Rogue (15 page)

CHAPTER 31

NOISE FROM THE HALL WAKES ME. I TWITCH MY COMPUTER'S
mouse to kick the monitor to life. It glows in the darkness; the clock on the bottom bar reads 12:33. My wallpaper shows Chad aloft on his bike, captured in the middle of a double 360.

“You'd think after two nights ago you would have learned your lesson.”

I make out Dad's voice right outside my door.

The response sounds muffled, farther away. “Leave me alone. You're not my father.”

“This is my house, Chad.”

“Fine. I'm outta here.” I hear footsteps on the stairs, then heavier ones in the hall moving toward the stairs. “Gotta find my brother.”

Going out to find Brandon? In the middle of the night?

“You're in no condition to—”

“So what? It's not like you care. 'Cept for your house.”

I want to shout,
Don't interrupt my father!
I get out of bed and tiptoe to the door. I open it a crack and in the thin sliver of light see an empty hallway. Empty except for the stink.

Someone threw up.

Chad.

Dad raises his voice. If he hadn't already awakened me, he would have done it now. “Clean it up, Chad. Kiara and I aren't stepping around your messes.”

“I don't feel good.”

“Should have thought of that before you killed a six-pack.”

“I only drank four. The last two are yours.” Another footstep. Down the stairs.

“I don't drink.”

“Well, ain't you the bomb?” A thud against the wall vibrates all the way upstairs. “My dad said he never seen a bigger wuss.”

Dad steps down, toward the noise. “Get up. You don't talk that way to me.”

“Really?” Chad raises his voice to match my father's. “Dad said you let Kiara talk to you like that. He said the retard walks all over you.”

“Chad . . .”
Go ahead, Dad. Spank him. I'm sick of him calling me a retard.

In the darkness I press my forehead against the solid wood of my door.

“You gonna hit me? Or put me out? Like a dog that peed on your rug?”

“Chad. Look at me. You are not a dog. Don't ever let anyone make you think you are.”

Silence.

“Chad, I know that deep inside, you're a decent kid. I know that you're a brave kid. But right now, you're hurt. And you don't know what's going to happen to you.”

More silence. And I wonder how Dad can be so nice after Chad said all those mean things to him.

Then I hear Chad's voice, weak and shaky. No longer tough. “I wanna go see my brother.”

“You can't yet. He's too far away. But he's exactly where he needs to be to get better.”

“He's scared. He's all alone.”

“No one outside the hospital can see him now. Same with your parents. Too big a risk of infection.” I hear another step down the stairs. Dad's solid footstep. “I'm getting you a sponge and some detergent and water.”

“I'm sick, Mr. Thornton.”

“I'll bring you an extra bucket.”

I crawl back into bed. After a flurry of footsteps, Dad tramps to his bedroom. Chad stays on the stairs. I hear the faint sound of a wet sponge slapping against wood. Then I hear sobs, at first soft and after that . . . wrenching. I can't think of any other word to describe it. It seems to come from somewhere deep inside Chad, a sadness neither Dad nor I can understand.

I slip out of bed, change my pajamas for jeans and a T-shirt, and step into the hall. I clap my hand over my nose and mouth to filter the stench. Chad sits on the top step, head in hands. He looks up, face mottled and shiny with tears.

“You get used to the smell.” His words are clear, as if he's completely sober and hasn't been crying at all. “My place stunk and we got used to it.”

I stand behind him. Below us, a bucket of soapy water sits on the landing. The steps are damp and clean, but there's a puddle on the landing and splatters on the wall.

“Can you finish it, Kiara? I really am sick.”

“Dad said you have to do it yourself.” I take a shallow breath. “But I'll keep you company.”

He grabs the banister and slowly stands, picking up a smaller bucket as he rises. Holding my breath, I step backward. He carries the bucket to the bathroom. I notice bright red streaks. Not spaghetti sauce. More like blood. He shuts the bathroom door, but I hear a dump of liquid into the toilet, a flush, and the faucet running.

When he opens the door, he grabs the frame with one hand and clutches his stomach, just under his heart, with his other. His T-shirt is crinkled in his fist, and his face is still mottled but now dry. Leaning against the wall, he slowly descends the few steps to the landing, fishes the sponge out of the bucket, and on his hands and knees scrubs the puddle from the outer edges toward its center.

“There's something wrong with me,” he says, so low that I can barely hear him. “I've been sick a lot lately.”

“Well, you drank too much and Josh kicked you in the stomach, and then—”

“No, it started before that.” He shudders and pulls his knees to his chest. “Brandon too, but not as bad.” He squeezes the sponge into the bucket. “We got beaten if we didn't clean up the house. I used to say it was my fault and not Brandon's so they wouldn't hurt him.”

