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  I need my own hoodie, my trusty black-faded-gray-with-age armor. The sleeves and hem flecked with rainbows of spray paint. This is what I wear when I go out and tag stuff. I yank the zipper up to my chin, and I’m protected. The hood falls over my two loose black buns, down over my ears. I take my bag, open my second Red Bull, and drink it, heading toward the big blue building.

  At first I thought transferring to Finley wouldn’t be a big deal. School is school; I hated it at Kingston, I’d hate it at Finley. I mean, Jordyn is always going out with hearies and they seem fine, but it’s not like I’m looking to make friends. I don’t have time for that shit anymore. Not after Jordyn showed me what she’s really made of. No one here would even notice me, right?

  Casey took care of that right quick. Having an interpreter in every class is like having a giant neon sign hanging around your neck, blinking: Freak Freak Freak. I’ve been here three weeks and people are still confused about how it all works. It’s not hard: teacher talks, interpreter signs, I understand. They act like Casey’s conjuring black magic, waving her arms around, when really she’s only blathering on about tariffs or decimal places.

  I toss the empty Red Bull into the recycling bin and head for my locker. Mine is stuck in the freshman hall, even though I’m a junior, because it’s one of the few left over from the start of the year. I open it up and all of a sudden I feel lighter. I take a certain pride in every tag, and I’ve done a good job claiming my space here. I know I shouldn’t have tagged the inside of the door, but I couldn’t help myself. A new color for every week, my tag, my sign: HERE.

  U.S. History isn’t so bad because no one is awake yet, not even Mr. Clarke. It’s the only class I’m glad to have Casey around for, because watching his wrinkly old-man lips collect foamy spittle in their corners makes me want to hurl.

  Casey always has her nails painted some fun color. It’s a huge interpreter no-no, but I won’t report her; it’s easier on the eyes than old-man spit-mouth.

  “You found your shoes!” she signs, hitting her fists together.

  “Yay.” I wave my hands next to my deadpan face.

  Casey stands up and I take the seat from her. She always gets to class early to “prep,” which looks a lot like sucking up to the teachers. I think she’s trying to prove her worth by getting me better grades. Ma hired her specifically; Casey shadowed her last year for some sort of college credit. Sometimes I wonder if Ma chose Casey so she could spy on me. Fresh out of terp school and shining with enthusiasm after finding her calling, Casey doesn’t know why I was expelled, but she’s on a mission to “improve my quality of life.” I’m sure she goes home and talks to whatever friends she has about how brave I am. I didn’t choose to be deaf. I have no idea why it makes me brave.

  The underpass is what makes me brave. I don’t know when I’ll have time to go out there, but it had better be soon. I’ve had plans for it ever since I laid my eyeballs on it. I’m going crazy sitting around the house at night, scrolling through the Stencil Bomb forums until I pass out. My life has to be about more than the Refresh button. After my Kingston piece, with all the risk and the rush, painting in the basement isn’t really cutting it anymore. I want to make art that makes my heart race. Art that demands to be felt, even if that feeling is terror.

  “You have your homework?” Casey asks. She asks, not Mr. Clarke. It’s not her job to ask. I’ve told her this before. The only thing she’s supposed to do is interpret for the teachers and me—not police my homework, or scold me for doing poorly on a test. I’m about to lay into her again when I feel the girl sitting behind me staring. I take the worksheet out of my bag and hand it to Casey. At least I did my homework this time.

  The girl behind me taps my shoulder. She’s got glossy blond bouncing bangs and long feather earrings. I don’t think she owns any jeans; I’ve only ever seen her in yoga pants. Thankfully not the kind you can see through, but she does seem to own a pair in every possible color. And animal print.

  “Look, I go a new slines!”

  I’m not very good at lip-reading to begin with, and that wad of gum she’s gnawing on isn’t making it any easier. I’m sure I look puzzled when she starts signing. “Friend. Family. I love you.”

  Ah, she knows the same signs every other hearing kindergartner learns. She’s looking for her gold star, no doubt. I beam at her, and sign back happily, “Bitch. You don’t. Know me.” She gives me a thumbs-up and goes back to her work.

