The Long, Slender Abdomen …
… of Dragonia Volante swishes menacingly as her enemies cower in fear.
I shall vanquish you all, one by one! she cries.
Except I don’t like how her dragonfly wings look. They’re too short and stubby. I pull an eraser out of the canvas crossbody I’m wearing. I’m not usually a crossbody kind of girl, but it keeps my art supplies from falling everywhere when I’m up in my private drawing tree.
I lengthen Drago’s forewings. That’s better. It looks more like her.
I shall vanquish you all—
Slam.
Jordan storms out of the house, gets about halfway to his truck, stops.
“Ashley, get your butt outta that tree,” he says without even looking up. “Go help Gladys with the baby.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s your baby,” I whisper, but not loud enough for Jordan to hear. He’d throttle me if he heard me.
“It wouldn’t kill you to help with dinner tonight, either, so Gladys doesn’t have to do everything,” he barks.
“Where are you going?” I ask as I scramble down the trunk.
He turns on me, narrows his eyes. “Hold up, do I answer to you? Or do you answer to me?”
Neither, I think. I’m just a kid. I’m not even your kid—I’m your mom’s foster. You’re the one who’s not supposed to be here.
“Now get in there and finish your homework,” he says, “before you flunk out of sixth grade.”
Like you flunked out of tenth? I think. Lucky for Jordan, I keep this thought to myself.
And don’t call me Ashley either. It’s Ash. Just. Ash.
When I get inside, I don’t finish my homework.
I finish my drawing.
I draw Jordan in the clutches of Drago, her mandibles open and ready to devour his whole head.
I’m pretty sure no one would even miss him.
Wiz Porter Giggles …
… in third-period English as he passes his phone across the aisle to Matt Adams.
They both look at me.
Now they’re both giggling.
I pull my hoodie over my head, slide the strings so they cinch around my face, like Drago’s massive portal to her lair—a metal iris with curved, interlocking teeth that opens and closes to keep enemies from entering her secret hideout. My hoodie version kind of does the same.
I stare down at my notebook. My drawing of Dragonia Volante stares back at me. Drago is my superhero alter ego. She’s a dragonfly-woman hybrid. She has eight little brothers and sisters who she loves and helps with their homework and stuff, even when they’re being bratty to her. She calls out every injustice. She’s kind of a boss.
I erase the lines representing waves of destructive power coming from Drago’s crystal-clear wings and change the drawing to Drago swiping the phone away from Matt Adams and crushing it in her powerful mandibles. Then I add a picture of her setting Wiz Porter’s hoodie on fire with the force of her stare. That’s for telling people you’re a wizard! she says.
Wiz Porter is not a wizard. That’s not even his name—it’s Alan. I know, because the teachers call “Alan Porter” for roll every day and he mumbles, “Here.” But he still tells people his real name is Wiz.
He swears it.
Wiz pops Matt Adams on the arm and tells him to pass the phone to Joss Cruz. Joss smirks at the screen and hands it back.
She says “Grow up” to Matt and Wiz.
But a smirk is still a smile.
She looks at me in between shoving the phone at him and turning back around.
My heart does a thing. That thing.
I mean …
That thing it does when Joss Cruz turns around in her seat sometimes.
I don’t have a crush on Joss.
That doesn’t mean I couldn’t have a crush on her. I mostly just like her supreme coolness. She may be the coolest person at school.
“Ashley…”
I pop up at the sound of Ms. Kim’s voice calling me by the wrong name.
“It’s just Ash,” I mumble.
“You’ll need to pull your hoodie down,” she says. “No hats inside.”
I run a mental scan of her, the way Drago would. Villain or no? It may be too early in the year to know how I feel about Ms. Kim.
“Matt and Wiz are passing a cell phone,” I blurt.
This is not even close to what Drago would say at a moment like this.
Ms. Kim turns, walks toward Matt and Wiz, parks one hand on her hip, holds the other one out toward them. She doesn’t say a word as Matt drops the phone into her hand.
“You may see me after class,” she tells them.
Okay, well. Maybe I don’t for sure know if I like Ms. Kim yet.
But I for sure don’t not like her.
We Have to Make a Family Tree …
… in social studies. It’s only the first week of middle school, and that’s the assignment already. Mr. Mann tells us to think of it like a “family dynasty” because that’s what we’re studying. He can tell us to think about it however he wants, but I still don’t have one.
My eyes close in around the words on the board. I draw a partly opened metal iris on my paper. Drago can make the curved spikes of the giant circular portal open and close together on demand, expanding and contracting to keep evildoers from gaining access to her lair. I’m using it to keep the words family tree from stabbing me in the heart.
Drago’s metal iris is perfect for separating all the kids who have a family from the kid who doesn’t.
In my drawing, she uses her wings to keep the iris from closing all the way. Her mouth opens, and she says the words a family tree.
a family tree
A family tree isn’t the same thing as your family tree.
Mr. Mann wrote a family tree.
He says, “I want to see at least three generations of a family tree.”
I can draw three generations of a family tree that isn’t my family tree. I can do that in my sleep.
Taryn Swisher leans over and psssssts at me.
“Will you draw mine?” she whispers.
“What?” I whisper back. I heard what she said. I just want her to get in trouble for asking me to do the assignment for her. That’s cheating.
“Will. You. Draw. Mine. For. Me.”
“Draw what for you?” I say again, way louder than I need to, even to get someone in trouble.
Mr. Mann turns toward me. I can tell he’s one of those old cranky types. He’s probably forty. I bet he has at least ten grandkids. I bet his grandkids know everything there is to know about their actual family. Not all of us are that lucky.
He says, “What’s your name, kiddo?”
“Dalton,” I say.
He looks at his roll sheet, going back through the list a couple of times.
“Again?” he says, tapping his ear. “I have a little trouble hearing—too many Anvil of Doom concerts back in the day.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but this time, I swirl up the words “Ash Dalton” just to confuse him.
“It’s Ashley Dalton,” someone says, loud and clear, from the back of the room.
I spin around. It’s hard to tell if it was Chase Williams or that one dude who always wears Aerosmith T-shirts. When we moved to Chico last year, I went to Citrus Elementary with Chase and Wiz and all of them. But I can never remember that other dude’s actual name— I just think of him as Steven Tyler, who according to Jordan is Aerosmith’s “front man.” Jordan loves that band too. He even has some of the same T-shirts. Right now, this Steven Tyler is elbow bumping with Chase Williams, so I’m pretty sure one of those guys said it.
“Okay, kiddo,” Mr. Mann says to no one in particular. “Keep the outbursts to a minimum, all right? We’ve got a lot to get through today.”
I flip my notebook open and sketch Drago lassoing Chase and Steven Tyler with her mile-long tongue and feeding them to a humungous toad version of our teacher. Cartoon Mr. Mann has warts all over his face and fangy teeth as he writes Reveal Your Deepest Secrets on the board. The letters fall like leaves off a family tree.
Nice try, Mr. Mann. I will never reveal my deepest secrets to you. My family secret is locked up again for I-don’t-know-how-long-this-time, so … maybe if my mom ever gets out of prison, I’ll do a family tree then. But I’m definitely not gonna make one now.
For now, I decide that I don’t like Mr. Mann. He seemed cool on the first day of class, calling everyone kiddo because he hadn’t learned our names yet and playing icebreakers with us. Even though I’m not always a fan of those let’s-get-to-know-each-other activities, I’m woman enough to admit they do help sometimes. Otherwise, I’d probably go a whole school year without talking to anyone in class.
Which, let’s be honest.
I’d mostly be fine with that.
Copyright © 2024 by Carrie Gordon