My mind flashes to the first time I met Brandon in the park. His grime-crusted hair that stank of fertilizer. The way he slammed the wrestlers together, one kicking the other in the face or the head. The swearwords he used when he had them fight.

But I never saw any bruises on Brandon. His skin was smooth and pale, like that of a baby. “Remember when he caught that cold and you bought him medicine?”

“It was always something with him.”

Chad turns away from me, but I can tell he's crying again. I blink rapidly, trying not to cry too. Brandon had such a huge smile when we played wrestlers together. I had no idea how rotten he must have felt.

Chad loves his little brother. He wanted Brandon to have a good life.

Chad stands hunched over to wipe the wall. He hiccups audibly, his thin back jerking with each one. “I'm . . . never . . . gonna see him.”

“Dad says he's at the best hospital there is. He's going to get better.”

Chad leans over and spits into the bucket. “If it weren't . . . for that party . . . he'd be all right.”

“Or you would have been blown up too.”

“No loss.” He twists the sponge against a stubborn stain on the wall.

“It was my fault. I should have paid more attention to you at the party.”

“No. I wanted to . . . get wasted.”

“So you'd get sick and picked on?”

“That . . . was the point.” He runs his fingers along the scrubbed wall.

“What?”

Chad throws the dirty sponge into the bucket. “The biggest wipeout . . . ever. Everyone . . . watching me.” He sinks to the floor of the landing, next to the bucket, and kneads his stomach. “You got the video, don't you?”

“Yeah. But if I post it, the cops are going to find it and come after us.”

“So what? I'll have the most hits of everyone.”

“You almost died. Do you remember?”

Chad squints at me. His hiccups seem to have stopped.

“Antonio had to give you the Heimlich maneuver,” I tell him.

“I kinda don't remember. I just remember flying. Crashing into stuff. And then I couldn't breathe, but I didn't care 'cause I was flying.” Chad lets his head drop to his upraised knees and mumbles into them, “But then I woke up.”

I help Chad to his feet. He says lifting the full bucket makes his heart hurt, so I take it upstairs and dump it in the shower even though Dad wouldn't want me to help Chad at all.

Chad stands in the bathroom doorway. “Well, good night. And, uh, thanks.”

Rogue can't touch or be touched. But most people like a hug when they're sad or sick. At her boarding school Temple Grandin built a device to give herself a hug when she was about to have a meltdown. The girls at my school would always hug the one who got hurt in PE, failed a test, or broke up with a boy. Mami used to hug my brothers and me all the time. She'd hug me during my meltdowns when I didn't want anyone touching me. While she held me, she'd sing to me in her beautiful voice, the songs from her country that would calm me down.

I miss Mami like I've never missed anyone, even Mr. Mac after he died and Mrs. Mac when she moved. And I need her to be here. Not in Montreal and me going there, the way she wants. Here—where everything happened and Dad and my friends are, where she might be able to help me help Chad. She was always the one who showed me what I had to do to be good to others, even if a lot of the time I got it wrong and made her mad.

I close my eyes and wrap my arms around Chad. “I'm giving you a hug because I think you need it,” I say.

His body feels stiff at first, but then he wraps his skinny arms around my waist and lays his head on my shoulder. I realize how much shorter he is than me, and I wonder what it would be like to have a little brother, warm and hard as bone against my chest, arms, and shoulder.

Chad's tangled blond hair smells of dirt and sweat, his breath of puke, and his hands of Lysol. He's tough and mean, and sad and sick. And he's brave, so brave he would let himself get beaten up to protect someone else he loved.

I think I love Chad. I want him to have a good life. Because he's not yet ruined, and he deserves a lot better than everything he's had so far.

CHAPTER 32

THE SOCIAL WORKER RETURNS TUESDAY MORNING, AND
after she leaves, Dad tells me no one in Iowa wants Chad or Brandon. Their grandparents are either dead or in prison. Their aunts and uncles say they don't have room.

This isn't Gambit,
I remind myself. Chad isn't a picture in a comic book or a plastic figure but a real live boy who needs a family to love him.

“They're looking for a foster home that can take both boys. They want Chad placed by the end of this week because he has to attend summer school,” Dad says.

Which means Chad failed his classes. I'm not surprised.

“They won't treat him well,” I say. “They won't love him.”

Dad sighs. “He's a hard kid to love.”

I stare at Dad—who didn't leave and didn't send me away when I got kicked out of school. I notice that his eyes are pale blue. “And I'm not?”

