“No, you didn’t.” Zion stuffed his lunch back in his backpack and stood up from his seat. “All you’re thinking about is yourself.” He stormed away from the table.
“Hey!” I called after him, but he ignored me as he left the cafeteria.
He was right, of course. All I’d been thinking about since starting stupid high school was myself. Mostly bad stuff, too. And I had no idea how to stop doing that.
• • •
I walked up the bleacher steps after school and found Zion sitting alone, watching Lando’s practice. I sat next to my friend. “I’m sorry.”
Zion didn’t look at me.
“I should have listened to you about Joshua. Trust me—I know this with all my heart. Please stop being angry with me about it.”
He finally moved his eyes to me. “I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. And I totally get it. I didn’t consider your feelings then, and I didn’t consider your feelings about the homeschooling thing. I didn’t think about what that would mean for you. You were right. I’ve only been thinking about myself. But I’m not going to abandon you. We’re going to get through this together.”
Zion’s face finally softened and his lip turned up a little at one corner.
“We will,” I said. “We’re going to slay the sucktastic beast known as high school together.”
Zion nodded. “Okay.”
I peered down in time to see Lando give Joshua a dirty look as he walked by him on the field. “It sucks we can’t watch Lando without watching Joshua,” I said.
“Tell me about it.”
“That guy is the worst.”
“The worst in the world,” Zion said. “He’s so not worth our time.”
“He’s not even worth our loogies.”
Zion and I smiled at each other. “I still need to find a costume for Comic Con,” I said. “And I have so little time.”
“You don’t have to wear one.”
“I don’t want to be the only one not wearing one. I’ll come up with something.”
“I’m sure it will be great.”
I watched as Joshua walked up to Lando and said something to him. I wished I could hear what they were saying. Lando dropped his water bottle and stepped up into Joshua’s face, saying something back. He did not look happy. The coach blew his whistle and stormed over to the two.
Zion jumped up. “Shoot.”
I stood up next to him. “What do you think is happening?”
“I don’t know.”
We couldn’t ask Lando what had happened in the car on the way home because we didn’t want to rat him out to their mom. So Zion and I sat quietly in the back until we got to their house.
I loved Zion’s house. Instead of boring art prints, the walls were covered in cool framed movie posters and puzzles the family had done together. The phone played “The Imperial March” when it rang, and the lamps turned on and off when you clapped. Trust me, clapping my feet is far easier than turning those annoying little knobs.
Zion and I went to his room so we could work on guitar lessons. His mom had bought him a guitar for his birthday, and he was making great progress.
I pointed my toe at a fret. “Here,” I said. “Your finger goes here.” We were working on learning songs that stuck to a few basic chords. Today we were doing “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty, which was made like a million years ago, but it was easy to play.
Zion strummed out a few chords. “Nice,” I said. “Now move your finger here.” I pointed at another fret.
Zion’s mom opened the door and peeked her head in. “Zion, baby? I need your head. I’m not sure the size of this mask is right.”
Zion groaned and got up to go get his head fitted. I moved the guitar down to my feet. I strummed out the chords I was teaching Zion and sang the lyrics softly to myself. I wished learning to navigate high school were as easy as learning new songs on the guitar. I wished there were instructions and maybe a YouTube video to tell me exactly what I needed to do.
There was movement in the doorway. I stopped playing and looked up in time to see Lando move away.
My cheeks heated. I still didn’t like playing in front of anyone despite having played at the festival, and I definitely didn’t like singing in front of anyone. I was embarrassed that he’d seen me.
Zion returned and sat back down on the bed. He picked the guitar up and held it on his lap. “What’s this mask?” I asked him.
“She’s making a special Batman mask for me.”
“That’s cool. Don’t you already have a Batman mask?”
“Yeah, but this one’s going to be custom.”
I glanced at the open doorway. “What’s Lando doing?”
Zion shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably talking to his friends as usual.”
