Blackbird Fly (15 page)

“The Model Airplane Youth Builders Organization. The club I was telling you about. The one I wanna start.”

“That's kinda a long name, isn't it?”

“That's why I call it MAYBO.”

“Why didn't you just name it the Model Airplane Builders Club?”

“Because M-A-B-C doesn't spell anything.”

“Neither does M-A-Y-B-O.”

He sighed as I opened my locker. “Look, do you wanna hear the story or not?” He continued. “I was turning in my form for my
awesomely named club
MAYBO, and a kid came in to turn Gretchen's purse in to the lost and found. One of the secretaries recognized it. She said it was the third time this year that someone had turned it in. Apparently the zombie bride is an airhead—those are my words—anyway, they were about to do the morning announcements, and I just got the idea to clear your name. Somebody had to do it. So I asked if I could do the pledge. I told Principal Earnshaw I was having trouble fitting in as a new kid, and it would be a good way to get my name out there.”

“And he believed you?”

“Of course. I can be very charming.”

Evan and I made our way down the south hall. I'm not sure why—maybe just to prove a point, to make myself feel better, or to give her a chance to
apologize—but I walked right up to Gretchen's locker. She and Alyssa were chatting, but when we approached, they stopped talking. I kept my eyes on Gretchen.

“I'm glad they found your purse,” I said. “I told you I didn't take it.”

Gretchen opened her mouth, but Alyssa held up her index finger and cut her off.

“Whatever, Apple,” she said. “How do we know that your freakish boyfriend didn't plant it behind that vending machine for you? I heard he was in the office when the purse was ‘found.' Sounds suspicious to me. I still wouldn't trust you around any of my stuff.” She pulled her own purse close to her hip.

“If that's what you need to believe to feel better about yourself, then go ahead,” said Evan. He pulled my arm gently.

“Aw, Klepto and Freakboy make such a great couple, don't they?” Alyssa called after us.

“So much for clearing my name,” I said.

“The people who matter know you're innocent,” said Evan.

“But that's just you and me.”

“Exactly.”

The tardy bell was about to ring. I could tell by the way the hallway was thinning out. Before Evan and I turned the corner, I said, “My mom's having a friend over tonight. You can come over for dinner if you want. But just a warning—she's making fish.” I pinched my nose.

“Great. I love fish,” Evan said.

I spotted Lance and Jake coming toward us down the hallway. Over the past week or so, I had developed keen Lance-Jake-Braden-Alyssa radar. It worked really well too.

They didn't slow down, and for a second I thought they were going to ignore us. No such luck. Lance started barking. The barks were low and snippy at first, but then they got louder, like he was trying to sound like a German shepherd or
a Doberman. Jake laughed like an idiot.

Before Evan and I could react, they'd turned the corner.

“We don't really eat dog,” I said to Evan quietly.

“I know,” he replied.

W
hen Evan came over, the first thing I wanted to do was properly introduce him to George, John, Ringo, and Paul. We went into my room, and I turned on
The White Album
. We had to leave the door open, because my mother said I wasn't allowed to have Evan in my room with the door closed. He sat on the floor with his back against the foot of my bed and looked at my poster of Matt Costa, but I could tell
he wasn't really-really looking at it. He was listening to my mom speak Cebuano on the phone with Lita. I couldn't understand everything she was saying, but it sounded like she was asking her to bring something sweet for dessert.

“When you talk to your mom, do you speak your language or do you speak English?” asked Evan.

“English, mostly,” I said, sitting down on the floor too.

“Why?”

“Because. We're in America. What's the point?”

“Because it's where you're from. Who cares if you're in America? Everyone can still speak different languages. It'd be boring if everyone spoke just one. Middle-earth didn't have just one language. There were tons. The dwarves even had secret languages inside their languages.”

“I'll stick with English. I don't want to make myself any more of a freak than I already am. It's bad enough that people are saying I'm a . . . dog-eater.”
Even though we both already knew that, it was embarrassing to think it, much less say it out loud.

“People are stupid sometimes,” said Evan quietly. “All I know is, I wish I could speak another language.”

“Well . . . I could teach you some words. Maybe not curse words, but real words.”

Evan's face lit up in a wide smile. “Cool. Like what?”

I looked around the room. My eyes finally settled on Matt Costa again—holding his acoustic guitar and smiling down on both of us. Matt Costa is a singer from California. He's written a lot of really good songs, like “Sunshine” and “Mr. Pitiful.”

“Matt Costa is
guwapo
,” I said.

Evan repeated it. “What's that mean?”

“It means ‘Matt Costa is handsome.'”

Evan stuck out his tongue like he'd just tasted something really gross. “Uh, if you're going to teach me Cebuano, you're gonna have to teach me much better stuff than that!”

I laughed.

“What's so great about Matt Costa?” asked Evan, motioning toward the poster. “He looks kinda goofy, if you ask me.”

“I don't think so. Besides, I don't really care what he looks like. He's super talented and has a good sense of humor.”

“How do you know he has a good sense of humor?”

