour. And, no, I can't hand in a blank page.

I start with the essays. This time, I answer the two questions, but I print so slowly and neatly that I have a work of art when the assistant principal calls time, but only a third of the little circles for the vocabulary and grammar parts filled in. At least when they read the essays, the people grading the test won't think I'm a complete idiot.

I smile and hand the assistant principal my answer sheets for the English exam. She wishes me a good summer.

I could write a book on how to fail the state exams on purpose.

CHAPTER 22

DAD HAS ARRANGED TO TAKE OFF WORK TO DRIVE ME TO
Montreal after my lessons with Ms. Latimer end. I wonder what he'll do when he finds out I can't go because I failed my exams and will have to attend summer school. I have ten days to wait before we find out my scores. Ms. Latimer has me do fun stuff like puzzles and board games. I stare at the unplugged computer and think about all the video footage in my camera that I need to edit and upload.

During the week Antonio tells me about a party he and his friends have organized at the BMX track on Saturday. He calls it the “end-of-school blowout” because he, Veg, and Brian are graduating high school the following Wednesday. He wants me to film everyone's stunts. I haven't been to a party since the disaster at Emily Stein's in fourth grade. But I expect to be grounded for a long time, and this might be one of my last chances to see all my friends.

The party starts at two on Saturday afternoon and is supposed to last all night. Dad's working until nine to make up for all the days he'll miss, so if I get home by then, I'm safe. I tell Chad to come over at one thirty so we can ride there together—me on Chad's bike, him on his BMX bike. I want to show up on a shiny, new bike, but mainly, I don't want to show up alone. I want all the people I don't know to see that I already have a friend.

Yet by two, there's no Chad. Not even his family's van in the driveway.

I'm
itching,
as Chad would say. Wasting time. Kids will be doing stunts and expecting me to film them. The thought of arriving alone makes my knees go shaky. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and wheel Max's bike out of the lean-to. Before I can put on my backpack and helmet, I hear the van's peculiar cough.

Yes!
I whisper to myself. I back the bike into the lean-to and run to my front porch to await Chad. Five minutes later, he rides up the street on his mountain bike, towing his BMX bike alongside him.

“Where were you?” I ask.

“McDonald's.” He has a gauze bandage wrapped around his left forearm near his elbow, where he got a nasty turf burn bailing on a backflip yesterday. I check the saddlebags for two-liter bottles of churning chemicals. Empty. I stuff my rolled-up backpack with the camera, notebook, and pencil into a bag.

While stopped at a traffic light in downtown Willingham, Chad picks at the gauze. I tell him, “Veg wants to call your video ‘Backflop.'”

“Not funny. I'm gonna do it perfect this time.” Chad looks away, toward the river. The light changes, and he takes off ahead of me, pedaling hard. I pump to catch up with him, hoping the effort will make my knees less shaky.

Last-minute tutoring,
I think.
Maybe that will help.
“Hey, Chad. What am I supposed to do?” I shout.

He grunts and drops back behind me.

I slow to let him catch up and try again. “The party? What should I say?”

“Dunno. Be yourself.”

That's a lot of help.

“Oh, yeah,” he then says. “Make sure you get all my stunts.”

When we get there, I check my watch. Three o'clock. We have nearly five hours until I have to go home. The area around the BMX track is already filled with kids wearing the red and black colors of College Park High School.

Veg trots toward us, waving both hands above his head.

“Yo, Raggy!” Veg calls out Chad's nickname—short for Raggedy Chad.

Antonio catches up to his friend. “If it isn't rogue266 and Gambit Double 360.” He winks at me. I think he's figured out my obsession with the X-Men from my YouTube uploads even though I haven't actually told him. I smile back.

Veg lowers his voice and tells us, “Gotta show you the new ice chest we made.”

Chad and I follow Veg and Antonio to a smaller clearing in the woods where some other high school kids stand in a circle, holding cans. They step aside to let us through. At our feet is a pit, three feet by three feet, lined with a shower curtain and filled with soda, beer, and ice.

“Cool!” Chad says.

“You dug that hole?” I ask. It makes me think of the holes I dug for Brandon's wrestlers, only a hundred times bigger.

“This morning. It's Mother Nature's ice chest.” Antonio crouches down and grabs a can of soda. I do the same.

When Antonio isn't looking, Chad snatches a beer can from the hole, pops the top, and takes a long swallow. I gulp my soda. We're both sweaty from the ride and the almost-ninety-degree heat. And I'm not surprised to see Chad drinking. He's had beer with the other guys before, chugging his cans like someone who's been sneaking them from the refrigerator for years, which on one wobbly ride home he told me he did.

After Veg and some other kids scoop up cans, Antonio drags a sheet of plywood over the hole. Some of the kids drift away. Antonio and I walk through the woods in the opposite direction toward the creek. I smell pine sap mixed with perspiration. Mine. Antonio's. The buzz of many conversations fades the farther we get from the pit, replaced by the gurgle of water running past rocks.

I take the camera from the backpack to get some footage of the creek. I know I'll use it at some point. Running water always makes for cool images.

