Michael Grant - Monster

Earbud boy and the two frightened freshmen, as well as the two lumbering thugs, all piled aboard.

“There’s a kid hurt out here,” Shade told the driver.

“Well, tell him to get on-board, he can see the nurse when we get to school.”

“I don’t think she can do that,” Shade said.

Cruz sat on the curb. Blood poured from her nose, and hot tears cut channels in the red, all in all a rather gruesome sight.

Don’t think about a face covered in blood. Don’t go back to that place.

Shade made a quick decision, an instinctive decision. “Go ahead, I’m taking a sick day,” she told the driver. The bus pulled away, trailing vapor and fumes.

“Hey,” Shade said. “Kid. You need me to call 911?”

Cruz shook her head. Her breath came in gasps that threatened to become sobs.

“Come with me, I’ll get you a Band-aid.”

Cruz stood and made it most of the way up before yelping in pain as she tried her left ankle. “Go ahead, I’ll be fine,” Cruz said. “Not my first beating.”

Shade made a soundless laugh. “Yeah, you look fine. Come on. Throw an arm over my shoulders, I’m stronger than I look.” For the first time the two of them made eye contact, Cruz’s tear-filled, furious, hurt, expressive brown eyes and Shade’s more curious look. “I live just down the block. You can’t walk and you’ve got blood all down your face. So either let me call 911, or come with me.”

It was all said in a friendly, easygoing tone of voice, but much of what Shade said tended to have a command in it, like she was talking to a child, or a dog. Lack of self-confidence had never been an issue for her.

They nearly tripped and fell a few times—Cruz had to lean heavily on Shade—but in the end they made their way down the sidewalk and turned left onto the walkway that led through a gate, beneath the tendrils of an overgrown and fading panicle hydrangea bush, to Shade’s back door.

They entered through a kitchen much like every other kitchen in this well-heeled neighborhood: granite counters, a restaurant-quality six-burner stove, and the inevitable doublewide Sub-Zero refrigerator. Shade fetched a baggie, filled it with ice and handed it to Cruz.

“Come on.” They headed upstairs, Cruz holding the carved wood railing and hopping, with Shade behind her ready to catch her if she fell backward.

Shade’s room was on the second floor, walls a cheerful yellow, a gray marble bathroom visible through a narrow door. There was a queen-size bed topped by a white comforter. A desk was against one wall. A dormer window framed a padded window seat.

And there were books. Books in neat shelves on both sides of the desk, between the dormer and the southwest corner, piled around the window seat, piled on an easy chair, piled on Shade’s bedside table.

Shade swept a pile of books from the easy chair and Cruz sat. Shade stepped into her bathroom and came back with a bottle of rubbing alcohol, tissues, a yellow tube of Neosporin, a box of bandages and a glass of water.

“Put your leg up on the corner of the bed,” Shade instructed. Cruz complied and Shade laid the ice bag over the twisted ankle. “Take these. Ibuprofen, it will hold the swelling down and dull the pain.”

“You’re being too nice,” Cruz said. “You don’t even know me.”

“Mmmm, yes, that’s what everyone says about me,” Shade said with a droll, self-aware smile. “That I’m just too darn nice.”

Cruz carefully wiped blood away, using her phone as a mirror. Then, suddenly remembering, she pulled a small purple Moleskine notebook from her back pocket. It was swollen from curb water in one corner, but otherwise unharmed. Cruz stuck it in a dry jacket pocket with a sigh of relief as Shade fetched a trashcan for the bloody Kleenex.

“Shade Darby, by the way. That’s my name.”

“Cool name.”

“It’s something to do with the moment of my conception. I gather there were trees. Not the kind of thing I ask too many questions about, if you know what I mean. And you’re Cruz.”

Cruz nodded. “In case you’re wondering, I have a dick.”

That earned a sudden, single bark of laughter from Shade, which in turn raised a disturbing red and white smile from Cruz.

“Is that a permanent condition?” Shade asked.

Cruz shrugged. “I don’t have a short answer.”

“Give me the long one. I’ll tell you if I get bored.” She flopped on her bed.

“OK. Well . . . You know it’s all on a spectrum, right? I mean, there are people—most people—born either M or F and are perfectly fine with that. And some people are born with one body but a completely different mind, you know? They know from, like, toddler age that they are in the wrong body. Me, I’m . . . more kind of neither. Or both. Or something.”

“You’re e), all of the above. You’re multiple choice, but on a True/False test.”

That earned another blood-smeared grin from Cruz. “Can I use that line?”

“I understand spectra, and I even get that sexuality and gender are different things,” Shade said, sitting up. “This is not Alabama, after all. Or it didn’t used to be. Our sex ed does not end with Adam and Eve.”

“You’re . . . unusual,” Cruz said.

“Mmmm,” Shade said.

“I like boys, mostly,” Cruz said with a shrug. “If that clears anything up.”

“Me too,” Shade said. Then with a small skeptical sound added, “In theory. Not always in reality.”

Cruz gave her a sidelong glance. “I saw you with that boy, the tall, dark and crazy-good-looking one?”

“Malik?” Shade was momentarily thrown off stride. She was not used to people as observant as herself.

“He likes you.”

“Liked, past tense. We’re just friends now.”

Cruz shook her head slowly, side to side. “He looked back at you, like, three times.”

“So, you’re a straight girl trapped in the body of a gay boy? Walk me through it.” Shade deliberately shifted the conversation back to Cruz, and she was amused and gratified to see that Cruz knew exactly what she was doing.

Smart , Shade thought. Too smart? Just smart enough?

“I am e), all of the above, trapped in a True/False quiz,” Cruz said. “You can quote me on that.”

“Pronouns?”

Cruz shrugged. “More she than he. I don’t get bitchy about it, but, you know, if you can . . .” Now it was Cruz’s turn to shift the topic. “You read a lot.”

“Yes, but I only do it to made myself popular.” The line was delivered flat and Shade could see that Cruz was momentarily at a loss, not sure if this was the truth, before realizing it was just a wry joke.

It took Cruz maybe a second, a second and a half, to process, Shade noted. Slower than Shade would have been, slower than Malik, but not stupid slow, not at all. Just not genius quick.

“I’ll call us in sick,” Shade said, and pressed her thumb to her phone.

“I don’t think you can do that.”

“Please.” Shade dialed, waited, said, “Hello, this is Shade Darby, senior. I’m feeling a little off today, and I’m also calling in sick for—” She covered the phone and asked, “What’s your legal name?”

“Hugo Cruz Martinez Rojas.”

“Hugo Rojas. Yeah, she’s hurt. A couple of our star football players roughed her up. Yes. No. Uh-huh.” Shade hung up. “See? No problem. The school is already dealing with the swastika incident. They don’t want any more bad publicity.”

“Swastika incident?”

“Spray paint on the side of the temporary building, the one they use for music. A swastika and the usual hate stuff, half of it misspelled. It’s two ‘g’s’ not one. One ‘g’ and it’s a country in Africa. Sad times when someone does that, sadder still when they can’t even spell it.”