“Pretty please. Sugar on top.” He pushes my book downward with pencil-eraser-size fingers and flashes his gummy smile. Freckles dot his little nose.
“Okay, okay. For a few minutes.”
He dashes across the street and into his house. When he doesn’t come out right away, I flip to chapter three, hoping that maybe he forgot or found something better to do. I get through a page and a half before he reappears holding a shoebox.
I groan. “Let me finish this page, okay?”
“Hurry up. You promised.”
Inside the box are four-inch-tall plastic men, some naked to the waist, others with sleeveless shirts, all with oversize muscles. I set my book facedown on the platform, leaving animals behind for a little boy. Brandon leads me to the opposite corner of the park, where there’s a children’s playground with swings, a seesaw, and a pile of dirt in the place of what used to be a sandbox. We sit on the ground next to the dirt pile.
He hands me a wrestler. “The Miz,” he says. He calls out other names as he pulls out figures. “Tatanka. Matt Hardy. The Rock. The Boogeyman.”
I pick out an Asian-looking guy with lots of hair who wears a karate costume. “Who’s this one?”
“Funaki. Tag team champion.”
“I’m into X-Men. You heard of them?” I say.
“Nope.”
“I got a bunch of comic books and stuff.”
With the foot of one of his wrestlers, Brandon makes a lopsided circle in the dirt. I think of bringing over my figures. But I’m not supposed to mix X-Men with anything else because X-Men only go with each other—not with wrestlers or Power Rangers or Transformers. And I don’t want to get them scratched or dirty.
“You can have a girl, ’cause you’re a girl.” He hands me a dark-skinned woman with black hair and a gray bodysuit. “That’s Kristal. She’s on the side of The Miz.”
I turn her over. She doesn’t look anything like Rogue. But I can pretend.
Brandon smacks two bare-chested figures together, grinds them into the dirt, slams one down onto the other one, all the while talking to himself. He uses some pretty nasty words too, words I don’t expect a five-or six-year-old to know. Sitting next to him, I smell fertilizer—manure mixed with chemicals—and for a moment remember how Mami used to grow beans and tomatoes in our backyard, like her family did for generations in their small plot in El Salvador. My eyes are drawn to Brandon’s ruler-straight hair, crookedly parted, roots crusted with grime. I wonder when he last took a bath.
“Let’s make a ring,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Want to come with me to get a shovel?”
“I’m not ’lowed in anyone’s house. I’m s’posed to stay here.” He bites his lower lip.
“Then don’t go anywhere. It’ll only take a couple of minutes.”
I take the shortcut through the fence, unlock the back door, and grab a trowel hanging from a peg on the basement wall. When I return, Brandon hasn’t moved. He’s a lot better at sitting still than his brother. I dig a dungeon-like ring with smooth walls and a flat floor. The soil is cool and damp, easy to dig and with a musty smell, cleaner than the smell that clings to Brandon. I pile the extra dirt and pat it down so Brandon’s wrestlers can leap from the heights onto their helpless victims.
“Like my ring?” I ask.
“Yeah.” One of his guys stomps another’s head, over and over.
“Maybe your brother will be my friend now.”
He doesn’t answer but instead has one wrestler kick another in the side of the face. The one kicked tumbles into the hole.
I pull a wrestler with a white vest from the box and make Kristal stomp him. Then I throw him aside and dance her around in a circle, shouting, “I win! I win!”
Brandon clutches my wrist. My body tenses. “No, that’s not how you do it,” he says.
“That’s what you did.”
“He’s a good guy. She’s bad. The good guys are s’posed to win.”
“Then show me who’s good and who’s bad,” I say.
Brandon lays the wrestlers side by side in two lines. He points to the line closest to him. “These are the good guys.” Then the other line. “These are the bad guys.” He picks up a pale man with black hair and a black vest and moves him from the bottom line to the top. “Last week he turned into a good guy.”
“They can do that?”
“Yup,” Brandon answers.
