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A decent start for a beginning it has a good foundation for its follow-up. I personally enjoyed it, and hope to hear more. smile

3
One drizzly evening in April, when all the other families were eating dinner, I journeyed outside, lugging a trash bag to the street. I liked this time best, I could come out of the house without people staring, gossiping, offending my dad and therefore earning me a few extra bruises. As usual, my stomach hurt; I’d just eaten, but I’d had more than usual this time and felt sick, nauseated. I turned the trash can over, kicked the bag inside, and stood it up again, too short to swing it in over the top; then, seeing no one around and feeling very sick indeed, I crawled beneath a bush, dug myself a hole, and emptied my stomach of the burnt-chicken-instant-mashed-potatoes dinner I’d made. Then I pushed dirt over it and sat back against the wall, breathing hard through my mouth.
It was my dad’s fault—I threw up a lot if dinner was unsatisfactory and he hurt me for it. Chicken was new, chicken was hard; I didn’t know it would burn so easily. It was unnecessary to hit me for it, because he couldn’t do any better, could he? And now I’d gone and gotten rid of everything in me, and no chance of more food tonight. It was all his fault.
God, I wish I’d thought like that then. Instead, I was berating myself for being so stupid and letting myself cry a little, humming as I counted to 4000. Of course I had to go in before that, but in just a minute, just another minute…I’d gotten sick again, days ago, and it wasn’t getting better, I wanted to rest for awhile.
I curled up in the neighbor’s flowerbed and napped for a minute, so tired that I felt like I could sleep forever. I kept crying—why was I so sickly and weak? Why couldn’t I be good enough for my dad? What if he got fed up with me and sent me away like he kept threatening to do? Where would I go? How—?
My skin prickled as I felt someone’s eyes on me.
I raised my head, slowly, naturally, and took a discreet look around like I did in class, when I didn’t want to be seen. No one…no one…no…wait….
I thought I saw the outline of something across the street, but I couldn’t be sure—but just when I dropped my head again, something moved, darted out, and I sat up in time to see a little Indian girl sticking her hand into our garbage can.
She froze, a deer in headlights, our eyes locked. She was cute, with big eyes and glossy hair, and wore beaded blue cloth draped into a simple little dress, and no shoes. She was caught red-handed, and knew it, but I was just worried that my dad, sitting in the living room in front of the TV, would see her and hurt her too. I stood up to go and warn her, unable to shout….
The girl took off, disappearing into the scrublands behind our neighborhood.
I stared after her for a minute, confused; then I remembered where I was and how late it was getting, and hurried inside to finish my chores.

The night after that, I messed up again.
“GODDAMMIT EVAN!” my dad roared at me, kicking me as I knelt over another puddle of vomit, sick again. He’d hit me, and I’d thrown up, all over the goddamn rug. Clearly my fault. “I’M NOT TAKING YOU TO THE F—ING HOSPITAL THIS TIME, NO MORE, YOU PATHETIC LITTLE b***h, SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE NOW? IF THAT DOESN’T COME OUT, THEN SO HELP ME—”
I couldn’t hear him, my ears ringing, stomach still heaving even though there was nothing left to give. 1224…1225…it would help if I could breathe….
“—CAN’T HOLD ANYTHING IN YOUR GODDAMN STOMACH FOR FIVE F—ING MINUTES—”
1368…1369….
“—GET YOUR F—ING ACT TOGETHER, GROW A F—ING SPINE, EVAN, YOU’RE A DISGRACE—”
Aww, not a disgrace…s**t, again…? (I picked up a lot of colorful vocabulary from my dad, wishing to emulate him in every way possible, pathetically enough.)
He dragged me up and hit me in the ribs, and I winced and coughed as he continued to shout. His breath smelled like stale whiskey, further proof that it wasn’t his fault, it must be mine if I was that bad….
What had I done this time before I was sick? Dinner again? No…I had fallen asleep while cleaning the bathroom, lulled by the steam of my own shower and still as sick as ever. Dad had come in, wanting to take his own shower, and there I was, being lazy and useless….
“—COME HOME TO A FILTHY HOUSE AFTER WORKING ALL DAY TO PAY FOR YOUR GODDAMN SCHOOL AND YOUR F—ING FOOD AND YOU’RE ASLEEP, YOU USELESS PIECE OF s**t, IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO PULL YOUR OWN WEIGHT AROUND HERE THEN SO HELP ME, I’LL SELL YOU TO A FOSTER HOME IF ANY OF THEM WOULD TAKE SOMETHING AS WORTHLESS AS YOU—”
No, not that, Dad…I don’t want to leave, I’ll do better, really…just stop hitting me…1600…1601…please Dad, I swear I’ll fix everything, watch, I will….
I didn’t bother saying anything out loud, it just made him madder.
He was getting more and more steamed, and I panicked, wondering if it would really be over before 4000 like the song promised.
“—CAN’T BELIEVE THIS STUPID F—ING SPINELESS CHILD IS STUCK ON ME NOW, GODDAMMIT EMILY, JUST ONE MORE F—ING THING TO DEAL WITH EVERY F—ING DAY, YOU USELESS—“
Dad stopped, and the emptiness in the air throbbed and hurt my ears; then I heard it—knocking on the door. Pounding, more accurately, like someone was throwing themselves or someone else at it, like their mother-in-law, or maybe a really tough Labrador, complete with little squeaks.
“F—ing salesmen,” Dad hissed, kicking me again. “Get the goddamn door, Evan.”
