There’s a shout in the distance. My shoulders tighten. The Flag Bearers aren’t far from here. What would they do if they saw me talking to her?
“I’m waiting,” she says, drumming her fingers on She-Hulk’s forehead. “Of course, if you don’t know—”
“You can’t be serious,” I say, her insult drawing my attention to her face.
She seems to be fighting a smile. “Well, do you?”
“Fantomah,” I say. “Everybody knows that.” I return the Star Wars comic to its place.
She nods approvingly. “Most people say Wonder Woman.”
“Amateurs.”
Calliope lets her smile take over as she raises a finger. “But can you list three of her superpowers?”
I rattle them off easily: “Transforming objects, flight, levitating things.”
“Yeah,” she says. “And when she uses her powers, her face turns—”
“Into a blue skull,” we say together and then laugh.
She shrugs. “But somehow she manages to keep all that curly blond hair on top of her bony head.”
Okay, now I’m totally impressed. “You collect comics?”
“No,” she answers. “I like trivia. Josiah and I like to watch Jeopardy! in the afternoons when I get home from soccer practice.” She points behind me. I crane my neck and, at the other end of a row of stands, spot the honeybee logo on a round sign that matches her apron. The same logo that was on their barn. Josiah is placing jars of honey in a paper bag for a customer.
“You play soccer?” I ask, turning to her, wondering why she’s even talking to me. Not only is she smart and can drive, but she’s also an athlete?
She nods. “You play something?”
“Only if you count video games.” I shake my head. “Let’s just say I’m not that coordinated.”
She moves a little closer.
I can smell the lemons and honey; my heart thumps.
“You really should stop by the stand for a sample. We’re handing them out right now.” She shrugs. “Or, if you prefer, I can turn my head and you can try to steal some again.”
My cheeks flush.
She’s grinning from ear to ear, her smile brightening her whole face. And I’m so, so glad I actually brushed my teeth and showered today.
“Come on,” she says, heading toward PASTOR WILKES’ 100% PURE HONEY & JAM.
I can’t help it: I follow.
The air is damp and heavy with the sweet smell of fresh-cut fruit and flowers. I pick up the pace, but stop short as Calliope moves behind their table. Josiah—all smiles—chats and offers samples to the crowd. His booming voice tells people the proceeds from today’s sales will go to a college scholarship awarded to one member of the community by the AME Zion Church.
I can tell it’s working because more people are pulling out their money and gathering around their stand.
Calliope rolls the top of a paper bag and hands it to a customer. She brushes a stray curl from her face before helping the next person in line. Watching her, I have this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach—not a bad feeling, just strange and fluttery.
After a few seconds, I realize she’s too busy. She was only being nice. She didn’t really want me to stop by.
I wipe my hands on my jeans—about to turn around—when she spies me over a customer’s shoulder. “Rebel,” she calls and holds out a small plastic cup with golden liquid inside. “For you,” she says and places it on the table in front of her.
I grin like an idiot as she gestures for me to come closer.
My feet move mechanically toward her as she bags honey and a jar of strawberry jam. She hands it off to a customer, thanking him.
“This is the kind you like, right?” she asks.
I don’t know what to say, so I swig the golden liquid. It coats my tongue and the back of my throat.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” she says, offering me the jar, just like the one I spilled.
“I can’t take it.”
She puts a hand on her hip. “No, but you can buy it.”
“O-Oh,” I stutter. “Right. Of course,” I say, reaching for my money.
She turns to help another customer.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Josiah says with a smile in his voice. He rolls his wheelchair to the front of the table and offers his hand for me to shake.
There are all these people here, and he’s stopping to shake my hand?
I don’t hesitate; I leave my money on the table and ease around the crowd. “It’s good to see you, sir.”
A woman shuffles behind me to pay Calliope for two jars of Pastor Wilkes’ blackberry jam.
“How’s the arm?” he asks, pointing to my curling Band-Aid.
