ChaPteR one

T he tiny car icon in my Uber app twists around in circles, its location
three blocks from where I stand outside Evelyn’s house in the
Catalina Foothills. Like all houses in the neighborhood, Evelyn’s modest
three-bedroom sprouts unobtrusively from the Sonoran Desert. Each
residence up here is a different take on ancient Pueblo architecture—
stucco exteriors in various shades of sand and dirt, perpendicular lines
that disappear like a mirage in the right light. I take in the expanse of
Tucson stretching endlessly to the south—by most standards, a truly
killer view. But I know better. The most killer view of the city can be
found on its west side—at the top of Tumamoc Hill—and it’s this view
I’m chasing this evening. If my driver ever finds me, that is.
My driver, Reynold (red Toyota Camry, 3.8 stars), turns around, idles,
turns again. My driver’s test can’t come soon enough. Two more weeks.
The car on my phone reminds me of those plastic cars Evelyn and
I used to fill with blue and pink peg children in the Game of Life. He’s
two minutes away—no, now it’s three. I think about running inside
for one more swig from the massive Costco-sized bottle of vodka I’ve
hidden beneath the heating vent in my old bedroom.
Maybe Reynold is as buzzed as I am. But of course that’s not it. I’m

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used to waiting twice as long for an Uber as I should. The streets in the
foothills are mazelike, and when I lived here with Evelyn, I’d often have to
walk halfway to River Road to meet up with my buddies, their parents apt
to give up and drop them off just north of the Zinburger near Campbell.
I wipe a bead of sweat from my temple—feeling moisture in way too
many other places—and grin as the flash of red comes around the cor-
ner. I wave. Wish I’d stored some extra deodorant at Evelyn’s house—
summer in the Old Pueblo means short shelf lives for showers. I pop
open the passenger-side door and hop in, energized by the blast of air-
conditioning. My head feels light from the alcohol, and the friendly-
dad look on Reynold’s face makes me sure he’s about to become my
new best buddy.
Reynold says, “I thought my phone was going to have an aneurysm
trying to find you. These foothills. Pretty up here, but . . .” He flips a
U-turn on the lane—more an asphalt driveway. A single zombie apoc-
alypse is all it would take for the cacti and desert brush to reclaim the
road for nature.
“Yeah, man. My friends’ parents have gotten lost a thousand times.
Thanks for persevering, though. This is a nuggs emergency of epic
proportions.”
“Why don’t you just DoorDash?”
Some sober part of my brain thinks I shouldn’t be so forthcoming
with this stranger, that I should get a new Uber from Wendy’s—and
another new one, and another new one after that. That I should only
talk about what I’m doing right now with Ms. Finch at school because
she’s the only one I ever talk with about what I’m doing right now, and
even then just barely. But Reynold is a cool dude. I can tell.
“Actually,” I say, “I’m going drunk drive-thru’ing. It’s no fun if you
don’t go through the drive-thrus.”

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 “Drive-thrus? Plural?” Reynold gives me parent eyebrows. I don’t
like those eyebrows. “Aren’t we a bit young to be drinking?”
Can Uber drivers snitch? Is there such a thing as driver-rider confi-
dentiality? I recover quickly just in case. “Not too young if you’re just
drunk on life and a six-pack of Monster, bro!” I’ve brought shame upon
seven generations of my offspring, but my committed performance was
probably worth it. My backward cap, flip-flops, and the neon-green
Wayfarers hanging from the neck of my tank top should win the cos-
tume department an Emmy.
Reynold’s sidelong glance suggests he’s not convinced, but he doesn’t
press. He navigates out of the foothills and zooms down Campbell
Avenue. I love how the streetlights strobe when I try to concentrate
on them. I love the warm feeling in my cheeks, the part of me the air-
conditioning can’t cool off. I poke at my belly, not caring that it’s softer
than those of my buddies. My favorite part of drinking is not caring
about stuff. I whisper, “You ready for some nuggs, bruh?” My laugh
comes out more like the giggle a little kid would make, which makes me
laugh some more.
I say, “Okay, Reynold. Let’s go over the itinerary so we don’t make
any mistakes. First stop, Wendy’s.” I’m ticking off our agenda on my
fingers. “Then we’ll punch through McDonald’s even though they’re
painfully pedestrian. All those delicious chemicals, though, am I right?”
Reynold opens his mouth but I’m talking too fast.
“Then we’ll hit Taco Bell. Actually, no.” I’m shaking my head. Evelyn
would be bummed if she knew I was eating an Anglo facsimile of Mexican
food. Mexican is kind of our thing, a cooking-as-a-family thing, and we
do it up right because Evelyn wants me to be proud of my heritage. I
revise on the fly. “Screw that no-nuggs noise. Third stop: Jack. We’re
getting chicken for days. You can even get some if you want. My treat.

