His wheels spin with a grinding sound but he’s not going anywhere.
I snatch him up, and the judge sets a five-point penalty disc on the edge of the table, bringing my score to negative five. My fingers tighten around QUEN-10 as I try not to pay attention to the timer, ticking off the seconds. It’s okay. Two people move on to Regionals. I can beat Ajeet there.
After I release him the second time, QUEN-10 moves across the baseline and immediately shifts off course, hitting the side again. Holy! I snatch him from the edge, taking another grab penalty.
All of a sudden, I think of Dad. He’s right: I’m not competitive enough. I can’t even win the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.
Think, think. QUEN-10’s veering too much. I take a breath, trying to calm down. Did that kid bump him? Did I clutch him too hard when I kept him from falling? I have to fix him. Fast. But how?
Then I remember my spare-parts crate.
I throw off the cover; it smacks against the wooden floor. I spot the space in the bottom right-hand corner, where my spare gyro sensor should be. Empty.
Back on my feet, I search the faces around the table for Ajeet. I need to get my gyro. But where is he? People around me are shaking their heads. Even more aren’t paying attention to my miserable run.
Ajeet’s right there with them, surrounded by admiring kids and Mrs. Fuentes, ignoring me. He points something out to her on his robot. I bite the inside of my cheek. Now he can talk to her?
“Would you like to try again?” the judge asks.
Only twenty seconds left.
“Ajeet,” I call, but he doesn’t even look at me. “Ajeet!” He’s showing some kid my L-brackets under my gyro sensor.
My ears go hot. I thought he’d help me if I needed it.
The judge hugs his clipboard to his chest. “Only a few seconds left.”
My heart races as I pull QUEN-10 to home base, slamming him into the starting position, willing the impact to fix his gyro. I press start, but now he won’t even move. The low battery signal flashes.
“Really?” I shriek as the buzzer goes off. Time’s up. My chance is up.
I don’t even have to stick around for my score. Negative ten.
So much for showing Dad what a winner I am. Sure, when Aunt Birdie presses him, he might say he loves me anyway. But, deep down, I know he’ll never like me. Never.
I grab QUEN-10 and my stuff, storming past Ajeet with his band of admirers. “Thanks a lot for your help,” I snap and rush from the gym.
Without stopping to think, I run toward the double glass doors and shove them wide open with my back. I linger on the sidewalk, waiting for Ajeet to catch up. To apologize. To be my best friend.
But he’s not following me. Why isn’t he following me?
Sweating, I balance my things on my knee and pull the phone from my jeans pocket. No text from him, either.
My crate and robot bobble in my hands as I move, shuffling across the parking lot. The cool morning breeze is gone; the sun bakes the back of my neck. I can’t believe I lent Ajeet my spare part. And then I told him how to assemble his robot. And then reinforced it all with my L-brackets.
I kick a rock across the blacktop. What was I thinking? I practically gave him his place at Regionals. And how does he pay me back? By ignoring me, that’s how.
Before I know it, I’m home. My arms ache from the weight of all the stuff I’ve been carrying. There’s nothing I want more than to throw it inside the house, but Dad’s truck is in the driveway. Aunt Birdie’s car isn’t home yet.
My feet come to an abrupt stop when I spot him, sitting in the driver’s seat with the window rolled down. Just my luck. His head is tilted against the headrest, his eyes closed.
If he sees me, it definitely won’t be good. Especially after the way things went this morning. Maybe I should go back to school until Aunt Birdie gets home.
“Did you win?” Dad asks, startling me from my escape plan.
My mouth goes dry. My brain rapid-clicks between the only two options: respond or run.
THREE
My arm muscles tremble from the weight of my robotics stuff. I’m so exhausted that if I try to run now, Dad would definitely catch me before I even get to the end of the sidewalk.
A list of possible lies pops into my mind: Mrs. Fuentes canceled the competition; everyone got burrito poisoning; zombies attacked our school—but none of them are remotely believable.
