SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

NUTRIENTS

Dinner is a great big Italian feast, with salad and bread and spaghetti. I smell the food cooking from the guest room where I've been hiding since Jeremy left. I unpack my sketchbook and turn the music on my ipod up to SHATTER. My most recent project is a peacock. Wing, wing, feather, feather. The pen moves all on its own. The drawing mimics the thousands of others that have painted my hands and feet, my arms and legs. Mehndi is the only thing in the world that makes me feel semi-human. My mother was the one who taught me, and she taught my sister too, and--

Nope. It's over. Done. Fini. Wing, wing, feather, feather. This drawing is really coming along.

There's a knock on my door. It creaks open before I can tell whoever it is to piss off. It's the kid. He holds onto the doorknob with both hands. "Dinners' ready."

Me and the wife sit on one side of the table with the dude and Offspring across from us. I'm shoveling lettuce into my mouth before I can stop myself, I haven't had a decent meal in so long. Hope House food was like eating leftovers from New York's worst soup kitchen. And this? The wife isn't such a bad cook. When I stop to breath, I see the three of them holding hands and watching me, looking half-amused, half-offended.

"Vidya, would you like to say grace?" The wife offers.

"Hmph?" I still have a wad of lettuce sticking out of my mouth. At first I'm confused, but I realize she wants to pray. I force the lettuce down my throat and wipe my mouth with my sleeve. "I'm not into that stuff."

She doesn't argue. They close their eyes. "Thank you Lord, for this food, and thankyou for the love we share with each other. And most of all, thankyou for letting us share this love with the newest member of the family, Miss Vidya." She opens her eyes and looks at me when she says that. "Thank you Lord, thank you Jesus. Amen."

"Amen," they say in unison when she finishes. Then they begin to eat. They talk. I don't listen. I listen to the cars outside the window. I count rings in the wooden surface of the table and estimate the age and torment of the tree that ended up in such an infernal apartment. The dog licks the edge of my chair. I lean down and hiss. "Scram, Fido." The dog backs up with its tail between its legs.

"It's a miracle!" The dude grins. "you're the only one who can tame him."

"He's feral," says The Wife.

"Feral," says the kid. He looks at The Wife for confirmation.

"A state of being wild after domestication," she nods. She reminds me of the counselors at Hope House. She's real professorial, real Maya Angelou.

The dude leans toward me and fake whispers. "They're smart people. Their words are incoherent to idiots like me."

"Beep, beep, beep!" Says The Wife. "There goes the lie detector. I didn't think geniuses had the audacity to lie."

"Beep!" shrieks the kid.

I slam down the fork. "What are you called again?" I ask the dude.

Quiet falls over the room. Usually people aren't as intimidated after being around me this long.

"Lin." He is again, half-amused. Half-offended.

"And the woman?" I ask.

"Vanessa." She smiles. "And that's--"

"Sebastian. And the dog is Tobillo. My amnesia isn't completely malignant."

"Malignant?" Sebastien asks.

I bite out at him and hiss, "Real, real bad!" He yelps and shrinks in his chair.

I laugh. "What's the definition of wimp?"

The wife touches my arm in what may be a friendly warning. "He's four."

I don't bother responding and resume stuffing my face. The dog is back to licking my chair. Sebastian finishes his meal. The wife clears his plate for him and he scampers off to a toy box in the corner of the room. He pulls out at least ten different miniature trains and rubs them along the carpet. He whistles under his breath.

It's just Lin and me at the table. He leans forward. His voice is all sing-song, full of highs and lows. "So, uh, ever heard of Chuggington? The TV show?"

"No."

"Good grief, child." He puts a hand over his heart, fake shocked. "You have not lived."

"Good grief, clueless. I didn't grow up in a house with a television. And by the looks of it—" I turn to watch Sebastien verbally mimicking a train and flipping his toys around on the carpet. "—I dodged a bullet."

"O-kay." He sets his utensils down and gets all serious. "Your attitude isn't helping either one of us."

I drop my utensils on the plate. "I know what you're trying to do."

Vanessa returns to the table and sits beside him. Lin leans forward on his elbows. "What am I trying to do?"

"You're trying to make yourselves feel better. Your soul is devoid of individuality. Because there's so-o-o much money that you bought up anything else that'll do the trick."

He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off and use a deep voice to mimic him. "Oh, but what about the starving children in Africa? Or the gagillions of kids without toy trains to annoy their family with?" I glare at him. "And that's where you come in. That's where you get your penance for having a cozy seat at the higher end of the upper-class."

Lin's eyes twitch. "That's not--"

"Yes, it is. And FYI, my attitude is your ignorance. Good-Grief." I look him in the eyes as I mock him. "It usually takes me longer to hate people."

I wait for a reaction and they both stare at me for a solid ten seconds before Lin bursts out laughing.

"Can I use that in the next thing I write? Because Ho-ly smokes." He gasps between giggles. "We got ourselves an author, V."

Of course. Of course, they think I'm joking. My groan crescendos into a scream. I push out my chair and head for my room. Accidentally, I stomp on Sebastien's hand. I forgot to take off my boots. I'm surprised they didn't make me. Sebastian cries out for exactly one second-- "Mooom!"--then drops his face inches from the ground and refuses to speak.

Forget him. Forget all of it. I step over Sebastian and slam the guest room door.