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  “Are you gonna tell me or not?” I said to the reporter, losing patience and blocking the others out.

  “First, I have a few questions,” the reporter said.

  “You don’t have to answer,” my first-time-ever-seeing-her lawyer said. But the reporter was smart. I could tell she knew she had something I wanted. These kind of trades went on every day on lockdown so I understood the reporter wanted to make a deal with me.

  “Okay, ask me one question. I’ll answer, then you tell me about my father,” I said.

  “Ten questions, not one,” the reporter negotiated.

  “You don’t have to answer even one question, and Ms. Bussey can give you the same information. It’s our job,” the lawyer said.

  “I’ve never even seen you before.” I exposed the lawyer, eager to get my poppa’s address.

  “You’ve never seen the lawyer on the other side of the table before today?” the NYT reporter asked.

  “Nope,” was all I answered.

  “That’s neither here nor there. I just received her file two days ago. I’m on the case now,” the lawyer said.

  The reporter began scribbling something on her little notepad. I didn’t turn towards the warden. I didn’t turn towards Ms. Bussey, either. Bussey is a bitch. I didn’t trust her or nobody else either. I already knew that when these reporters cleared out, Team Porsche would attack me, and no one could stop that cause they wouldn’t even know it was happening. I didn’t care as long as I could write a long letter to Poppa and wait for him to write me a long letter, too. One long letter from Poppa was worth a thousand uneaten lunches, five hundred bags of candy, one hundred days of rec on the yard, fifty art classes, and ten Diamond Needles. One long letter from Poppa, and I’d volunteer to wear red, sit naked on the hot summer floor at the bottom during the fucking four-hour, fifteen-minute fucking festival.

  “Ten questions, okay, I’ll answer one in exchange for my father’s address and nine for eleven dollars each. You can put the money on my account. The warden will tell you how to do it,” I said. The reporters both laughed.

  “We don’t pay for our stories ever,” the NYT reporter said.

  “Okay, then I’ll answer only one question, for the address,” I said. Just then the giraffe ghost photographer pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill and laid it on the table. The warden and the lawyer both stood up. The photographer whispered in the New York Daily News reporter’s ear.

  “Do you really need money?” the reporter asked me.

  “All of our girls’ needs are taken care of,” the warden said swiftly.

  “So why does Porsche feel that she needs money? Perhaps we should listen to her reasons,” the doctor said.

  “Everybody needs money,” I answered the reporter.

  “There are twenty minutes remaining before I end this meeting,” the warden threatened.

  “What would you buy with this ninety-nine dollars you are exchanging for an interview?” the NYT reporter asked.

  “A box, some stamps, and some gifts to put in it for Poppa. People in cages need people to send them gifts, or else they feel like everyone who once loved them has forgotten. I never forgot Poppa, not even once.” The room fell silent.

  “Well, I can’t pay you for the interview, but it seems Hans wants to pay you. He doesn’t work for either paper. He’s what we call a freelancer.”

  “How will I be sure that he’ll deposit the money? I see it on the table, but I’ll be in big trouble if I touch it,” I told the reporter.

  “I’ll make sure,” the doctor said, volunteering, and then added, “and you just made a business deal, so there will always be some risk.”

  “Go ahead, ask me,” I told the reporters. I had heard the doctor, but didn’t believe him. It didn’t matter. I just needed all of them to know I knew they were all making money off of me or else they wouldn’t have come up here. So don’t play me like some dumb victim kid. I just focused only on the reporters and the photographer. I pictured them as the customers seated in the most expensive front row seats of the porsche santiaga, sold-out solo performance.

  Q: (Edith Kates, New York Daily News): Are you aware that your father Ricardo Santiaga is a drug dealer?

  I felt like I had been hit so hard I had no breath left. I was paused at first but told myself to toughen.

  A: No, my father was a businessman. He wore expensive clothes, more nicer than anything any of you are wearing now. Ricky Santiaga is respected by everyone. I never saw him hurt anybody. He was the man people came to for help. My whole neighborhood loved him.