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Then you can drop me off in the medical center parking lot across from
Tumamoc. You know where everyone parks illegally?”
“No clue, kid. You’ll have to program each stop into the app. You
know that, right?”
“Hell yeah, buddy. I’ve got my Uber game down. You’ve never done
Tumamoc? Put it at the top of your list. The U of A has an observatory
up there or something, but you can hike up the hill whenever you want.
It’s the closest I’ve ever been to the Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky.”
Reynold gives me the type of face Evelyn would call quizzical or
flummoxed. Before she became my mom—which happened when I was
six years old—Evelyn had a whole career as an English professor at the
University of Arizona. She’s forever telling me to employ mature dic-
tion. Never use just any word, Brett. Not when only the right word will do.
I explain. “The Great Cool Ranch Dorito . . .” I crane my neck to
find it through the windshield. Here in the city proper, dusk’s hold
is still acting like a gray blanket over the stars. “That big-ass triangle
constellation? That’s Captain Condor’s headquarters in the cosmos. He
chills up there with Kid Condor, and they save the universe from the evil
Archer von Adonis and whatnot. I mean . . .” I lean in like I’m about to
tell Reynold a secret. “I’m pretty much Kid Condor.” I shrug like it’s no
big thing. “You know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh. Kid Condor, got it.”
Wendy’s is fast approaching on our right. Reynold gestures toward
the familiar freckled girl on the signage. “All this is a little pricey for a
kid your age, isn’t it?”
Damn it, Reynold. Don’t be such a buzzkill. Reynold’s question
reminds me why I have enough money to do stuff like drunk drive-
thru’ing, and suddenly the storm clouds are gathering inside. Not cool,
Reynold. Not cool. It’s weird how drinking can make you the happiest

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guy in the world in one minute but make you want to cry your eyes out
in the next. I wish I’d thought to put some booze in a water bottle. I’m
only just learning the ways of the drunkard. It appears I have a long way
to go.
I blink away the feelings I don’t want to have, put a fat smile back on
my face, shrug, and say, “Big allowance,” which is true enough.
Reynold pulls into the Wendy’s, the one in the Safeway shopping
center on Prince, where I get a ten-piece nuggs meal with Dr Pepper.
Next, we’re across the street at McDonald’s. I get another ten-piece—
ba-da-ba-ba-baaah, I’m nuggin’ it. And then we’re heading to the Jack in
the Box on Grant. Reynold pulls up to the menu and turns to me, my
Wendy’s and McDonald’s bags warming my feet. “Nuggets?”
I shake my head. “No, no, no, no, no. You want the chicken
tendies here. Jack is basically the Ritz-Carlton of all the fast-food places,
and you want to order the filet mignon of processed chicken products.”
When the speaker crackles to life, I lean over Reynold’s lap and say, “I’ll
take a number twelve, please—with curly fries and an Oreo shake.” I’m
thinking I might mix all the nuggs together in one bag and surprise my
mouth when I eat them in the pitch-black atop Tumamoc. “Oh, and
lots of ranch. And some ketchup. Please. Oh! And give me another Oreo
shake for my buddy Reynold here. He’s a stand-up guy, and don’t let
anyone tell you otherwise.”
“That’ll be $21.48 at the window.”
I turn to Reynold, nod at the Dr Peppers I’m holding in each hand.
“The shake is a bit of an extravagance, I know, but I’m trying to limit
my soda intake because diabetes and all.”
At the window, I pass my debit card to the nugg slinger, who takes it
with a hand bedazzled in glitter nail polish. Her wrist is heavily acces-
sorized in plastic rainbow jelly bracelets. I recognize her—she’s in

