Rogue (13 page)

CHAPTER 27

IN THE AFTERNOON, A WOMAN PULLS UP IN A COUNTY CAR TO
talk to Dad. Dad calls Chad downstairs but tells me I can't listen. I fold my arms across my chest and blow my breath out. I want to know if Brandon will be all right and where Chad is going now that he has no home and no family, and all his clothes and everything else have burned.

“Control yourself, Kiara,” Dad whispers. “This is no time for a tantrum.”

I glance at Chad. His head hangs, but I see the tears slick on his face. I escape through the backyard and the fence to watch the firemen spray water on piles of smoldering embers. The reporters and cops have left, except for one car with swirling lights blocking the entrance to Cherry Street. Orange cones and yellow biohazard tape surround the house and the sidewalk. The firemen stand outside the tape.

I walk behind the firemen, past their truck along the curb of Washington Avenue. The Ned Lamont sign lies flat on the ground, stomped and soggy. All that's left of the house is the first-floor extension, where the entrance to the record store used to be. Where the upstairs bedroom was, where Mr. Mac had his heart attack . . . nothing.

One of the firemen turns to me. “Hey, kid, you don't want to be out here. This smoke is toxic.”

I'm immune. Contaminated by toxic chemicals before I was born. I keep walking up Washington Avenue.

I wipe my stinging eyes on my shirttail. As I gaze into the stand of trees and brush at the far side of the house, I imagine Brandon running there after the explosion, the back of his T-shirt aflame. That's what Dad told me—his shirt had melted into his back. It must have really hurt, even though Mr. Internet once told me the worst burns don't hurt because even the nerves are dead.

The biohazard tape keeps me from going into the brush, as if I could find my answers if I walked the path along which Brandon fled. I double back toward the park. Lying in the grass next to the burned house are bits and pieces of a family's life. A pot with a melted handle. A pair of metal scissors. What look like tuna fish cans, but blackened and without labels. And next to the curb, a half-dozen scattered wrestlers.

Brandon's wrestlers. “Brandon's hurt,” I whisper to them, pushing the words past the clog in my throat. “Maybe you can help him feel better.”

I collect the wrestlers, one by one, and cross the street. When I find out which hospital Brandon is in, I can bring them to him. And the new ones I buy for him too.

Then I see it, lying across two branches of the large oak tree, right above the top of the fence. Mr. Elliott's banjo. It must have gotten blown out of the house in the explosion and landed in the tree branches above my backyard. A sign like Brandon's wrestlers? But only if the banjo isn't ruined.

I dash inside for the video camera. No one's in the kitchen. I hear voices, Dad's and the woman's, in the living room. The word
relatives
comes through, and then Dad.

“Chad Senior said they came from Iowa. He didn't say where. It's a big state.”

Chad will go away too. I am sure about that. They'll send my Gambit to Iowa. Not New Orleans with the bayous and cypress trees, but a flat, dry place of cornfields and tornadoes.

I shut the back door quietly so they won't notice me. I locate the banjo in the camera screen and zoom in. The long neck is dull gray under the overcast sky. No dents or dings in it or the wooden resonator, and no cracks in the frosted white head. I take a few shots from different angles. Then I drag a ladder from the lean-to, prop it against the fence, and climb up. I sit atop the fence with my heels on the horizontal rail. Pulling the banjo out of the tree is like lifting a baby from a grown-up's arms. I hold it like a guitar and strum it a few times, but I can't play anything because my right hand and left hand don't work together. It's one of the ways I'm a mutant in a family of musicians.

• • •

I hide the banjo behind a pair of speakers and a microphone stand in the pantry. Dad will think the skinny neck is just another mike stand.

I will give Chad the banjo before he leaves so he'll remember me. He's the New Kid who stayed my friend the longest.

Chad refuses to eat dinner that night. He says his head and stomach hurt. Dad gives him some Tylenol and tells him to sip from the glass of water so pills and water stay down. And Chad will sleep instead of crying all night or whatever a kid does when his whole family gets blown up while he's passed out drunk at someone else's house.

Chad's asleep in Max's bottom bunk when Mami calls. Dad sends me to my room so he can talk to her downstairs.