“I can tell by his music.”

“So you would date Quasimodo if he could play the guitar and had a good sense of humor?”

“Who is Quasimodo?”

“The hunchback of Notre Dame.”

I shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe. He'd have to be really funny though. And he'd have to play the guitar better than anyone who ever lived. Better than George Harrison.”

We sat there through four songs, with me drumming along with my hands and Evan staring into the corner of my room, chewing on his nail, deep in thought. By the time the music stopped, Lita had
arrived and my mother was calling us so she could meet Evan.

“Hey, Mom,” I said as we walked into the kitchen.
“Mangaon ta.”
Evan nodded at me and grinned knowingly.

My mother looked too confused to respond. She hadn't heard me speak our language in a long time. She raised her eyebrows at Evan.

“I said ‘let's eat,'” I explained to Evan.

“So you're Apple's friend!” said Lita. She was holding a big bag of defrosted fish; it looked like a sack of gray slime with eyes. My mother, who was wearing her Mabuhay Philippines! apron, took the bag and plopped it into the sink.

“What does
maboo-hay
mean?” asked Evan.

“Means ‘Long live the Philippines!'” said my mother.
“Mabuhay! Mabuhay!”

Then Lita joined in. “
Mabuhay
Philippines!”

This would normally be one of those times when
I'd wish to turn into a blackbird and fly away, but then Evan waved his open hands in the air and shouted
“Mabuhay!”
too. Then he launched into a series of fish-related questions as he watched my mother. Do you eat the eyes? What's all that slime? How do you cook these things?

As far as I was concerned, a fish should be battered and deep-fried, not cooked in its own skin on top of the stove.

When my mother finished hacking off the heads, she washed her hands for a long time. She has this obsession with clean hands, I guess because she's a nurse.

Evan picked up a fish by its tail and examined it closely.

“This is pretty gross,” he said. “Good thing my mom's not here.”

“Why?” I asked.

“She's a vegetarian. She would be pretty upset to see fish getting their heads chopped off.” He dropped the fish back on the pile of its headless friends.

My mom turned off the faucet and dried her hands on a dish towel. “When I was a little girl, we ate lots of rice, fish, and vegetables. And we got haircuts,” she said, flicking at Evan's hair playfully.

“And we ate plantains,” Lita added. “What about your father, Evan? Does he eat meat?”

Evan nodded. “It drives my mom crazy, but he does it anyway. She says, ‘Don't you know you're eating a living, breathing being?' And he looks at his fork and says, ‘It looks pretty dead to me.' Then he eats it. When I'm home, my mom makes me eat what she cooks, but she lets me eat what I want at school. My dad says that doesn't count anyway, because school lunch is made of mystery meat.”

I imagined Evan and his parents sitting around the dinner table—his dad slicing into a juicy steak, his mom fussing and smelling like the art room, and Evan talking about books and airplanes.

I wondered what it was like to have a complete family.

T
here are only a few small things I remember about the Philippines, but my mom used to say that, when we first moved to America, I would tell her that I missed home, especially the ocean.

“When you say something out loud, it makes it a big truth. Best to keep it in your mind and keep it small,” she'd say.

The Dog Log was a spoken thing, something out
loud that was more real to me than anything else, even more real than my father, since the idea of him felt far away like the Philippines. But the one thing that made the Dog Log a little less real was the fact that it was banned from school and there was no written copy of it—no piece of paper for everyone to see. So I could kind of pretend that the list didn't exist, that I wasn't on it, or that no one knew about it.

Until the following Tuesday morning.

Braden strode into homeroom as always—like he was making a grand entrance—with his phone in his hand. He walked over to Claire Hathaway and showed her something on the screen. It was clear that they'd had a conversation before, because he was saying, “See? You're on the list. Told you.” Claire's cheeks turned pink. I glanced down at my notebook and pretended I wasn't listening. I couldn't help listening though.

When Claire giggled, I knew they couldn't be talking about the Dog Log. And there was no way someone like Claire would be on the Dog Log anyway.

Danica Landry walked over to Claire and Braden. “What list?” she asked.

I propped my elbow up on my desk and rested my head in my hand so I could pretend I was studying something important instead of eavesdropping.

“The Hot Lot. We're starting a new tradition,” said Braden. “It's a list of the hottest girls in school.”

There was a pause, and I just knew Danica was scrolling through the list, probably hoping with all her might that she was included. I could tell that she wasn't, because pretty soon she started picking apart all the girls who were. Carol Anne Nelson's hair was too long. Nicole Rentrop's hair was too short. And then—

“How come
Gretchen Scott's
number one?” asked Danica. “She's not even pretty.”

Gretchen, number one on this so-called “Hot Lot”? I wondered what Alyssa and Gretchen would think about that. I wasn't surprised—Gretchen
was
pretty—but the thought of a “Hot Lot” seemed way more stupid than a “Dog Log.”

I wished I was on that list instead of the other one though.

“What's this second list?” asked Danica.

I felt trouble coming. And sure enough: “That's the Dog Log,” said Braden.