Burn Read online

  Poor SciFi. The guy won’t know what hit him.

  Everything I touch turns to shit, Cameron thinks. Everything.

  “You know Elliott?” Cameron asks.

  “Elliott Mercer?” Computer Geek asks.

  Cameron doesn’t know SciFi’s last name. He shrugs. “Big dude?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You going to see him after school?”

  “No. Club is Thursdays,” he says. “Elliott is at the elementary school, playing with the band.”

  “He’s off campus?”

  “They left last period.”

  So he’s safe. Cameron will look for SciFi first thing in the morning and warn him.

  That’s all he can do.

  TUESDAY

  4:30PM

  Cameron makes it home without breaking a sweat. In the last minutes of Spanish class he decided he wasn’t going to run. He wasn’t going to hide. He waited until the whole class was moving toward the door, then he got up, told Mrs. Marino he couldn’t stay after all, and walked out. He heard her calling after him but kept moving. The halls were crammed with students. Cameron walked the long way to his locker, stuffed his notebook into the small space left, and took his history book. He didn’t think he’d get to the questions Hart assigned, but just in case.

  All the way home, Cameron thought about Patterson and how this one guy has ruined his life. He looked inside himself for the fire that usually came with thoughts of Patterson, but all he felt was a cold so intense his fingers were numb. His toes, too. Sometimes when he touches fire the same thing happens; he can’t feel his fingers or his toes. And he thought about how two different conditions can result in the same thing. How fire and ice can both burn.

  His mom is already home, in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Cameron watches her through the window. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail; she probably ran the lake path, came home, and stuffed laundry into the dryer. She does that, plans things so that she doesn’t lose time. Dirty clothes go into the washer before she leaves; they’re ready for the dryer when she gets back. She probably mopped the floors, too, so they could dry while she was out.

  He doesn’t like that he thinks like her. That he maps out his day with survival being the only objective.

  His mother believes in prevention. She’s all about salads with dinner and berry smoothies for breakfast so they don’t get cancer, and Scouts and sports so her boys don’t go wild.

  She’s no good at fixing things.

  So where does that leave Cameron?

  Who’s going to fix him? Because he knows now without a doubt that something is wrong with him. When it was on the inside it was possible he was imagining it. That it wasn’t as bad as he thought. Now that it’s spreading, there’s no denying that he is a carrier.

  SciFi wasn’t even a blip on Patterson’s radar until he spotted him with Cameron.

  His gut tightens. SciFi’s life is about as over as Cameron’s. And when Patterson’s through with him, SciFi won’t want anything to do with Cameron. Back to being a ghost.

  Cameron must have zoned out because suddenly his mother is at the window, tapping it with her index finger, and Cameron’s whole body jerks back. His hands fly to his face, the first reaction of a person under attack. She took him by surprise; he doesn’t even do that at school anymore. He’s always on his guard there.

  Cameron tries to cover the action by pushing his hands through his hair.

  It doesn’t work. His mother’s face folds into concern.

  “Are you coming in?”

  The double-paned glass makes her voice distant. He spent most of this year hearing like this, watching things happen around him like he’s not really connected to the world.

  “Cameron?”

  She disappears and a moment later the kitchen door swings open. She steps out onto the deck.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

  “Are you coming inside?”

  He nods. Tries to shake himself out of the land of the lost.

  “You run the lake path?” he asks as he climbs the last step and squeezes past her.

  “Yes. I just got back.”

  “I ran the half mile in two-ten today,” he says.

  “That’s great.”

  “We had to run inside,” he explains. “The track was flooded.”

  “There was a lot of rain on the path, too.” She moves toward the refrigerator. “I thought you stopped running.”

  “Not totally. My PE teacher wants to see me on the track team next year.”

  “I do, too,” she says. She opens the fridge. “You want a snack?”

  His mother has every other Tuesday off, which means they’ll eat dinner out tonight.

  He drops his backpack and moves toward her. “Where are we eating?”

  “How about Chinese?”

  He takes hold of the refrigerator door and opens it farther, peering in around her. “How about Italian?”

  He grabs an apple from the crisper and moves away.

  “What else happened at school today?” she asks.

  “Why?” He bites into the apple and the juice runs down his throat. He doesn’t really remember tasting his food lately; maybe that’s why the sweetness of the apple stings his mouth.

  She shrugs. “This is the first time in a long time you’re talking to me.”

  “We’re talking about food,” he says.

  “And your running prowess.”

  He shrugs. “Yeah. PE was good today, I guess. Tech class, too. Me and SciFi finished our project and turned it in. A day early.”

  His mother’s eyebrows shoot up. “That’s an improvement.”

  He nods. “So, you want Italian?”

  “My vote is Chinese. We’ll let Robbie weigh in, but no swaying his vote,” she says.

  He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his progress report. “Spanish wasn’t so good.” He hands her the paper. “Mrs. Marino wants you to sign this. I need to give it back to her tomorrow or you’ll have to come in and talk to her.”

  “Have you been doing your homework?”

