I Am Phantom (18 page)

Christmas
decorations had sprung up around the house overnight. A blow up Santa doll, a
little too creepy for my taste, dominated the entrance chamber. Candles and
holly, laced with the smell of gingerbread, filled the hallways in which Jack
and Matt walked back and forth, humming Christmas tunes to themselves.

After
Cody and Melanie arrived, everybody gathered in the gigantic family room,
beneath the Christmas tree and in front of a roaring fire nearly as big as my
dorm room.

The
conversation was a little one sided. Like, Mr. Warner talked while Melanie and Cody
defended the science program as not a ‘sissy centered funnel for brainiacs’.
Mrs. Warner asked me all about Bhutan. Cecily twirled a little dance around the
room with long streamers tied in her hair and for a little while, I was really,
really happy. Almost like I was back home again. I hadn’t thought about home
much the past few months. I’d talked to my parents whenever I had the chance,
but our lives were so separate now that I still felt severed from them. As
though I was no longer a part of their life.

As
evening came the sun disappeared over the snow-covered hilltops. Cecily yawned
and Mrs. Warner decided to put her to bed.

“Let’s
go,” Matt said quickly, obviously dreading being in the family room with only
his father there.

Cody,
Melanie and I got up and followed him to the entrance chamber where he started
to put on a coat.

“Are
you crazy, Matt?” Cody said. “It’s freezing out there. Have you noticed how little
warmth I have on my body?”
            
“It’s a nice night for a walk,” Matt said simply.

“Nice…what?
Matt—”

“It
is
a nice night for a
walk
,” Melanie agreed, nodding her head
minutely towards me. Cody’s eyes widened.

“So
it is.”

But
I immediately agreed with Cody once we stepped outside and the cold clamped my
lungs. Our breath hung under the outdoor lights and my cheeks were dulled numb
after a few minutes. We walked side-by-side, snow crunching beneath our boots
and pale moonlight illuminating untouched glistening hilltops all around the
backyard where we walked.

Everything
was beautifully quiet, almost like Bhutan after the day had gone to sleep. No
car lights or street lamps or any of the night noises I had grown used to, and
enjoyed, about Queensbury after dark.

Melanie
suddenly gained purpose in her stride and pulled ahead of us, leading us down
to a storage shed for vehicles separate from the rest of the house.

“We
really enjoyed your presents, Drake,” she said, stopping in front of the shed
doors. I caught the restrained smile in her voice. “I enjoyed them so much more
than Cody or Matt’s.”

“Shut
up,” I mumbled. “I’m going to use the ‘I’m a wanted vigilante’ excuse to
explain why I forgot your presents. You’ll get them later. I promise.”

“But
in the meantime—” She waited until Matt unlocked the padlock on the door
and slid it open. “—we all pitched in to get you this.”

There,
beautifully gleaming as though it had just rolled out of the shop, was a
motorcycle.

“No
way,” I breathed. “You guys did not buy me this. This is too much.”

“It
was the cheapest one we could find—” Matt cut off suddenly as though Cody
had elbowed him.

I
stepped towards it, hand outstretched as though it would disappear at any
moment, and ran my hand along the painted lettering:
Iron Eagle
. Everything looked brand new, from the compact
handlebars to the sleek paint job.

“I’m
sure running all over the city is great for your cardio and all,” Cody said.
“But this will make it so much easier.”

“It
really would.” I imagined me ripping down streets, screaming around corner and
gunning it into the night. Which…was not what I was going for. “Guys, I love
it, but Phantom’s all about subtly, and roaring around town on this would kind
of scream ‘
look at me’
.”

“Not
to worry.” Cody straddled the motorcycle, pulled it upright and hit the
ignition. I covered my ears, expecting the sound to tear through the shed.
There was nothing. Only a shudder and quiet rumbling sound deep within the
engine.

Cody
grinned. “Purrs like a kitten.” He revved it but the sound only grew a little
bit. I doubt they could hear it outside the shed. “Matt, Melanie and I put our
magic touch on this.”

“All
three of us,” Matt reiterated.

“Yes,
I actually got to touch this project, unlike a certain water molecule materializer
I know of…”

Melanie
pulled something else out of her coat before a one sided argument could occur.

“Part
two.”

“Another
one? Isn’t a motorcycle enough?”

Melanie
adjusted the contraption in her hand and prodded it. “Not when you’re off
risking your life it’s not. Especially if—if I can get this to
work—this—come on—would help. Cody, where’s the switch—oh!”

A
quiet SNAP! came from her hand and a thin, nearly invisible wire shot into the
rafters and latched there.

“Perfect,”
Melanie said proudly, as if she had planned to do that. “This was my designs
that Cody helped me finish.” She smiled gratefully at him. “A little side
project to keep me occupied when I wasn’t studying.”

“Is
it a grappling line?”

Matt
swiped the thing out of her hand. “Precisely. Thin, compact, clips onto the
sleeve of the costume and can support five times your weight. Supposedly.” He
pressed a button and the line dropped and retracted. “And it can pull you up if
you’re too lazy to climb.”

“Or
injured,” I suggested.

Matt
considered this. “Or that. But what is important is that you won’t have a
situation where you will be stuck again.” I took the grapple with one hand and
aimed it up again. There was an indention on the handle perfectly shaped for my
finger and I pressed it. Another SNAP! and the line grew taunt when it hit the
wood.

“Left
side to go up,” Cody said. I braced myself and pressed the left button. I shot
up and hung there ten feet off the ground, looking down at them.