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my earth science class and is hard to forget because you have to scoot
your chair in whenever she needs to walk behind you to get to the door.
She has this purple-and-blue hair—mermaid hair, I once heard it called.
What’s her name? Something you’d name your grandma. Marjory?
Mildred? She recognizes me, too. She tenses, as if losing her anonymity
as a faceless, nugg-slinging corporate drone—even for the span of a fast-
food transaction—is painful. “Hey, Brett.”
From somewhere in my memory come the taunting voices of the jerks
at school. Mallory, Mallory, Miss Ten Thousand Calorie. “Hey, Mallory.”
Sometimes when I’m at school, I try not to look at Mallory. I especially
try not to make eye contact. I don’t know why. I’m not one of the jerks,
I swear, but something about her, maybe everything about her—the
redness of her face on sweltering days, the way her clothes strain to hold
her inside, the tiny scabs on her arms from where she picks at her skin
when she thinks no one is looking—makes me uncomfortable. I know
my avoidance is uncool. Evelyn would give me a lecture on being the
kind of guy she expects me to be. I take a breath and try for some small
talk. “You got your dirt report done yet?”
She makes a sour face, passes my debit card through the reader. “It’s
going to be an all-nighter. You?”
“Yeah, I’m done, so I’m treating myself to a hike up Tumamoc. Ever
been?”
Mallory hands Reynold our shakes, no longer bothering to wear her
Jack-approved smile. “Why would I want to do that?”
Reynold takes a sip of his shake, kindly ignoring that I’m basically
lying in his lap.
I say, “It’s hella rad. You can see a three-sixty view of the city, plus you
feel almost close enough to outer space to touch the Great Cool Ranch
Dorito in the Sky.”

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 Mallory rolls her eyes. I grin anyway because her recognition
means she’s at least stumbled upon my comic book, Kid Condor: Cadet
First Class of the Constellation Corps, several dozen copies of which I
hid throughout the school library last semester in a stealth operation.
Forgive the bragging, but Kid Condor is kind of going to be a big deal
someday.
Mallory delivers my food.
I use my sweet voice. “Extra ranch?”
She grabs a handful of ranch cups, drops them into the open bag,
which I’m still holding extended from the car. Reynold lifts his foot
from the brake. I cry out, “Wait!” The car lurches.
Mallory glances to my feet, to the bags from Wendy’s and McDonald’s.
She raises her brow. “Something else?”
I can’t say why exactly, but I was about to ask Mallory if she wanted
to go to Tumamoc with me sometime. Something in that look on her
face, though, something in her tone, makes me self-conscious.
My buzz has worn off, hasn’t it?
I feel that quick cramp in the gut that comes when the teacher calls
on you but you have no idea what he’s asking because you’ve been day-
dreaming. I look to the bags on the floor, the one in my lap. Suddenly,
I’m hyperaware that I’m double-fisting a Dr Pepper and an Oreo shake.
Another Dr Pepper sweats in the cupholder beside me. Heat builds in
my cheeks.
“Nothing. I’ll . . . I’ll see you at school.”
“I’ll count the minutes.”
Reynold steps on it. Mallory’s face disappears before I’ve registered
what I saw on it. Now I don’t know if I want to go to Tumamoc. I wish
I hadn’t gone to Jack.
I take a sip of my milkshake. Another.