I slowly turn and settle on the truth. “I lost,” I admit, bracing for Dad to lay into me about football again. But he sits there, his angular face expressionless, which is even scarier because I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I clear my throat, ready to change the subject from what a loser I am. “How was the job interview?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry about earlier, bud. I was . . .” His voice trails off like he doesn’t know what else to say.
I stand still, not sure how to react, my arm muscles screaming for relief from the stuff in my hands.
Out of nowhere, Dad slaps the passenger seat, making me jump. I almost drop everything. “Get in,” he says as I bobble QUEN-10. “Let’s go for a drive.”
“That’s okay.” No way I’m getting in just so he can trap me inside his truck, forcing me to listen to another one of his lectures about how competitive the world is. Forget it.
Dad’s expression softens. “Rebs?”
His old nickname catches me off guard. I can’t remember the last time he called me that. Definitely before Mom died.
“I think you’ll like where we’re going.”
“Where?” I ask.
He shakes his head with a sly smile. “You’ll have to get in to find out.”
Even though I’ll probably regret it, I’m curious. He doesn’t seem upset about the competition. I circle the truck and drop QUEN-10 and my parts crate on the floorboard before hopping inside the truck.
We’re soon weaving through our neighborhood streets. We don’t talk. There’s no talk radio, thank goodness. The only sound is the hum of Dad’s tires against concrete. I rub my sore arms and shift, growing more uneasy by the second. What if he changes into Angry Dad again and I’m stuck?
We pass the mall with the best gaming store and head west along the highway until we’re outside of town. Dad soon exits, makes a U-turn, and suddenly, I know where we’re going.
I smile.
He parks along the side of the road, next to a barbed-wire fence and behind a car with New Mexico plates. On the other side of the fence sits an open pasture with ten cars buried, nose-first, in the ground. Cadillac Ranch.
“This okay?” Dad asks, doubt coloring his voice.
I nod. It’s the first time we’ve been here since right after Mom died. A little over a year ago. She loved this place.
My shoes hit the gravel as Dad retrieves a plastic grocery sack from the bed of his truck. A light breeze moves a strand of hair across my forehead, tickling my face. I sweep it aside before Dad complains about how much I need a haircut again.
We take the dusty path toward the cars. Out here, there’s nothing to block our view of where the sky meets the earth, except for a matching set of half-buried Cadillacs.
There are a few tourists, but it’s pretty quiet. I point to the cars leaning at the exact same angle. “Did you know these are all slanted at the same angle as the sides of the pyramid at Giza?”
Dad chuckles as we continue along the path. “Actually, I did not know that.”
“It’s true.”
He smiles. “And here I thought it was a field with junky cars.”
A couple of kids run in front of us, their feet pounding the hard ground as we reach the Cadillacs. “I’m going to take a look,” I say and, when Dad nods, I walk one big circle around them, exploring the colorful graffiti covering each car. Blobs of blue, red, orange, and green. Names and dates in yellow, black, and white. As I pause beside one of the cars, I place my hand on its tire; it spins at my touch.
I think of Ajeet and hi
s big tires. Sudden heat flames my skin. I kick the closest tire, flinching from the pain.
“You look like you could use this,” Dad says, tossing a can of silver spray paint. I barely manage to catch it before he takes his can of black paint and pops off the cap, discarding it onto one of the piles of empty cans that litter the ground.
I shake my can, the metal ball rattling inside. Dad pulls his shirt collar over his nose and sprays globular shapes on the underside of one of the Cadillacs. I move over a few cars, and paint my name on the hood. Streaks of liquid silver run down the rainbow colors like glittering rivers across a map.
Mom always called coming here “therapy,” a way to release the bad feelings trapped inside. My shoulders relax with each tap on the nozzle as I think of her. She always knew how to help me. Too bad she couldn’t do the same for Dad, especially after he came home with PTSD.
Mom’s the one who came up with the term “Angry Dad.” It was our secret code name when he got bad, the times Dad couldn’t seem to think of anything but the horrible things he’d heard and seen. It’s Angry Dad: Let’s go for a walk, she’d say. It’s Angry Dad again: Let’s go camping to give him the space he needs.
