Rogue by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Page B

my bike across them or go around them. Standing on the opposite bank, I record him riding the narrow single track that he tells me Ice Age glaciers carved into the rock above the creek. At one point he drops six feet from a rock to a root-rutted dirt path and crosses the creek atop a fallen tree trunk.
    â€œHow do you do that?” I ask him while I play back my recording. He stands beside me and peers over my shoulder at the tiny image of his daredevil ride.
    â€œIt’s all balance. Speed. How you use gravity.” He strips off his gloves and holds them in one hand. I turn to face him.
    â€œBut the tree? It’s not flat on top. Did you ever fall off one and end up in the water?”
    Antonio nods. “Lots of times. You can’t slow down. If you get scared and slow down . . .” He makes a chopping motion with his free hand. Like sliding into the water.
    â€œOuch,” I say.
    â€œYeah.” He points to a scar that starts at the bottom of his cargo shorts and runs about six inches down his calf. “Got that one in a race a year ago. Thirty-five stitches. Still finished the race, though.”
    I play the video again, looking for any wobble on the tree, anyplace Antonio slowed down. I don’t find any.
    From behind me comes Antonio’s voice. “My dad taught me everything about riding.” He pauses. “My bike . . . it used to be his.”
    I squeeze the battered red bike’s front tire, rock-hard and slick from riding through mud. “I can put music with the videos,” I say, because I already told him I was sorry about his father. “Anything you like?”
    â€œYou heard of Rage Against the Machine? They’re my favorite band.”
    â€œMax likes them too.” Even though they’re totally different from our family’s band.
    â€œI know,” Antonio says.
    I stare at his hands, at the rope bracelet on his left wrist and the gloves in his right hand. I don’t want to be afraid of touching him. He’s Max’s friend, which almost makes him my big brother too.
    I hold my hand out toward Antonio and close my eyes. My fingers close over the stiff, scratchy bracelet. I let my hand slip down until it reaches his calloused palm. He squeezes. A current runs through me.
Wolverine’s special powers?
I open my eyes.
    Antonio is smiling.

CHAPTER 16
    INSTEAD OF FINISHING MY HOMEWORK FOR MS. LATIMER, I make the video of Antonio’s ride. The music is as chaotic as a tangle of roots, as angry as knobby tires tearing up packed dirt. I pound my fist on my desk in time to the beat. I can’t concentrate on anything except the images of Wolverine, Antonio, his red bike that once belonged to his father, the twisting trails, and Rage Against the Machine.
    That’s what music does for me. It shows me the emotion that Mr. Internet says we Asperger’s mutants have trouble understanding. When I hear the songs, I get that Antonio beats up his bike and his body on the trail because he’s angry at what happened to his father. I also understand that he misses his father the way I miss Mami, but while Mami can come back anytime she wants, his father will never come back.
    I call the video “Riding the Rock” and sign up for a new name on YouTube because I can’t use Corazondeleste when the band doesn’t exist. “Rogue” comes to me right away, but someone else already took it, so I have to add numbers. I pick 266, the numbers on the license plate of Dad’s pickup. When I turn sixteen, I’ll get to drive it.
    In the morning I upload the video and wait for the views. Ten in the first hour. Nearly 100 when Ms. Latimer shows up. After she leaves, 259. An hour later when I’m packing the video camera to ride to College Park, 318.
    As I ride, I recite the numbers in my head. They make me feel powerful. Instead of bad things happening to me—Mami leaving, my brother Eli saying I