Don't tell me what a wonderful kid I am and how lucky you are to have me because I know it's not true.

Dad doesn't say anything. I hope he's thinking. About me. About Chad. About how no kid is perfect but we all need grown-ups to take care of us and protect us and show us how to do right rather than wrong.

I try again. “Chad wants to learn how to play the banjo. If he lives with us, you can teach him and you two can play together.”

“It's a lot more complicated.”

How can it be more complicated? He's already living with us. “But you're not saying he can't stay here.”

Dad nods once. “I'm not saying that. Yet. But don't get your hopes up.”

How can it be more complicated?
While Dad goes out grocery shopping and makes lunch, I ask Mr. Internet. He says they prefer intact families. That means families where the father and mother don't live in different places like Willingham and Montreal. Families have to take classes in parenting and meet often with the social worker. The state has to do a background check to make sure the parents haven't committed crimes and aren't in the country illegally, which Mami wouldn't be. She has all her papers. On the good side, the state pays money to help the families and will make sure Chad gets to see a doctor and Brandon gets all the care he needs after he leaves the hospital. If Mami comes back, she won't have to clean houses. She can stay at home to make sure Chad and I don't get in trouble and Brandon gets a good start in life.

But does she want to be a mother instead of a musician? Does she want to spend years taking care of the defective girl she wasn't supposed to have—and the two damaged boys that the girl brought home?

I return to the Google page—to the bright and happy
g
's and
o
's and the wide box where I can get all my question answered. But what do I ask this time?

Getting your mother to take care of two kids no one wants?

Getting your mother to come home?

I don't think Mr. Internet answers those kinds of questions. Because Mr. Internet doesn't know Mami.

Leaving the wide box blank, I push my chair back from the desk.

I have to call her. Without Dad knowing. And find some power inside me to persuade her.

Chad has a cell phone, which the cops haven't gotten around to cutting off. With a shaking hand I punch in her number. The first person to answer speaks French. Wrong number. I try again.

“¿Eló?”

“Mami!”

“¿Quién habla?”

“It's me. Kiara.”

“
Dios mío.
I'm sorry. I didn't recognize the number.”

“I'm calling from Chad's phone.” I pause to think of how to say what I want to say next.

Bad move. Mami cuts in ahead of me. “Good thing he's leaving this week. Your father has already taken enough time off work because of this mess.”

I swallow. “I don't want to go to Montreal. I want you to come home.”

“Max and I have work here. And you should get away from there and all the—”

“I can't! I failed my tests . . .” I clap my free hand over my mouth. I wasn't supposed to tell her that. I'm such a bad liar.

“What did you fail?”

Now it's too late. My dream of persuading her to come home evaporates. Because I'm no good at these things. Why can't I be a superhero like Rogue and do the right thing when I need to? Why didn't I plan out what I was going to say before I got on the phone? Now I can't turn back because she'll have even more questions and I'll get in even more trouble.

My grip tightens on the phone, as if I could squeeze my mistakes out of it by pure physical force. “I failed my state tests on purpose because I wanted to stay here with my friends. But they said they'll maybe let me take them over again, and I promised I'd pass them this time. So I won't have to go to summer school. But I might be coming a little . . . late.”

Nothing more about Chad and Brandon.

“I expect you to pass. Tell your father to call me tonight with the new plan.” She doesn't sound as angry as I thought she'd be. “I have to go to work, but I appreciate you letting me know.”

I return the phone to a frowning Chad. Even though he stayed in his room and doesn't understand Spanish, I think he knows I failed him.

Not long after we sit down to lunch, the doorbell interrupts us. Dad goes to get it and doesn't come back for a while. “It's probably a neighbor, bringing you more new stuff,” I tell Chad.

He pushes his plate toward me. He hasn't touched his grilled cheese.

Before I can ask him if his stomach still hurts, Dad appears in the archway to the kitchen. “You two have a visitor. Antonio's here with his mom.”

I jump up. Chad follows. In the living room, Antonio hugs me and pats Chad's back. He tells Chad he's sorry about what happened to his parents and little brother.

“It was all over the news,” he says.

Dad goes into the kitchen with Antonio's mom. Her short gray-blond hair makes me think she's a lot older than Mami.

“That party was on the news too,” I whisper as soon as the grown-ups are out of sight.

Antonio shifts from foot to foot. “Yeah. The cops came to my house Sunday afternoon. Josh gave them my name.”

My stomach twists. “D-do they want m-me?”

Antonio shakes his head. “Unlike that jerk, I can keep my mouth shut.” He glances in Chad's direction and lowers his voice. “Just don't put any videos on YouTube of drunk twelve-year-olds wiping out, okay?”