To my right, I spy Dad spray-paint a black sun and moon—that militia symbol again. My neck tightens. I looked it up on the internet: the sun and moon means the Flag Bearers are watching both day and night.
Dad pulls his shirt from his nose. “They hired a Mexican,” he says, his voice gruff.
I glance sideways at another family as they move past us, hoping they didn’t hear.
“They didn’t even give me a chance,” he adds.
My sprayer keeps spraying, even though I’m not really paying attention to my silver marks.
“Didn’t matter I’d served our country for the last seventeen years.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say, and I mean it. Why wouldn’t someone hire my dad after all he’s done to protect our country’s freedoms? He deserves a good job as much as anyone else. More, even.
“They said he’d work for less money than me, so they hired him instead. I guess they want subpar work.” Dad tosses his used can into the pile with a clang.
My fingers tighten around the paint in my hand as I keep spraying.
“Did that kid win today?” Dad asks, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
My finger comes off the sprayer. By that kid, I know he means Ajeet. I nod.
“Jeez, I told you. The government is letting them in by the droves.” He wags his finger at me. “You know they’re trying to shut us out, don’t you?”
I don’t know how to respond.
His hand drops with a sigh. “Sometimes, I think it’d be better if we could get away from here.” He stares into the distance. “Go someplace quiet.”
“Like where?” I whisper, so I don’t startle him.
He doesn’t take his eyes off the horizon; he doesn’t answer.
In the awkward silence, I pull my phone from my pocket to give me something to stare at, too. With the paint can in one hand, I tap my screen with the other. There’s a text from Ajeet from a few minutes ago: Where are you? The award ceremony is about to start.
Fire flashes through my insides. I hurriedly close the text without answering.
“I bet he pretended to be your friend,” Dad says.
The way he says it makes me look up. “Who?”
“That kid with the robot.”
“I thought he was my friend,” I admit, shoving my phone inside my pocket. But Ajeet didn’t help me, even though I helped him.
“It’s always the same,” Dad replies. “It’s happened to me at least a dozen times. They steal what belongs to us. He probably gained your trust first, right?”
I wince, dropping the paint can in the dirt. Did Ajeet pretend he was my friend so I’d help him? My cheeks flush with a mix of anger and shame as I think of him bragging to Mrs. Fuentes when I needed his help. “I helped him win today.”
Dad’s jaw tightens. “See there?”
It feels good to have Dad on my side for a change.
“He didn’t even know what port to put the gyro into,” I add, though it’s not completely true. Ajeet knew: He was just nervous.
Dad shakes his head. “Typical. They use you until they get promoted and then leave you in the dust without even looking back.”
Another text comes through but I ignore it. “Exactly.”
Dad’s nodding. He’s angry, but not at me. He’s angry for me. With me. “Did he offer to help you when you needed it?”
“No,” I grumble. “He was too busy celebrating.”
Dad pounds a fist against the buried car, and it feels good. Almost as good as if I’d done it myself.
“Rebel, nothing is going to change until we’re willing to do something about it.” His expression is tired, but fierce.
I like how he’s included me. “What can I do?”
“It’s time we take a stand.”
FOUR
Time for me to take a stand.
Dad is right. We’ve both been cheated today. He deserved that job—he needed that job—and it was stolen from him. I deserved to win, and it was stolen from me. Ajeet used me.
By the time we get home, I’m fuming. It feels like my fingers and toes are on fire.
I know exactly what I have to do.
Aunt Birdie still isn’t here—thank goodness—because she’s got some kind of internal radar that goes off when she suspects I’m up to something.
I jump out onto the driveway, leaving QUEN-10, and hurry to the rear of Dad’s truck. I reach over the side of the truck bed and rifle through the plastic grocery sack, cans clinking against one another, until I find what I need. “Can I borrow this?” I ask, holding a can of red spray paint.
Dad’s already at the front door of our house. I move around to the other side of the truck so he can see what I’m holding. His eyes narrow.
