Rogue (16 page)

CHAPTER 33

I HAVE FOUND MY SPECIAL POWER.

I know this because on Thursday, the day after I send the video, Mami arrives with Max, and she has all her clothes and stuff with her. Max is driving her car back to Montreal, but Mami's staying on—except for a few weekends when she has concerts. Then she'll take the truck, and Dad will have to take time off work to watch me.

Even though Mami sometimes gets angry with Dad and me, and she's not pleased with a lot of what happened while she was gone, she's helping us because she knows what it feels like to lose everything and have to depend on the kindness of strangers.

I made her feel it with words and pictures and music.

I know I did. Because even though Mr. Internet said people with the mutation called Asperger's syndrome don't show empathy, you can't always trust Mr. Internet.

A week or so after Mami comes back, on the morning before I leave for my first day of summer school, Mrs. Mac stops by for a visit. She fans herself with a folded newspaper. Her sister's car is parked out front, and it has a scrape on the side of the bumper.

She sits on the living room sofa, and Dad sets a mug of black coffee on the end table along with a spoon for sugar. She's been in and out of town several times since the explosion, dealing with the insurance company.

Dad sits across from her and holds up the article. I read the headline over his shoulder, “Meth Couple Still Critical.”

“Poor things. Over two weeks and they're still in intensive care.” Mrs. Mac points to the paper with a wrinkly finger.

Poor things?
How can she say that about them? Mrs. Elliott was so mean to her.

“At least the little boy's getting better,” she says.

Dad sets the paper down and glances toward the kitchen, where Mami's studying. She's started English classes again and is also taking classes with Dad on how to become foster parents. We can't give Chad and Brandon a new home until Mami and Dad finish the state's course and pass all their tests. At least the state approved them to take the course, even though they weren't together for four months and I got into a lot of trouble then.

“The social worker told me Brandon may be released next month,” Dad says. “Though he'll still have outpatient therapy and another round of skin grafts.”

“We saw him two days ago,” I add. Drove there and back in one long day. He was happy to get his wrestlers but began to cry and wouldn't stop when he realized Chad wasn't able to come with us. The nurse had to call a psychologist, who calmed him down and then talked to Mami and Dad while I went to the cafeteria for ice cream.

I'm finding out a lot about psychologists these days. There's one named Dr. Rose who I'm meeting with. At our first session, I called her Professor X—even though the real Professor X is a man—because she's showing me how to live in society and use my special powers for good. I already learned that we Asperger mutants really do care about other people. We just need extra help—like pictures and music—to understand other people and know what to say.

Lots of people need extra help. Chad needs it in science and pretty much all his other subjects too. Mami needs it in English and Dad in Spanish so they can talk better to each other, though Mami likes to study more than Dad does.

Mrs. Mac then asks, “Is the older boy still in the hospital?”

I nod slowly. “I think Brandon's going to get out before Chad will.”

Dad mumbles his agreement while staring at his fingernails.

I remember Mami asking Dad and me—
How could you let him go on like that?
—when Chad got sick in the bathroom for the second night in a row after she got back and I told her the same thing happened several times before. Then I told her about the red streaks in the bucket. She drove him to the emergency room that night, even though I'd brought her back to give Chad a new home and Chad screamed when he had to leave.

“Chad isn't doing so good. They may have to cut open his stomach and take some of it out,” I tell Mrs. Mac. Dad gives me a look that I don't understand. But it's the truth. The doctor told Mami, and Mami told me, that Chad had inflamed patches and ulcers from his lower esophagus throughout his stomach to the top of his small intestine. Every time he ate at home, he must have swallowed those nasty chemicals along with his food. And while Brandon got burned all over his back, Chad got burned on the inside, in places people can't see but hurt just as much.

So we need to take care of him and try to give him a good life, like he's trying to give Brandon a good life.

How do you give someone a good life?

It won't be easy because Mami said Chad is too sad and broken to be with a family right now. After he gets out of the hospital, he's going to a place where they work with sad and broken kids the way Dr. Rose works with me, so they can live in society too. Mami seems to know a lot of stuff about these places that she won't tell me.

Mrs. Mac reaches across the coffee table and squeezes my hand. “You've been a good friend to those boys. I hope it works out so they can come live with you and you can keep on helping them.”

I squeeze her hand back and force myself to look her in the eyes, like Ms. Latimer and now Dr. Rose want me to do. Hers are gray. Surrounded by enough crow's-feet for an entire murder. That's what they call a bunch of crows—a murder. “You should come back and help,” I say. “There's a house for sale up our street.”

Mrs. Mac laughs. “I'll certainly visit. And your mother said her mother has offered to come down from Montreal when she can. So if it works out for you and those boys, remember that you have two
abuelas
who want to lend a hand.”

