Denali in Hiding

August 27

I understood why my mom said, “Calling it an ‘academic pursuit’ doesn’t get you off the hook,” when I dug a six-foot hole in the front yard to show Eli how the earth changes like a rainbow the deeper you go.

I got why she frowned and said, “That was mean and really sort of disgusting,” when David and I—with just the right mix of apple juice, lemonade, and water—convinced Eli we were sipping pee on the porch.

I was not surprised when she screeched, “What the hell am I supposed to tell the mechanic?” after I practiced lifting her truck before I was ready and it clunked down hard in our driveway, bits and parts rattling about.

But when I got home last night, smelling like a campfire, I thought she’d be happy.

“It’s gone, eaten up by flames,” I said.

“What is?” She tilted her head as she locked the door behind me.

“My journal from last year. David and I burned it. So it’s almost like all that crap didn’t even happen.” I swiped my hands like I was getting rid of something sticky on my palms.

Smokey anger filled her eyes.

So, of course, I figured she missed something. “The thing is, it’s symbolic because…”

“Did you let David read it?”

“No.”

She is so paranoid that she doesn’t even trust David. David, who taught Eli and me to play Risk and has been a great sport every one of the seven times Eli won. David, who leaves various types of miniature plastic leprechauns around our house for us to discover. David, who trusts me with his biggest, not-so-dark secret.

“But even if he did find out about me, he wouldn’t tell anyone,” I said.

“Denali,” my name came at me like a dart. “How many times do we have to go over this? No one can know what you can do.” She continued to give me the standard speech on how I could be carted away to some secret facility with scary scientists who would be so busy examining, testing, and prodding me month after month that they wouldn’t even remember my birthday. She always brings up the birthday, as though that would be the worst part. “And will I even be able to bring you a cake?” she said, capping off the lecture with semi-mock spazzy jazz hands over her head.

I nodded. “I know mom. No one will ever know.”

Her cheeks softened when she thought I understood. The anger dissipating, she held her knuckles to her mouth, like she does when she’s worried. Or sad. “I just can’t believe you’d burn your journal.”

Sometimes I wonder if she thinks I’m going to be famous and historians will need my notebooks to analyze and decipher my mind. (If that’s true, I hope they would have the professional courtesy to not delve into my crushes. Ahem.) She makes me write in them the way other parents tell their kids to practice the piano or do their math homework.

“I still wrote in it,” I said.

“But now it’s gone.” She wiped her face as though she was trying to swipe a refresh button.

“It’s not really gone. It’s just transformed.” It isn’t like I really expunged junior year of high school. Which is good, because it wasn’t all bad. David and I spent a lot of time sitting in the canoe and drinking strawberry wine coolers, the dark lake ebbing against us. We made up for the porch-pee episode by painting the walls of Eli’s room to make it look like he was perpetually in the middle of a basketball stadium—smudged audience members frozen in a cheer.

And then, of course, there was last night. David and I set a fire in the woods on the edge of the lake. I took my shiny navy blue notebook with cream-colored pages and rusty, orange lines that absorbed all those frustrated tears. I was ready to shed the bad memories like a snake slithers out of its confining wrapping.

Our jeans got dirty from sitting on mossy logs. I slipped and flipped the pages below my nose. “Are you sure you want to do this?” David asked as he threw another twig into the orange heat. I nodded. With a quick flick I tossed it in, flushing the pages up the smoky drain into the abyss of the sky.

I watched the paper curl while David looked for sticks to spear our marshmallows. We torched the fluffy food until it was gooey and crisp enough to deserve two graham crackers. When I ate the s’more, I felt like I was eating my own words, reincarnated through the fire and pushed by smoke and heat into the marshmallow. The rest of the words flitted up in the smoke, through the cover of trees and leaves into the starry night.

It was glorious.

And now it’s gone.

But I still have all my other journals. I’ve been writing since I was eleven. Since the frog incident. In biology, Cindy said something about Eli. Something mean about us being half siblings, instead of full, like it mattered. I used my mind to make her half-dissected frog leap up and hit her in the face. Not hard, just enough to startle her and make her stop talking. But it hit her nose all wrong. Her face became bruised and bloody. My insides squirmed in guilt and I, not thinking, apologized profusely.

Everyone thought that was strange.

My teacher sent me to the school counselor, who didn’t know how to handle my erratic, sobbing explanations about how I shouldn’t have made the frog hit Cindy and that I really was very truly sorry. She called in a shrink. I still see Dr. Walrath every few months. She wears these crazy dresses with flower prints and looks like the kind of person who would use the word “nincompoop.” (I mean that in the best way.) At our first session I was not that smart, so I continued to mention the telekinesis. She asked me lots of questions and then told me the frog must have jumped due to latent nerves, or something. Like headless chickens in a frenzy. She asked me over and over if I believed that and, finally, I said sure.

The frog incident. That’s when it started. Me being the weird girl.

In one of my first journal entries, I described opening my locker as frogs clattered to the floor. They were the kind of plastic frogs with hollow underbellies and tabs as butts so you could make them jump. I wrote about the way each click made my heart hurt. I described the downpour of colors, blue and red and yellow. I wrote about Cindy saying, as the girls giggled around her, “We thought maybe you could bring these frogs to life too.” I looked up, my chin sore with anger. And then I wrote about Cindy’s expression, turning from mocking laughter, the upturned lips, to something more petrified, before she left, friends trailing after her.

It felt good to write it out. But I feel sort of dumb now that I didn’t get it wasn’t just the act of keeping a journal, but also the product that was important to my mom.

This morning I took a yogurt (I was hungry) and headed back to the fireside. It’s sad seeing the remnants of a fire in the daytime. A visual reminder the night of fun you had is good and gone.

Walking helps me think, even if I get all sticky with sweat doing it—you get used to having small beads of water escape your skin on a regular basis when you live in Virginia. Pacing next to the fire, finishing my lemon yogurt, I got an idea. Crouching by the lake, I rinsed out the plastic container to get what my spoon couldn’t. I knelt among the ashes and used my hands to scoop them into the yogurt cup until it was nearly full. I secured the lid and brought it home.

I showed my mom and placed it in the long wooden box under my bed. I keep my journals there, along with some Christmas ornaments. The box is secured with a gold lock that belongs to no key, which is why I’m the only one who can open it. I squished the yogurt cup in between a stuffed elf and a baby Jesus made from yarn.

My mom gave me a hug, the kind with a back rub thrown in for free. Then she thanked me for being so good at writing in this and for being so good at keeping my skills wrapped up tight.

I am good about keeping my skills secret. Even, sometimes, from her.

She thinks I never do it in public. I’m afraid of what might happen to me if people discovered what I am capable of. But it also sucks feeling like I’m hiding and quivering all the time.

So I do sometimes use it outside of the house.

But I’m careful.

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