Zion and I practiced the guitar until his mom told us it was time for “dinner.” Another time I wished I had the ability to do air quotes was when I referred to the food we ate at Zion’s house as “dinner.” The reason why I call it “dinner” is because Zion’s family frequently ate appetizers and snacks, which was awesome. I loved eating at Zion’s house.
I sat down at the table. Tonight’s selections included a tray of deviled eggs, carrots and dip, a bowl of popcorn, cantaloupe slices, and a bowl of mixed nuts.
“Hors d’oeuvres again?” Zion complained as he sat down next to me.
“You know I have to finish my Death Star cross stitch,” Mrs. Hill said. “I didn’t have time.”
Lando smiled. “You never have time to cook, Ma.”
“That’s because I have so many better things to do. I don’t see any of you boys in here whipping up a pot roast.” She eyed each of them one by one, ending on Mr. Hill.
Mr. Hill cleared his throat. “How was practice?” He asked Lando as he popped an almond into his mouth. Mr. Hill always wore T-shirts with cool black comic book characters on them. He said they needed all the promotion they could get. Today his T-shirt had Black Lightning on it.
Lando shrugged. “It was all right. Still hotter than biscuits outside.”
I snorted. “Straight out of the oven,” I grumbled, and Lando smiled as he rammed a handful of popcorn in his mouth.
Mr. Hill turned his attention to me. “Have you picked a costume yet for this weekend, Aven?” I was learning that Mr. Hill took this whole costume business really seriously.
I scowled at the deviled egg filling all over my toes. I should have stuck to the carrots. “Not yet.”
“Not yet!” Mr. Hill cried. I could see I was stressing him out.
“Dad,” Zion pleaded.
“What are you going as, Mr. Hill?” I asked, trying to take the focus off me.
He pointed as his Black Lightning T-shirt and smiled. “What do you think?”
“Cool,” I said.
Mrs. Hill had a mischievous smile as she munched on some cantaloupe. “Mine is a surprise.”
“I can’t wait.” I looked at Lando. “What are you going as?”
“Mine’s a surprise, too,” he said.
“So many secrets in this family,” I said.
“We like surprises,” said Mrs. Hill. “Don’t you like to be surprised, Aven?”
“I don’t think so.”
As Zion helped his parents clear the table, I asked Lando, “Were you spying on me earlier?”
Lando gulped down his bite of carrot. “Spying on you?”
“Earlier. When I was playing the guitar.”
“Oh. No, I wasn’t spying. I heard the guitar and I thought it was Zion. I thought he’d somehow gotten not completely terrible.”
Zion ran over and wrapped his arms around Lando’s head from behind like he was choking him. Lando fell backward out of his chair, and then they were trying to pin each other down on the ground.
“Someone’s gonna get hurt,” Mrs. Hill said, but she didn’t seem too terribly worried as she loaded the dishwasher.
I laughed as Lando smashed a deviled egg into Zion’s ear and
Zion screamed. Zion got up and poured the rest of the popcorn bowl on Lando’s head.
“What a mess,” Mrs. Hill muttered, but I suddenly wished I had a sibling whose ear I could smash a deviled egg into.
Mom picked me up after Lando and Zion had sufficiently destroyed each other and the kitchen with their battle.
I gazed out the car window at the passing streetlights as we drove the short distance from Zion’s house to Stagecoach Pass. “Sometimes I wish I had a brother or sister,” I said.
I turned to Mom, but she stared straight ahead. “Oh, yeah?” she said softly.
“Yeah. I mean, I’m good with being an only child. Just sometimes I think it would be nice to have one.” I turned back to the window. “That’s all.”
Mom was quiet, so I kept talking. “I wonder if my birth father ever had any other children.”
Mom squeezed the steering wheel. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s certainly possible.”
“I could have brothers and sisters I don’t even know about.”
Mom nodded slowly. She cleared her throat. “Would you want to try to find that out?”
