CHAPTER 14

I DON’T SEE BRANDON OR CHAD GET OFF THE SCHOOL BUS the rest of the week. I watch for them through the hole in the fence as I work on Max’s old bike using the directions Mr. Internet gave me. I sand the rust from the frame, crankset, and cassette; tighten the cables; straighten the brakes; clean and oil the chain; and inflate the tires. Now that I’m five foot four, the bike fits me perfectly. It’s heavier and harder to pedal than Mrs. Elliott’s bike, but it will get me to College Park. On Thursday, I ride to the pharmacy in Willingham to buy black nail polish. The lady at the register stares at me, and I look away. I think she remembers me from when I bought the Sudafed and now believes I’m one of those creepy druggies who dresses all in black and paints her fingernails and toenails black too.

On my way back home, I see Brandon standing next to the concrete platform in the park. He clutches the edge of the platform and doubles over, coughing.

I ride up to him. “You okay?”

Brandon gasps for breath. His mouth looks like that of a fish taken out of the water. “Chad . . . says . . . I got . . . puny-monia.”

I laugh at the way Brandon says it, even though it’s not funny that he’s so sick. “It’s pronounced new-monia.”

“New-monia,” he repeats.

“Is Chad sick too? I haven’t seen him.”

“He said he was getting medicine. But he ain’t back yet.”

Brandon coughs again. I hear him sucking mucus into the back of his throat. “You shouldn’t be out here if you’re sick. You should be in bed,” I tell him.

“Mommy says I need fresh air.”

Or to stand lookout. Which means they’re cooking at home again. Are they still making Chad carry the bottles too?

Friday it rains. Before I have a chance to take my bike to the trail Saturday morning, Chad shows up with his mountain bike and a scratched BMX bike.

The bruise on his cheek is faded. But he has a scrape on his forehead.

“Maybe you should wear a helmet. Those bikes can be dangerous.” I point to his BMX bike and think of the pictures in that Ride BMX magazine he was reading in the drugstore. Everyone in the pictures had a helmet because it’s easy to fall doing tricks and crack your head open. “We have a helmet you can use.”

Max left his old helmet in the lean-to, and he’s at college, so he won’t mind if I loan it to Chad. I run through the house and out the back door. Max’s helmet is balanced upside down on a ladder and covered in cobwebs. I wipe the helmet on my jeans. Strands of spiderweb cling to my thumb and forefinger.

When I return, Chad has leaned his mountain bike against the tree. He sits on the BMX bike, rolling it back and forth. “Here,” I say, holding the silver helmet out to him.

Chad pops a wheelie. “I’m not taking your crummy helmet. You wear it.”

Cobwebs still crisscross the inside, and dust coats the felt pads. “Yuck.” I set the helmet on the top step, by the front door. I figure I can clean it before I ride to College Park. “Want to show me some tricks?” I ask Chad.

Chad walks the front wheel in a semicircle. “No. I want you to talk to your friend about letting me ride on his track.”

“M-my friend?” I stammer. Antonio said that he’s my friend—and that Chad’s trouble. But my stuck tongue tells me I don’t really know what Chad is, and I’m not sure Antonio’s enough of a friend that I can ask him.

Chad pivots to face his mountain bike. “You can ride the boy’s bike.”

My mouth goes dry. “I’m not carrying your . . .”

“I don’t got any. See for yourself.”

I approach the mountain bike as if it were a bomb, slide my fingers into a saddlebag, wriggle them around. Nothing but warm air. The same with the other bag. “So you just want me to talk to Antonio?”

“Yeah. But I gotta make a stop first. You don’t have to go in.”

One stop turns out to be all the drugstores in College Park. One of those that kept Sudafed on the shelf last Sunday now locks it behind the pharmacy counter, Chad tells me. And the other one only has three boxes. Chad limps a little when he goes inside, and when he comes out almost empty-handed, his face is pale. The three boxes fit inside the pocket of his cargo shorts.

We ride to the bike trails, my stomach tightening the closer we get. Will Antonio tell Max if I bring Chad back—even though Chad doesn’t have any dangerous chemicals on him?

