Rogue Read Online Free Page B

said you try too hard.”
    Teeth gritted, I snap at him, “So? I’m not supposed to try?”
How, then, am I supposed to make friends?
    The boy shrugs. “You don’t have to be mean.”
    â€œSorry,” I mumble.
    He holds out a grubby hand, palm up. “I’m Brandon.”
    â€œHi, Brandon.” I reach out to shake his hand.
    â€œSlap it. Like this.”
    I give him an awkward high five that mainly catches his thumb.
    â€œWant to play with me?” he asks. “I got wrestlers.”
    I don’t want to play with a little kid. Chad’s the one I want as a friend, even if he said I
try too hard.
“I’m busy. Reading.” I hold the book in front of Brandon’s face.
    â€œPretty please. Sugar on top.” He pushes my book downward with pencil-eraser-size fingers and flashes his gummy smile. Freckles dot his little nose.
    â€œOkay, okay. For a few minutes.”
    He dashes across the street and into his house. When he doesn’t come out right away, I flip to chapter three, hoping that maybe he forgot or found something better to do. I get through a page and a half before he reappears holding a shoebox.
    I groan. “Let me finish this page, okay?”
    â€œHurry up. You promised.”
    Inside the box are four-inch-tall plastic men, some naked to the waist, others with sleeveless shirts, all with oversize muscles. I set my book facedown on the platform, leaving animals behind for a little boy. Brandon leads me to the opposite corner of the park, where there’s a children’s playground with swings, a seesaw, and a pile of dirt in the place of what used to be a sandbox. We sit on the ground next to the dirt pile.
    He hands me a wrestler. “The Miz,” he says. He calls out other names as he pulls out figures. “Tatanka. Matt Hardy. The Rock. The Boogeyman.”
    I pick out an Asian-looking guy with lots of hair who wears a karate costume. “Who’s this one?”
    â€œFunaki. Tag team champion.”
    â€œI’m into X-Men. You heard of them?” I say.
    â€œNope.”
    â€œI got a bunch of comic books and stuff.”
    With the foot of one of his wrestlers, Brandon makes a lopsided circle in the dirt. I think of bringing over my figures. But I’m not supposed to mix X-Men with anything else because X-Men only go with each other—not with wrestlers or Power Rangers or Transformers. And I don’t want to get them scratched or dirty.
    â€œYou can have a girl, ’cause you’re a girl.” He hands me a dark-skinned woman with black hair and a gray bodysuit. “That’s Kristal. She’s on the side of The Miz.”
    I turn her over. She doesn’t look anything like Rogue. But I can pretend.
    Brandon smacks two bare-chested figures together, grinds them into the dirt, slams one down onto the other one, all the while talking to himself. He uses some pretty nasty words too, words I don’t expect a five- or six-year-old to know. Sitting next to him, I smell fertilizer—manure mixed with chemicals—and for a moment remember how Mami used to grow beans and tomatoes in our backyard, like her family did for generations in their small plot in El Salvador. My eyes are drawn to Brandon’s ruler-straight hair, crookedly parted, roots crusted with grime. I wonder when he last took a bath.
    â€œLet’s make a ring,” I say.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œWant to come with me to get a shovel?”
    â€œI’m not ’lowed in anyone’s house. I’m s’posed to stay here.” He bites his lower lip.
    â€œThen don’t go anywhere. It’ll only take a couple of minutes.”
    I take the shortcut through the fence, unlock the back door, and grab a trowel hanging from a peg on the basement wall. When I return, Brandon hasn’t moved. He’s a lot better at sitting still than his brother. I dig a dungeon-like ring with smooth walls and a flat floor.