She looks at me like I'm crazy, which I probably am.

"Your father? Like he'd have any idea what to do."

"Do you?" I ask.

"No."

"Oh. So it's up to me." I take a step down into the family room, imagine going over to my sister's house and putting a knife to Brian's throat. I say out loud, "Looked to me like somebody was getting a dirty deal. Just thought I'd cut in."

My mom snuffs in with her nose. "Is that a John Wayne quote?"

I shrug. "It's from Haunted Gold."

Her voice rises. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"He'd know what to do," I say, sitting on the edge of the sofa, because it's true you would know what to do. The laptop is heavy on my lap. I stare at it.

"There are no heroes," she says, sitting up straight and pointing at me with the white pen she does her crossword puzzles with. "Got that? No men are heroes. Get my lighter for me?"

"John Wayne is a hero." I grab the lighter off the kitchen counter and hand it to her. She looks so old all of a sudden. There are lines by her lips and her lipstick is smudged.

"John Wayne was a movie star. That's all." She lights up a cigarette and rolls her eyes. "The world has gone on fine without him. Why don't you go do your homework?"

The phone rings and she brightens up; literally leaps up from the chair she was too tired to move from before. "Maybe it's Mike."

She grabs it and I can tell by the way her voice softens that it is. No heroes, huh?

In the kitchen, I grab a bread knife and tuck it inside my pants pocket. I grab a steak knife too, and put it under my pillow, just in case.

The man in my report, Hannah Dustin's husband, saved his children. Fleeing from a party of scalping Native Americans, he ushered seven of his children in front of him. He stood rear, shooting at the Native Americans who were intelligently hiding behind the trees and bushes. They shot back, but he had better aim. He did this shooting and running, shooting and running, for over a mile, pushing most of his hysterical family to safety, hurrying them on, giving them strength. He brought them to a house and guarded it. The Indians that were following him eventually left.

I can't find the name of the nation anywhere. I'll have to go the library to look in the encyclopedias there. I've already tried the Internet and came up with nothing.

Lord, were they angry though, running through the town, ready to kill anyone. I can understand that. It's what happens when you get pushed too far, and I expect those Native Americans got pushed a lot. I can't believe Hannah Dustin is supposed to be a hero. Her husband is another story. That's a father.

If they made it into a movie, that would be your role. I can see you standing there, standing tall, shooting, aiming, protecting your children. You would know what to do.

When my mother's gone to sleep, I creep into the kitchen. I grab the Tupperware cheese container out of the fridge and cut off a piece with a bread knife. It's not too easy to cut all the way through, and it comes off jagged. Next, I go over to the breadbox my father made before I was born. It was a birthday present for my mother one year. She thinks that's funny. He made her a breadbox for her birthday. I split the cheese up into little pieces and smoosh it between the bread. The way the yellow cheese breaks up the smooth brownness of the bread makes me think of my sister, Jessica. I don't know why. I don't know the why about anything. Sometimes you just have to let the gaps in your thinking come and not explore the connections, like why cheese in bread reminds you of your bruised sister.

Sitting on the stool by the phone, I eat all the bread and then I dial Jessica's number. Her husband answers.

"Hello? Hello?

His voice is low and thick with beer. I like how people's voices tell you what their soul is like. It makes life a little easier, I guess, but we get distracted by how they look and what they do, so we forget the clues of the voice.

I muffle my voice, try to make it like low and twangy, a John Wayne tough-guy voice. "Touch her again, you die."

I don't hang up the receiver. Instead, I disconnect the line. I reconnect it, call my father's number, and hope that my grandmother doesn't answer.

He picks up the phone and his voice is groggy from sleep. He goes to bed every night at nine.

"Hello?" he says. "Hello? Who is it?"

I hang up on him, too, just disconnect the line and then I feel so guilty it's all I can do not to call back. Instead, I go back to bed and try to think of ways to save the day, save my sister, but I fall asleep before I can even think of one. Some hero.

I heard a story about when you were a kid in the California desert. You and your dog, Duke, had a paper route and there was this awful boy who called you girlie because your name was Marion. He beat you up. Those must have been some dire circumstances there. I have to tell you, I was shocked, Mr. Wayne, because I thought that you were always popular, a hero kind of man, not a get-smacked-around-and-called-girlie kind of man.

That didn't last long, though, did it?

Firefighters taught you how to use your fists, but you still avoided that bully for as long as you could. I respect you for that. I respect you for using your fists as a last resort. There aren't many men like that nowadays, but I think there are a lot of women, a lot of women who wouldn't know how to make a fist if their life depended on it.

It's also good to think that there's hope, you know, for us people on the fringes. If a boy named Marion can grow up to be the Duke, well, anything's possible isn't it?

I would tell Nicole that story to make her feel better, but she's not a big fan, Mr. Wayne. She prefers those boy-band singers. The ones with the skinny hips and shoulders to match. The ones with those high voices. I don't think they should even count as men. No offense.