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 Reynold and I don’t chat as we drive the ten minutes to our final stop.
All the feelings I wasn’t feeling an hour ago are filling up my insides and
I kind of want to start crying. I don’t think Reynold would be cool with
that, so I just pull harder on my milkshake, wishing it were full of vodka.
As Reynold eases into the lot across from the poorly paved driveway
that winds up Tumamoc, I gather my nuggs and my remaining cup of
Dr Pepper. “Thanks, Reynold. You’ve been a real champ and I’ll never
forget you.”
I’m closing the car door when Reynold catches me. “Hey, kid?”
I blurt the first thing that comes to mind before he can say what I’m
afraid he’s going to say. “Don’t worry, bud. Your tip is going to be the
envy of all the other drivers at your annual Uber Christmas party this
year. We good?”
Reynold gives me those parent eyebrows he’s quickly becoming
famous for, and I’m wondering if my face and voice are doing what I
think they’re doing.
It turns out they’re not. Reynold says, “Are you all right?”
I fight to speak through the tightening in my chest. “I’m bomb as
hell, bro! Better than ever, too, thanks to your next-level driving—you
should go into stunt driving, for real.”
Reynold opens his mouth, but I plow forward. “Well, gotta get these
nuggs in my belly while they’re warm.” I pat my stomach. “He’s growl-
ing. Later, buddy!”
I slam the door and set off in a jog across the street, desperate to get
as far as possible from the face Reynold was making, the face Ms. Finch
always makes when she pulls me from journalism to talk about my feel-
ings, the very face Mallory made when she saw the bags I’m carting to
the top of Tumamoc Hill.
This face chases me, and I hike a little faster than usual.

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 Chapter Two

R eed affects a wizened and measured tone. “Wax on . . . wax off.”

He glances over the hood of his battered Chevy pickup to be sure
he has my attention. He repeats the words, louder this time, as he mimes
jerking off to the sacred text from my favorite movie of all time, The
Karate Kid, a kick-ass film from the 1980s in which a teen boy, Daniel
LaRusso, is mentored by a Japanese karate master, the lovable Mr.
Miyagi, and must defeat the school bullies in a karate championship.
Basically, a save-the-world-get-the-girl sort of thing.
Reed’s fist bobs over the crotch of his swim trunks. “Wax on, wax
off . . .” This time the words sound painful. He tilts his head back and
his eyelids flutter. He’s widely known as a harmless scamp, but this per-
formance is pure sacrilege. “Oh God, brohhhhhhh! Wax off !”
I dunk my sponge in our bucket of sudsy water, sloshing my feet and
flip-flops, and hurl the water bomb. I nail him in the face. Reed drops
to the ground, releases a death rattle sure to echo through the courtyards
of his apartment complex. My apartment complex, too, I remind myself.
I’ve been living with Reed for seven months—which still doesn’t feel
real—bunking above him in the cramped two-bedroom he shares with
his dad.

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 Reed has been my best bud since second grade, when we were the
only seven-year-olds sorted into the kindergarten reading group. I guess
I should be happy to be living with him, but even after all these months
I catch myself longing to go home—my real home—at the end of the
day. Evelyn’s words from the day I moved out spring to mind unwel-
come, particularly because I hear them in her new voice, her hospital
voice, which rakes across her vocal cords in a way that sounds painful.
What ineffable fun. It’ll be a true boys’ club, a bachelor pad. She could see
I was trying not to cry, so she pulled me close and roughed my hair. Just
promise you’ll pull your dirty socks out from under the bed once a week to
wash them.
In a fluid, Daniel LaRusso–like move, Reed rocks onto his shoulder
blades and performs a kip-up, landing lightly on his feet. “You could
bake a cake on that asphalt!”
We’re enjoying what little shade is provided by a gnarled mesquite
whose roots have left this corner of the lot looking like an excavation
site. Reed retrieves my sponge, dunks it and squeezes it over the back
of his neck. He gives his headlights some attention, flicking mosquito
carcasses off the plastic. Reed’s tank top—featuring a rendering of Andre
the Giant in his famed caveman singlet—clings to his chest, which has
become markedly swole in the past year since he decided to join the
wrestling team. Reed’s body couldn’t look more different than Andre’s—
trim and well-defined.
A familiar feeling of discomfort washes over me, and I avert my eyes
before Reed notices me looking. This awkward moment happening
inside me—this awkward moment known only to me—it isn’t a gay
thing, even if being gay would be hella dope because you’d get to buy
a fixer-upper and build furniture and remodel a master bath with your
best-buddy-slash-husband, all of which seems way less scary and loads

