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Mom ruffled my dark hair and sighed. “You’re a genius, yes, but I don’t like you hanging out only with a bunch of old people.”
“Two isn’t a bunch.”
I guess I’d sort of been hoping Mom would forget our deal. Or maybe Holy Ghost (who named that school, anyway?) would disappear off the face of the earth in a freak cataclysmic accident.
“Mom.” I got real serious and made her look me in the eyes. “No one wants to be friends with a freak.” I tapped my cane on the ground twice. One of my legs was shorter than the other, which meant I walked with a dumb limp. It earned me all sorts of nicknames from the other kids: Sir Limps-a-Lot, McGimpster, Zane the Cane, and my all-time favorite: Uno—for the one good leg.
“You are not a freak, Zane, and…”
Oh boy. Her eyes got all watery like they were going to drown in her sadness.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said, because I’d rather face a hundred hateful eyes than two crying ones.
She straightened, wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, and said, “Your uniform is pressed and waiting on your bed. Oh, and I have a present for you.”
Notice how she dropped the bad news with something good? She should’ve run for mayor. There was no point in my griping about the uniform, even though the tie would probably give my neck a rash. Instead I decided to focus on the word present, and I held my breath, hoping it wasn’t a rosary or something. Mom went to a cabinet and pulled out a skinny umbrella-size box with a silver ribbon tied around it.
“What is it?”
“Just open it.” Her hands twitched with excitement.
I ripped open the box to get to the present that we didn’t have money for. Inside was a wad of brown paper and under that, a shiny black wooden cane. It had a brass tip shaped like a dragon’s head. “This is…” I blinked, searching for the right word.
“Do you like it?” Her smile could’ve lit up the whole world.
I turned the cane in my hands, testing its weight, and decided it looked like something a warrior would carry, which made it the coolest gift in the universe. “I bet it cost a lot.”
Mom shook her head. “It was given to me….Mr. Chang died last week, remember?”
Mr. Chang was a rich client who lived in a grande house in town and sent Mom home with chow mein every Tuesday. He was also a customer of Ms. Cab’s—she was the one who’d gotten Mom the job to take care of him until he died. I hated to think of Mom hanging out with dying people, but as she always said, we had to eat. I’d tried eating less, but that was getting harder and harder the older I got. I’d already reached a whopping five foot nine. That made me the tallest in my family.
I ran my hands over the brass dragon head with the flames flying out of its mouth.
“He collected all sorts of things,” Mom continued. “And his daughter said I should have this. She knew you—” She stopped herself. “She said the dragon symbolizes protection.”
So Mom thought I needed protection. That made me feel pretty miserable. But I knew she meant well.
I rested my weight against it. It felt perfect, like it was made for me. I was excited to cruise around with this much cooler cane instead of my dumb plain brown one that screamed I’m a freak. “Thanks, Mom. I really like it.”
“I thought it would make going back to school… easier,” Mom said.
Right. Easier. Nothing, not even this warrior dragon cane, was going to make my being the new kid any easier.
It was a low point, and I didn’t think things could get any worse. But boy, was I wrong.
That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about the next day. My stomach was all twisted in knots, and I wished I could turn into primordial ooze and seep into the ground. Rosie knew something was up, because she let out little groans and nuzzled her head against my hand, soft-like. I petted the white patch between her eyes in small circles.
“I know, girl,” I whispered. “But Mom looked so happy.”
I wondered what my dad would say about the whole thing. Not that I’d ever know—I’d never even met the guy. He and Mom hadn’t gotten married, and he’d bounced before I was born. She’d only told me three things about him: He was superbly handsome (her words, not mine). He was from Mexico’s Yucatán region. (She’d spent time there before I was born and said the sea is like glass.) And the third thing? She loved him to pieces. Whatever.
It was all quiet, except for the crickets and my guts churning. I clicked on the lamp and sat up.
On my nightstand was the Maya mythology book Mom had given me for my eighth birthday. It was part of a five-volume set about Mexico, but this book was the coolest. I figured it was her way of showing me my dad’s culture without having to talk about him. The book had a tattered green cover with big gold letters on it: The Myths and Magic of the Maya. It was filled with color illustrations and stories about the adventures of different gods, kings, and heroes. The gods sounded awesome, but authors lie all the time.
I opened the book. On the endpapers was an illustration of a Maya death mask made of crumbling jade, with squinted lidless eyes and square stone teeth like tiny gravestones.
I swear the face was smiling at me.
