Rogue by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Read Free Book Online

where things are.” His words don’t match his tone of voice, and it makes me think he’s not going to act nice if I do ride with him.
    Still, I want another chance to be his friend—and to behave well for his father, since he’s Dad’s new friend. I messed up, complaining about Max’s hand-me-down bike in front of Mr. Elliott, which made us look poor and Dad look like he didn’t raise me right. After breakfast Dad apologized for not being able to buy me things other people have. He said that when Mami gets home with the money from her singing job, they’ll buy me a new bike.
    â€œOkay.” I lock the front door and put the key on its University of Vermont lanyard, around my neck. The lanyard was a birthday present from Max. I won’t wear the BC lanyard Eli gave me.
    The bikes gleam in the sunlight, inviting me for a ride. I run my hand along the shiny top bar of the smaller one. “These are, like, new.”
    â€œYeah, we got them last week.” He pats the seat of the one I touched. “This is mine. The other one is my mom’s.” I glance down and notice his mom’s bike has the slanted bar, rather than the one straight across.
    I ask him, “What makes you think I want to ride a girl’s bike?”
    â€œBecause you’re a girl.”
    â€œThat’s sexist.”
    â€œThat’s sexist,” Chad repeats in a high-pitched voice. Mocking me already. He lifts his leg over the top bar of his bike. “Let’s go.”
    I stand stiffly. “Not if you’re going to make fun of me.”
    â€œSor-ry.” Chad bounces on his seat. “Coming or aren’t you?”
    Telling myself he sort of apologized, I push the girl’s bike onto the sidewalk and slide on. Both bikes have a plastic shelf behind the seat and a pair of black saddlebags attached to the shelf. Some of our neighbors don’t believe in cars, and this is how they go shopping. They tease Dad because he drives a crew cab pickup truck that uses a lot of gas. It would hurt my feelings, especially because I like his truck, but he just laughs and says,
When the band gets back together, I’ll be ready.
    Signs reading NED LAMONT, U.S. SENATE have sprouted up amid the weeds and unraked, decomposing leaves in our old-hippie neighborhood. My yard’s had one for two weeks, and when Chad and I turn onto busy Washington Avenue, I see one in front of his house. I figure Mrs. Mac put it there, but I ask Chad, “Your parents for Lamont?”
    Chad doesn’t answer, so I repeat the question.
    He grunts. Maybe his parents don’t vote. I tell him Mami isn’t a U.S. citizen, so she can’t vote, but Dad always took me with him to the polling place and let me pull the lever. “Straight Democratic ticket,” I add.
    â€œWhere’s the drugstore?” he asks, glancing back at me.
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with voting?”
    â€œNothing. I wasn’t listening because you’re boring.” He slows down to let me catch up to him. “I need to buy cold medicine.”
    My lower lip trembles, and I quickly ask, “For Brandon?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œOkay, follow me.” I lead Chad through the four-block downtown, past boarded-up shops and a new restaurant that was once a post office. On the block after the restaurant is a shabby drugstore with streaked windows and garbage on the sidewalk. We lock the bikes to a parking meter, sharing one meter and one lock. Chad takes a wad of bills from the side pocket of his cargo shorts and slaps a twenty and a five into my hand. For a moment, I stare at the bills. I don’t get to hold much money these days, with the band broken up and the record store gone. I don’t get to sell CDs after the concerts or stacks of old 33s and 45s in the store and impress the customers with my ability to calculate amounts in my head.
    â€œYou want
me
to buy it?” I ask,