I nodded, using the coffee table to support me as I rose shakily to my feet. I stumbled a bit, wiping my sweaty forehead with my hand, adjusting my crumpled shirt, falling off of me because my dad had stretched it out so much.
“MOVE IT, YOU USELESS PIECE OF s**t!” Dad yelled. I flinched and moved faster, but not fast enough to escape him; he grabbed my hair, pulled me up, and flung me in the direction of the door. “Worthless child,” he snapped as I limped toward the door, trying not to let the bruises show. “If it’s another f—ing social worker, tell them I’ll pay them to get you out of my sight.”
The words hurt; I’d disappointed him again. Why did I have to be so weak, so frail and ugly and stupid?
I unlocked the door just after another bout of frantic pounding; this salesman was very desperate. Behind me, my Dad, muttering to himself about me and the smell, went to his bedroom to finish watching the game; maybe I was lucky, maybe it was over for today. Maybe, maybe….
I swung open the door, and a branch as thick as my arm swung at me.
It just missed my face; I stumbled backward, gripping onto the doorknob for support, still out of breath as I stared at the girl from yesterday.
Today she was wearing a green dress, knee-high and one-shouldered, beaded in intricate designs. She was also wearing beaded moccasins, some bracelets, a beaded ribbon in her hair, and what looked like blood smeared across both cheeks and down her forehead. She swung back the branch for another try before she saw that it was me—obviously not her target.
“Oh, thank Great Spirit you’re okay, Spider Boy!” she breathed with a huge smile, and to my utter surprise she threw her arms around me shoulders and hugged the breath out of me. It made the bruises throb and I felt sick again, but I didn’t care; no one had hugged me like that in a long, long time. “Does that mean you defeated your enemy?”
“Enemy…?” I murmured, bewildered. My voice was hoarse and ragged; I hadn’t spoken for awhile.
“Ah, yes!” She drew back, her face earnest and alight with happiness beneath the blood. “I saw you yesterday, Spider Boy, you didn’t look so good, so I came back today to check on you and I saw you fighting a big scary guy, and I came to help! But you really beat him, all by yourself!” She beamed at me, completely deluded. “And so fast, too. Was all the sick stuff just an act? That’s real clever—”
“Who’re you talking about?” Still hoarse, scratchy even. I’d been hit in the head too many times to make sense of this crazy girl.
“The big white man in the suit, the old one,” said the girl with wide, innocent eyes. “In there.” She pointed in the direction of our living room. “Did you kill him? Want me to help you chop him to pieces, or were you going to give him a proper burial? In that case, I can make some incense—”
“My dad?” I was still dazed. Her eyes widened.
“Oh, it’s your dad! Well that makes a lot more sense, just a practice battle, right? Ah, okay. Sorry for bugging you, Spider Boy. Heehee,” she giggled at the pun. “Only a spider’s not a bug….”
“Yeah, arachnid.” Why was she still here?
“So, well, if you’re okay….” She paused, looked me over. I looked at myself, too—my stretched-out shirt with a new stain on the front, a bruise poking out of the sleeve—goddamn, my shirt was getting too small. “Are you okay? Spirits, that must have been a tough fight….”
I scowled at her. “Go away.”
“But—”
Before she could say another word, I shoved the door closed. But she pushed back, stuck her arm through the door—it didn’t seem to hurt her much. There was something green and leafy in her fist. “But Spider Boy, I brought you some herbs, helps with digestion and minor illnesses and spiritual balance!”
I could hear my dad clearing his throat as he rearranged himself; if he heard all of this it would definitely set him off. “I said get lost!”
“But Spider Boy, it’ll help a lot!”
I jerked open the door. “What the f— is wrong with you?” I demanded. “You can’t just walk up to people’s doors, wearing…war paint, and—”
“It’s blood!” she sniffed. “Silly white boy!”
“Where the hell did you get blood? Jeez!”
“My arm.” She showed him a bloody bite mark on her wrist. “Duh.”
I gave the cuts a queasy look; I didn’t like blood. “Well, you can’t just bloody yourself up and barge into people’s houses with a stick, and then go giving them weed when they kick you out—”
“They are NOT weeds!” she objected hotly. “I mean, sure they appear in almost every garden ever, but technically –”
“No! Not that kind of weed!”
“There’s more than one kind?”
“Just get lost before you get into trouble! Jeez, who do you think you are, motherf—ing Indian b***h—”
“I’m Kahmè,” she told me, taking no offense at my swearing. “And it’s actually Native American, Cherokee, yeah. India’s a country. But that’s okay, everyone does that.”
“I don’t care! Get off my porch!”
“I can come in then?” Her eyes lit up, and her tiny hands clapped together. She was almost a head shorter than me, and about as skinny.
“No!” I tried to slam the door in her face again, but she stuck her foot in it.
“Just take the herbs, ‘kay? You need ‘em, Spider Boy, you’re pale as snow on a mountain—”
“Quit calling me that!”
“But you look just like a big white spider, Spider Boy, and anyway what else am I supposed to call you?”
“Evan, now get lost, b***h.”
“Well, okay,” she agreed pleasantly; it seems she didn’t even recognize swear words. Perhaps she didn’t speak English well, that would explain the weird things she said. “But eat these though, they’re best fresh and even better by moonlight, Sp—Evan!”
“Whatever,” I grumbled, snatching the herbs from her hand.
“And it’s best if you soak the juices out in some hot water, like tea, right, that makes it much faster for the nutrients to be absorbed into the bl—”
I swung the door shut, locking both locks. “God,” I muttered. “Where the hell did that come from?”