“No!” I stomp my foot. “I want to hear what you say about me.”

“Kiara, you're making things worse for yourself.”

I fold my arms across my chest. “Then give me my cord back so I can use the computer.”

Dad gives in. He retrieves the cord from his bedroom and hands it to me. But the computer's still downstairs where he won't let me go.
Stupid me,
I think as I bang my head softly on the wall next to my bed.

After giving myself a headache, I try to listen. A few words floating up from time to time tell me that they will send Chad to Iowa or to some place called a foster home, and I'll never see him again.

Finally, Dad hands me the phone. It's been nearly an hour and his battery is in the red.

“I'm sorry about the little boy that you babysat,” Mami says. “I hope he gets better soon.”

I didn't babysit him. He was my friend.
I don't correct her because she'll think it's weird that I play with little kids. She already thinks it's weird that I play with toys.

“And I hope they find a good home for him and your friend. So they can stay together.”

I think of the unfamiliar words I heard. “
¿Qué es un
foster home
?
”

“Your father said they're looking for the boys' family first.”

“They're in Iowa.”

Mami sighs. “I'm praying for them. That someone can find the relatives. Their people must be worried about them.”

The battery beeps, and I forget what I wanted to say.

“I've missed you so much, Kiara,” Mami says.

“I . . . miss you too, Mami.” Now I remember. She didn't answer my question about the foster home.

“I know you'll love Montreal. Now that you're older, there's so much we can do together.”

“Mami, how do you say ‘foster home' in Spanish?”

“Casa de acogida.”
She pauses. “We can work on your Spanish too. And your French. You're lucky to be so talented with languages.”

I smile. She wants me. She thinks I have a special talent, which is almost as good as a special power. At least it's a way I can make her proud of me.

But then my smile fades because of the state exams that I failed on purpose. When she finds out, she'll remember I'm the mutant she shouldn't have had.

CHAPTER 28

VIDEO OF THE BURNING HOUSE LEADS CHANNEL 8'S ELEVEN
o'clock news.

I try to tune out the pleasant voice of the anchorwoman, telling me once again what I saw with my own eyes—that Mr. and Mrs. Elliott got third-degree burns on their heads and arms. And what I didn't see—that Brandon got third-degree burns on his back and broke his arm while trying to escape. Dad never lets me stay up for the late news, but tonight he didn't make an attempt to send me to bed.

Right away I learned that Brandon had recently turned six—which means somewhere in the ruins is the Steel Cage Ring that Chad bought him for his birthday.

The TV cuts to a school picture. Brandon has a huge smile that shows his missing baby teeth. I don't have to touch the photo with skin and eyes and hair to feel as empty as Ms. Marvel did after Rogue touched her and stole her emotions.

The picture fades, replaced by the anchorwoman.

Brandon was transferred by helicopter to a pediatric burn unit out of state where he is expected to recover. His parents, Chad and Melissa Elliott, are listed in critical condition at University Medical Center. Police believe that they were operating a meth lab out of their rental house, and when officers arrived at the neighborhood to investigate a child abuse report, the Elliotts disposed of the chemicals by pouring them down a drain. Police expect to charge both tomorrow on a variety of felony counts.

A mug shot of Mr. Elliott flashes on screen. His hair is a lot darker than I remember.

Wait . . .

How could the police have taken this mug shot for his court case tomorrow if he's burned up in the hospital? I shudder at the image of his melted fingers.

According to police, Chad Elliott previously served three years, from 1996 to 1999, in the Iowa state penitentiary for the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine . . .

That makes it a really old mug shot. I scoot closer to see what else might be different about Mr. Elliott. Not much. The same hollow cheeks. He had a sore on his lower lip then that wasn't there when he played music with Dad.

Police originally believed the Elliotts' older son, twelve-year-old Chad Junior, was also in the house, but he was later found safe at a neighbor's house. He remains there, awaiting further arrangements.

The TV cuts back to the fire and rescue workers running around.

The explosion rocked the quiet neighborhood around nine this morning. Neighbors say the owner of the house, Diane Mackenzie, recently relocated to Philadelphia . . .