  —

  “Why did you do that?” Casey asks as we make our way down the hall after class.

  “What?”

  “Why did you say that to her?”

  “Who, Yoga Pants? She couldn’t understand me. I wasn’t starting anything.” I wonder how many of the students who stop and stare at our conversation end up being late to their next class.

  “She was trying to be nice!” Casey’s eyebrows angle together in annoyance.

  “Nice? What should I have said? ‘Wow! You know three signs, I can see we’re gonna be BFFs! Oh, the late-night chats and…’ ”

  “Come on! You’re never going to make friends if you don’t lose the attitude.”

  “Who said I wanted to make friends? I think—”

  There it is, a glimpse of red plaid flannel, and I’m off charging after it like a bull. Only when I’m tapping Mr. Katz on his shoulder do I realize I made a mistake leaving Casey behind.

  “Julia? What’s wrong?” Mr. Katz asks me. I try signing first.

  “Please.” I rub my palm on my chest. He doesn’t understand me. I switch my hands up to look like I’m begging. I plead with my eyes. I squeeze my interlocked fingers and suck air in through my teeth.

  “My class is full. I’m sorry. Truly.” Mr. Katz’s brown eyes show real regret. He moves to leave, but I dash in front of him and open my bag. A few other students have stopped to watch me play my version of charades. I couldn’t care less. I pull out my sketchbook (not my Black Book, which is full of plans that aren’t superlegal) and put it in his hands.

  “Please,” I sign again. “I can’t go a whole quarter with no art classes!” I don’t care if he doesn’t know exactly what I’m saying—I’m sure he gets the gist. I’ve been asking to get into his advanced-art studio class since my first day at Finley.

  He flips through my book and I bounce on the balls of my feet, watching his face intently for his reaction. Mr. Katz handles my sketchbook thoughtfully. Even though we’re both pressed for time, he holds it in his hands like a baby bird, gingerly turning each page and considering its worth. Sometimes he smiles.

  I need to be in Mr. Katz’s class.

  His focus is broken abruptly and he glances upward at the ceiling. It must be the bell. Great, I’ve made him late. He holds up a finger and takes a pen from his red flannel pocket. I wonder how many of those shirts he owns. I rarely see him wearing anything else. He carefully turns to the back page of my book and writes:

  We’ll see.

  I can feel Ma stomp her foot to get my attention before I leave the house. Should I make a run for it? She stomps again and I turn around.

  “Your bag.” She doesn’t ask to see it, she demands, and I fork it over. Most moms search for drugs and skimpy clothes and stuff. Mine is looking for paint pens and spray cans.

  Ma and I look nothing alike. She’s fair with green eyes; Mee calls her an Irish gem (try not to gag). I’m the spitting image of Mee: oil-black hair, big feet, brown skin. I’m her little jewel of India. Get it? Jewel, Jewel-ia, Julia (more gagging, I know).

  I love watching Ma’s hands when she signs. Normally, you just watch someone’s face while they’re signing. But I can’t keep my eyes off Ma’s hands. I know it doesn’t make any sense, seeing as she’s not my bio-mom, but our hands are very similar. Sometimes when she’s talking to me it’s like I’m watching my own in the mirror. Except the mirror hands have a perfect manicure and wedding band and mine are—were—always covered in paint and Sharpie ink.

  “I wish I didn’t have
to do this.” She holds out my backpack, inspection complete.

  “So don’t.” I zip it up and sling it over my shoulders.

  “I want you back home by ten thirty, no messing around after work.” More demands. One wave and I’m out the door.

  The inspections haven’t let up. Ma went through Lee the day of my expulsion and pretty much gutted the car of anything I could make a mark with. I’ll admit I wasn’t being careful. That’s the problem when your own personal contraband comes in the form of basically legal art supplies. I never thought I would have to stash anything. I was such a freaking toy. I’ve had to step my game way up since then. I’m not the kind of person to make the same mistakes over and over again.

