Rogue by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Read Free Book Online Page B

blue WELCOME TO COLLEGE PARK sign. A half mile later I point out the sledding hill and behind it the mountain bike trail where my brother Max used to ride with some of the College Park kids. At the sledding hill the College Park kids wore expensive name-brand ski jackets with lift tags and acted like the place was only for them and not for us, but they always seemed to make an exception for Max.
    â€œA good bike trail?” Chad asks.
    â€œYeah.” I smile at Chad’s first show of interest in any place I’ve mentioned to him, even though I’ve never been on the trail and wouldn’t know a good trail from a bad one. “My brother says there’s also a BMX track where kids do stunts.”
    â€œIf we do this again . . .” Chad pants, his bike zigzagging on the uphill road that parallels the trail. I have to slow down not to leave him behind. “You gotta . . . take me . . . there.”
    I wish he said
when
instead of
if.
But at least he gives me a chance.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    The shopping area of College Park has three drugstores, and only one of them keeps the Sudafed behind the counter. Chad and I split the stock on the shelves at the other two. I buy first, and he follows. Outside the last drugstore, we count our change and divide up six dollars and seventy cents, leaving three dollars and thirty-five cents apiece. We pack our boxes in the saddlebags—a total of twenty-four—and return to the store.
    Chad runs to the magazine rack and lifts a copy of
Ride BMX
from the bottom shelf. On the cover is a picture of a boy with one of those helmets that covers the back of his head. He hangs in the air, legs outstretched, holding the handlebars of a bike that dangles beneath his body. Chad leafs through the pages, stopping to read from time to time, his lips moving slightly. I’m surprised to see him read, especially since I couldn’t get him to look at his science textbook for more than fifteen seconds.
    Farther down the aisle are the comic books. I leave Chad to his BMX riders and search the rows of
Iron Man
,
SpiderMan
, and—my heartbeat picks up as I draw closer to it—
X-Men
. I skim the one with Wolverine on the cover, looking for Rogue, but this time for Gambit too.
My Gambit has returned,
I tell myself. Maybe he’ll be my friend since I helped him, just like I helped him when he needed his father’s signature on that note from school.
    Maybe I won’t say something stupid to lose him this time.
    Gambit appears in battle fighting alongside Rogue on one two-page spread, but most of the story is about Wolverine. That’s okay with me. I like Wolverine too. He’s strong and smart and knows his way. He was one of the first X-Men. He helped Rogue when she deserted Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, haunted by the people whose minds she stole and who she left in a coma.
    None of the other X-Men comics contains either Rogue or Gambit, so I take the issue with Wolverine to the register. Chad no longer stands next to the magazines, and I find him outside the door, tapping his foot on the sidewalk.
    â€œAbout time,” he says when I join him.
    â€œLook what I got.” I flip to the spread with Rogue and Gambit.
    â€œComics are dorky,” he says.
    â€œBut this is X-Men.” I point to the color drawing of Rogue. “Don’t I look like her?”
    Chad glances at the page and then at me. “Yeah.” I think he’s smiling, as if he really does like me now. Then he says, “She’s kinda hot, though.”
    â€œAnd me?” The moment I hear my words, I realize what a dumb thing I said.
    Chad shakes his head. “You’re just a weird girl who reads comics.”
    He doesn’t say it in a mean way, so I move my finger to Gambit. “This is you. Gambit. He’s Rogue’s best friend. I know he has brown hair and yours is blond so you don’t look exactly