X in Flight Read online

  Praise for X in Flight, Book One in Karen Rivers’ XYZ Trilogy:

  “Rivers’s writing is achingly,hilariously perceptive ... I look forward to seeing what Karen Rivers does with the rest of her planned XYZ trilogy ... ”

  —Vancouver Sun

  “Rivers integrates [an] element of magic with ease and great naturalness ... This gritty angst-ridden novel is dark ... but its rather surprising conclusion offers a measure of hope.” —Quill & Quire

  “ ...[T]he narrative delves into the heart of these three characters, giving each a richness and depth that will resonate ... The voices are authentic and engaging ... teens will be waiting in anticipation for the next book in the XYZ Trilogy.’”

  —CM Magazine

  Praise for Karen Rivers’ Haley Andromeda Trilogy:

  The Healing Time of Hickeys

  “This book will have you laughing out loud. Haley is a completely loveable and crazy character. Her quirky thoughts are fun to read and her adventures in dating (or lack of) will have you giggling until your sides ache. It’s guaranteed to make you giggle and feel good — what more could you want in a book?” — Kidzworld

  “Sixteen-year-old Haley Harmony is ... a likeable, grounded soul, despite the fact that she spends an awful lot of time hyperventilating ... A pleasure from start to finish.” — Quill

  & Quire

  The Cure for Crushes

  “I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for Bridget Jones and I’m a sucker for Karen Rivers’s ongoing series based on the star-crossed life of Haley Harmony. We first met the unfortunately named Harmony (hippie parents, home-schooled, deck stacked against her socially) in The Healing Time of Hickeys. It’s refreshing that Haley, told through v. funny diary entries, is not entirely likeable; nor are her friends endlessly patient. And without her brother’s shoulder to lean on, Haley finds herself alone more this time than last, wondering, like all of us, if she really is capable of happiness and how to make the good hair days outnumber the bad.” — The Georgia Straight

  “We’ve all had our fair share of red-faced moments, and that’s why it’s so easy to relate to the accident-prone Haley. Her quirky accidents and comical thoughts are the best part of the book cuz they’ll make you laugh until your stomach hurts!” — Kidzworld

  The Quirky Girls’ Guide to Rest Stops and Road Trips

  “Fans of the Haley [Andromeda] books (The Healing Time of Hickeys and The Cure for Crushes) will definitely enjoy the conclusion of the trilogy. Yes, it’s chick lit, lite chick lit (is that chick lite???), but it’s fun, perfect for a quick read over the holidays, maybe even on a road trip! Buy it for your young Haley wanna-bes, and make sure that you have the two preceding volumes for those who like to read a complete series.” — Joanne Peters, CM Magazine

  “Teen readers will find Haley’s diary filled with countless moments of recognition as Rivers, with spot-on accuracy, captures contemporary teen life.” — Quill & Quire

  *****

  X in Flight

  Book One of the XYZ Trilogy

  A Young Adult novel

  By

  Karen Rivers

  Published by Raincoast Books

  Copyright 2007 Karen Rivers

  Edited by Colin Thomas

  Cover by David Drummond

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1. X

  Chapter 2. Cat

  Chapter 3. Ruby

  Chapter 4. X

  Chapter 5. Cat

  Chapter 6. Ruby

  Chapter 7. X

  Chapter 8. Cat

  Chapter 9. Ruby

  Chapter 10. X

  Chapter 11. Cat

  Chapter 12. Ruby

  Chapter 13. X

  Chapter 14. Cat

  Chapter 15. Ruby

  Chapter 16. X

  Chapter 17. Cat

  Chapter 18. Ruby

  Chapter 19. X

  Chapter 20. Cat

  Chapter 21. Ruby

  Y in the Shadows preview

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  X

  Chapter 1.

  So hi. It’s me. X.