  I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket: Jordyn, no doubt, looking to see where I’m at. She’s so oblivious. She should have deleted my number the second she got her phone back from the principal. After that pathetic attempt at an apology she still likes to send me vapid, meaningless texts even though I only ever text back the same thing:

  JORDYN: Wrks boring without D.

  JULIA: k

  Jordyn and I both work at McDonald’s four or five shifts a week, thanks to Kingston’s job-placement program. When I got expelled, I thought I might get fired, too. I guess they figured a delinquent like me would need a job, especially a punishing one that involves standing over a fryer for hours.

  Jordyn has a cochlear implant. That’s how she gets along so well with all of her boyfriends, and with everyone else. It also means she gets a better job at Mickey D’s. Not only does she work the registers, she’s also a beverage specialist, making sure all the shakes and faux-Frappuccinos and sodas come out right. It’s a stupid job, but it’s better than fry girl. No one has to talk to the fry girl.

  That’s all I get to do. Fries go in, fries come out. Fries go in their little bags to go into bigger bags. Don’t forget the salt. I almost got fired when I first got the job; the timer didn’t have a light on it, and I might have burned a batch while I was distracted by Donovan’s seven o’clock shadow.

  Donovan Diaz. No one hates working at McDonald’s more than Donovan. He has the worst job out of all of us: the drive-thru window. I can’t quite imagine the stress of it, not fully, anyway. He stands in the window with his little headset on, grimacing at people who think they have to scream into the intercom. At least that’s one thing I understand; Jordyn, too. People find out I’m deaf and think that yelling at me is the cure. I’ve seen Jordyn switch off her CI mid-conversation with that same pinched face. Rude, but less painful, I’m sure.

  I have a front-row seat to all the drive-thru drama from my station. It’s too bad Donovan faces away from me and I miss most of the details. I definitely stare too much. I’ve learned to read his body language as he leans on the window with those forearms of his—you know, the kind with perfectly smooth arm hairs—gesturing with his hands and stubby, chewed-up fingernails when he talks with customers, a slight bend in his knees. That’s when I know he’s on a good streak. The next time he turns around, he’ll be smiling, a smile that has been known to pacify an enraged customer as soon as they see it shining through the window.

  It’s not like Donovan’s ever done anything nice or cute for me. I don’t know all that much about him, either. I don’t know if he has any hobbies, or what his favorite movie is. I only know his work schedule and that he drives a 1997 purple Jetta. And he has wild black-blue hair that sticks straight up, like an Egon Schiele self-portrait.

  There’s just undeniably something about him. Maybe it’s because he’s never asked me stupid questions about my ears, or even cared that I can’t hear him. We just exist in the same place at the same time and we’re both fine.

  He’s hot, okay?

  I’m not all that good at getting guys interested in me, let alone hearie guys. That’s Jordyn. She gets whatever she wants, and she doesn’t mind stepping on anyone to get it—and then flaunting it in their face.

  —

  Fries go in, fries come out. Fries go in, fries come out. Small, regular, large, extra-large. Fries go in, fries come out. Sweat drips down my back, my chest burning hot. I try not to scald my forearms when people slam into me, rushing between stations. Fries go in, fries come out. I am the siren call of McDonald’s: smell the fries, you cannot resist. You want the fries. You need the fries. I hate the fries. I am the fries. Fries go in, fries come out.

  After our shift I make myself a shake with extra Reese’s Pieces mixed in. It’s only about a billion degrees over the fryer, and all I want after work is an ice bath. The shake is the next best thing.

  “I’m all hyped up! Wanna do something?” Jordyn flings her visor into her locker. All of her tight curly hair falls onto her shoulders.

  “Seriously? I’m still on lockdown. Because of you.” I wouldn’t go anyway. Treachery aside, work doesn’t hype me up. It burns me out.

  “Still? They painted over it. No one even remembers anymore.”

  My stomach turns over, a lump hardens in my throat. I figured they would patch over it, but to actually find out that no one remembers it? Needles at my skin. People have stopped talking about my grand departure already? I used six colors for that piece. It was a labor-intensive stencil job that I managed to get up in under twenty minutes. I thought the legend never dies, or some shit.