  “Not really.” No point in lying when she’s looking right at the proof. “Spanish is hard.”

  His mom’s eyes move side to side as they scan his grades, or lack of them. Cameron noticed, when Mrs. Marino pulled out his progress report in class, that there were a lot of zeros on it.

  “You said the same thing about PE and English.”

  “I’m doing better in PE.”

  “How about English?”

  “We’re reading Hemingway,” he says. “Some of his short stories. I like them so far, so I guess I’m doing a little better.” Which is true. He does the reading, and that’s more than he did with the last book. “I’m participating.” Because Mrs. Cowan calls on him. A lot. Probably because he does none of the writing exercises.

  “Cameron.”

  Her voice is flat, weighted by her disappointment, and Cameron feels the pressure build in his jaw until he’s grinding his teeth.

  “I’m doing better,” he says. That should count.

  His mother lays the progress report on the counter and lets her eyes fall on him. “You’ve always been a good student.”

  “I told you, high school —”

  “Is hard. I get it.”

  Her fingers push the paper back and forth, but she keeps her eyes on him. He hates that, when she tries to look into him, like he has a big secret and if she could only figure it out she’d understand him. That will never happen. She doesn’t have the first clue about what his life is like. Even when he tells her flat out, she’s all about making it look pretty and not seeing what it really is: an ugly mess. Her idea to get Patterson off his back: Tomorrow, I want you to go to the guidance counselor. Tell him what’s going on. Well, Cameron did, and the day after that Patterson gave him a bloody nose.

  “Cameron,” his mom calls him back to the present. “I almost never see you with a book.”
/>   Anger rises up in his throat. It’s not his fault. If he could think when he was at school, he’d do better. He always did better than this.

  “I do my homework in my room,” he says.

  “You just told me you’re not doing it.”

  “My math homework and history. I do that at my desk in my room.”

  “Fine,” she says. “But you’ll do Spanish at the kitchen table. English, too, until I see your next report card.”

  “Mom!” Cameron’s heart beats so loud it’s all he hears. He takes a deep breath, holds it, blows it out through his nose. He has to slow down. Isn’t this what he expected? In fact, he thought it’d be worse. He pulls in another breath, feels his lungs expand, his hands loosen.

  “One hour to eat a snack and play a video game or watch some TV. Then I want you at the table, where I can see you and give you some help.”

  Another breath and he feels almost normal. Human anyway, and not a danger to anyone.

  “Help? You don’t speak Spanish.”

  “No, but I speak English. I can help you with that. The Spanish we can figure out together.”

  “Now I’m under house arrest.”

  “Prisoners don’t get privileges,” she points out. “I haven’t taken any of those away from you. Yet.”

  TUESDAY

  5:00PM

  “What are you doing?”

  Cameron looks up from his history book. His brother is standing in the door, still suited in his Scout uniform.

  “What does it look like?”

  “Homework, but it can’t be. You don’t do homework.”

  “He does now.” Their mother walks in from the laundry room, carrying a basket of folded clothes. Her eyes find and lock on Cameron. “You need help?”

  He hates being in the crosshairs. Hates that he’s such an easy target.

  “No.”

  “What question are you on?”

  “ ‘Was justice ever achieved under the Monroe Doctrine? Cite your evidence.’ ”

  “What number is that?”

  “Two.”

  She nods, but her mouth stays neutral. Clearly, he isn’t moving as fast as she’d like.

  “I’m going to put this away.” She lifts the basket a little higher. “Then I’m coming back and I want to hear your answer.”

  “It might take a little longer than that,” he warns.

  “Then we’ll bring you home takeout,” she says, over her shoulder, as she moves into the living room and beyond.

  “Wow, what did you do?” Robbie asks. He sits down across from his brother, pulls off his neckerchief. “Get a report card today?”

  He’s smiling like a damn pumpkin.

  “Shut up.”

  Robbie’s voice changes, gets that deep and serious tone only the unnaturally big can produce. “Something happened at the high school.”

  Dread thickens the air in Cameron’s lungs. “What do you mean?”

  “I rode by on my way back from Scouts. A lot of cops there, lights and sirens. What do you think happened?”

  Cameron’s stomach does a nosedive. He thinks about SciFi and how the football team’s going to turn him into hamburger. But not today. SciFi isn’t at school.

  “I don’t know,” Cameron says. “I’m not at school. I’m here, on death row.”

  Robbie laughs. “Use the index,” he suggests. “It’ll go faster.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “Staring at a blank page.”

  Cameron looks down at his notebook. He didn’t answer the first question. Something about the Big Club theory. Robbie throws his bandana on the table and leans into Cameron’s space.

  “How many questions?”

  “Four.” Cameron flips back to the index and looks up Monroe Doctrine. “Three for passing credit.”

  “If you get them right,” Robbie agrees. “I’ll help you.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Mom won’t leave you here and I’m starving.”

  “There’s got to be some bread and water around here.”

  Robbie laughs. Cameron reads a little about the Monroe Doctrine, then writes a sentence into his notebook.

  “You see any kids in front of the school?”