“It’s—for a science project,” I lie. “Due tomorrow.” Aunt Birdie says most liars won’t look you in the eyes. I lock my knees and force myself not to look away.
Dad nods and opens the door. I hang by his truck, trying to come up with my next excuse of why I need to go back to school. He turns in the threshold before I can think. “Is there something else?”
“Uh.” Lying is a lot harder than it looks. Especially when your very large, very intimidating Marine dad is staring at you. I bite my lip when, out of nowhere, it comes to me.
My laugh comes out shallow. “I guess I was in such a hurry that I left my backpack at school.” True. I clear my throat, inching down the driveway. “And I need it for my project.” Not true.
Dad rubs his eyes and swings his key ring around his index finger, making the keys jingle. “I wish you’d said something before we got home, Rebs.” He starts to close the door to the house.
“That’s okay,” I say, a little too loud, stopping him. I let out another dumb laugh and then lower my voice. “Go ahead and take a nap. I don’t mind walking.” My feet hit the sidewalk, and I take off. The metal ball rattles inside the paint can as my arm swings back and forth.
I check over my shoulder; he’s not chasing me. I’m practically running to school. If they stop me when I get there, I’ll tell them I forgot my backpack in my locker. Hopefully, they don’t ask me about the paint in my hand.
There are still a few cars in the lot. The vans are gone.
I pass through the glass doors and look to my left. The light’s still on inside the gym. I hear voices, and then laughter. Specifically, Ajeet’s snorty laugh. My hand tightens around the paint can.
Hot anger spreads like venom throughout my body. With the paint can clenched in my hand, I hurry along the empty hallway, my shoes pounding against the polished floors.
I make a right and then a left until I’m in the seventh-grade hallway. Lockers line the walls. Fluorescents buzz overhead, but all of the classrooms are dark.
The changing light from the overhead TV monitor catc
hes my eye. The slides on the screen alternate, announcing upcoming games, pep rallies, and the science fair. Next, a picture flashes onto the screen: My EX-best friend is grinning. He’s holding his robot and pointing to my L-brackets beneath my gyro sensor. And then a message scrolls across the screen: Congratulations to our robotics champion, Ajeet Deshmukh!
I can’t believe it. He won.
Before I can think, I pop the lid off the paint can and release red lines and curves against the gray metal doors. Every bit of me is on fire as I spray large letters, stretching them across the entire wall of lockers. My chest heaves with each breath. I make the final dot on the exclamation point. Red paint dribbles to the floor.
Satisfied, I back away from my work. I’m panting like I do when the PE coaches make us run laps.
I read my message. Then I hear a gasp—mine.
All of a sudden, it feels like I’ve been plunged into a pool of ice. The can drops from my hand with a loud clang. The can jangles as it rolls across the floor and stops when it hits the opposite wall.
Chills run along my arms as I read the message again. What have I done?
My breath stutters as I search the hall for something to clean it off.
Nothing.
What have I done?
I take the bottom of my T-shirt and wipe the exclamation point, but it only smears the paint. My gaze darts and then lands on the door to the boys’ restroom. Paper towels and water. That should get it off, right?
The click-clicking of heels, alongside the squeak of tennis shoes, suddenly echoes from the next hallway.
My heart jumps to my throat. No! What have I done?
There are voices I don’t recognize and a couple I do: Mrs. Fuentes and . . . Ajeet.
I want to scream. I will myself to move, but guilt keeps me frozen, trapped like I’m in a block of ice.
Mrs. Fuentes rounds the corner; the smile immediately falls from her lips. Her eyes fill with disbelief and then disappointment. Within seconds, she shuffles in front of Ajeet, trying to block his view. But he edges around her.
A gray-bearded man I don’t recognize stands, wide-eyed, between Ajeet and the girl from the competition, the one in the unicorn T-shirt. “What a jerk,” she mutters, like a slap to my face. She turns to Ajeet. “I thought you said he was your friend.” Like a punch to my gut.
The Inside Battle Page 3