  Jordyn takes forever to get her things together. She can’t be that dense, that aloof. Asking me to hang out, like she never turned me in, like it wasn’t a big deal. It was. It is! I used to be able to count on her. We had a deal, an understanding. I wouldn’t judge the parade of boys that marched through her life, and she wouldn’t judge my illicit afterschool activities. We were outcasts, and we leaned on each other. I thought we needed each other. Now, I need her to go. Far, far away. The last thing I need is for her to see what I have stashed in my locker. It’s none of her business anymore.

  I wish she would quit, and leave me to fry on my own. She could find a job anywhere. I’m trying not to resent Jordyn’s CI, not to dwell on how easy she’d have it if she were mainstreamed, when my weeks at Finley have been so awful. People would love her immediately, since it takes no extra effort to accommodate her.

  She gets both worlds. I’m totally and completely on my own.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, reading my mind a little.

  “Nothing,” I sign one-handed, sipping the shake at the same time. Nothing you’d understand anymore.

  “Hey”—Jordyn straddles the bench and sits next to me—“I need to ask you something.” She looks anxious, her eyes darting around the room. I know what she’s going to say. She’s going to ask if I’ll forgive her, even though she’s done nothing to earn it. At least she’ll be making a better apology than just texting “srry.” Like I’m not even worth buying a vowel.

  “You aren’t still interested in Donovan, are you?” she asks, and immediately looks down at the dirty tiled floor. I tap her, forcing her to look at me.

  “What?” I scowl.

  “I mean, I know you used to like him. But that was forever ago, wasn’t it?”

  “Why?” This is what she wanted to ask me? What does Donovan have to do with us? With what happened between us and why she snitched? That’s what I want her to talk about, not some stupid boy drama. Even if I did see him first.

  “I was thinking about asking him out. That’s all.” She stands back up and zips her jacket. “I mean, I waited for you to make a move. You never did. I assumed you were over him.” I can’t say anything, my hands are frozen in midair. Jordyn keeps on going. “I think he’s into me.”

  “Oh, do you?”

  “Yeah, and he just broke up with that girl, the one with the green hair. You know, she works the morning shift?”

  “Sure,” I snipe.

  “So, do you mind?” The way she asks cuts at me; it’s so obvious she doesn’t actually want to know what my answer is. Like she doesn’t even notice or care that I’m not at Kingston with her anymore. She’s swept it all under some
dingy rug as if it never happened, but I can still see the lump. Her phone, Jordyn’s stupid phone, lights up and she starts texting. She waves it in the air and signs, “Later!”

  “Yeah, later,” I sign at her back, before flipping the bird at the closed door. And for the first time I’m glad I’m not at Kingston, glad I don’t have to see her fake face every day. At least I can pretend I get paid to deal with her now. It wasn’t enough that she got me kicked out of school, she had to take it a step further and go after Donovan.

  Smoldering, I take the lid off the shake and chug the rest. The sweet coolness calms me, and I slowly begin to feel like myself again. I pop the lock open and slide it from the metal loop. I’m relieved she’s finally gone. It’s not that Jordyn would care if she knew what was in my locker, but I’m not going to take any more risks with her. Or anyone. I’d rather have everyone think that I put it all behind me. No more bragging, no more getting up. I’m not Julia.

  I’m HERE.

  I swing open my work locker. Inside are two backpacks: the one my mom checked and the one she didn’t.

  I leave most of it behind. I have no plans to go out writing tonight. I take out a Yakuza Yellow paint pen and my X-Acto knife kit. I’m pretty sure I can get away with my X-Acto, since Mee knows I use it to sharpen pencils. She doesn’t know about the whole cutting-stencils bit. I’d like to keep it that way.

  The lights flick off and on twice, my black bag hits the floor and one lone paint pen (Zombie Green) rolls across the tiles and collides with Donovan’s boots.

  We’re frozen for a moment before I scramble to get my stuff back into my locker. By the time I look up at him, he’s reading the fine print on the pen case. He shakes it, pops the lid off, and takes a deep whiff.