SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

OPERATION PAKISTAN

I turn over in my bed to look at the digital clock on my nightstand. 2:34 A.M. It's go time.

I wrap myself in my afghan blanket and inch open the guest-room door. I tip-toe so the wood absorbs my sounds. Halfway down the hallway, I stop to look out the window. The blanket over New York's secret fort has nestled over the city and plans to keep it warm just long enough for me to do this teensy-weensy little thing. 

The city: Asleep. 

Lin and Vanessa: Asleep.

Sebastian: Dreaming.

Tobillo: Breathing.

Me: Creaking open the door to Lin's office so slow, it doesn't make a sound. 

Lin likes to call the room "his study," but it's really just a refurbished walk-in closet with built in bookshelves and a wooden desk against the back wall. A midi piano is balanced on the windowsill. A few of Sebastian's toys are scattered in the corner. With the the lights off, they look like they could be alive. 

I sit in Lin's desk chair and boot up his computer. The fluorescent glow of the screen sends lightening bolts through my eyes. Several files are lined up on the homescreen. Hmltn. ITH. 21CHUMP. Music4V. I boot up the search engine. I only have to type JFK air before the website pops up.

I stretch my afghan between my head and the top of the computer so I can't see anything but the screen. The website for John F. Kennedy International Airport is colored blue and gold. There are photos of food courts and terminals on the homepage. At the top near the browser, there's a long string of flags that stretch across the screen. I see America, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France, Saudi Arabia, India, China, Australia. No Pakistan. I click the symbol for airlines and evaluate the options.

My best bet would be Air China. There would be one layover in England before landing at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore. I scroll through flight times. The flight wold leave around 10:00 at night. I'll have to sneak out around 7:00 in the morning if I want to get there in time for luggage inspection, ticket confirmation, the waiting, waiting, waiting, and liftoff. I'll worry about escape routes later on. I scroll lower on the page. The taxis, the metal detectors, the price...

The price...

Lots of plans have problems. I bet NASA suffered through hundreds of setbacks before landing on the moon. All that rocket fuel wasn't free. What about actually building the rocket ship? I'll steal. I'll rob a bank. I'll shatter every piggy bank in the country if it gets me that ticket. 

I need that ticket. 

I click a few symbols and somehow end up at the ticket purchase section. I imagine myself filling out the form. I'd use my full name, Vidya Shahanna Charandowa, and swap out my original passport photo for my most recent Hope House profile. I slide the mouse across the desk and make the cursor hover over the button that says buy ticket.

Something pitter-patters in the hallway. I slam the computer shut and whip around. There's a small figure standing in the doorway. Why, universe? Why? I brace myself for the scolding of a lifetime and dream up some bullshit explanation: late night homework, surfing the deep web, snooping around Lin's secret files. Each of those would be easier to explain than Operation Pakistan. 

The figure pitter-patters into the room. It's Tobillo. I must have woken it up. 

I exhale the breath I've been holding in and pull the afghan off my head. Tobillo pitter-patters to my feet and sniffs my knee. I turn in the chair and open Lin's computer to observe the damage. I almost swear out loud when I see it: a web of cracks at the bottom corner of the screen. I was never here. I shut the computer quietly as I can and kick Tobillo out of the way when I nudge the door shut.

I stop at the bathroom on my way back to the guest room. Tobillo pitter-patters back to the living room. I flick the light switch and cover my eyes before I have a seizure. I pee, pretend I don't see the blood on the toilet paper, flush the toilet. Wash my hands, dry them on the towel, almost leave. Stay.

I don't care that it's 3:00 in the morning. Most of the time I don't know whether I'm asleep or awake. I used to dream about things I didn't remember when I woke up, but lately I've been dreaming about Radhika and Nayim. Memories have surfaced, things I haven't thought about since they happened. Maybe its because I've been retracing my steps all the way back to Rohiwol, or because this plan is like a knot tied tight enough around me to squeeze every last thought from bottom of my head—or maybe I've forgotten how to not remember it all.

Maybe staying in one place for so long has given all those yesterdays enough time to catch up with me.

The girl in the mirror looks a bit like me. I watch her. She opens the cabinets and pulls five bottles out from the shelves, little containers of happy-pills, the stuff parents don't let their children eat before dinner so they don't spoil their appetites. The lines blur and her reflection melts into a puddle on the tiles. Feels good, though. Must be why she takes so many of them— one, or three or five from each bottle— she can't remember how many. She can't remember anything. 

The last time I was on meds was when Hope House put me on Xanax. I was ten and had just moved in. The doctors said the pills would give me a boost. They said I'd be able to stay awake in class and play sports with the other kids during outside time instead of sitting against the wall with the counselors. They were wrong. The medicine didn't stop me from napping in school or being too tired to play sports. All it did was blur the edges and turn the memories to ugly static. 

I don't remember going back to my room. I don't remember getting back into bed. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I remember is waking up at 3:00 in the afternoon and not going to school like the bad little girl I am.