“No kidding!” I say. “So can the X-Men. Lots of them went from evil to good. Or from good to evil. Sometimes they went back and forth. There’s this one, Rogue. She’s me.” Even though Brandon’s gone back to bashing his wrestlers against each other, I describe how Rogue became a mutant from being exposed to toxic chemicals and how she started off with Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants because of the way people treated her. Then she found Professor X and older X-Men like Wolverine and Iceman and learned to use her powers to help people.
I don’t tell Brandon how Rogue asked Mystique to become her foster mother after her own mother left her—the way Mami did to me.
I lose track of time. The single dungeon becomes a chain of cells, some for matches to the death, others as hospitals for injured wrestlers or holding pens for those waiting to fight. Kids from the elementary school pass without noticing us. The middle-school bus squeals to a halt.
Three kids get off the bus, Chad first and then the twins Eddie and Mike Perez. Eddie and Mike push each other along the sidewalk next to the park. I hear one of them say, “Look who plays with babies,” and the other laugh.
I ball up my fists, ready to chase them. I hear Ms. Latimer’s words in my mind: Count to ten. Think of something that makes you happy.
Okay. I’ve spent three hours playing with a kindergartner and had fun.
My breathing slows. My fingers unclench. Chad walks slowly toward Brandon and me, his shoulders slumped. A breeze blows his hair away from his face to reveal a swollen, purplish-red left ear.
“What happened to your ear?” I ask.
Chad glares at me. “Bug bite.”
Brandon stops playing and stares down at the wrestler in his hand. His lips move but no sound comes out. I wish I had the special power to read lips.
Chad taps his brother’s shoulder. “Go on home.”
“I’m playing,” Brandon says.
“Get!” Chad drops loose wrestlers into the shoebox.
“Don’t want to.”
Now Chad pokes Brandon with the shoebox until he stands and clutches it to his chest. A single tear glistens on his cheek. Chad pushes him in the direction of their house.
“Why’d you do that?” I ask as soon as Brandon crosses the street.
Chad rummages through his backpack and pulls out a sheet of lined paper. “Here.”
I read the note in neat cursive handwriting. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Elliott: This is to inform you that your son, Chad, was disruptive in science class today. He refused to complete his assignment and wandered around the classroom instead. When I asked him to sit down, he ignored me. I sent him to the principal’s office for the remainder of the period. Before he can come back to my class, I will need a parent’s signature.
I glance at the name. I didn’t have her last year because I was in honors science and she taught the regular classes.
“Sign it.”
“I’m … I’m not your parent.”
“Duh.” He takes out a spiral notebook and a pen. “Come on. Do it.”
Now I realize why he needed to get rid of Brandon. “You want me to forge your parents’ signatures?”
“Just my mother’s. Or maybe my father’s. But write something first so I can see what it looks like.” He pushes the notebook toward me.
My hands stay at my sides. I’ve never forged anything before. Other kids forged notes to get out of PE, signatures on tests they failed, excuses for lateness. I never skipped class or failed tests. And you could get in a lot of trouble if they caught you.
But they can’t catc
h me since they already kicked me out of school.
I see what Ms. Latimer calls a win-win. I get back at the school. And Chad will want to be my friend.
Brandon’s words echo in my head: He’s a good guy. She’s bad. The good guys are supposed to win.
I’m not bad. I’m helping someone get out of trouble.
I take the pen and notebook and on the back cover sign my name in my jagged, tiny scrawl. I never could master cursive.
“Dad,” he says. “You sign like my dad.”
“Really?” I’ve heard no two signatures are exactly alike. Like no two genes are exactly alike.
“I thought it’d look like my mom’s, you being a girl. And you have to make it bigger.” He tears a page from inside the notebook. “Maybe you should practice.”
“The teacher’s going to know.”
“How? I just moved here.”
I point to the cardboard cover of his notebook, where I’ve signed my own name.
“Oh, yeah, right.” He scratches out my signature and hands me the notebook with the torn-out page on top. “Sign it ‘Chad H. Elliott. Senior.’”
“Senior?”
“Just ‘S-R’, okay?”
I take a deep breath and sign.