I heard a muffled answer from behind the door, something about reservation, Arizona, but I didn’t care. I still had to clean the rug, and then the half of the house I hadn’t gotten to yet. The last thing I needed was some Indian/Native American girl waiting by the door to beat the life out of my dad.
Although, the thought scared me less than I’d assumed it would. No Dad? Hmm….
I remembered the handful of herbs—as if in response to them, my stomach burned, my bruises throbbed. I sighed and threw them into a little pot on the stove before getting back to work.

When I came back from school, old enough to walk now without anyone caring, I went straight to work on the house and dinner, trying to forget about yesterday’s events. It was hard to; I really did feel much better after drinking the weed-tea, and couldn’t get the image out of my head of the little girl aiming her club at my dad. It would be hard to look at him now; great, just what I needed, another complication.
I reached up to water the plants on the windowsill, and jumped, spraying water everywhere.
The backyard was small, fenced in, with just enough room for a trampoline and a wooden play set, neither of which I had any time for now. The age-old structures had always been there, weathering away, unloved and unused…what caught my eye today was not them, but the little girl swinging her legs on top of the play set’s roof. Kahmè, the nutty Indian.
My dad would kill me if he saw her here, in the literal sense of the word. My stomach turned just thinking about it. I flew outside, shouting at her before I stopped.
“What the hell are you doing here? Get out of my yard!”
“Spirits, Evan,” Kahmè replied cheerfully. “You can’t own the land, you know. Belongs to everyone, it does, that’s what Great Spirit tells us.”
“Will you get out of here? Who invited you?”
She frowned. “You did. Didn’t you?” Her lip trembled. I didn’t care.
“No, I didn’t! I told you to get lost!”
“Well I was lost, silly Spider Boy. Now I’m not, though.” She was, he noticed, wearing yet another Indian outfit, tan this time. It looked like deerskin, like Pocahontas had on in that old Disney movie. No moccasins today.
“Just leave!”
“Why? Oh…oh, you and your dad are gonna fight out here, arencha? You need me to move, then?”
“Yeah, we really are gonna fight if he sees you here,” I muttered.
“Well, if I’m not here, will you still fight?”
“Maybe.” I winced. Probably. Definitely. How long had it been since I’d gone more than two days in a row?
“Well I gotta stay then,” she said innocently. “I wanna see you beat ‘im!”
I stared openmouthed at her—did she honestly just say that? She wanted me to get my a** kicked because of her? “Get out of here, you b***h!” I hissed at her, jabbing a finger to the gate. “This is absolutely the last thing I need!”
“Oh.” She swung her legs, once, twice, then flung herself into space, landing neatly on the trampoline and bouncing five feet into the air with a graceful front tuck. Then she hopped off to stand beside me. I blinked. “Did the herbs work?”
I wanted to make some kind of scathing remark, I really did, but she was just too weird. “Uh…yeah, they did.”
“So you’re not hurt anymore?”
“Well, it still hurts, but not as bad….”
“What part hurts?”
“Just a bunch of bruises everywhere, is all.”
“Ah, if there’s a lot you might need more herbs. Plus, if you’ve got inside bruises, that requires something very different—you know?”
“Um, sure?”
“Well, I can find some somewhere. I mean, if you’re gonna be gone all day there’s nothing better to do—”
“Don’t you go to school?”
“School? Why should I?”
“Because it’s required by law, it’s necessary to get into college, and all kids do?”
“Pfft.” Kahmè waved a hand. “On the rez no one cared about that stuff. Mama taught me everything I needed to know, what’s school gonna do?”
I shrugged, confused again. That happened a lot with her. “Why are you still here?”
“’Cause I was checkin’ on ya,” she explained. “You didn’t look so good, Spider Boy. Are you sure you’re okay?” She stood on tiptoe, peering carefully into my eyes. I shoved her away.
“What are you? You just appear out of thin air—”
“I’m Cherokee and I did not, Evan! I was just walking around,” she sniffed.
“Why don’t you go back to the reservation?” I said severely. “Your paint washed off, might wanna fix that.”
She frowned. “We don’t wear paint, ‘less we feel like it. Do you?”
“No! I’m normal!”
“No you’re not,” she giggled. “You’re all pale and skinny, and you smell funny.” She leaned forward to sniff me. I stiffened.
“Like what?” Like blood and OCD scrubbing and my dad’s breath, that’s what; I knew.
“Not good,” she murmured. “No, I don’t like it. You should change your soap.”
“What would you know about soap?” I snapped. “You’re filthy.”
“I ran out,” she said casually. “Had to use some lavender and a rock.”
I gave her a look—was she serious? If she wasn’t going to get me killed, I would feel bad for her.
“Listen, you really have to leave before my dad gets home—”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll get mad at me.”
“Why?”
“Because, I dunno, that’s what he does.”
“When’s he come home?”
“In a few hours.”
“Well then, what are you worried about? Come play with me!” she sang, shinnying back up the play set. I shook my head, turned away. I didn’t need this right now. Maybe she’d get bored before Dad came home.
I shut the back door and locked it, muttering, “Stupid Indian, Dad’s gonna kill me—”
“It’s Native American, you really need to stop that,” her voice scolded.
I jumped, swiveled around—she’d been standing behind me the entire time?! I gaped at her. “Get out!”
“You locked me in,” she reminded me, giggling.
“How the hell do you keep coming out of nowhere?”
“I just followed you, you’re really slow,” she commented. “You’ve gotta limp. What from?’