“Good,” I say. “Your granddaughter did a good job.”
“Do you want jam to go with your honey?” Calliope asks, holding up my money. “And maybe a box of Band-Aids so you can take off that skanky one?”
Josiah shakes his head. “She sure got you.”
“Like you even have Band-Aids,” I say.
“Ha!” she responds.
“You should not have said that, son,” Josiah says under his breath.
Calliope bends over, disappearing behind the yellow tablecloth for a second as Josiah rolls around the table to take over helping the customers.
All of a sudden, she appears with ointment in one hand and a Band-Aid in the other.
“Told you,” Josiah says, bagging a jar of honey.
I bite down a grin as she rounds the table.
“Are you trying to get an infection?” she asks me.
“Yes,” I say, unable to contain my smile. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”
“Well, you’re on your way.” She grabs my wrist, sending a jolt of electricity along my arm. “Let me see it.”
She carefully removes R2-D2, exposing a little pink dot. It looks so tiny now, really not worth fussing over. But I’m not about to stop her if she wants to help me heal.
Calliope tosses R2-D2 in a nearby trash can, and with her head bent, her curls spring near my face. I breathe in her smell and watch her forehead wrinkle as she slathers ointment on the spot and then sticks a new Band-Aid on my arm.
“There,” she says with a laugh.
I look down and spot the pink Barbie princess Band-Aid on my arm.
She laughs harder.
“Very funny,” I say, but I’m laughing, too.
“Rebel!”
I snatch my arm from Calliope’s grasp. No, not him. Not now! My heart leaps to my throat as Dad storms toward us.
FOURTEEN
As Dad nears, I can see the veins popping in his neck. Dwight isn’t far behind.
My heart slams against my chest.
“What’s going on here?” Dad shouts as he walks.
People turn to stare. Calliope’s mouth drops open in disbelief.
No, don’t embarrass me here. Not in front of her.
“Can I help you, sir?” Josiah asks, rolling to the front of the table, his chair creating a barrier in front of me.
“Get out of my way,” Dad orders, and then looks across Josiah’s wheelchair to Calliope. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, touching my son?”
Her bottom lip trembles.
My whole body flushes with heat. My eyes feel like they’re bulging out of my skull, willing him to stop.
“Sir,” Josiah says, his voice a little louder but still calm, “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. Your son was contributing to the scholarship money my church is collecting.”
“Your church?” Dwight says past the tobacco wad in his mouth.
“Yes, sir. I’m the pastor here at the AME Zion Church, and we’re selling honey and jam to raise money for the community scholarship fund.”
“Why was she touching you?” Dad snaps.
He makes it sound so dirty. I wish I could melt into the concrete floor and disappear.
“My granddaughter was putting
a Band-Aid on your son’s arm, sir. The other one was falling off.”
“This is Calliope?” Dad says.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to awaken from this nightmare.
“That’s right,” she says. My eyelids snap open. She’s lifting her chin, while Dad looks at her with so much hate.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot here,” Josiah says, obviously trying to draw Dad’s glare away from Calliope. “Of course, I don’t have any feet anymore,” he says with a nervous laugh. “Lost them in the war. Rebel tells me we have the same kind of background, you and I.”
The vein in Dad’s forehead throbs as he speaks through gritted teeth. “How dare you! We are nothing alike.”
I should probably say something. But my tongue feels too thick. The words won’t come.
“You’re not fit to lick the dirt from his boots,” Dwight says before spitting—a brown, slimy mass—straight at Josiah.
I cringe as tobacco juice slides down Josiah’s cheek and soils his crisp white collar.
Calliope tenses next to me. She edges toward Dwight, pointing. “How dare you.”
But Josiah puts a hand at her waist, shaking his head, stopping her.
“Is there a problem?” a police officer asks. Apparently, someone called the police. Thank goodness.
