Rogue by Lyn Miller-Lachmann

grabs the handlebars, and leans the bike against the concrete. “Is she your only one, J.T.?”
    â€œNo, I got two boys—Eli and Max. Both of them at college.” Dad sets his guitar next to the banjo.
    Mr. Elliott holds out his hand, with its stained fingers. “Got pictures?”
    Dad takes his wallet from his back pocket. The top photo is of all five of us together, before Eli, Max, and Mami left. I was around ten then, and both Mami and I wore embroidered peasant-style blouses. My hair came to my shoulders and curled under my chin. There was a gap between my teeth. I wore braces all through sixth grade to get rid of it.
    Dad digs under the photo for more, but before he can take them out, Mr. Elliott lifts the wallet from his hand for a closer look. He then pulls his wallet from his pocket and hands a worn photo to my father.
    â€œHere’s Lissa with baby Brandon. He was a real sweetie.” Mr. Elliott taps the photo with the corner of Dad’s wallet. “The other one busted our chops from day one. Colic. Wouldn’t sleep . . .” I peer over Dad’s shoulder at a skinny woman, her long straight hair parted in the middle, holding a smiling, round, bald baby in her lap. She’s smiling too, her thin lips pressed together. Baby Brandon has a pair of teeth on top that glisten like tiny pearls.
    Dad has photos of all of us. Mr. Elliott has the one with Brandon and his mother and another of Brandon that looks like it was taken at the hospital, with him all red and wrinkled and wearing a blue knit cap. Nothing of Chad. Even though I’m mad at him for ignoring me and hanging out with the older boys, I wonder what he looked like as a little kid, if he looked like Brandon does now—sweet and innocent rather than hard and mean.
    Dad and Mr. Elliott are still looking at family photos when I go back inside. I drag Max’s bike outside, ready to go. Chad has made his own friends at the BMX track. I don’t have to ask Antonio to let him ride there. But Antonio did say he wanted me to return to the trail—he just didn’t show up yesterday. Remembering that kid with the sideburns and the video camera, I get an idea. If I record the stunts, maybe they’ll notice me, talk to me, want me to stick around.
    Dad keeps our video camera in his tiny recording studio. He bought it a little over a year ago, and I used it to record Corazón del Este’s concerts. Most of the time, I’d set the camera up on a tripod and let it run. Sometimes I took handheld footage, getting right in front of the musicians or sneaking backstage to shoot them from behind, which was my favorite because it sort of made me part of the band too.
    I posted the videos on YouTube—Dad’s idea to get more people to hire us. We got over a thousand views in all and a few people left thumbs-ups. When someone wrote,
Nice- looking band. Great costumes,
I ran bragging to everyone in my family because it was hard to get the colorful outfits they performed in to stand out with the bad lighting. But even though the band looked good, Mami said we didn’t get enough gigs to pay the cost of the camera, even with Dad’s employee discount at Tech Town.
    I wait until after breakfast, when Dad leaves for work. Then I put the camera into my backpack and ride to College Park.
    Like yesterday, the mountain bike trail is deserted. The extra day of sunshine has chased away the musty smell, but the breeze makes me shiver where the trees block out the sun. I think about turning back. Antonio never gave me his phone number. Maybe he didn’t mean it when he said he wanted to see me again . . .
    â€œHey, Max’s sister! Like your bike.”
    Antonio rides downhill toward me on the trail next to the creek. Even with his helmet on, I recognize the solid jaw, the skin almost as dark as mine. I squeeze my brakes and glide to a stop on the bridge.
    He stops at the edge of the creek just