He lifts the page from my hand. “Bigger than that. And the ‘E’ like this.” He makes a giant curly “E,” so different from my blocky letter.
“I can’t,” I say.
“Then I’m hosed.” He touches his ear, and I realize he doesn’t have a bug bite. The skin on his ear is cut and a bruise is starting to form on the side of his cheek. He must have gotten into a fight at school, like I did. Maybe the school has already called his parents. This note would get him in even more trouble, and that makes me want to do an especially good job.
“Okay.” I sign, imitating his loopy “E” so it’s the biggest letter on the line.
“Perfect.” He slips the note into his backpack and smiles at me. I think of Gambit smiling at Rogue as they battled the bad guys who mistreated them. Gambit wanted Rogue as a friend no matter how strange she was. If he really is like Gambit, this New Kid will stay my friend.
Chad sticks the toe of his sneaker into one of the holes I dug for the wrestlers. I tell him what I made—the dungeon ring, the hospital, the holding pen.
“Cool. I thought they were all jails,” he says, adding after a moment, “Don’t tell Brandon, but I’m getting him the Steel Cage Ring for his birthday.”
“Isn’t it expensive?”
“Yeah, it is, but I’m doing some things around the house.”
“That’s nice.” Chad didn’t intend to be mean to his brother, but I bet he had to because of the note. I wonder why he got in trouble in the first place. It isn’t that hard to sit in a seat, even in a boring class. “Why were you walking around?” I ask.
“Huh?” His mouth gapes.
“In class. To get you into trouble.”
Chad shrugs. “I was itching.”
“Bored?”
“No. Itching. Like I had to get up and move around. You know how it is?”
“Not really.” I have no problem sitting still. I can do it for hours, reading or looking at the computer.
He spins in place. “I’m not passing anyway. I’ll have to take this class all over again next year.”
“No way.” I think I’d quit school if they did that to me. “What if I help you? I had this stuff last year.”
“It’s too late.” He skips from foot to foot as if he’s itching again.
“Maybe not. You’re in a new school.”
He kicks the pile of dirt, destroying my hill. “Don’t matter what school you’re in if you’re dumb.”
I hope Chad’s wrong. Because if he’s right, that means it also doesn’t matter what school you’re in if you’re weird.
CHAPTER 6
“HOW CAN I EXPLAIN PHOTOSYNTHESIS IF YOU’RE NOT EVEN listening?” I ask Chad. I’m sitting on the concrete platform, his life science textbook open on my lap. Chad is spinning, one hand on the smooth trunk of a young oak planted between the path and the fence.
“You don’t need to explain it. Just answer the questions,” he pants, going around for the millionth time. How come he’s not dizzy already? I feel light-headed watching him.
“She’ll know it’s not your handwriting.”
“I’ll copy it o-o-ver tonight.” His feet make furrows in the grass next to the tree.
I slam the book shut, set it on the platform, and walk to the tree. Chad spins toward me. When he stops, he slaps his arms against his sides. I crouch and pluck a blade of grass.
“Photosynthesis. It’s the process that makes grass turn green,” I say, handing it to him. “Don’t you ever wonder why stuff is the way it is?”
He flips his blond hair from his face. “Sometimes. Not school stuff.”
“But you’re not going to learn if I do your homework.” For a moment, I consider writing out the answers for him. It would be so much easier. “The sun hits the trees and other plants.”
Chad stands on one foot and looks up at the overcast sky. “There’s no sun today. And it’s gonna rain soon, so you better hurry.”
“Okay, Chad. But sit down. You’re distracting me.”
“No. You sound like my teacher.” Chad steps toward me.
I shrink away from him. “That’s because I’m trying to teach you.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Just gimme the answers.”
I suck in my breath. “Then what are you going to do for the test? Because I can’t come in and take your tests for you.”
“I’ll figure out something.”
“Do you want to fail?” That would be the worst thing. Everybody teased the kids who had to repeat the year.
“I hate you, Weird Girl.” Little drops of spit come out with his words. He spins back to the tree.