She pronounces the Spanish word for grandmothers “ab-you-ALE-uhs,” which makes me giggle. So does the picture of Mrs. Mac's hand helping out without the rest of her.

• • •

Summer school starts with an assembly in the cafeteria, where our principal tells us to make the most of our second chance. I sit at a front table, away from most of the kids who fill the back of the room. Afterward, they all push through the door around me. I freeze, thinking of the noise, the rowdiness, the kids calling me names and tripping me.

“Out of the way, girl,” says someone with a squeaky voice. Next to me is a brown-skinned boy smaller than Chad, maybe one who failed sixth grade. I shrink against the wall, hoping everyone will pass by me and leave me alone.

No luck.

“What are you doing here? You're supposed to be smart,” says a tall kid with a deep voice and a Spanish accent.

Another answers, “She got kicked out. For smacking Melanie Prince-Parker in the face.”

“Yeah? 'Bout time someone did it,” the tall kid says.

Boys surround me. All boys. I've never seen most of them. They weren't in my classes.

But I recognize a couple of them. Chad's friends who brought the beer. And I wish Chad were here to tutor me on how to talk to them.

“Really?” I manage, and it gives me an idea of something else to say. “You mean you don't like her either?”

“No way. Thinks she's better than everyone else.” The tall kid holds out his hand for me to shake. Or slap. “I'm Mario. Wanna party with us?”

My breath catches.
Help! What am I supposed to do?

One of Chad's friends says, “No way, Mario. Last time she partied, thirty people went to jail.”

Mario takes a step back. “Are you . . . ?”

I expect him to say Crybaby Kiara. Or Crazy Kiara.

“. . . the girl with the video camera?”

I nod. My throat and chest relax. My voice comes out clear. Unafraid. “Rogue two-six-six.”

A little boy at the back of the circle holds up a battered skateboard. “Hey, will you make a video of me?”

“Me too!”

Now I smile. They aren't the popular girls, but they want me to make videos of them and I will—even if they're the ones that get in trouble all the time and have to go to summer school. Anyway, I got in trouble and had to go to summer school, so I'm no different from them.

“Chad showed me your videos of him,” his friend says. “They're the best.”

“That's because he was the best,” I answer.

“You put really good music on.” The kid steps aside to let another one join the group. “Chad said that's what made them so good.”

My eyes sting. I want Chad to live with us so much, but I don't know if the state will pick our family or if he'll ever be well enough to live with any family.

“You seen him?” asks the kid who joined the group.

Quickly I scrape the back of my hand across my eyes. They're all watching me. But listening to me too. “Yeah. I visited him in the hospital last week. Then his brother over the weekend.”

“Is Chad getting out soon?”

I shake my head. “I'm going to keep visiting till he gets out.” As I talk, more ideas, more words, come to me. “Maybe we can make a video for him and I can take it to him.”

“Can you make one today?” Mario asks.

The bell rings for the start of class. Quickly we set a time—half an hour after school ends. And a place—the park by the river. There aren't a lot of jumps, but the kids tell me they sometimes ride their skateboards across the street, on the steps in front of town hall.

“Sure,” I say. And in my mind I make a checklist:

Bike.

Camera.

Park.

Friends.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the many people who helped me to write Kiara's story and bring it to the world. I could never have done it without the support of my teachers and fellow students in the MFA program in Writing for Children & Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I am especially grateful for the advisors who worked on the novel with me—An Na, Jane Kurtz, and Sarah Ellis—the members of my first semester workshop, and my graduating class, the Secret Gardeners.

As I worked on
Rogue
, I received the valuable advice of my critique partners and beta readers Gene Damm, Brett Hartman, Beth Janicek, Lynn Jerabek, Laura Kinney-Smith, Linda Elovitz Marshall, Mary Nicotera, Deb Picker, Lisa Rubilar, Anita Sanchez, and Beverly Slapin. The SCBWI Falling Leaves workshop gave me the opportunity to audition my early chapters, and I thank the organizers for choosing me to participate. Rachel Burk and Mario Nelson helped me with linguistic and cultural details. Through his own work, Francisco X. Stork inspired me to write my story and then became one of Kiara's first friends.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful agent, Ellen Geiger, beside me so I never have to approach the popular girls' table alone. I thank my editor, Nancy Paulsen, and her assistant, Sara Kreger, for clearing a space at the Penguin table for me, and cover artist/designer Marikka Tamura for making
Rogue
the best-looking book in the cafeteria.

Finally, I would like to recognize the teachers, aides, psychologists, and other school staff members working with young people with special needs to help each of us find our own special power.