“Want me to interview you?” Antonio asks.

“Interview?”

He wriggles the camera out of my hand and points it at my face. “We're here with the world-famous videographer rogue266. Rogue, say hi to your fans.”

“Hi, fans,” I mumble, confused.

“A little more enthusiasm, okay?”

Louder, I repeat, “Hi, fans.”

“Through image and music, you've captured the thrill of freestyle BMX and mountain biking. What's your secret?”

The words don't come. I shift from one foot to another. Gaze at the pine needles under my sneakers.
Keep the camera still? Never let the bike leave the frame? Zoom into his center the moment the rider takes to the air—and the moment he wipes out?

“I . . . I can't,” I say, looking away to the side.

“Sorry I put you on the spot.” Antonio lowers the camera and hands it to me. After deleting his recording to avoid further embarrassment, I tuck it under my arm. “I guess great artists don't talk about their work,” he says. “They just do it.”

He's right. When I'm behind the camera, sitting in the grass overlooking the BMX track, I feel strong. Capable. Like I belong.

We return to the track. The sun is high, and shadows don't get in the way of my filming. The boys take turns doing their stunts while I record them. Even some girls ride the mounds. Chad gets a lot of attention for the perfect backflip that he practiced yesterday.
That trick is beast,
a couple of the other kids say. They all think he's really cool—or
beast,
which I guess means cool.

I write their names along with their stunts and a description of their bikes in my notebook. This way, I can match the riders with their videos. Some of the names I recognize from previous weeks, even though I don't recognize the faces.

Three hours later, the sun has dropped toward the horizon. I have to move around more for the best lighting to capture the expressions on the riders' faces and the details of their stunts. Fewer kids are riding because the glare messes with their moves, just as it washes out my picture if I aim the camera the wrong way.

Someone brings a stack of pizza boxes to the edge of the woods. Someone else refills the pit. Antonio brings me a slice of pepperoni on a paper plate.

“I'll take another soda,” I tell him. People are eating now, not riding, and I have nothing else to do except stare at the empty track.

He comes back with a diet soda. I frown.

“You drink diet, don't you?” he asks.

“No. Not really.”

“Sorry. I thought most girls—”

“It's okay,” I interrupt. He ought to know by now I'm not like most girls. But I don't want to mess things up, so I pop the top instead.

With the first sip, I recoil at the fake sweetness. I force myself to drink more, then cover up the chemical aftertaste with a bite of pepperoni. Antonio sits on a patch of grass next to me. Suddenly, I feel dizzy. My mouth is dry. I take another swallow. I have to tell him about the test.

“Dad wants to send me to Montreal this summer,” I begin.

“Max is there, right? It's cool you're staying with him.”

Cool? No, it's not cool.
“I flunked my state exams on purpose,” I tell Antonio.

“No way,” he says.

“So that I'll have to stay around and go to summer school. And I bet my dad'll ground me.” Thinking about it makes my stomach do a backflip. A mouthful of soda sets it back where it belongs. “But you can come by and visit.”

“Wow. Like a jail visit.”

“Something like that.”

Antonio leans in toward me. His breath is tangy. Sweet. “You're a big-time troublemaker. First getting kicked out of school, then getting your computer taken away for not doing your homework. Now this.”

The lie about the homework, thrown back at me, makes me hesitate.
I have to keep track of the lies.
“Yeah, it was really weird. I used to never fail tests. Most of the time I got a hundred.”

“So . . .
why
?” Antonio licks his lips. I wonder what it's like to kiss someone . . . on the lips? The backflips start up again.

Under the influence of the Golgotha space creatures, Rogue and Wolverine kissed.

Antonio stands up and moves to my other side. Does he know I wanted to kiss him? My gaze falls to his red muscle T-shirt, his bare arm, and the Livestrong tattoo.

“I wanted to stay with my friends,” I say.

I touch Antonio's shoulder. His skin is hot. My arm stiffens, and a burning sensation spreads from my fingers all the way to my heart, as if instead of sucking out his emotions, he's sucking out mine.
He doesn't think what I did is cool. He thinks it's stupid and weird.
I let my hand drop into my lap. Heat flows out of my body. The swirling inside me stops.

Antonio taps my shoulder. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Anna Paquin?” he asks. When I look up, he brushes back the strands of hair that have come out of my ponytail.

“Really?” My voice comes out as a squeak. “You know she plays Rogue in the
X-Men
movie?” I twist around and notice the groups of kids walking toward us. “But I'm the real Rogue.”

“Two-six-six.” Antonio smiles at me—a big smile that I think means he cares about me.

I stand, brush the dirt from my jeans, and pick up my backpack. “Can we, like, walk somewhere?” I ask, not wanting the rest of the kids to hear about the X-Men and me.

“Sure.”

When we get to the woods, I tell him about Rogue and Wolverine and Gambit, about needing to find my special power so I can make the world understand mutants and be nicer to us, and he listens to me. But I'm nowhere near finished when I hear a rustling.

I whirl around.

A husky-voiced “Boo!” makes me jump.

Chad steps out of the woods and stands in front of us, hands on his hips. He's not smiling.