  I swiveled my neck automatically to let them know I meant it. I could hear Ms. Bussey chuckle, and the warden made a cough sound that she wasn’t making before. Bitch wanted to be funny? I’d fix her.

  I only know one drug dealer. My temper was taking over. I checked Ms. Bussey and the warden’s face. Uh huh, laugh now, you rotten bitches.

  Q: (NYT reporter): Can you tell us about the drug dealer you know? The NYT reporter was thirsty.

  A: It’s the warden. She be forcing us to take drugs everyday. They don’t ask us if we want them or not. They don’t listen when we say no. They don’t tell us why we gotta use their drugs or when we get to stop.

  Warden: Deputy Commissioner, this is precisely why I was against this kind of interview. It’s completely out of its proper context. The warden was speaking to her boss. I imagined him forcing her down on her hands and knees and commanding her to bark.

  Deputy Commissioner: We’ll get through it. We have to allow the press an opportunity. I’m sure these fine reporters will report responsibly and speak with all of the relevant officials as well.

  Warden: Please continue and conclude. Trying to pretend she wasn’t angry.

  Edith Kates: Has your mother written and visited you? Do you know where she is?

  A: Tears were trying to flood my eyes, but I fought back to keep them from leaking. No, you are my first visitors since I been here on lockdown. Wherever my mother is, I know she’s brokenhearted. She’s too sad to move, too sad to think. She’s sad cause Poppa got tooken by the bad guys.

  Q: Who are the bad guys?

  A: Anybody who would break up somebody’s family, then steal and separate all of us from one another.

  Q: When people do things wrong, or illegal, Porsche, should they be punished?

  A: If everybody who does something wrong would get punished, well then, I guess that would be okay. But if some get punished and other people who do the same kind of things don’t, then it’s all bullshit, ain’t it?

  Q: If you could see your father standing right here today what would you say to him?

  A: I’d say ‘I love you, Poppa. I’m sorry we can’t talk right now cause for some reason all these people is all up in our family business.’

  They all shifted in their chairs.

  That’s it, now give me the name of the place and my poppa’s address. Say it out loud, I’ll remember it.

  Q: (NYT reporter): That’s only six questions.

  “No one can count better than us, ask the warden. We count and they count. In here everything counts. You asked me seven questions just now and three before. First you asked, Do you know where your father is? Second, you asked if I’d ever seen the lawyer on the other side of the table? Third, you asked me if I really needed money? When you asked me about my mother, you asked two different things—if she ever visited or wrote me, and if I know where she is. See?” I put my hands on my hips.

  The doctor and the photographer laughed. The reporter looked confused, then thoughtful, then insulted. Then even she laughed a little.

  “Your father, Ricardo Santiaga, is in Niagra Correctional Facility. It’s four hours north from here, in Erie County, NY. His prison number is . . .”

  I pressed the information into my permanent memory. Me and my poppa, separated by only four hours, I thought to myself, my feelings swelling in my chest.

  “Is there a record of any inquiries or requests made on Miss Por
sche Santiaga’s behalf by her immediate or extended family?” the New York Times reporter asked “Team Porsche.” This one question leaped out at me. It was separate from all of their other chitter-chatter. I didn’t look at the warden, but I listened for her answer. My back was turned, and the guard was about to walk me out.

  “A Mr. Bilal Ode made several requests, but he is not a family member of record,” Ms. Bussey, the counselor, answered.

  “Do you know Mr. Bilal Ode?” the NYT reporter’s voice raised up to ask me as I was leaving.

  I turned around. “You used up all of your questions,” I told him quietly. I had enough and didn’t know no fucking body named Bilalode. What kind of name was that?

  Chapter 12

  My superpowers wore off as soon as I was being escorted back down the corridor to my dorm in my pissy baby blues. My temper is my protection and my trouble spot. My temper is taller and wider and heavier than me. When it takes over, all I can do is sit back and enjoy at how it seeks and distributes revenge to the people who are so comfortable never being told off or hit back. Tougher than me, my temper is unafraid of the warden, loves the color red, doesn’t mind being trapped and alone, and eats brains and guts instead of food. Adults in the system, the authorities, always tell me I’d better get rid of my temper. The truth is, I’d rather my temper get rid of them.