“And
down? How do I go down?”
           
“Uh…we haven’t really figured that out yet,” Cody admitted.

“What?”

“Kidding,
kidding. Right side. Gently.” I pressed it, lowered to the ground, retracted
the line and punched Cody in the arm.

“Thanks
for all of this, guys. You have no idea what this means to me.”

“There
is one more thing,” Melanie said. “I wrote to your parents and had them send
this.” She pulled out a framed photograph from her jacket. I took it. It was a
picture of all the monastery kids crowded in front of my parents, all with
giant grins on their faces. Sonam stood beside them, smiling in his own
reserved sort of way. Beneath all of this was my mom’s cursive hand:

“Happy Holidays, Drake! We
are so proud of you. Best wishes for the New Year!

                                               
—Love,
Mom, Dad, Sonam, your family in Bhutan

A
single tear dropped onto the picture. It took me a moment to realize it was
mine.

“Crap,”
I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. “This is—” But I couldn’t finish. I think
they knew how I felt because Melanie gave me a hug. She nodded for Cody to
join. He did, and grabbed Matt.

We
stood there shivering, my eyes bristling with frozen tears. I thought of all
the problems still back in Queensbury. Of Sykes and school and the whole world
I felt was out for Phantom’s blood. Would my parents be proud of what I’d done
or ashamed to call me their son. I didn’t have the answer, and maybe I didn’t
want to know. But for a moment, with my friends here and my family’s love in my
hand, it felt like they’d be happy after all.

We
decided to go back inside before Cody froze to death. He and Melanie drifted
farther and farther behind. I heard Melanie giggle and stopped Matt from going
back to join them. He looked confusedly at me as though trying to figure out
why I had stopped him.

“Was
the motorcycle your idea?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Don’t
you think it’s a little much for a gift?”

“Have
you seen my family? I can afford it. Think of it as a job perk.”

“Fair
enough.”

For
a minute there was nothing but the whisper of snowflakes brushing against our
faces and murmuring voices behind us.

“So
what’s up with your dad?” I asked. Wow, that came off blunt. Might of well have
said, ‘your dad think’s you’re wasting your life’ and get it over with.
          

Matt
kicked a small snow pile. “He wishes I were more athletic and less smart. He
thinks I act awkward around people and that I can’t make more friends.”

His
dad was right, and so wrong. Sure, Matt was awkward, but once you got past that
there was a genuinely good kid under there.

“Have
you even shown him anything you’ve made?”

Matt
shook his head.

“Not
once?”

Matt
shook his head again. “He doesn’t care about it. That’s why I almost tried out
for the Queensbury football team. I thought maybe he’d want to talk to me more
if I did that.”

“I
don’t think trying out for the team would have worked,” I said.

“You
don’t think that would have gotten his approval?”

“I
think the team would have clobbered you and there’d be nothing left to approve
of. Your strengths lie in other areas, Matt. Without Cody and your designs I
wouldn’t be here right now.”

Matt
looked at me. I realized how little he actually looked people in the eye. His
gaze lingered as though thanking me. Then it dropped again.

“You
shouldn’t be so clumsy. Then my designs wouldn’t have to protect you.”

I
would have smarted back but a snowball hit me in the back of the head.

Matt
and I stopped in to Cody’s room the next morning. Melanie had already left late
last night. Cody was up earlier than we expected. He stood in front of his
dresser mirror adjusting his shirt.

“We
wanted to know what you thought about doing today,” I said. “Matt told me
sledding is really fun.”

Cody
absentmindedly messed with his hair. He glanced at his stuff already packed
beside him, then scratched his nose. He looked embarrassed.

“Yeah…about
that…I think I’m going to head out of here pretty soon.”

“Head
out? We don’t have to be back at school for a week. You have a job to get back
to?”

“No,
nothing like that. There’s family and I’m just going back a little early.
I’m—meeting someone.”

I
wanted to see him sweat. “Yeah? Who?”
    

He
mumbled something and Matt made a face. “What?”

“Melanie.
We’re going to lunch in her hometown.”

He
looked relieved, almost as if divulging a huge secret that just happened to be
the most blatantly obvious thing for the last few months.

I
tried to stop grinning. “A date?”

“We’re
just meeting up.”

“A
date, then.”

“No!
No, just as friends.”

 
           
My grin grew.

“What
time are you picking her up?”

“Noon,
actually—it’s not a date, Drake! Sheesh!”

I
cocked an eyebrow at Matt. Cody continued fiddling with his shirt in the
dresser mirror and shooting glances at us.

“A
date,” I said.

“A
date,” he agreed.

“You
have been acting weirder than usual around her,” Matt said.

“Thanks,
Matt. So yeah, I’m sorry I won’t be able to join you.” He stopped fidgeting
with his clothes. “Drake—you don’t—you don’t think I’m being
insensitive do you?”

That
threw me off. “Insensitive? How’s that?”

“I
mean, I know you’re dating Liz and all, but you’re off fighting bad guys and
you have us for backup and then if her and I start dating and things work
out—”

I
stopped him. “Honestly, it would make me feel a little more normal. At least
I’ll have some part of regular society to come back to other than your crazy
computers and scanners and stuff.”

“You
mean it?”

I
clapped him on one skinny shoulder. “Of course. Don’t worry about it.” This
seemed to cheer Cody up a lot. I had no idea he had been so nervous about my
approval. And I was telling the truth. It would make me feel normal. About as
normal as anyone who dressed in a costume after dark and ran around punching
people could feel.