The reason I should tell her this story of yours is that Nicole thinks we have to be popular, and right now. This girl's got her finger on the trigger and it's twitching 'cause she's ready to shoot.

Nicole is determined that our popularity is not going to be a lost cause, like in The Cowboys when you had to take five hundred head of steer through bad country and all you had for cowhands were little boys. That was a good movie and a lost cause.

You die in that one. That should never have happened. You refused to back down to the bad guy, refused to turn around, and he shot you in the back, again and again, while all those little boys watched.

I hated that.

I think Nicole's popularity quest is probably a lost cause for me if Paolo Mattias has told everyone that he thinks my father is gay. It's hard to be popular when your dad wears ladies' panty hose, you know what I mean? I don't know if he's gay or not. I've never seen him with a boyfriend or anything, and he doesn't talk about guys being hot. I mean, he's a truck driver, right? Truck drivers can't be gay. Hairdressers are gay. Art directors are gay. Right? Plus, maybe he's a straight cross-dresser not a gay cross-dresser, or something. Those exist.

Oh, God. Why does it matter?

If Paolo Mattias has gone blabbing like a weak-kneed hostage facing twenty-four banditos with guns, well, I just don't have a hope of being cool. Being cool is not the point when you're short like me, and your mom's got a man coming to see her and your sister's got a man hitting her and you've got no man at all.

I've still joined Students for Social Justice, Amnesty International, and the Modern Foreign Language Club, not because I want to be popular, but because I want to. I tell Nicole this at lunch. Students for Social Justice meets after school on Mondays, so I won't be able to talk to her on the phone today.

"What?" Nicole says. She spreads the cream cheese on her bagels in circles. It has to be perfect or else she won't eat. It all must be even, no lumps, no bumps, no thin spots. The spreading takes her forever, and I've usually finished my bagel by the time she starts hers. Still, it's nice to look at, like a bagel from a commercial, with little ridges in the cream cheese from the plastic knife the cafeteria worker gives her when she goes through the line.

"What?" Nicole says again, because I haven't answered. "You're not serious."

"Why not?" I say, sniffing the air. It smells like a pool in here, like bleach. They must have disinfected the whole cafeteria over the weekend. I sniff my bagel. It smells like plastic.

"Those are not popular-people clubs."

"And what are?" I ask. I pick up the metallic wrapper the cream cheese came in and put it on my paper plate. I yawn and stretch. I did not get enough sleep.

"Track. Or cheerleading," Nicole says. "You yawn like a cat. It's weird."

"I'm not doing any of those, except maybe theater," I say, pulling my legs out from behind the bench that's connected to the cafeteria table. I want to throw out my lunch stuff in the metal garbage can at the end of the table, just a few feet away. I keep talking while I'm walking. "I could never be a cheerleader. I'm not perky enough."

"Your boobs are."

"Jesus!"

Nicole laughs. "You can run."

"Not fast."

"Yeah, you can."

I throw my stuff away and sit down again. Running fast scares me. I can do it. I can do a mile in six minutes and twenty seconds. They timed us in eighth-grade gym, but to do it I have to pretend that something is chasing me, something scary and awful, and this feeling sucks into me as I run, this feeling of no escape. Everyone laughed at how fast I was, because I'm so short. "I'm not joining track."

I'm not. Riding a bike is so much better. With the wind in my hair I can pretend I'm flying a bomber in World War II, saving the world, or I'm riding a horse across the range, rescuing my family from bandits, or I'm in the streets of Massachusetts warning everyone that the British are coming. Running is not like that. Running is fear. Biking is power.

Nicole chews her bagel, thinking. "Do you want to be popular?"

"Sure."

I guess I do. I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure if I care, at least not the way Nicole does. In no-man's-land there's no such thing as popular, is there? Out in the desert, it's just you and the cactus and sun-bleached bones. I imagine jumping on a horse and walking the cattle across the prairie. I gaze across the cafeteria like it's my path through the fields. Who are the people to watch? Who are the cattle thieves? Who are the heroes? A football player by a table near the soda machines throws a Coke can at his friend like it's a beer in a saloon. The friend catches it in his hand. Bang. Smile.

Mary Bilodeau walks by with her bag lunch. She waves at me and smiles. I give her a little wave back. Nicole snorts out her disgust.

"You don't want to be a big loser all your life?" Nicole asks me. When I don't answer, she says. "Hello, Lily. This is earth."

"No, of course not," I say and try to pay attention. I spread my thumb and first finger on my forehead. "Do I have a scarlet L on my forehead?"

Nicole laughs like I knew she would and says, "No, but you might if you don't join track and keep smiling back at Mary Bilodeau."

