“Where are you going?” I asked my older brother as I walked into his room.
“You’re not supposed to just come in here,” he snapped at me.
“Yeah—yeah,” I said dismissively. “Where are you going?”
He sighed irritably, which was my cue to leave it alone, leave him alone, but he was climbing out his bedroom window onto the roof above the porch, so I had to know.
“Go to sleep.”
I scowled at him. “It’s ten o’clock at night; in what realm of your dodgy imagination am I going to bed this early?”
“Stop,” he groaned. “You’re not British.”
“Are you sure, guvnor?”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re especially not Eliza Doolittle. Being her in one play does not make it so.”
I shot him a look, one he knew, and took a deep breath. I was tired of the run around from my brother, Kola Kage, so I filled my lungs to make sure the yell would carry when I let it out.
“No—no—no,” he gasped, darting across the room, grabbing my hand and pulling me down beside him on his bed. “C’mon, B, you gotta let me go out and check on Anthony.”
“Who?”
“Anthony Mascaro.”
“Oh, that’s your friend who borrows your bike.”
His scowl was back. “What?”
“Ugh, really? This is me you’re talking to.”
He considered his audience for a moment, but come on…
“How do you know he borrows my bike?”
“’Cause every morning at around four, he parks your bike behind the house so you have it to ride to school with me and Pa.”
He grunted.
“And last night it wasn’t there, and that was a whopper of a lie you told Pa about leaving it at the park last night.”
Kola squirmed. “I feel bad.”
“You should feel bad ‘cause Pa’s not getting you a new one ‘til after Christmas, and now you look like a scrub walking while we’re both riding.”
His face scrunched up. “A scrub?”
“Just—that’s what Melody Thompson said.”
He thought a second. “How come Melody Thompson already wears make-up?”
“I wear make-up,” I said, sticking up for my friend.
“Only when you’re in a show,” he reminded me.
I nodded. “She wants to be pretty.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that.”
I dropped my chin and then looked at him because really, we both knew he was full of poop. “Really?”
He groaned.
“Just tell me what happened already,” I pressed him. He was my brother, he couldn’t keep anything from me, I could always get it out of him. “The bike’s gone and you think something happened to Anthony?”
“Yeah.”
“Then tell Daddy,” I told him.
“No,” he said, looking scared. “Anthony said if he gets in trouble, he’ll get taken away from his Mom and she’ll have to go back to where she lived before and he’ll have to go to Foster Care.”
“What’s that?”
“If you don’t have any family, that’s where you go?”
“Who doesn’t have a family?”
“Lots of people.”
“Yeah but,” I was trying to figure it out. “If you don’t have a family, where do you go on Thanksgiving?”
“Anthony says they eat at a shelter.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding, finally something I understood. Last Thanksgiving, me and Kola, Daddy and Pa had all gone to a shelter and served food for the homeless people. “I didn’t know they let kids go to the shelter.”
He nodded. “They do.”
I took a breath. “Yeah, but how come this is about your bike?”
“Well, at night Anthony rides around his neighborhood on my bike and watches for police cars. If he sees one, he makes a call on his cell phone.”
“He has a cell phone?” I was so jealous. “How come?”
My brother shrugged.
“How come he doesn’t use his own bike?”
“It got stolen.”
“Oh, that’s sad.”
“Yeah so now they told him if he doesn’t watch out for police, he has to deliver stuff to people.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. It’s better than riding a bike in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, but he’ll have to make his deliveries during the day.”
“And then he’d miss school.” I said, putting it all together. “I see.”
“So, could you please help me?”
“How?”
“Just stay here and if Riley comes upstairs, you––”
“Nuh-uh,” I said, shooting him down. “I go with you.”
“But I gotta find Anthony and the bike.”
“I can help you; I’m good at finding stuff.”
“B––”
I took a deep breath again.
He shoved me over on the bed. “Fine, whatever, just don’t yell.”
“Okay,” I said, so happy he was letting me help him. “Where does he live?”
He made a face. “Kinda far.”
“How far?”
“Like we need to take Pa’s bike.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Just let me change.”
“B,” he whined. “Come on, we gotta go before Daddy and Pa get home from dinner.”
I snorted. “They went to that awful place with the real napkins; they’ll be gone for hours.”
“But you don’t need to––”
“Silence,” I commanded before telling him to go downstairs and tell our cousin Riley that we were going to watch a movie. Not that she cared; she’d be talking to her boyfriend all night, but it was always better just to say something. Misdirection was key. Daddy said that’s what you did when you were undercover, which, technically, we were.
“Oh God,” Kola groaned when I got back to his room.
“What?”
“Why are you wearing that?”
“Why wouldn’t I wear this?”
“We’re not stealing the bike from anyone.”
“How do you know? Maybe somebody stole it and we’ll have to steal it back.”
“Yeah, but you know that cat burglars don’t actually wear cat ears,” he said snidely. “And there’s still glitter on them from Halloween.”
“Shhhh,” I ordered before climbing out the window.
He was right behind me. “Be careful,” he said, and his voice went up high because it was crackling lately.