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less confusing than navigating the world of women, an endeavor Reed
is super excited about. He can’t shut up about girls all of a sudden, and
his new five-month plan—getting laid by winter break—has me feeling
like I’m falling behind in the race of adolescence.
The attention I pay to Reed’s body isn’t the same as the kind I pay
to, say, Thandie Gellar’s body. Thandie Gellar enjoyed an incredible
glow-up over the summer, and whenever she rolls the waist of her gym
shorts to expose more of her thighs—why do girls do this? why?—I have
to look away before I embarrass myself.
Reed and I have always been as comfortable as brothers around each
other, but lately I get this pit of dread in my stomach whenever he
changes his clothes around me or even just takes off his shirt, whenever
I notice the type of guy he’s turning into. This feeling is not unlike the
discomfort I feel when I eat in front of him, which kind of blows because
for obvious reasons I eat in front of him a lot. I guess Reed has glowed
up, too, and girls like Thandie Gellar notice when guys like Reed notice
them. I, on the other hand, might as well be the Invisible Kid.
Reed lifts our bucket of suds and effortlessly transports it a parking
space over, sets it beside the wheel of my nondescript Toyota sedan,
which I only get to drive with Reed’s dad in the passenger seat (a total
buzzkill, for sure, even if Marcus is a pretty chill dad-bot). Reed says,
“Speaking of whacking—I mean waxing—off, you want to watch Karate
Kid tonight?”
I recharge my sponge and begin my now-expert rendition of Mr.
Miyagi’s signature move. The paint job on my car, a gift from Evelyn
when she could no longer drive, is so sun fried that washing does noth-
ing to improve its exhausted appearance. It’s the principle that matters,
though, so I clean with loving care. Saturdays may be for the boys, but
Sundays are for the toys.

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 I say, “Maybe we should watch Scarface instead. It’s been hella days
since we watched your favorite. We don’t always have to watch mine.”
“No, dude, it’s chill. I love Karate Kid.”
I know what Reed is up to; it’s this annoying thing he always does,
trying to make me feel better about having to move in with him, even
when I’m not acting sad, even when we’re doing stuff that’s fun. It’s
been seven months of him favoring me like a sprained ankle. I’m not
injured. I don’t want to be pitied. I realize I’m scribbling on the pad of
my thumb with my index finger, this nervous thing I do sometimes,
spelling out invisible words I can’t bring myself to say aloud. I’m not
pathetic, I write. I’m not fragile. Stop treating me like a baby. I douse my
fist in the bucket to wash the words away, as if Reed could see them.
I determine I’ll force the issue, but our negotiations are interrupted
by Marcus, who calls from the tiny balcony of the second-floor apart-
ment. “Pizza, guys?”
Reed says, “Is that even a question?”
“Brooklyn or Rocco’s?”
We respond in unison. “Brooklyn.”
“Want to eat there? Afterward we could shoot hoops at Himmel.”
Before I can respond in the affirmative, a habit of mine with
Marcus—don’t be a pest, don’t be a burden—Reed declares we want
delivery because we’re going to chill at home and watch The Karate Kid.
I suppress a groan. Marcus won’t like this idea—he wants so badly to
be the involved dad and spend time with us on the one night a week he’s
freed from the labors of machining at the metalworks factory. I’d like to
give him this because he really tries and I think Reed might take him
for granted. Reed, on the other hand, never looks too deeply into his
dynamic with his dad. He just wants autonomy—and pizza.