  Robbie shakes his head. “The principal was there. Some parents, too, I think. Cops. It looked like it was all over and they were trying to figure out what happened.”

  Their mother walks back into the room, the empty basket dangling from her fingers.

  “Well?” she asks. “What have you learned about the Monroe Doctrine?”

  “It was an exciting development in foreign policy.” He made it up, but it sounds good and how is she going to know the difference?

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s a start,” he says. “A pretty good start.” He scans the page and then reads aloud, “Under the Monroe Doctrine European powers could no longer colonize America. That’s my evidence.”

  His mother smiles. “Sounds good.” She turns her attention to Robbie. “Maybe you should start your homework,” she suggests. “You can do it right here, too.”

  Robbie pushes his chair back and protests, “My grades are good.”

  “I want them to stay that way,” she says. “And that last math test was a D.”

  “I stayed after school and got help,” Robbie reminds her.

  “That’s true.” She pauses, thinks about it. “We’ll see.”

  She ducks back into the laundry room and soon Cameron hears the sound of the washer filling.

  “This sucks,” Robbie says.

  “Guilt by association,” Cameron agrees and smiles.

  “I stayed after school with Mrs. Harlodson. For an hour.”

  “You having a hard time in math?”

  “Yeah. I hate it. You could help me, you know.”

  “I could, but then you’d have to look up to me.”

  Robbie chuckles. “That’s not going to happen. How about a trade? I’ll do that history assignment and you do my math?”

  Cameron considers this. “I like the sound of that.”

  Robbie waves over the textbook. “What’s the next question?”

  “Number one.”

  “What?”

  “I skipped it.”

  Robbie reads the question, flips through the book, and a minute later reads an answer off to Cameron.

  “You write it,” Cameron says and rolls the pencil toward him.

  “You have to put it in your own writing,” Robbie insists. “Otherwise Mom and your teacher will know you didn’t do it yourself.”

  Cameron eyes him hard. “You know a lot about cheating,” he says.

  “Not really. Beginner’s intuition.”

  “Sure.” But Cameron picks up the pencil and starts writing. “Give it to me again.”

  Robbie reads from the book and Cameron edits out some of the words he doesn’t think are absolutely necessary. He does it for answers three and four, too. They’re just finishing up the last question when Randy walks through the door.

  He doesn’t knock. He stopped doing that a long time ago.

  “What are you two up to?”

  “Homework,” Robbie says.

  “Whose?”

  “Mine,” Cameron admits. “Robbie’s helping me, then I’ll help him with math.”

  Cameron decides it has to be the guy’s uniform, the badge pinned to his chest, that pulls the confession from him. He and Robbie sit a long minute under Randy’s considering gaze before their mother’s boyfriend decides they’re telling the truth.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “Upstairs. Getting ready for dinner,” Robbie says.

  “Good. I thought we’d go surf and turf tonight,” Randy says. “Maybe Hanover’s on the Lake.” He walks across the room and says over his shoulder, “You boys will need to clean up a little.”

  He moves through the house, up the stairs. Cameron hears his keys and change jangling in his pockets.

  �
��He’s coming to dinner,” Cameron says.

  “He’s been trying harder. I heard him tell Mom he wants to take us to an Eagles game. That’s five months away.”

  Cameron thinks about this. When they first got together, his mom stayed with Randy three months straight. It never lasts longer than that.

  “Maybe he’ll stick around longer this time,” Robbie suggests.

  Cameron hears the way his brother’s voice lifts, gets a little thin with hope. He remembers how he used to go to bed at night thinking that if Randy came around the next day maybe they could pass the football or play some one-on-one. It never happened. Just about the time Cameron started believing the guy had endurance, he always disappeared.

  “He won’t,” Cameron says. It’s better not to even start thinking it.

  TUESDAY

  6:15PM

  They can’t have Chinese or Italian. Cameron sits in the back of Randy’s Dodge King Cab and pulls at the collar of his shirt. His mom made him button it until it was cinched around his neck. Bad enough if the shirt fit him, but he wore it last when he was thirteen, more than a year ago. Yeah, Mom, even I do grow a little, he thinks. “The shirt is too small,” he told her. She suggested he roll back the cuffs; he did. Randy told him the collar would look better if he wore a tie, but he wasn’t asking him to. Randy only wore the tie that came with his uniform; he didn’t own any others and was real happy about that.

  Randy never joined them on family night out. And they always voted on where they ate.

  “Randy has veto power,” Robbie had said, as they stood in their bedroom looking at each other in their navy blue pants and ironed shirts. His mom never ironed; she threw everything in the dryer. “This is getting serious.”

  The hope was back in his voice.

  “We look like the Hardy Boys,” Robbie said.

  “Yeah.” The biggest geeks ever. “He’s not staying, you know.”

  “I’ve been counting,” Robbie confessed. “They’ve been back together one hundred and eighteen days. They’ve never lasted that long.”

  “As your older brother I feel it’s my responsibility to warn you — don’t believe it. Don’t buy into it. Mom won’t keep him.”