CHAPTER 18

FOR SMASHING DAD’S CELL PHONE, I GET MY COMPUTER taken away. Dad carries it piece by piece to the living room and sets it up again on a table he brought up from the basement. From now until the end of school, he’ll let me use it to do my homework, but when he’s not watching me, he locks away the power cord.

I might as well forget I had a computer. After the end of school I’m leaving for Montreal, so I’ll never get to use it for what I want anyway.

I don’t ride to College Park the next day because I don’t know how to tell Antonio and the other guys that my video career is finished. Chad rides away as soon as the middle-school bus drops him off, but he comes home two hours later and stays in the park until late at night. I suspect that his parents are cooking again. I don’t tell him what happened either.

Three straight days of rain, from Tuesday through Thursday, postpone the moment when I have to tell the truth. I repeat in my mind the words I can’t bear to say aloud. I had a mega-meltdown. I’ve been punished, but it’s your punishment too because you don’t get your videos made and uploaded. I hate it when everyone gets punished because one person messed up. And once they find out I’m the person who messed up, they won’t want to be my friend.

So even though I wake up to sunshine on Friday morning, I decide not to go to the bike track. I’d rather just disappear than say what happened and watch them dump me.

Ms. Latimer notices that I’m paying a lot more attention to my schoolwork. “Right in time. You have two weeks until the exams,” she says on Friday. I stare at the useless hulk of my computer in the corner of the room.

“So what happens if someone doesn’t pass?” Like Chad. I don’t think he has a chance. I only got to tutor him once and he didn’t listen to me then.

“Summer school, then a retest. I don’t think that’s an issue with you.” Ms. Latimer smiles. “You’ll make me proud. And in the fall, you’ll start high school as if none of this trouble ever happened.”

My chest tightens at the mention of high school. Where I’ll be back in class with the mean kids. Or in the ED/LD class, which means Emotionally Disturbed/Learning Disabled. Kind of like the place where Temple Grandin’s parents sent her, except not a boarding school. I don’t know whether the regular class or the special class is worse. “Are they going to put me with the special kids?”

Ms. Latimer clears her throat. “Look at me, Kiara.” I force my eyes away from the dead computer and toward her face. One time, she told me I should leave every conversation knowing what color the other person’s eyes are. Hers are green. Around her neck, a silver cross hangs from a shiny chain. “You’ve worked hard, and you deserve a fresh start. I’m recommending you see a counselor once a week for anger management but attend regular classes.” She pauses. “Honors classes, of course.”

I gaze at my hands, at my bitten-off fingernails. I don’t think Dad told her about my latest tantrum and my punishment. She hasn’t asked why my computer suddenly appeared in the living room.

I can’t go away all summer, or my friends will forget me. Veg will make the videos again, which means he won’t get to ride and no one will want to watch us.

That’s right. Us. I belong to this group. I’m the invisible one behind the screen.

I saw Veg’s videos. Antonio’s right. He doesn’t hold the camera steady, so the track bounces up and down along with the riders. He doesn’t put any music in the background either. You have to use the right music to make people feel how scary and thrilling it is to fly through the air or crash to the ground and flop like a rag doll.

People really do like the wipeouts best. The one of Antonio falling off the bridge into the creek, which I put with the music of Rage Against the Machine, was still leading in hits the night I crashed and flopped by not convincing Mami to let me stay. I have no idea how “Hanging Chad” is doing. If he asks me, I have nothing to tell him.

Rogue wouldn’t let Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants snatch her back once she’d joined the X-Men. Maybe my X-Men can come up with a way to keep me from having to leave. But that means I have to tell them the truth first—and hope they’ll be on my side.