  I was a nice girl when I was home with my family. They, “the children snatchers,” interrupted me, aggravated me, and pushed me into a more rougher state of mind.

  Ask Mercedes and Lexus, my twin baby sisters, how nice I was. When Winter wasn’t home, I was their big sister. I took care of them. I thought they was a hundred times better than my eighty-six stuffed animals whose names I could recite rapidly cause I made the first letter of each of their names spell out one long sentence.

  When I looked into the twins’ eyes, I could see something moving on the inside of them, that wasn’t moving in the eyes of my stuffed animals no matter how long I stared or no matter how close I placed my face in front of theirs. I loved the twins cause they could laugh and smile. If I poked them like they were teddy bears, they would even cry. I didn’t poke them, though.

  My stuffed animals were better at keeping secrets than the twins. No matter how many nights we talked, not one of the eighty-six of them would spill one word of it. Siri is like that, too, and since Poppa bought me all eighty-six of those stuffed animals at separate times and from different places, I adored each of em. Poppa said he was gonna prove to me that even when he was not home, he was always thinking of me. So everywhere he went, he always brought back something. Since Poppa always took care of me, I took care of my eighty-six, kept them clean, fur combed, and even shined their eyeballs with a touch of Johnson’s & Johnson’s baby oil. They each had their own seats on my shelves, and I kept them in order, made sure each was seated beside his best friend or same clique.

  Maybe the twins told about how I put the medicine powder on their tongues the afternoon that the “children snatchers” showed up. It was three days after the police had raided our palace. I had seen the strange car and the stranger driver from the third-floor window. Normally a car like that would’ve been stopped at the gate by our security, who stayed way outside in a tiny house small enough for either a full house of midgets or only two big body guards. But Poppa and all of his workers had got tooken, so strangers like her could ride straight into our home up the driveway that only Winter and Momma could usually use without bothering with security check. At age eight, I didn’t know she was from the Bureau of Child Welfare. However, I did know she was there to take something from my family. All strangers are takers. Over the last two weeks, every stranger had taken something of my father and mother’s; Poppa’s car, Poppa’s money, and Poppa’s guns; Winter’s photo, which I saw one cop slide in his back pocket, and even Momma’s peace and happiness was gone—taken away, stolen.

  I didn’t trust Magdalena, our housekeeper. I was home when Momma hired her. It was when we had just moved into the beautiful house, leaving behind great memories and deep feelings and plenty of relations in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where we had spent our lives. Momma had interviewed several women for the job. Magdalena showed up with one of the young female workers. She was the worker’s mother, just sitting around waiting for her daughter to finish answering Momma’s questions. I could tell Momma didn’t like the daughter. Momma was good at secret funny faces. She would signal to me with her funny faces whenever anyone who didn’t belong to our family came around. Soon as Momma saw the young worker’s mother, named Magdalena, she offered her the job instead. When they was gone from the front room of our palace, I asked Momma why she picked the older lady, who she had seen last after interviewing all of the others. Momma said, “Because she’s good and ugly!” We laughed so hard. Momma didn’t even have to explain. But she did anyway. “There’s only one queen in each palace,” Momma said. Still smiling, I thought about my oldest sister, Winter, and quietly told myself, I think we already have two queens.

  From my invisible middle-child life, I watched everything. I most likely saw even more than Momma, Poppa, and Winter saw. Magdalena seemed to know everything, but she pretended to know nothing. That’s one of the biggest reasons I didn’t like her. I noticed that she played dummy around Momma, mixing her words up and opening her eyes wide and blank. When she was watching me and the twins, she was way different.

  So when I saw the stranger driving up our driveway after our place had been raided, I told my young sisters, Mercedes and Lexus, “Hurry, we have to hide.” They got excited because they loved games. I told them I was gonna show them one of my favorite secret hiding spots that no one else knew. Mercedes, the quicker twin, said, “If you show us your best place, you can’t use it no more cause we’ll know where to find you.”