I glance up at the ceiling. Had Chad been there and not here . . . had Mrs. Mac not moved because she saw her husband's ghost . . . had Dad not called the police . . .

I wonder if Dad's thinking the same thing because he stares down at his hands and his carefully clipped guitar player's fingernails. I push one of Brandon's wrestlers back and forth across the wooden floor.

Old Mr. Toomey, who lives two houses up Cherry Street, is now talking into the Channel 8 microphone.

“No, the wife and I, we had no idea what was going on. We often saw the boys playing in the park . . .”

“No, they didn't play in the park,” I shout at the TV, my voice breaking. “Their parents made them stand lookout there.”

Dad makes a shushing sound and glances up at me. “I want to hear this, Kiara.”

Mrs. Alvarado, the neighbor on the other side of Mr. Toomey, now appears on the screen.

“They kept to themselves . . . No, there wasn't a lot of noise, and not a lot of people coming or going either. That's why we never suspected anything.”

And Mr. Toomey.

“They just moved in. I don't think anyone really got to know them.”

The two anchors appear again.
Tomorrow on Live at Five: Experts discuss how to spot a meth lab in your neighborhood—and what to do about it.

Dad has turned away from me. While the anchorman reads the national news, I spread what's left of Brandon's wrestlers on the floor and sort them into the good guys and the bad guys.

A Tech Town commercial comes on. I glance at the table in the corner of the living room, where my computer used to be. After I hung up with Mami, Dad carried all its pieces one by one to my bedroom. The first thing I asked Mr. Internet as soon as I plugged in the power cord was “what happens to kids who don't have a home?” because I wanted to find out where Chad would go after I left—and Brandon as soon as he got out of the hospital.

They would first look for a relative to take him in. If they couldn't find one, there are foster homes with loving parents who know how to help a kid who's had a terrible life.

Mami may not know, but Mr. Internet knows what foster homes are.
Loving parents who know how to help a kid . . .
That means Chad and Brandon would get to live in a better place. But they might end up somewhere far away—and no longer my friends.

After a mattress commercial, the anchors reappear on the screen.

In other police news, more than a dozen teenagers have been arrested following an underage drinking party in College Park last night. Two students from the high school were treated at area hospitals for alcohol poisoning . . .

I let the wrestler slip from my hand.

Alcohol poisoning? Is that what happened to Chad? And should he have gone to the hospital?

Then the police would have met Dad there. They wouldn't have come to our neighborhood, and Brandon wouldn't have run inside.

Nineteen-year-old Stephen Nickolaus . . .

Veg. My gut twists.

. . . and eighteen-year-olds Brian Gerardi and Joshua Laiken were among those arrested and charged with trespassing, aggravated alcohol possession, and unlawful dealing with minors.

I cover my face, but I can't block out Veg and Brian and Josh standing next to the height chart, all of them over the six-foot mark.

The other suspects, all under eighteen years of age, have been released to their parents and their cases remanded to juvenile court. More arrests are expected as the investigation continues.

I grip one of the wrestlers to steady my hand, but it still shakes.
The investigation continues . . .
Does that mean they arrested Antonio? I don't know who picked him up from my house, or if he returned to the party, or if evil Josh ratted him out.

Does that mean I'm next? I shot a video of Chad drunk.

I think about my phone call with Mami. She sounded excited to see me.

If I go to Montreal, I won't have to worry about the police coming after me for being at the party and making videos. I won't have to look at the burned-out house on the other side of the park where Mr. and Mrs. Mac and Chad and Brandon used to live.

My hand steadies. I scoop up the remaining wrestlers. Chad wanted to run away with Brandon. Now is my chance to run away, too. To start over somewhere else.

I smile at the thought. I won't be Crybaby Kiara or Crazy Kiara in Montreal, and Mami can tell me how to act so I make new friends. Because for the first time in my life, I'll be the New Kid.

Dad hits the remote control, and the TV goes black. “I think we've seen enough trouble,” he says. When I don't answer, he adds, “Let's go to bed. Tomorrow is another day.”

Tomorrow is another day. The day Ms. Latimer arrives with my test scores.