I shrugged and looked back out the dark window. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t know where to start.” Mom didn’t respond to that, and she was quiet the rest of the way home, so I didn’t mention it again.
I sat down at my computer as soon as we got home. No more messing around. I was going to figure out my costume. I remembered Lando saying there was just about any comic book character you could think of.
I stuck my ear buds in and turned on some Llama Parade while I browsed for ideas online. On a whim, I Googled “Armless comic book characters” and . . .
Oh. My. Gosh.
19
You didn’t have a clue
You were a fascist,
Did you?
— Screaming Ferret
MOM FRANTICALLY HELPED ME gather all the materials I needed to make my costume, which basically amounted to a bunch of yellow spandex and a pair of black spandex shorts. I was ready to show up at Zion’s house in all of my amazing costume glory just in time for Comic Con. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on everyone faces when they saw the character I’d chosen. He seemed pretty obscure, so I wondered if they’d know him.
Mom dropped me off at Zion’s, and I kicked gently on the door. Mrs. Hill answered with a big toothy smile, all dressed in green spandex (seriously, what was up with comic book characters and spandex?) and a long flowing black wig.
“She-Hulk!” I cried.
She flexed her foam muscles for me, then she took in my costume. Her smile faded.
I looked down at all my spandex, worried one of my butt cheeks was somehow exposed. “What?” I asked her.
“Nothing.”
“Do you know who I am?”
Her frown deepened. “I think so.”
“Well, what’s wrong?” I said, following her into the living room. “Isn’t it amazing?”
All she said was, “Uhhhhhh.”
Zion walked into the room wearing his custom Batman mask and cape. He pulled his mask off. “What the heck are you supposed to be?” he said to me.
I jumped into the middle of the living room with great flourish and announced, “I am Armless Tiger Man!”
“Oh,” Zion said, not nearly as impressed as I’d hoped. “I totally forgot he existed.”
Lando ran into the room. He stepped up onto the coffee table and did a full foamy muscle bodybuilding show for us, doing every pose and flex imaginable. I laughed. “Captain America,” I said.
“You guessed it.” Lando jumped down from the coffee table.
“It was a tough one,” I said. “With all the red, white, and blue and the big ole A on your forehead.”
“But I’m not just Captain America. I’m Isaiah Bradley.” Lando stopped his flexing long enough to scan me up and down. “And you are . . . ” His hands shot to his mouth. “Oh my gosh.” He laughed under his hands.
“What? What’s the big deal?” I jumped up on the coffee table as Lando had, but not nearly as gracefully, and announced, “I am Armless Tiger Man and proud of it!”
Lando laughed harder. “That is so not something to be proud of, Aven.”
“You should have told me your plans,” Zion said to me. “I could have explained it to you.”
“Explained what to me? I wanted it to be a surprise. Remember? This family loves their surprises.”
“Yeah, good surprises,” Zion said.
“What’s not good about my surprise?”
Lando was laughing so hard he could barely speak anymore. Zion’s face was serious, though. “You don’t know anything about Armless Tiger Man, do you?”
“I know he doesn’t have arms, which means he’s awesome. And that he’s a super-villain which makes him even awesomer.” I looked around the room at everyone, but they seemed unconvinced. “His ability to use his feet like hands is listed as a superpower.” I stood there and waited for this information to sink in. Didn’t they realize what it meant? “I have an actual real superpower,” I whispered.
“Honey, I love that you have a real superpower,” Mrs. Hill said. “But how did you even find out about Armless Tiger Man?”
I shrugged. “I Googled ‘Armless comic book characters.’ I couldn’t believe there actually was one. Pretty lucky.”
Zion’s mom shook her head. “Oh, honey, no. No, not lucky.”
“You must not have read much more about him than that he doesn’t have arms,” Lando said between laughing gasps.
“Well, I didn’t exactly have a lot of time.”
There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Hill opened it. Connor walked in wearing a dog costume. “What are you?” I asked him.