“Someone kicked me,” I muttered, fumbling with the locks. I jerked the door open and tried to push her out, but she dodged me.
“Ooh, lemme see, I bet I can fix it—”
“No! No one asked you to come in here, get out!”
“But that’s not fair, Evan,” she whined. “You’re the first friend I’ve made in this whole entire state.”
I paused, staring at her; she seemed sincere. In this state? “What’s so special about Nevada?”
“Well, it’s just the first state I comed to, ‘sides Arizona,” she told him. “And—” She paused, sniffed the air. “Are you cooking something? It smells sooo good….”
“Don’t touch it!” I urged her, staying her hand as she reached in to taste the spaghetti sauce. “Don’t, I have to serve that, you can’t just—”
She licked her finger thoughtfully, then made a face. “What’s it made of?”
“Tomato sauce, what else?”
“Oh, lots of things…no, it’s really not that good….”
“It doesn’t taste good?” I panicked; if Dad thought so…. “
“Well, you could try some pepper, some basil…hmm…Italian seasoning….”
“We don’t have those.” I felt a cold sweat come to my forehead; it was one thing to get a beating, but it was another to have to anticipate it, for hours…. “What do I do?”
“If I help, can I have some?” She turned wide eyes to me, her lip trembling again.
“Sure, yeah,” I promised her. “As much as you want. Just, please.”
“Well, okay,” she agreed with a happy smile. “Where’s your pantry?”

Dinner that night was very quiet, too quiet.
Kahmè had seasoned the sauce, made cheese bread and salad, and even blended a drink out of orange juice, Sprite, strawberries, and a dash of white wine. I had given her all I could spare, unable to thank her enough; since she had polished that off and hadn’t got as much as she wanted, as promised, she made me swear to her that she could come back the next day. I was nervous at having someone around in his house, dirtying it and being too loud and chancing my dad’s fury, but I really did owe her, so I agreed.
I found out as she ate (not spilling a drop, thank God) that she had been scavenging for food in our garbage can that day, as she’d been having some trouble stealing it. “’S so nice,” she murmured, beaming around a mouthful of spaghetti and cheese. “Eating at a table, ‘n’ cooking, ‘n’ all. Even if ya don’t have that many spices ‘n’ stuff. You should get some more, I’ll help you make everything tasty, I really will, if ya keep feeding me.”
I didn’t know how I was going to pull that off, had no idea how I was going to explain it, and yet, I had agreed. Lying about food portions was less likely to get me a beating than bland, tasteless food. Nothing had ever soured Dad’s mood more than a badly cooked meal.
I expected Dad to be pleased at the change, but he said nothing. Dinner was almost silent, except for one gruff demand:
“What is this?”
“Spaghetti, Dad,” I whispered, lowering my eyes, my hands shaking.
“How’d you make it?”
“Just experimented with some spices.”
And that was it. No fists slamming on the table, no looks of disgust, no provoking conversation, no hurling of verbal poison. The closest to a civilized conversation my dad and I had ever had. I was both relieved and afraid, unsure of what the silence meant.
But, miraculously, it meant nothing; I avoided a fight entirely that night. I only believed it when I was safe in my own bed, and even then I was too tired to contemplate the wonder of it for long. It felt nice, not to be battered when I climbed into bed…Kahmè’s herbs had done me wonders….
School was actually bearable the next day, and when I got home Kahmè was waiting for me.
“Hi Evan!” She jumped off the trampoline and ran over to hug me; I didn’t really know what to do with myself while she did. I noticed she was wearing her blue dress again, it left damp spots on my shirt. “How’re you today?”
“Good,” I replied automatically, and I was. Why, I had no idea…but it was great. I hadn’t felt like this for ages.
“Come play with me! C’mon, it’s so boring without someone else—”
“I can’t, I’ve gotta clean the house.”
“But you did that yesterday!”
“I have to do it every day, or my dad gets mad at me.”
“So? You can—”
“I’ve gotta go,” I snapped. So? Maybe she had no clue, she was weird, after all, but still….
“Can I come with you? I’ll help—”
“N—” I paused. Well, why not? “Fine. As long as you leave before seven-thirty.”
“What’s that?”
“Christ,” I muttered. “Are you serious?”
“What’s that?”
“Christ? Jesus?”
“Nope.”
“Christianity, the religion?”
“I’m Cherokee.”
“What, you worship the devil or something?”
“Uh, no, Great Spirit, you know…’s like God, in’t it?”
“Oh.” I shook my head as I grabbed the cleaning stuff—weird, weird, weird.
“So what’s seven-thirty mean?”
“It’s a time.”
“Time? There’s more than one?”
“No, it’s a point in time. Can’t you tell time?”
“I can’t really tell Time anything, can I?”
“Look, umm…Kahmè. Normal people have clocks and things to measure time. I don’t know what you Indians do, but—”
“Native American, Evan. And we just look at the sun, you know, noon, sunset—”
“Fine, sunset then.” That gave me a pretty good time frame to prepare. No problem.
“Oh, okay, that’s fine.” She glanced out of a window. “That’s a long time! We can get everything done by then. Wow,” she added, brushing a finger along the downstairs bathroom’s tiles as I started to scrub the floor. “Your house is really clean.”
“It will be.”
“No, really. You don’t need to clean in here, it’s already—”
“Yes I do.”
“Why?”
I scrubbed absently at the floor—she was right, it was impeccably clean. Should I tell her the truth, or make something up? I could tell her that I was OCD, but she probably wouldn’t know what that was…well, what could a little honesty hurt?