I follow him, my vision blurred. If I do cry, he’s going to start calling me Crybaby Kiara like all the other kids in school did. “I’m only trying to help. So you can pass.”
Chad squints at me. “You know, you are that psycho eighth-grader! They say you cried every day.”
I want to tell him: Because people teased me every day. And no one wanted to be my friend. Instead, I brush the back of my hand across my eyes. “I’m supposed to be your friend. Right?”
“No,” he says. “You promised you’d tutor me. So do my work or leave me alone.”
I sputter, not expecting he’d say it like that, that he wouldn’t want to be my friend either, after I tried so hard to help him. “Tutor means I explain it to you. Not do it for you. Like Ms. Latimer explains things to me.”
“Go away!” Chad turns his back and runs toward his house, leaving his textbook on the platform. I grab it and follow him. By the time I get to his side of the street, he’s already unlocked the door. But he’s left both the outside door and the door to his house wide open, and I hear him call out, “Brandon, get outside! It’s your turn.”
I jump up the porch steps and step into the tiny entryway. Before the door to Chad’s apartment slams in my face, I notice his hallway filled with black garbage bags and a milky liquid leaking from one of them. Some of it has dried white on the gray linoleum. I don’t smell milk, though, even spoiled milk. More like a thousand onions, concentrated into one super-onion.
I knock. No answer. “Chad, you left your science book in the park!” I shout through the door.
A woman yells from somewhere in the house, “Who did you bring here?”
“No one, Mom,” Chad shouts back. “Brandon, out! Now!”
A minute later, Brandon opens the door a crack and squeezes through it. I step backward onto the porch and hand him Chad’s textbook. He leans it against the wall in the entryway.
“Aren’t you going to bring it to him?” I ask, worried that Mrs. Mac might think it’s hers and take it away with the rest of her boxes.
“No,” Brandon mumbles. He steps onto the porch. Fat raindrops pe
lt the ground. He looks up at me. “My mommy says you got to go home. Chad says you’re bothering him.”
“I was helping him. With his science homework,” I explain, as if little Brandon would understand. And take my side.
“He don’t want to play with you.” Brandon shrugs. “I do, but it’s raining. Wrestlers don’t like to get wet.”
The raindrops’ patter quickens. Water streams into my eyes and down my cheeks. My hair hangs limp, soggy, defeated. If I hang around, I’ll get soaked since no one’s letting me in. This isn’t Mr. Mac’s store anymore. Blindly I stumble down the steps and dash across the street, through the park, to the gap in the fence.
I cross into my own yard, with its thick canopy of branches and the tire swing that makes me think of cypress trees over a bayou. If I were Rogue, the rain wouldn’t bother me. I’d be used to it.
Dad isn’t home from work yet, so I unlock the back door and go upstairs to my room, to my computer and Rogue.
I gaze into Rogue’s glossy paper eyes and say out loud, “I blew it. Gambit’s gone.”
The rain falls in windblown sheets outside, and the thick clouds make it seem like dusk even though sunset is two hours away. I turn off the overhead light in my room and look out on the park and the Mackenzies’ house where they don’t live anymore. Water pours down the left side of the windowpane in a jagged triangle. Inside the triangle everything is clearer and larger, as if seen through a magnifying glass. I make out a small figure standing at the edge of the grass, next to the brand-new Nigel Mackenzie Park sign. He’s put on a yellow slicker, but his face, the bottoms of his jeans, and his sneakers are soaking wet.
I can’t get the picture out of my head: Brandon, in a little yellow slicker, standing by himself in the rain.
CHAPTER 7
IT RAINS FOR TWO DAYS STRAIGHT. I CLOSE MY BLINDS SO I don’t have to look at the park and think about my latest lost friend and his sweet little brother who plays with wrestlers. I catch up on the journal entries that I’m supposed to write for Ms. Latimer, which I write on the computer because she says she has trouble reading my handwriting. My printing isn’t that messy, but it’s teeny tiny and I use all capital letters because I want it to match the lettering of my comic books.
Rogue Page 3