  “That’s okay. I have hundreds of hideouts,” I said, grabbing both of their hands and rushing through the double doors that opened into Momma and Poppa’s room, where we were never suppose to go before 11 a.m., or after 7 p.m., without permission, and definitely never when our parents were not home.

  “Sshhh,” I quieted them, and closed the doors back. “C’mon,” I flagged them over while I grabbed one of Momma’s six medicine bottles off of her night table. Momma had been hurting. Poppa said she had fallen down. Midnight and Winter worked really hard to convince me, Mercedes, and Lexus that Momma had fallen, but the invisible middle child always finds out the hidden things, cause no one pays her too much mind. Momma had been shot in her face. She had surgery. Her many medicines were for sleep and pain. That’s what I found out while being silent and listening real hard. It made me extra sad on the inside, not because Momma’s beautiful face was scarred, but because Momma was hurting and sleeping so much, too much, and I kept wondering if the jealous motherfucker who did that shit to Momma got a bullet in her head or not? Even while young, I liked to keep things even.

  “Uh-un,” Mercedes warned. “You gonna get all of us catched.”

  “I promise I won’t,” I told her. “Momma wants me to hide you now. It’s an emergency.”

  I pushed open Momma’s closet doors. It was a long closet filled with fashions, some bought just a week from then, others over the amount of years I been alive. Momma said they was the kind of fashions that get more expensive the longer she kept them, instead of the other way around. She warned me not to play in her fashion closet and said even if I thought she wouldn’t find out, she would.

  “If you get one smudge of baby oil, or one strand of your hair, or one glob of gum on any of my fashions, they’re ruined and won’t be worth a dime. I’ll have to throw them straight into the garbage.” Momma would make the angry face so I would know she meant it. Then she threatened to sell everything in my luxurious bedroom, just to replace the value of one outfit of hers that I might have ruined.

  Still, one day when I was feeling invisible I went in there and found the best hiding spots behind Momma’s full-length coats. I leaned against the wall that
day, when some fur accidentally rubbed against my face, I pushed back because of the feeling it gave me, which was different from the feeling I got when I rubbed one of my stuffed animals across my cheek. The wall behind me pressed in a tiny bit. Curious, I turned around and pushed it with both hands. Behind a big square was a big small space, closed in but empty, so I went in and sat there for a while.

  Now that the twins and me were being hunted by the takers, I lured them into Momma’s forbidden closet with two Charms lollipops from my lollipop jar in my beautiful designer bedroom. When we all three were inside, I dropped down to the crawling position, so they did, too. We crawled, and I pushed the square in gently. Once we were all three stuffed inside of the small space, I placed the square back in its place, just in case Magdalena came looking for us.

  “What’s that?” Mercedes asked me, her eyes searching through the dark space where we three were gathered together.

  “What’s what?” Lexus asked. “I can’t even see anything in here,” she added.

  “It’s like a Pixy Stix,” I told her. I knew they both loved pouring the colored sugar from the Pixy Stix candies on their tongues. I broke Momma’s medicine capsule open and said, “Stick out your tongues.” I sprinkled the powder on Lexus’s tongue first.

  “Taste nasty,” Lexus said.

  “I don’t want none if it’s nasty,” Mercedes said.

  “You get a lollipop,” I said to Lexus, peeling the wrapper off a cherry Charms. “Now suck the lolly,” I told Lexus. She did.

  “It tastes good now, right?” I asked Lexus.

  “Cherry, yum,” Lexus said.

  I dumped another capsule into my hand and broke it open.

  “Mercedes, stick out your tongue,” I whispered quietly.

  “Nope. I only want the lollipop.” Mercedes resisted.

  “Poppa said family sticks together. We all gonna have some,” I whispered.

  “You first,” Mercedes said.

  I cuffed my hand and put it towards my mouth, spilling the powder on purpose. But I knew she couldn’t see the tiny crystals in the dark.