“We coulda had a million hits,” Chad mumbles.

Antonio squeezes his shoulder. “Dude, when you're the BMX champion, this'll be nothing.” He pauses. “Actually . . . it'll be embarrassing.”

“So . . . why aren't you in jail?” I ask Antonio, visualizing the mug shots of Veg, Brian, and Josh.

“It's not that kind of crime. Mom and I met with the lawyer yesterday, and he said I'll probably lose my driver's license for six months and get community service.”

“Community service? That doesn't sound so bad.” My insides relax.

Antonio smiles. “Yeah, but Veg and Dunk and I have a plan. We're going to see if we can work to maintain the bike trails over the summer. The town took them over a few weeks ago.” He gives me a thumbs-up and says, “It's what's called a win-win plan.”

Antonio's mother steps into the room, with Dad behind her.

“Tony, we need to go.”

“Just a moment, Mom.”

“Now.”

He whispers, “She's my probation officer. Until I get a real one.”

“I heard that.” Her voice is sharp. Once again, I'm thankful my dad has been so cool about everything.

“Sorry, Mom,” Antonio says, then turns to me. “I brought back your helmet, Kiara. And an extra one for you, Chad. 'Cause you're gonna use it, right?” He makes a fist and grinds his knuckle into the top of Chad's head—what the kids call a noogie.

Chad squirms backward. “Yeah, yeah, I'll use it.”

“I left them on the front steps.”

Antonio's mother tugs his sleeve. “Tony, I mean it. We have things to do.”

Even though he's a few inches taller and muscular, he follows along like a sheep. No longer Wolverine. Not even Antonio but Tony. Before stepping through the door, he turns his head and calls out, “Bye, Kiara, also known as Rogue.” He points toward me and nods. “Bye, Chad. See you around.”

Antonio called me Rogue. As if I could be a superhero . . .

After they leave, I make a mental note to delete the party videos. I don't want anyone else to lose his freedom the way Antonio has.

But then I think about how the kids begged me to record their stunts. How they loved seeing themselves. How they talked about all the hits they got.

I think about Antonio showing me the photo of his dead father—and Mr. Elliott showing Dad the photos of Brandon.

And I think how there were no photos of Chad. Nothing to show that someone out there loves him.

Soon I will leave for the summer and he will leave for good. Unless . . .

I think about the videos again. And an idea grows.

While we clean up from lunch, I ask Chad if he'll let me interview him. I tell him I want to make a documentary about BMX freestyle riders.

I set the camera on a tripod in my brothers' bedroom. They're gone and don't need the room anymore. And because it's at the front of the house, Chad doesn't have to look out the way I do at the charred pile of toxic rubble where he used to live. If I can make it so he stays with us forever, his new room will be good for him.

We start at the beginning, Chad narrating his life story: “My name is Chad Henderson Elliott Junior. I'm twelve years old. I was born in Iowa. My entire family worked in the drug trade . . .”

I edit the interview. I make Spanish subtitles because I want Mami to understand everything. I have to look up a lot of the words in my dictionary to spell them correctly. Mami's right. I speak Spanish perfectly, but I barely know how to read and write it.

I need to find music for the sound track. A single song that will make Mami feel the same way I do about Chad.

I choose “How Long” by Jackson Browne.

I wasn't born yet when he recorded it, but it's one of the songs Mami and Dad played when they had the band, my favorite of the ones Mami sang in English. It was originally written about children killed or left to starve in the wars in Central America—children like Mami and her brothers, which is why they liked to perform it.

It's a sad song that makes me cry, but it also makes me care about a child in danger who needs people to love and protect him.

The song is a little over six minutes long. In places I fade it down and weave in the interview and my subtitles. I bring back the music when I show video of Chad soaring above the mounds on his bike—and not wiping out. I cut in the still shots: the ruins of his house, the banjo that miraculously landed unharmed in our tree, the picture of Brandon that he saved on his cell phone.

I add my voice in Spanish at the end. I never can think of the right thing to say when I'm talking to someone, but hours later it usually comes to me. So I tell Mami how much we need her, how she's helped me make my way in the world though it doesn't always look like she succeeded, and how our family has to come together to give Chad and Brandon a new home.

The last frame is black. The music has faded out. I type my name for the credits, but I need something more. A final statement.

It's three in the morning.

I stare at the screen, the letters in white, 48-point Arial, on two lines—
Producido por Kiara Thornton-Delgado.
Right before I attach the file and hit Send, I type underneath my name in 36-point italics so the words fit on one line:

Soy super-héroe.

I am a superhero.