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.
âHow do you do that?â 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.
âItâs all balance. Speed. How you use gravity.â He strips off his gloves and holds them in one hand. I turn to face him.
âBut the tree? Itâs not flat on top. Did you ever fall off one and end up in the water?â
Antonio nods. âLots of times. You canât slow down. If you get scared and slow down . . .â He makes a chopping motion with his free hand. Like sliding into the water.
âOuch,â I say.
âYeah.â He points to a scar that starts at the bottom of his cargo shorts and runs about six inches down his calf. âGot that one in a race a year ago. Thirty-five stitches. Still finished the race, though.â
I play the video again, looking for any wobble on the tree, anyplace Antonio slowed down. I donât find any.
From behind me comes Antonioâs voice. âMy dad taught me everything about riding.â He pauses. âMy bike . . . it used to be his.â
I squeeze the battered red bikeâs front tire, rock-hard and slick from riding through mud. âI can put music with the videos,â I say, because I already told him I was sorry about his father. âAnything you like?â
âYou heard of Rage Against the Machine? Theyâre my favorite band.â
âMax likes them too.â Even though theyâre totally different from our familyâs band.
âI know,â Antonio says.
I stare at his hands, at the rope bracelet on his left wrist and the gloves in his right hand. I donât want to be afraid of touching him. Heâs Maxâs 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.
Wolverineâs special powers?
I open my eyes.
Antonio is smiling.
CHAPTER 16
INSTEAD OF FINISHING MY HOMEWORK FOR MS. LATIMER, I make the video of Antonioâs 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 canât 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.
Thatâs what music does for me. It shows me the emotion that Mr. Internet says we Aspergerâs mutants have trouble understanding. When I hear the songs, I get that Antonio beats up his bike and his body on the trail because heâs 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 âRiding the Rockâ and sign up for a new name on YouTube because I canât use Corazondeleste when the band doesnât exist. âRogueâ 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 Dadâs pickup. When I turn sixteen, Iâll 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 Iâm 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 meâMami leaving, my brother Eli saying I
Maggie Brendan
Barbara O'Connor
Jan Washburn
Terri Blackstock
Norah Simone
Barry Kemp
G.P. Taylor
Alan Cumyn
Linda Barnes
Lisa Jackson