All this is so new for me. I know what it’s like to be excluded, to have no friends. I don’t know what it’s like to be invited and then have a friend who I’m trying to get invited too. “What do you want me to tell Antonio?” I ask Chad, because he’s supposed to be my tutor in these things.

He rolls his eyes toward the sky and says, “I’m doomed.”

Because you don’t think I can do a good job? Swallowing hard, I pass Chad and turn into Beresford Estates without a backward glance. I’ll show him I can talk to Antonio. I don’t need any help.

The damp ground smell, mixed with pine sap, hits me as soon as I enter the canopy of trees. My tires kick up mud that pelts my ankles where I’ve rolled up my pant legs. The tree that blocked the path has been cleared and the trail stretches out ahead of me. I pass the sawed-off trunk of the fallen tree with only the briefest glance at its exposed rings. The trunk is the diameter of a basketball. The tree had many years ahead of it.

“Beep, beep,” Chad calls from behind. I veer to the right, and he pulls even with me on the wide trail.

“Maybe he’s not here,” I say, disappointment muffling my voice.

“Then we ride until we find it.” He lifts the front end of his bike and leans backward slightly so he rides only on his rear tire.

“How did you do that?” I ask when his front tire returns to the trail.

He doesn’t answer. I know the answer anyway. Lots of practice. A few scrapes and bruises.

Chad and I ride alongside each other into the maze of trails. Even if we get lost, I figure we’ll find the BMX track eventually.

The main trail, wide enough for our two bikes, splits into three trails, each one narrow and twisty. The first one we take dips and rises before it leads us right back to where we started. We then take the third trail, which crosses a creek twice, once over a bridge, the other splashing through the water. After following the creek for a while, we head back uphill. I pass Chad because his BMX bike doesn’t have low gears. Rotting leaves and pine needles cover most of the trail, but near the top of the uphill part, we hit sand that makes my bike fishtail.

We emerge from the sandy section at the bottom of a grassy hill. Chad stops. He leans against the handlebars, panting, clutching his right side. His eyes are squeezed shut. Faint voices, voices of older boys, rise from the other side of the hill. My stomach does a quarter turn. If Antonio is here . . . What am I supposed to say to him? What would Rogue tell Wolverine so he’d let Gambit join the X-Men?

Laying my bike on the ground, I climb the hill. When I get to the top, I see an open area with BMX bike jumps made of sand, tires, and plywood. The meadow surrounding it slopes gently upward to more woods. I stand at the only steep side, but the entire BMX track appears carved out of the meadow below.

I gape at the massive sandbox that makes real people appear as small as action figures. Antonio isn’t there, but two other boys wearing helmets ride on separate mounds, and a bigger kid with sideburns sits next to a wheelbarrow. He holds a video camera.

I scoot back down the hill before they see me. “I found the track, but Antonio’s not there,” I whisper.

“Good. I’m riding,” Chad says. He pushes his bike up the hill. I leave mine at the bottom and follow, feet dragging, certain that if Antonio isn’t there, the others will kick us out.

Chad stumbles once on the way up. But at the top he waves, yells, “Look out!” and flies down the hill into the pit.

He zips up a mound, catapults straight into the air, and turns 360 degrees—twice—before riding down the other side of the mound. I suck in my breath.

“Did you see that?” a biker shouts.

“What?” The kid with the camera stands and whirls around.

“You missed a double 360. All the way from the peak.” The first kid turns to Chad. “Who are you?”

Instead of answering, Chad circles the pit, climbs the mound again, and makes a three-quarter turn in the air. His long blond hair flies out around him. The three other boys stand in a clump, watching. They ask him where he learned to ride like that.

“Around,” he answers. The trick he did for me is nothing compared to the ones he shows those kids. The one with the sideburns lifts the video camera to eye level. Recording Chad.

Ignoring me.

I stand at the top of the hill, invisible again.

The BMX track is just another lunchroom table where New Kid has found his group of friends and left me by myself. I feel like crying, but if I do, all three of these boys will also know I’m Crybaby Kiara.

So I call out to Chad, “I have to go. I’ll leave the bike in my backyard.”

I don’t think he hears me.