“My dad gets…mad, if the house isn’t clean when he comes home. If I miss anything and he sees, he gets madder, he doesn’t care if it’s already clean or not. It’s a disciplinary thing, you know.”
“What’s diss-…disa-….”
“Discipline?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “You know, parents give you rules and you do them, or you get punished.”
“Well, that isn’t fair!” she complained, sitting Indian-style on the toilet—well, how else would she sit? “It sounds mean, why do they do that?”
I stared at her. “Haven’t your parents ever hit you before when you did something wrong?”
Her eyes widened. “No….”
I turned away, avoiding her eyes. Stupid Indians. They probably thought that controlling a person’s will was like tainting their spirit, or something. I had to admit, though, I was jealous. “So you just got to do whatever you wanted to?”
“Nope. Mama told me, never leave the rez without her, don’t eat this and that, don’t take anything Paladra or her friends give you, run away from bears. Oh, and never never ever leave food on your plate, ‘cause an empty plate means less work for the dishwasher, and a full one is just rude. Right?”
I blinked. “That’s it? Didn’t you have chores?”
“Chores?”
“Something around the house you had to do every day? Washing, cleaning….”
“Oh, no. Mama kept the house clean, most of the time, and she took me with her for washing and I swam in the river, no one made me do anything….”
“God. What did you do all day, then?”
“Well, all the kids would run around and play, I went with ‘em down to the river, and we swam and fought and stuff, and then we went hiking, and we watched the boys fight wolves sometimes….”
“Wolves?”
“Yeah, wolves. The wolves usually won, but sometimes—”
“So all the boys got eaten, then?”
“No! Why would they?”
I stared at her; what was she? “Okay…. What else did you do?”
“Well, Mama took me for walks and we gathered herbs and plants and stuff, and then she taught me what they did together and what to do to make them work, she knew EVERYTHING!”
“Then what?”
“Well, then we went to sleep—”
“No, I mean, what happened to make you come here?”
“Mm….” She thought about it. While she did, I stood up, stretched a little, then started on the sink. This bathroom was never used, it was usually always clean, but enough dust could settle in a day that my dad would notice the absence of the porcelain’s gleam. “Well, it’s kind of a long story….”
I didn’t press her; I didn’t really care. Part of me was curious, but the rest was just bad-tempered and sore. I didn’t really want to hear it, but….
“But we’ve got lotsa time,” she said happily.
I sighed; I guess she was going to tell me anyway.


Yes, people actually do talk like that when they're pissed.

4
“Well, see, Mama never liked most of the people on the rez because they wanted to be American, like, properly. I mean, our tribe still had rules and stuff from way back, and lotsa neat ceremonies we went to sometimes, but most of the time the others wore like, jeans and stuff and played baseball, and stupid things like that. Jeans were cool because they were real tough, Mama and I wore them to go hiking, but the rest of the clothes were just weird. The council didn’t like ‘em, they said they were…immoral? Immodest? Something like that. Bad.
“There were a couple of Mama’s friends who acted like real Indians, I played with their kids while the others did stupid stuff, watched that weird box with the pictures—”
“TV.” I poked her off of the toilet. “Move.”
She did without complaint. “Yeah, that. Well, we had lotsa fun, but the other kids made fun of us a lot. They were really mean to us, it wasn’t fair, just ‘cause we still worshipped the spirits….”
“The spirits?”
“Yeah! Mama told me how to talk to them, she read tea leaves and palms and meditated and all that and she could do it really well, it was cool, she said it was the way spirits sent messages to us when our minds were all calm and still. We did that a lot, at nighttimes, I liked it. Want me to show you?”
“No.”
“Ah, okay.” She followed me as I left the bathroom and started dusting in the living room. Old photographs, my parents on their wedding day, me as a baby, stared accusingly at me from the frames. No one had touched a camera since Mom; I doubted either of us wanted to document the past few years. I imagined dull, jagged frames with broken glass, showing my dad, yelling and drunk, and me with bruises like my last school picture, wearing a turtleneck to hide the scars…me in the hospital bed he put me in, the stains on the rug that I had to put furniture over, claiming it was fung shui, so no one could see…the nightmares I had every night….
“Anyway, there were these kids, right, and they were trouble. They wanted to be American and were mean to anyone that didn’t, Mama never let me be near them and she said if they gave me anything, don’t take it and run away. They kept failing their coming-of-age ceremony—you ever seen one?”
I jerked out of my vacant daze as I heard the question in her voice. “Uh….”
“Well, it’s what we do, right, in midsummer we take everyone that’s thirteen and we throw them a feast, they have three challenges and if they pass them they get the council’s blessing and a special dagger and some other stuff too, we do wear paint on days like that and feather headdresses and stuff, it’s so fun! Mama takes me every year. Well, you’re supposed to be training all year for it, Mama’s been training me my whole life, there’s a strength test, a smart test, and a fighting test. Well, most of ‘em past the first two sure enough, but there’s those kids, right, they can never pass the fighting thing. I mean, all you gotta do is fight someone who passed last year, with a dagger and your hands and stuff, it’s easy…but since they never tried, they can’t do it. They get beat in like, a second, the council calls them a disgrace.”
“They should,” I murmured absently; though fascinated—it sounded like something from a book—I didn’t want to be distracted from my current task, steam-cleaning the rug. I found a bruise (not hard) and focused on its dull throbbing, focus, focus, focus, don’t let that happen again.
