Free Kia and Gio by Daniel José Older Page A

to disembowel all the tentacle-bots that came at them from the Red Death Chambers.
    *   *   *
    â€œI’m coming in late,” Baba Eddie says when I pick up the landline. I hear him pull on his cigarette. “Something came up.”
    â€œI’m so sure.” For no reason at all, I’m annoyed.
    â€œHold things down for me, okay? Why are you there so early anyway?”
    â€œI dunno.” I shrug as if he could see it over the phone, but really: it’s Baba Eddie, he probably can.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Kia?” That touch of charismatic condescension he always gets away with because he knows I love him like a father. Uncle. Fatherly uncle. Whatever. I let it slide. Again.
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œGood.” He ignores my blatant lie. “See you at one … ish.”
    â€œYou have a noon reading with Eliades.”
    â€œOh fuck, he’s always coming with some bullshit. Keep him entertained till I get there.”
    â€œI’m not entertaining.”
    â€œJust tell him I’ll be a little late.”
    â€œBut…”
    The line goes dead.
    *   *   *
    Ishigu was a third degree master of Shumanjo Levitating Robot fighting style, but P.S. 143 in Sunnyside didn’t have that as an afterschool option, so Giovanni took Kenpo instead. Gio also was a lead alto in glee club, treasurer of the debate team, assistant-editor at the school newspaper, and president/founding member of the Amiri Baraka Drama Club. Each met on a different day of the week, which I always took to be a special scheduling miracle devised solely to please my overachieving extra-curricular cousin, but it was really just a coincidence.
    â€œWhy you still wearing your tutu?” Gio narrowed his eyes at me.
    â€œBecause I’m a ballerina,” I informed him.
    â€œBallet is so girly.”
    I matched his sneer with one of my own. “You do ballet, and you’re a boy.”
    â€œI’m not just a boy.” Gio’s hands extended to either side, palms out, like Ishigu’s do when he’s getting ready to levitate. “I’m the baddest boy in town, bitches.”
    I was laughing, but then I stopped. “Don’t call me a bitch.” Both my fists found my hips and I frowned, creasing my brow to show I wasn’t kidding.
    â€œI didn’t mean you.” The apology was sincere. “I meant it universally. All the bitches in the universe! Anyway, it’s not a bad word if you say it right.”
    â€œIt’s not?” We’re walking again, all through the quiet suburbs of eastern Queens. When Gio’s with me I can ignore the creeping sensation that I don’t belong, I don’t belong, no matter where I am I don’t belong.
    â€œShh … we on a mission.”
    â€œWhere we going?” I’d never been to this neighborhood before. Maybe driven past once or twice with dad, but it was all white folks and the feeling of don’t belong don’t belong hung heavy in the air, like all the molecules wanted me to leave too. But I knew I was safe. Gio’d been studying Kenpo since he was my age; he was a brown belt and not to be trifled with.
    â€œIt’s a secret mission.”
    â€œBut where we going?”
    â€œIf I tell you it won’t be a…” I made the face that I knew gets him, the one that I used to make right before I cried. He caved. “Fine. But don’t tell anyone. ” He lowered his voice to such a shrill whisper on the word anyone that a little spittle escaped and he had to wipe his mouth. “We’re going to see if Jeremy’s okay.”
    I rolled my eyes. For three weeks, all I’d heard about was Jeremy. Would Jeremy like this red leather jacket? Does he read Ishigu too? What kind of cigarettes would Jeremy smoke? If Jeremy was a crayon, what color would he be? (Yes, No, Virginia Slims, and Plain Ol’ White, respectively, but who was