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 As expected, Marcus deflates. “The Karate Kid ? Again? What is it
with that movie?”
I open my mouth to correct Reed, to say that we’re actually watching
Scarface (which should go over better because it only became Reed’s
favorite movie because it was Marcus’s favorite), but Reed steamrolls
me, his enthusiasm characteristically infectious, even when the subject
matter produces eye rolls. “Dad, show some respect. According to our
resident aficionado”—he gestures to me—“The Karate Kid is the great-
est superhero movie of all time. Apologies to The Dark Knight.”
Marcus raises his hands. “Spare me the dissertation, son. I’ve heard
it all before.”
What Marcus would pay money to never hear again is my well-
thought-out TED Talk positing that Daniel LaRusso is actually a super-
hero and The Karate Kid is his origin story. Think about it. Daniel is
just your average kid like any one of us, but he loses his father (glaring
hero trope); journeys to a new, challenging land where he’s faced with
a seemingly insurmountable force of evil (the Cobra Kai); has to save a
girl from the clutches of a cliché eighties supervillain (Elisabeth Shue as
Ali, am I right?); is mentored by a great and powerful sage-slash-mage-
slash-healer with supernatural abilities (that’s Mr. Miyagi, obviously);
and acquires preternatural fighting skills, complete with a unique cos-
tume and signature move that countless fanboys have been mimicking
on beaches since before I was born. All of this cements Daniel LaRusso’s
place as a textbook martial artist superhero.
While one might argue that the above is merely circumstantial evi-
dence, no one can deny that just like all superheroes, Daniel never gives
up, no matter how insurmountable the odds, no matter how injured he
is, no matter how much pain he’s in. His heroism is grounded in real

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life, and his story gives me hope that something special might lie within
even me. The fact that my protagonist, Kid Condor, has no supernatural
abilities and instead must rely on his kick-ass fighting skills and alien
tech is my nod to Daniel. No matter how fantastical my world-building,
I wanted my hero to be a real kid, too.
Ever the pushover, Marcus agrees to Reed’s plan. “Fine. You guys
can watch Karate Kid if you must, but then I’m going to kick both your
punk asses in Mario Kart. Have fun with the scrap characters. I’ve got
dibs on my hero, Princess Peach.”

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 Chapter Three

M s. Finch doesn’t like to be called a guidance counselor. She says

school counselors abandoned that title a couple decades ago
because their most important job isn’t helping sophomores escape the
barbarism of gym by spiriting us into marching band; it’s helping guys
like me feel better about the bad things that happen to us.
I’m sitting at Ms. Finch’s desk on her bouncy-ball chair, which
she says she wrote into her budget last year because it’s good for her
posture and productivity. She sits on the edge of the threadbare sofa
usually reserved for students. I think Ms. Finch lets me sit on her
chair during our check-ins because she feels sorry for me. I go ahead
and let her.
Ms. Finch drapes one leg over the other. I admire her new Chuck
Taylors—low-tops, bright red—with more than a little envy. Ms. Finch
is one of the coolest adults at Tucson City High. Even though I don’t
like talking about my feelings, even though I hate talking about why
I’m here, my mood always brightens when she asks if she can steal me
for a chat.
Today, Ms. Finch wants to talk about food. She always wants to talk
about food (even rad adults have their flaws). She says, “Why do you

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think you felt bad when Mallory noticed you were eating food from
three restaurants?”
I look to the disturbing stains in the ceiling tiles, pulsating nebulas
and swirling black holes. Why did I feel bad in the drive-thru? Why
do I feel so bad right now? It’s not like Mallory is anyone to judge,
right? She’s like the fattest kid in school. Evelyn’s voice springs to mind.
Physical characteristics describe a body, Brett, not a character. Look deeper.
Thinking of Mallory as the fattest kid in school feels mean, even if she
is. The biggest kid in school? Is that kinder?
Ms. Finch says, “Brett? You know our talks are more productive when
you express your inner narrative aloud.”
I know I’m starting to get kind of chubby—I can feel the bite of my
belt buckle when I sit down (I don’t want to tell Ms. Finch this). I know
three fast-food meals is a lot for one person—I’m not completely obliv-
ious (I do want to tell Ms. Finch this). But teen guys scarf down every-
thing in sight all the time. When I still lived with Evelyn, she would
buy all sorts of snacks when my buddies showed up for sleepovers, even
giving me money to order pizza for everyone. There was never a speck
of Dorito dust left when the sun rose.
I don’t know how to answer Ms. Finch’s question because saying
what I’m thinking would feel like defending myself. So I take the cow-
ard’s way out. “I don’t know.”
Ms. Finch makes a note on her legal pad and regards me, her head
cocked like she’s examining my face for the answers my voice won’t give
her. “I think you’re ready.”
Ready for what?
Ms. Finch steps to the bookcase behind her desk. “I have a present
for you. I thought of giving it to you sooner, but I wanted it to be spe-
cial, so I had the cover doctored.”