He barked. “Guess.”
“Krypto,” said Mrs. Hill.
“Nope,” said Connor.
“Lockjaw,” said Mrs. Hill.
“Nope.”
“Wonder Dog.”
“Nope.”
“Cosmo the Space Dog.”
“Nope.”
“Dylan Dog.”
“Nope.”
“Geez,” I said. “How many dog comic book characters are there?”
“A lot,” said Mrs. Hill, then she jumped up and down. “Oh, oh, oh! Lucky the Pizza Dog!”
“Yes!” said Connor. “I can bark all day long and no one will think anything of it. Comic Con is going to be amazing.” He looked me up and down. “What are you exactly?”
I shrugged. “Everyone’s apparently all horrified that I came as Armless Tiger Man for some reason.”
Connor’s eyes widened. “That’s a real thing?”
“Yeah, can you believe it?” I said.
“Come here,” Lando said, leading me into a room with floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with comic books on every wall.
“Whoa, this is so cool.” I scanned over the shelves while Lando flipped through a book on a small desk. “What’s that?”
Lando took off his Captain America Mask and set it down. “My parents have all the comic books catalogued here so they’re easy to find.”
I stopped in front of a glass case. “What are these?”
“Those are the most valuable ones. One in there is worth ten thousand dollars.”
“Seriously?”
“Here it is,” Lando said. He thumbed over a row of comic books then pulled one out. He flipped through it a moment, then placed it open on the floor in front of me. “Read this.”
I sat down and read, turning the page with a toe. My mouth dropped open. “Ew. Armless Tiger Man is a cannibal?”
Lando snickered. “That’s not all.”
I flipped another page. “Oh my gosh! And a Nazi!” I flipped more pages. “I’m a cannibalistic Nazi!” I shrieked.
Lando was laughing so hard he was bent over, holding his stomach. He finally came up for air to tell me, “You should have been more thorough in your research.”
I fell back on the carpet, the comic book still under
my foot. “I’m like the worst comic book character ever.”
“No, I’m sure there are worse ones,” Lando said.
I stared up at the ceiling. “Like who?”
“The Red Bee has a trained bumblebee.”
“A trained bumblebee would be amazing.”
“Almighty Dollar is an accountant who shoots pennies from his hands.”
“I wish I could do that. I’m broke all the time.”
“Bouncing Boy blows up and bounces around like a human bouncy ball.”
“That would be so much fun.”
“One of Walrus’s superpowers is being good at crossword puzzles.”
“I’d love that. I’m terrible at crossword puzzles.”
“Asbestos Lady wears a suit made of actual asbestos.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fireproof.”
“Yeah, that one’s pretty bad, but it’s still not as bad as Armless Tiger Man.”
“Dogwelder welds dogs to people’s faces.”
I laughed and sat up. “You’re making that one up.”
Lando shook his head. “Nope. I can find him for you.” He searched through the reference book again and brought me a comic, setting it down in front of me. We both giggled as we read about Dogwelder together.
“Oh, there’s also Eye Scream,” Lando said.
“Ice cream?”
“No. Eye. Scream.”
“Oh, man. Does he scream with his eyes?”
“No, he can turn himself into any flavor ice cream he wants.”
“Then why isn’t he called Ice Cream? I don’t get it.”
“Yeah, it’s bizarre.”
“He’s still a way better character than Armless Tiger Man, though. I would immediately turn myself into mint chip. And then I would eat myself for being so stupid and dressing like Armless Tiger Man.”
We sat on the floor together a moment. I looked up and found Lando staring at me, not really smiling. I moved my eyes back to the comic book. “I can’t believe there are all these comic book characters. Who comes up with this stuff?”
Lando closed the comic book with Dogwelder in it and returned it to its proper place on the shelf. “Lots of writers and artists.”
“How do you know about them?”
Lando waved his arms around. “Did you notice the room you’re in?”
Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus Page 10