“Yeah, it’s really stupid, they’ve failed for like four years. Anyway, they’re always causing trouble, polluting and selling bad things and stuff like that. But then they actually started practicing, for some reason, and last year a lot of them made it…Mama thought that more would this year. She’s scared, she doesn’t know what harm they could do; but the council wouldn’t listen to her, they were glad of it. So she told me, one night, that she didn’t want me to go through the ceremony if they were going to be testing the new ones, she thinks they’ll cheat. But you have to do it, everyone does…she was afraid for me.
“So, she sent me off.”
“Just like that?” We were in the hallway now, me scrubbing the walls, her picking at the rug. “You just packed up and left?”
“Yep! We spent a couple days packing and stuff, and then she gave me a map and circled someplace on it, she said Ne-va-da, Pyramid Lake Reservation, Sutcliffe, stay there and wait for her. She had family there or something. So I went north, did you know that moss doesn’t always grow on that side of the tree? Yeah, north, and I found it, and here I am!”
I paused mid-scrub, turning slowly to face her. “Kahmè?”
“Yeah?”
“Do I look like an Indian to you?”
She laughed. “Nope! You’re the whitest white boy I ever saw, Spider Boy!”
“Then,” I said clearly, “how are you on an Indian reservation?”
She froze, thought about that for a second, her face paling beneath the smooth copper tone. “I’m in the wrong place?”
“Quite obviously.” I shook my head, muttered a curse, started scrubbing again. I finished the wall and turned around, only then realizing how quiet it was—Kahmè was still sitting there, crying and sniffling pathetically.
“What’re you crying for?” I demanded.
“I’m LOST!” she moaned, sobbing now. “I thought, I thought…ohh, it looked so much like the lettering on the map, it really did!”
“Don’t cry,” I told her firmly; she was going to get everything she touched all smudgy. “Stay here.”
She nodded, still crying, and I ran to the kitchen for a hand towel, dampening one corner a little, then ran back.
“Here,” I said, giving her the damp end. “Clean yourself up, stop that, crying’s for babies, what are you, two?” God, I was quoting my dad now. What next?
“But I’m lost,” she moaned. “I thought I was in the right place, I thought I was!”
I sighed. “Quit crying. Go get your map, let’s see where you’re supposed to be.”
She sniffed. “Okay.” She got up, taking the towel with her, and went outside. I expected her to be gone for awhile, at least for more than ten minutes, but she was back in seconds.
“Here it is,” she told me, handing me a folded map of Nevada; she had made a conscious effort to stop crying, though in that amount of time the tears were still flowing.
“Where did you go?”
“That little house outside, in the yard.”
“The wha…the play set?”
“Well, yeah. Can I live there, Evan?”
“No! It’s not a house!”
“Well, maybe not to you, but—”
“No, don’t ever let me catch your stuff in there, stay out of my yard!”
“Why?”
“If my dad sees you—”
“Wow, you worry way too much about your dad. Does he have a bad temper?”
I cursed her under my breath for being so perceptive. A bad temper—she had no idea. “Look, don’t keep your stuff in there where people can find it, okay?”
“Okay,” she said placidly, sniffing again and wiping her nose. “Can’cha show me where Sutcliffe is?”
“Yeah.” I opened the map, spreading it to its fullest extent across my lap. Kahmè sucked on her fingers like a little kid, coming to sit behind me and resting her chin on my shoulder. “Stop that,” I snapped at her, shrugging her off. She ignored me, doing it again; I sighed and let her be.
“Show me,” she urged.
“Okay….” The map was finely detailed, showing mountain ranges and rivers as well as the smallest towns and county lines. It showed Arizona, Nevada, California, and parts of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Oregon. My eyes were instantly drawn to a red circle on the map. I traced my finger to it; Kahmè pointed as well.
“That’s it,” she murmured. “That’s Sutcliffe.”
I studied the city’s name, and then laughed at the mistake, even though it wasn’t that funny in retrospect. “No! That’s here, that’s Skyland!”
“It’s Sutcliffe!” Kahmè insisted, tears in her voice again. “It’s by a lake, it’s on the reservation—”
“No,” I said, pointing to the Pyramid Lake and the grayish area surrounding it. “That’s the reservation. Sutcliffe is right here.” I showed her.
“R-…r-right….” She sniffed again, gauging the two- inch-long gap with dismay, and then burst into tears all over again. “No, no, Evan, no, it isn’t fair I gotta get there, Mama’s gonna come and I don’t know where I am and I…and I….”
She buried her face in my shirt and started sobbing again, and I really just didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to comfort her when she was staining one of the few shirts I had left? But then how could I push her away? She was so heartbroken, and really a good person in her own way….
It was the first time I’d ever felt sorry for anyone other than myself, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I ended up just sitting there awkwardly, mumbling, “Hey, don’t cry…cut it out…” while she curled herself like a cat in my lap, her arms locked around my neck, and cried herself out.
I don’t know how long we sat there like that, but eventually she sniffed, blinked tiredly up at me, and smiled. “You’re so nice,” she murmured, resting her head sleepily on my shoulder. “You’re my best friend….” Her eyes closed; I thought she was falling asleep, and poked her.
“No, no, you can’t fall asleep here, c’mon….”
I pulled her up and led her to the couch, moved some pillows around. She curled up in the cushions, her fingers in her mouth, and mumbled something to herself; she fell asleep in a matter of minutes. I shook my head, started cleaning Dad’s office, wondering where in the world this girl had come from.