  In case you’ve ever wondered, it’s short for Xenos. Yeah, I know. Save your breath, I’ve heard it all before. A Greek name is just the wrong name for a guy who looks like me. It’s not much of a name at all, if you ask me, for anyone. Obviously I’m as far from Greek as you can get and still be a part of the same species. I don’t know why Deer chose it and she claims she didn’t have a big reason, it just struck her as cool at the time. I mostly don’t buy that story. I think people have reasons for everything they do. On the other hand, Deer … well, she’s kind of inclined to be random.

  Sometimes I think that maybe she’s trying to tell me something without actually saying it, because for some reason it’s against her principals to talk about my father. Like maybe he was Greek. But then again, I doubt it. I mean, unless Greece is full of Africans, it just seems like a pretty unlikely scenario. Look at me. I am 100 percent mulatto: part African-American, black, whatever’s politically correct to say, and part not. I think people think that I know the correct words to use, the right terminology, but how could I? It’s not like every black kid in the world is born with a handbook of which terms are okay to say and which aren’t. You might be shocked to know that the NAACP doesn’t update us daily on political correctness via instant message. Not that I care what’s “right” or wrong. None of it offends me. Except the obvious stuff, of course. The N-word, for example. I can live without that.

  No one else here can relate that that stuff here, that’s for sure. Not in this snow white town filled to last-gasping with people so old their noses touch the ground when they walk. Old white people. They say it’s a city for the newly-wed and nearly-dead. They should somehow include “white” in that description, but that would seem somehow to be highlighting race and race is something that no one ever ever ever wants to talk about. Not really. It’s like it’s a deep dark scary secret that no one wants to reveal. Hey, I know I’m black. I just think it’s weird how people pretend not to notice. It’s bullshit, is what it is. It’s embarrassing.

  Probably you’ve never thought about it at all. Why would you? You’re one of the whitest white people I’ve ever seen. So pale it’s almost scary, like paper that’s never seen ink, so thin you can see the grain of the table through it. But in a good way, I mean. In a pretty way. In a way that makes you seem like you aren’t quite real.

  Hey, I’ll tell you something dumb: When I was a little kid, I used to think that if I stayed out in the sun for a long time, I’d fade. Like I was just the opposite of everyone else – they’d go sun brown, I’d go sun white. When that didn’t work, I thought maybe I could bleach myself and come out looking like I felt like I should, like everyone else. Stupid, huh. I tried putting my finger in bleach once, held it there for as long as I dared. Good thing it was just my finger. It was a mistake. I was four, okay? I didn’t know any better.

  My finger turned white-white. Like milk or chalk or bone. Scary white, not living, breathing flesh-pink white, not even the palest kind of white. I was so, so scared. I thought my finger would die or fall off and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I’d explain what I’d done. I knew I was in some serious trouble. But it worked out. I don’t remember how it happened, but it went back to normal.

  I guess I am what I am. I can’t change it, not the packaging anyway. Well, hopefully I’ll grow out of the zits, but still. This is it. I don’t want to look like everyone else anyway. I’d rather be different.

  I would.

  Okay, I wouldn’t. But I wish I was the kind of person who did, you know? It sucks to stand out. Sometimes I’d rather just disappear altogether. Yeah. But you know what that’s like, I’ll
bet. I think maybe that’s why you and I are… Well. I think maybe it’s why I like you. I do. I like you.

  That seems like a weird thing to say out loud, or even to type.

  Why am I doing this?

  Why you?

  Why not?

  I don’t have a lot of other people. I don’t have much of a family. Like a father, like I said. I’m a fatherless son. Sounds poetic, but really it’s just shit when it’s happening to you, believe me.

  Seeing as I’m spilling my guts, I’ll tell you something else that I’d never really tell you: I make up what he’s like in my head. I call him Daddy, which is so fucking lame, I can’t believe it. I know it, you don’t have to tell me. I wouldn’t ever tell anyone that I did that. Except you, I guess, if you’re reading this. If I knew him, I’m sure I wouldn’t call him Daddy. I’m not six years old, I’m seventeen. Probably I’d call him Dad. Or Pops. Father. Pa.