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 A present? Sounds like the sort of gesture a friend would make. Ms.
Finch doesn’t like the word friend—the other f-word, she calls it—
because it undermines her authority, but I know her protestations are
merely for show. One time, she let Reed and me hide in the bank of
cabinets lining one wall of her office. We’d been released for a bathroom
break from in-school suspension, serving a day’s sentence for violating
dress code for the third time, and instead of heading straight to the boys’
room, we ran in here and crawled into the cabinets while Ms. Finch
pretended not to look. When Dean Ricamora asked if she’d seen us, she
feigned ignorance like a pro. Once her office door latched closed, Reed
and I busted up. Ms. Finch finally spoke. “You’ll have to go back to
prison now. As much as I enjoy being an accomplice, I enjoy my pay-
check more.”
Now she slides a squat spiral-bound journal from between several
dusty copies of psychology and sociology books no one would ever want
to read. She passes the notebook my way.
I suck in a breath. “Holy shit.” Kid Condor stares up at me, his
masked expression determined, his bright-purple-and-yellow fly suit
sleek, the lines of his body svelte, feet disappearing in a streak of jet
flame, his form stretched to show the intense speed at which his propul-
sion pack sends him zooming through the cosmos. The journal’s cover is
a laminated copy of the cover of the flagship issue of Kid Condor: Cadet
First Class of the Constellation Corps. “Where did you get this?” I leaf
through the pages, ruled but all blank.
Ms. Finch gives me her best disapproving look—she sucks at dis-
approving looks. “I’m friends with the librarian, you know. She’s still
finding issues tucked into the encyclopedias. I found this one in a copy
of Red Rising.”
I lift my arm for a high five. “Good taste, Finch.”

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 We slap palms and Ms. Finch settles once more on the couch.
I say, “So what did you think of the issue? I assume you read it before
dismantling it.”
“I found it . . . illuminating.”
“Plot? Characters? Don’t leave me hanging. I’m especially curious if
the condor thing made sense since Captain is partially based—obviously
loosely, I mean, because don’t even get me started on the Dorito-dust
thing—but, like, he’s inspired, anyway, by this Inca sun god named Inti,
and Kid is obviously mestizo—or whatever the Monosian equivalent of
mestizo is, which I guess is whatever I want it to be since Monos isn’t
Earth, but its displaced peoples are basically the same as humans, though
kind of more highly evolved—totally La raza cósmica, you know?—but
only in the good, modern sense, not in the original sense from like a
hundred years ago, which was definitely still kind of racist. But I have to
bring all this up because most people associate the eagle with Mexico,
not the condor, and, sure, I get that. I mean, why wouldn’t they? But
they’re not aware of the whole South American thing, the important
connection between the condor and the eagle, and of course they’re only
thinking about the Mexico they know. I’ve been reading up about this.
This whole part of the world was all colonized to hell and ransacked
and turned into Disneyland and whatever—and of course none of that
was cool at all, and oh my God, I mean, I myself am a product of all this
horrible stuff that happened centuries ago and I don’t really know how
I feel about that yet, but what I’m driving at is that where the condor is
concerned, even the indigenous people as far north as—”
Ms. Finch raises her palm. “Whoa there, my friend. Let’s slow that
roll for a second.”
I give Ms. Finch a sheepish grin and shrug. “It’s canon.”
“I very much appreciated Kid’s mythology, and am particularly