It was only five when I was done; I started dinner in the kitchen while I cleaned it, it made things easier. I thought maybe I’d make vegetable soup tonight, following a recipe on the back of a tomato sauce can. It said to brown meat; all right. I let it brown itself while I dusted my mother’s china, busy with a stack of it on the floor.
Kahmè awoke a minute later as the smoke alarm went off.
I opened all the windows and doors, waved a dishtowel in the air, swore at the smoke under my breath; s**t, my dad was going to kill me….
“What’d you do?” she asked me sleepily, peering over the counter at the stove. “Burned it?”
“s**t,” I kept muttering to myself. “s**t, s**t, s**t….”
“If you say so,” she murmured, then yawned—then coughed. “Just leave the doors open, it’ll go away in a minute….”
“No it won’t, no it won’t, ohhh, my dad’s gonna kill me….”
“Yeah it will,” she assured me. “The wind’s blowing right through the back door….”
I stopped and held still, and it actually was. How she knew that was beyond me.
“Spirits told me,” she murmured, coughing again. “Can I have some water, Evan?”
I gave her a glass of ice water, still preoccupied, unsure what to do with the black hunk of meat in the saucepan.
“Ew,” she said, poking her tongue at it.
“I know, oh s**t, what am I gonna do now? I can’t cook, I can’t cook, he’s gonna…ohhh….”
“I can cook,” she reminded me. “Can I help?”
“Will you?” I looked at her desperately, my guardian angel. But no…. “But all the meat’s gone now, what am I gonna do? Help, Kahmè….”
She had to think about it, tapping her glass absently with her dirty fingernail while I waited on tenterhooks for her reply. “Well,” she finally said. “What if we make it without meat…and say we did? Would that work?”
“Yeah!” I was so relieved I felt like crying as the cloud overhead, the fear of the looming beating, dissipated beneath her shining words. “Thank you so much, Kahmè….”
“No problem,” she said cheerfully as she slid down from her chair, unaware of just how much I owed her. “You’re my best friend.”

Kahmè was a vegetarian; she preferred animals alive rather than dead. “I mean, they’re just so cute when they’re hopping around and playing and eating,” she explained to me as she threw chopped vegetables into a saucepan. “I just don’t understand how anyone could prefer a big dead chunk of bloody meat. Mama said that some people have to because they’ve got nothing else, and that’s fine, but this’s America! Everyone can just as easily get some mushrooms instead….”
I’d lost count of all the drug references she made when she talked. She was just so cute and innocent, she couldn’t have known it. I let her babble on, feeling like hugging her for being such a saint.
“…and you know, I really wish everything would do that,” she continued. “Live off vegetables and things. But I don’t think predators care much about preserving life. Still, animals don’t waste things. They leave it for buzzards, and eventually it goes back into the earth…but people and their trash cans….”
I’d have agreed with anything at that point. Nothing she said was ridiculous now.
She didn’t know her way around a kitchen, but once I put out everything she needed she was an expert. She used her own knife, sang as she worked, and brought a sort of happy sunshine to the kitchen I’d never known before.
She made vegetable soup, buttered toast, another cocktail of lemon, Sprite (she loved Sprite), and way too much sugar (I’d convinced her to leave the alcohol out this time; I really was a coward) and something she called monkey bread for dessert, biscuit dough wrapped in cinnamon sugar and butter sauce. I couldn’t thank her enough; she laughed at me and put butter on my nose, so amused by the fact that I was paler than the light yellow spread.
“It’s Chinese,” she giggled. “And I’m nutmeg Indian, cinnamon’s Spanish, chocolate’s African, what’s that make you, Spider Boy? Antarctica?”
“Sour cream.”
She burst out laughing again.
Time passed faster than I believed possible when I was with her, and before I knew it, it was past seven, time to do my homework before Dad came home. “Kahmè,” I told her as she put the last of the vegetables and spices away, “you’ve gotta go now.”
“Awww….” She looked genuinely sorry, and I remembered her telling me that I was her best friend. I wasn’t anyone’s best friend. What was a best friend? “Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come back later?”
“Not today.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Playing with fire, living on the edge, stupid, stupid…. “Why not?”
Her entire face lit up; she clapped her hands and twirled around. “Yay! Thanks, Evan!”
“No, I owe you one.” That was true, I did. I grasped at the excuse to have her over, breaking the monotony of the afternoons spent in dull labor and fear. “But you’ve gotta go.”
“Okay. See ya later, Evan!” she called as she sprinted out the back door. I watched her dash up the slide into the playhouse, slip on her beaded moccasins from a little green bag, jump onto the trampoline, flip once, and leave. Surprisingly, I was sorry to see her go. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
I found myself worried about her as I did my homework, wondering if she would ever get to where she was going, piece together her life again. She seemed so happy wherever she was, but I knew she wanted to get back to her mother…I know I would have, if my mom hadn’t abandoned me….
I wondered to myself what her dad must be like, why she never spoke of him….
Too soon, my dad’s car pulled into the driveway. I jumped up, startled, and started to set the table. I was just ladling what was left of the still-warm soup into bowls when he walked in. We didn’t exchange greetings anymore, there was too much bitterness; I watched him out of the corner of my eyes, judging his mood. He wasn’t pissed off, thank God, nor was he whistling; he seemed tired today. Tired was good. You couldn’t punch as hard when you were tired.
“What’s for dinner?” he muttered to the table as he ditched his jacket, loosened his tie, and sat down.