“No, sir,” Josiah says, wiping his face and neck with a handkerchief. “Just a little misunderstanding.”
The cop looks suspiciously between Calliope and Josiah. He turns to Dwight. “Are you alright, sir?”
Calliope’s hand clenches by her side.
The cop’s badge glints under the lights. “Did you not get the right change or something?”
Why is he assuming Josiah and Calliope did something wrong? Calliope’s staring at me, as if willing me to speak up for them, but I’m too shocked.
Dwight chews his tobacco and spits on the ground near their table, splattering the yellow tablecloth with brown juice. “Naw, we’re good.”
The officer nods. “Then move along please.”
“Yes, sir,” Dwight says with a mock salute and starts walking.
But Dad’s not moving. He’s glaring at Josiah. “Stay away from my son.”
“Sir,” the cop says. “I said move along.”
Dad clutches my upper arm and yanks. Pain shoots to my elbow as he drags me the opposite direction. His face is almost purple; he’s huffing with every breath.
“Rebel,” Calliope calls after me.
I glance over my shoulder as Dad hauls me away. The cop’s already gone.
“You forgot.” She’s holding the bag of honey and jam I’d bought with Dad’s money.
Dad squeezes my arm even harder. I yelp.
“I’ll take care of this,” Dwight says, his voice gruff as he storms toward their table.
“What’s he going to do?” I ask, my tongue finally moving. “Leave her alone.”
As soon as Dwight reaches her, he swats the bag from Calliope’s hand, sending it flying. The glass shatters on impact. Dwight laughs, and I could swear he sounds exactly like Chewbacca. Honey saturates the bag, staining the paper and oozing onto the concrete.
From here, I can see the disappointment on Calliope’s face.
I want to tell her I’m sorry; I don’t think like they do. I want to tell her I wish they weren’t like this. But I don’t say any of those things.
Instead, I rip the Band-Aid from my arm, tossing it to the ground, and run. Just like always.
***
“You shouldn’t have lied to me,” Dad hisses. I squeeze the pistol grip on the gun I’m assembling. When we returned to camp, Wade ordered me to put together a new batch of assault weapons as punishment for making friends with “the Negroes.”
I should have never come to this place. I thought I could help Dad get better, but now . . . I hate how they talk about Calliope and Josiah like they’re dirty. I hate that I couldn’t speak, or didn’t speak, when I probably should have. I hate all of these guns. The sound that vibrates through my body, long after it’s been fired. The blood and blank stare I can’t forget. I shudder. I hate what guns can do.
But somehow, these parts make sense to me in all the mess. Like Legos. There’s an order to things. They fit together in a logical way. Unlike Dad and me.
Parts for at least one hundred guns have been delivered from at least a dozen different suppliers. I’ve matched and spread the parts in order down a long table. Dad and I are the only ones inside the large building where Dad took the oath.
Gunshots pop outside on the training grounds as I attach an empty magazine to the bottom of the gun I’m working on. I scoot farther along the table with Dad pacing behind me.
“I can’t believe you did that,” he says.
Maybe if I keep ignoring him, he’ll give up and go play soldier with everyone else. When I reach the end of the table, I grab a sound suppressor.
“I asked you a direct question at the farmers market.”
“You asked me her name,” I correct, wanting to add, not the color of her skin. Instead, I screw the suppressor onto the end of the gun’s muzzle and add, “I told you her name.”
I lower the assembled weapon into a wooden crate on the floor and walk the length of the table, returning to the beginning, hoping he’ll leave me alone.
No such luck. His footfalls are heavy behind me. “You embarrassed me.”
I stop mid-step. I embarrassed him? What about me? “Why do you hate them so much?”
Sudden confusion creases Dad’s forehead. “Who?”
“Black people. Brown people,” I say, counting off on my fingers until I realize there are too many groups to count. “Basically anyone who’s not like us.”
“I don’t hate them,” he says.