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intrigued by your own. I’d like to hear more about both, but those are
topics for another day. Today, I want to talk about the journal.”
Oof. My whole body deflates. “Okay. No Dear Diary crap, please.”
She raises her hands in defense. “I’m going out on a limb because
you seem to be struggling to talk about something that might be worth
talking about. This is a food journal.”
My stomach fills with a team of rugby-playing butterflies. I don’t
think I want this present anymore.
Call her Jean Grey, because Ms. Finch is forever sensing stuff I don’t
mean for her to know. “This is going to feel like homework, but track-
ing your food intake might help you learn some things that could really
improve your life in the long run.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Could I convince you if it meant I’d ask fewer questions about what
you’re eating? If recording such information in the book could answer
those questions for me?”
I’m not convinced. Not even a little. But Ms. Finch has never steered
me wrong. I mean, maybe even I dislike the word friend because Ms.
Finch is something more than a friend. After all, look at what she did
for my food journal. You ever try to buy a journal at a store? They’re
all girly and florid. That’s the word Evelyn would use: florid. Evelyn’s
voice comes to mind—her old voice, before all the oxygen tanks and
tubes, the voice she used when I still lived with her. Imprecise diction
is the currency of the misunderstood, Brett. Ms. Finch is really more of a
bro, right? Come to think of it, Ms. Finch is an even bro-ier bro than
my bros because I can say stuff to her I wouldn’t even tell Reed. I make
a mental note to tell Evelyn about my new nomenclature for Ms. Finch
the moment I visit her. Evelyn adores words, but she hates the word bro.
I say, “What would I have to do exactly?”

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 “You’d start by recording what you eat and at what time. Not too
tough, right?”
I’m staring at Kid Condor; he could perform this task in his sleep. I
should tell Ms. Finch that sounds easy, but I think it might be hard—
really hard.
“That sounds easy.”
“Good. Excellent. Now for the trickier part. When you eat a lot at
once, when you eat past the point of fullness, I want you to jot some
notes about how you felt before or during the eating—what you were
thinking about at the time—and I want you to write about how you felt
afterward. You can write as little or as much as you like.”
It’s not lost on me that Ms. Finch didn’t use the word binge when
she described what I do. I know that she knows that I know that word,
but I also know that she knows that I don’t like that word. I don’t like its
specificity, and I hate that it feels like something you’d write in Sharpie
on one of those stickers you wear on your chest where nobody knows
your name. Hello, my name is Binge. Evelyn would be such a mom if she
were here right now, disappointed in both of us for skating around the
just-right word.
“Brett?” Ms. Finch leans forward. “You know I feel more respected
when you make eye contact.”
Evelyn is on one shoulder, and she’s telling me to be brave. Kid
Condor is on the other, and he’s telling me Evelyn is always right. “All
right, I’ll do it. I’ll try, I mean.”
Ms. Finch slaps her hands on her knees. “That’s what I’m talking
about!” She jumps from her perch to shake my hand. “Deal?”
I can’t help but catch Ms. Finch’s enthusiasm. I hop from her bouncy-
ball chair and grab her hand. “Deal!” I toss my head back and crow,
pounding my chest with a fist. To anyone else, I’d look like a total weirdo,

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but making noise is something Ms. Finch taught me to do when I’m so
filled up with feelings I might burst if I don’t get them out of me—joyful,
miserable, it doesn’t matter. Ms. Finch just wants me to express authenti-
cally, and I’m allowed to come here to do so whenever I want. This is one
of the reasons Ms. Finch is totally a bro.
When the dust of my enthusiasm settles, I slide my food journal into
my backpack and slip my arms through the straps. At the threshold, I
turn. Ms. Finch is seated again, recording a few more notes to save for
all eternity in my psych file. I say, “Ms. Finch?”
“Yes, Brett?”
“Only you’ll read what I write? No one else has to see it?”
“Just me.”
“Cool.”
And as I head back to journalism, I do feel pretty cool.

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