“Vegetable soup,” I murmured. Whenever he was around, all the bitter sarcasm I felt was gone; my stomach dropped, I felt dizzy and sick, and fear took away all my coherency. I knew that one misplaced word could earn me a dozen bruises, so I was silent, praying all the time that he would find favor in everything I’d done. I’d do anything to avoid being hit….
I gave him everything Kahmè and I had created, bared my soul; he started to decimate it without a word. Silence was good; disapproval came in loud and violent forms, so silence was a thankful change. I made myself eat with him, though I had no appetite; the meal was, as always, spent avoiding his eyes, staring at my food, concentrating on not spilling anything with my shaking hands. My table manners were impeccable, amounted over years of snapping, beating, and mindless obedience.
Dad studied a bite for a moment before swallowing it. “Experimenting again.”
“Yes, sir,” I whispered.
Another man-to-man talk, me and my dad. It was rare that he spoke in a normal tone; it was even rarer that I spoke at all. But speaking normally was better than silence. It meant he approved. He was pleased; he wasn’t going to punish me. I almost started crying with relief. When I saw Kahmè again, I…I would…I didn’t know what I’d do.
I was so elated that I even picked up the nerve to ask my dad a question—actually speak to him voluntarily, risk his anger, teeter further on the edge of that knife-edge balance that was my life.
“Dad?”
He looked up, as surprised as I was that the word had come out of my mouth. “What?”
I turned away; I hadn’t been able to look in his eyes for years. “I was wondering…I…I found some recipes, and—”
“What?” he snapped again. I flinched, the words spilling out in a hurry.
“Next-time-you’re-at-the-store-do-you-think-you-could-get-some-spices-and-stuff-for-me?”
“What for?” Still sharp. Oh God, what was wrong with me? I’d ruined it….
“S-so I can cook better,” I said. Why did I have to stammer? He hated it when I did that….
He gave me a withering look that I didn’t meet. I could feel it burning my skin; I winced again. “You want anything fancy, you buy your own damn groceries,” he scolded.
My heart sank, but not much—something told me he was just being difficult for the sake of it, because he hated me. Any other day, I would have been smarter…any other day I wouldn’t have pushed it, I’d have said “Yes, sir, sorry,” and become mute for the rest of the night. But today I felt offended; where was I supposed to get money? And how was I supposed to get there? It was for him, for his food, to make him happy, shouldn’t he pay for it?
Luckily, I said none of that aloud, or I’d still be in intensive care. But stupidly, blindly, I persisted. “But everything would taste so much better, Dad….”
He scowled at his empty bowl, pushed it at me. “Whatever.”
I went to fill it again, filled with a strange mix of emotions. Adrenaline—I’d put my life on the line. Anger—how stupid could I possibly be? Relief—I’d faced my own personal Satan and come out victorious. I could tell, I just knew that I’d won. Kahmè would be so pleased, it was the least I could do for her….
Dinner passed slowly, shrouded in silence. I watched Dad carefully; he enjoyed dessert very much, he found the drink too sweet, he avoided the burnt edges of the bread. I would make note of what he liked and disliked, do my very best to please him every day.
Today was better than usual; he didn’t start drinking before he came home, in preparation to having to look at me all evening, or even right after he finished dinner. Instead, he stayed sober for an entire basketball game; but when I looked again, watching him carefully, fearfully, from the head of the stairs, I saw the whiskey bottle in his hand, Wild Turkey, the same kind of bottle he’d thrown at me once, I still remembered him yelling at me while he made me pick up the pieces, that mocking turkey cutting my fingers. He couldn’t focus on the game anymore. His eyes slid to the pictures on the mantelpiece, our fairy-dust past on display, how happy we had been. He muttered something under his breath, taking another swig, not bothering with glasses and ice.
It sounded like “Damn you, Emily,” and I couldn’t help but agree. Why did you have to leave, Mom? When you were around, everything was a fairy tale. Dad couldn’t touch me; you were my guardian angel, my goddess, the center of my world.
I finished my homework in my room, like always, and then spent the rest of the night cleaning the second floor of the house. It was essential that the first floor, the one Dad saw first, be my top priority; he didn’t go to bed until midnight or so, I had hours to make his bedroom perfect. It always made me sad when I smoothed down the unused side of the bed. Then it made me angry—“Damn you, Emily,” rang in my mind, and I felt like breaking something.
I took my bath, was in bed by nine-thirty. Usually I read myself to sleep, but no bruises kept me up tonight—sleep was effortless. And for once I didn’t dream of hospitals, blood, black angel wings, dark hallways, prison cells, the inside of coffins. I dreamt of Kahmè, she was laughing and holding my hand, we were sitting in a field of clover under a bluebird sky, and for once, I wasn’t afraid, and there wasn’t a bruise on me.

This is really interesting the plot line is clear here that the influence of Kahme is directing the storyline I can't wait to read the next chapters. One small detail I noticed, (since I realize you have a hard time with beginnings I felt I could share some wisdom on that particular part) at the beginning of chapter four the beginning was a little awkward because it didn't fit with the other narrative beginnings you made. What you could do to easily revise that would to add a bit of commentary coming from Evan who is obviously the narrator giving a short lead-up into the main rendition of the "rez" from Kahme. Would create a better and fancier look to the beginning. smile

Exactly what I was going for. 4laugh Thanks, Krissy.

MD: Ahh, I don't really get what you're saying, but 'kay. sure.

errm.. ok, sorry just tryin to help. sweatdrop

This was a sad chapter seeing as Evan has come to some self-realizations and I thought the ending was really cool. smile