  I just wonder what he was like. And it’s more than wondering. It’s like I have to know. I can’t stand to not know. It pisses me off, is what it does. It makes me crazy. Just what he looks like even. Other than his skin colour, which obviously was black. But what does that mean? Black isn’t everything. It isn’t anything. Not when it comes to telling details about a person. People think it is enough of a description to fill in all the blanks, but it doesn’t describe jack all. Anyway, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say brown? No one is actually black, except in National Geographic pictures, countries on the equator, and bad cartoons.

  What kills me about my dad is that … well. Everything. Who the hell was he? Did he read books? Was he an asshole? Did he play golf? Did he sing? Did he wear good jeans? Like, anything. It makes me mad not to know. It makes me feel like I’m raging inside, like I’ll never be quite okay because I’m only half myself. And anyway, why did he choose Deer? And why did she choose him? Was it a party? Was everyone just too drunk to care?

  That’s what I figure, that they were drunk. Or stoned. Or both. Wasted. I was the big, fat, blurry, hang-over of an accident in their free-wheeling lives.

  I wonder if she told him, and if she did, if he cared.

  I wonder why she didn’t just have an abortion and get rid of me.

  I wonder if she even knew who the father was when she found out she was pregnant.

  Oh, fuck that. I don’t want to know. I do. But I don’t. And she’ll never tell, it’s like she thinks it’s none of my business and I can’t make her see it any other way. It makes me want to cry. Fuck. How would you feel if all you knew of your Daddy was his skin colour and the texture of his hair?

  I have a ‘fro. I guess you wouldn’t know because I keep it clipped so short that it’s just a shadow-cap on my skull. Dark on dark. Deer says that I come by my skin tone from my Indian grandmother. (Thinking about her makes me think of that popsicle stick long-house we had to build in the fifth grade, remember? Man, I loved that thing. I thought it was the bomb. Probably it was crap, but I worked on it for days.) Grandma was Haida, so her skin was tan, her hair long and dark. But seriously, it still doesn’t add up. I’m ten times as dark as my mum is -- full on brown metallic chocolate WITH AN AFRO. There’s no WAY, I tell her. None.

  And she shrugs and says, You’re beautiful, what does it matter?

  Which is great, but doesn’t change the fact that she’s full of lies, I’ll never get the truth from her. I guess she thinks she’s protecting me or some crap like that, when all she’s doing is hurting me by hiding all the stuff that matters, all the stuff that matters to me. She just doesn’t get it.

  Besides, I’m not beautiful.

  I’m as ugly as can be, inside and out. Tall and knobby kneed and with arms that don’t fit in any shirt or sweater I’ve ever owned. Bones pushing through all over like they’re trying to get out. A mouth full of white teeth that should probably be behind braces, which we can’t afford, overlapping each other like crooked pickets on a rotting fence. Freckles that look like zits. Zits that look like zits. If this is beauty, someone (God, I guess) has a pretty bad sense of humor.

  And he must like zits.

  Zitty Xenos, that’s me. I bet the Greeks spell zit with an X. Xit.

  Even Deer calls me X, and I call her Deer. Obviously. My mother, that is. That’s Deer. Not “dear”. Short for Running Deer, which isn’t her name, either. I made it up. Nice, huh? She thought it was funny and it stuck, when really it was just a dumb joke. Totally not in good taste, but who decides what’s good taste anyway?

  It’s probably all in that handbook.

  Whatever. It’s all love, right? You dish it out in ways that people understand.

  My little tiny brother Mutt (yes, that’s his real name, another long story that maybe I’ll tell you later), he calls me Eggs, but that’s because he’s only three. He still talks like a baby. He can’t get his three year old mouth around the letter X. Eks. Eggs. See?

  Oh, man. I can’t believe you’re still reading. If you are, that is.

  I just, well… I thought I should tell you something about me, but it turns out that apart from the surface stuff, the obvious, I don’t know what to say or how to say it. I may as well have just described my room. Or my shoes, my ugly beat up Adidas with the orange, red, and yellow stripes. Or the old red T-shirt I’m wearing right now, picture of Fidel Castro on the front, hole under the sleeve, not exactly smelling fresh. Or something else that doesn’t matter, like my pilled up, torn blue plaid flannel sheets.