I scoff. “In case you haven’t noticed, these Flag Bearers are white supremacists, Dad. You’re a part of that now.”
“I’m not a white supremacist,” he argues and then promptly adds, “I’m a white separatist. There’s a difference.”
I shake my head. He can’t be serious.
“Let me ask you this: Why would you want to mix with them? They’re stealing our jobs.”
I release a heavy sigh, not wanting to hear it for the thousandth time, and stomp to the end of the table.
But Dad stays with me. “And the rest of them are living off the system; off of taxes I paid into that system to support their fifteen kids from five different dads.”
I cringe as I think of Ajeet’s parents: His dad’s a doctor; his mom’s a lawyer. Pastor Josiah is a preacher and business owner. Mrs. Fuentes is a school principal; her son works at NASA. They don’t live off the system, or have fifteen kids. And so what if they did? I’m sure they all pay taxes, too.
“I don’t like seeing our country being taken over,” Dad continues. “And it’s our government’s fault.” He presses a finger against the table, so hard his fingertip turns red. “Those traitors in Washington have forsaken America and her constitution, giving all the power to the New World Order.”
He’s not making any sense. How can I even respond? I snatch an upper receiver to begin a new gun.
Dad reaches for a lower receiver and offers it to me. “White people are under attack; nobody’s paying attention but us. Who watches the watchmen?”
I guess he wants me to answer, WE DO, but I shake my head.
He returns the receiver to the table. “You’re supposed to be on my side.” There’s another burst of gunfire outside, startling Dad.
I drop the partially assembled weapon on the table. “I didn’t know there were sides until we got here.”
All of a sudden, he slaps his hand against the table, making me jump, along with the parts. “When are you going to learn they’re not like us?” His face tightens. “First that robot boy.”
His name is Ajeet.
“And now, this, this . . .”
My eyes burn. “Calliope,” I say. “Her name is Calliope.” I’m hot and cold and sweating.
>
“Why can’t you be friends with kids that are more like you?”
“Would it matter?” I say, shivering. “You hate me no matter what I do anyway.”
Dad blinks, like he’s surprised. “I don’t hate you. Why would you think I hate you?”
“Because you’re always mad at me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Whatever,” I say, staring past him, my vision blurring the longer I stare because I refuse to blink. If I blink, I’ll start crying. And I can’t do that, not in front of him.
After a second, his voice softens. “I’m not always mad at you.”
I try to focus on the black gun parts, when there’s a sudden boom outside.
Dad jumps at the sound and starts rocking back and forth between his feet, his whole body tight. I shift uncomfortably; he rocks for a few more seconds and then comes to an abrupt halt. His hands unclench with a sigh. “I wish I was more like Wade.” There’s a sudden pain in his eyes. “Or even that colored in the wheelchair.”
“Josiah?” I ask, confused. I thought Dad hated him.
He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down his rigid throat. “At least when your legs have been blown off or when half your body’s been burned by a grenade, people can see you’ve been hurt. At least people know, or might give a little respect or have some sympathy for the things you’ve sacrificed to keep this country safe.” He rubs a hand across his damp eyes. “At least they don’t have to be embarrassed because they’re weak.”
“You’re not weak,” I say, surprised.
Dad scoffs, rubbing his red eyes even harder.
I never knew he felt weak. He seems so strong. And I hadn’t thought of it before, but maybe people don’t care as much about the things they can’t see. I know I sometimes forget he’s hurt. “Maybe we should go home,” I suggest.
Dad sighs, his hand falling from his face. “We can’t.”
“Of course we can.”
“You’re not listening to me,” Dad says, his voice tight. “If we abandon our unit, we’ll be viewed a traitor and then they’ll . . . I don’t know.” Dad shakes his head with an edge of warning.
“They’ll what?” I ask, my pulse jumping. “What will they do?”
“I’d rather these guys not find out I have a sister, okay?”
The Inside Battle Page 11