  It’s harder than I thought it would be just to get started. To not sound like such an asshole. It’s like having a conversation that no one can hear, the tone’s all wrong. Like when you say something out loud to yourself and then you feel like a crazy jerk and think, “What if someone heard me? What if they caught me? What if they think I’m nuts?” It’s like that. I’m talking, no one’s listening, and I don’t know where to stop or start or even why I’m doing it.

  The punchline is that none of this is the real story. Who gives a crap about my name anyway? There really IS a story and what I’ve told you is nothing to do with it.

  I guess I believe you need to know who I think I am so you can understand the rest. Remember a few months back when we had to write that essay, “Who Are You?” for English? I should have just given you my copy of that, it was a lot of the same garbage. My name. My skin colour. A bunch of stuff that I was thinking about race that I don’t usually talk about. Deep stuff. I left out the personal things though, some things are just no one’s business.

  I left out the big things.

  The important things.

  The things that mean something.

  The things I want to tell you.

  Hey, if you figure out what any of this means, tell me. Seriously.

  Ready for the punchline?

  You think you are, but you aren’t. I sure wasn’t. But I’ve got to tell you. I’ve got to tell someone and I picked you. Because it has something to do with you. Or maybe I just want it to. It did, the first time.

  Here it is:

  I can fly.

  It’s true. And when I say “fly”, I don’t mean, like, metaphorically. Or in a plane or a glider or a helicopter or anything like that. I sure don’t mean on my feet either.

  I was never the best runner.

  And I’ve never been on a plane but I imagine it doesn’t feel anything like this.

  This is something else. It’s comic book stuff. Except not. It’s not heroic. It’s just … there. There doesn’t seem to be a point to it. Anyway, if I was going to pick a super-hero quality, I would have chosen to be fast or ripped or invisible or a mind-reader or all those things. Brave. So strong I could lift cars. Something macho. But nope, that’s not what I got. I got “flying”. Funny thing really. I mean, Superman was always my least favourite character.

  At first I was scared. Really scared, not only because it was so fucking weird, but because I’m terrified of heights. The kind of terror where the adrenalin feels like too much, where it feels like your skin might break
apart from it, where you might turn just into liquid and evaporate into nothingness.

  Now? Now it’s just what it is. Part of me.

  If you aren’t going to believe any of this then you should just stop reading right now. Seriously. I know that it doesn’t make sense, that it sounds insane. I get that it sounds like a lie. I understand if you’re freaking out.

  One thing I’ve figured out recently is that nobody likes to think that completely unfuckinbelievable things happen every day. Just like that, out of the blue. Ka-pow, like they say in cartoons. One day, you’re just a kid – a kid with a talent for golf and that’s about it, living in a trailer that pretends to be a house in a field full of cows and stray golf balls with your hippie mother and three-year-old brother who likes to pretend he’s a girl or a cat or a fish or a rock-star. And the next day -- like your life isn’t already messed up enough -- the next day, you can fly.

  I’m tripping over myself to tell this right and it’s not working, is it? I feel like I’ve started in the middle and gone on too long.

  I could have written, “Dear Ruby, I can fly. How are you?” but I’ll never give this to you, so who cares? I don’t even know you, except that I know who you are. I feel this connection to you, but that sounds too stupid to say out loud, so I won’t. It doesn’t matter to me, read it. Don’t read it. I like you anyway. Dumb, right? I can’t help it. You’re something different. You’re … I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m trying to convince you. I guess it’s because you don’t like yourself.

  I can tell.

  I’m right, right?

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I just wanted to get this down before I go crazy trying to figure it out some other way.

  I wish I was a great writer because this would somehow, some way, make an amazing story. Maybe even a movie. I should pay more attention in English class instead of just jackassing around with my boys or staring out the window and counting down the minutes til I can get out. Til I can breathe. Staring at the back of your neck at the fine line of hair that never quite makes it into your pony-tail.