"Is this according to your brother?" I'm angry now. I pull change out of my pocket to see if I have enough for a Coke. That Coke machine waves at me like a giant red oasis in the middle of the Nevada desert. I've got a sore thirst. "He's not in track, is he?"

Hannah Dustin's daughters had five brothers. I don't have one. I can't imagine being Nicole and having someone there all the time leaving jock straps everywhere, shaving and burping and tormenting my old Barbie dolls, maybe shooting at crows with a BB gun.

"Yes," Nicole says. She fidgets with her hair, pulling strands of it over her ear. "I'm joining."

"No offense," I say and look over at where Nicole's brother is sitting with Travis Poppins at a table of eleventh grade jerks. They shoot quarters across the table at each other, two of their fingers on each hand forming pretend hockey goals. "But your brother isn't exactly the most popular boy in the whole world."

"It's by choice," Nicole says, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. "He's above that."

"Oh, right. And I'm not," I say, and Nicole opens her mouth to answer but I get up to get a Coke. I have enough money. In fact, I have a nickel extra. I murmur, "Saddle up."

When I walk by Christopher, Nicole's brother, who I do not want to walk by, Travis nudges him and he says in this stupid cowpoke voice, "Hi, Liliana."

"Hi."

"You popular yet?" Travis Poppins asks. I'm so close to him I can count the pimples on his nose: seven.

"More than you," I shoot back. Bang.

It's like you said in Rio Bravo, Mr. Wayne: I don't like a lot of things. I don't like it when a stupid boy makes fun of me. I don't like it when people know what I want. I don't like it that Nicole told her brother we're trying to be popular and that he told his friend. Some things people do should just be kept to their fool selves.

I make it to the Coke machine and punch the button to get the Coke. When I walk back to the table, I take the long way around. I see the boy who had the red pants, Mr. Fire Man. He smiles at me. I smile back. Next to him is Paolo Mattias. He smiles at me too and says, "Hi."

My heart stops, but I give him a slow nod the way you would, Mr. Wayne. I am cool. I am not a cowpoke. But I'm squeezing my Coke can and with each squeeze, I'm thinking, "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes."

And my feet are having a hard time not doing some happy little Irish jig on the ugly over-waxed linoleum floor.

Must be cool. Must be cool.

When I sit down Nicole asks, "You mad at me?"

"No," I say, smiling big because I'm not any more. But I don't tell her about her beloved crush, Fire Man, with his hair that looks like a gaggle of pigeons nested in it, two tables down from us, breathing the same air we do, maybe. Since we've never seen him before, he must be from Hancock or Trenton or Aurora, one of those feeder towns that come to our high school because they aren't big enough to have their own.

And I don't tell Nicole about how I felt inside when Paolo Mattias said hello.

Maybe, if my father is gay, he wouldn't care? Maybe this boy has more going for him then I've given him credit for. You've got to let a man show his worth, right, Mr. Wayne? You've got to give him room to do the right thing.

Josiah Murphy, a junior football player, starts hooting and jumps up on the table to do a little pelvic salute to the fluorescent lights. He dances in a circle and stomps while the other guys all holler out, "Get a babe. Get a babe."

They try to pull Caitelyn Crowley up on the maroon tabletop with him, but she shrieks and runs away, which is good because now I don't have to save her.

But the football players don't give up.

"Get a fag. Get a fag," they start chanting and Josiah points to Daniel Labelle, who everyone has known would be gay since he turned up at first-grade show-and-tell in Mrs. Kinsley's class with a Barbie and Ken doll set, and he'd made them matching white disco outfits all by himself. Ken's outfit had more tassels on it than Barbie's.

Anyway, Daniel doesn't want to be saved.

Daniel shrugs and waves and yells, "Hi girls" to the boys. But before he gets yanked up on the table, the lunch monitor comes and Josiah jumps back down and laughs. His friends each give him a buck and high fives.

Yeah, like Paolo Mattias wouldn't care, Mr. Wayne? Sometimes I think I'm more deluded than a fat member of the Donner party.

Saddle up.

After the Students for Social Justice meeting, I get a ride home with Sasha Sandeman's sister, who is a senior. Olivia wears Indian-print shirts and batik skirts and sandals. She drives a Volkswagen bug, lavender, which is probably the coolest car ever. She calls it the Love Mobile.

Yes, I know, it is not exactly a John Wayne car. I can't imagine you even getting your legs inside of it, but I'm short and it seems perfect to me. I am a girl.

All the way to my house, we talk about Darfur, Iraq, China, and theater stuff. Their mom's the director at the Palace Theater. Sasha's one of those really peppy people; she's pretty popular, actually, in a hippie-cute kind of way. She has black hair and freckles. My mother says she's perky. Not her breasts. Her personality. We weren't really close when we went to middle school, but we always said hi and everything. She's in a couple of my classes now.

When I climb out of the car, Olivia says, "Are you going to go to the Amnesty International meeting on Wednesday?"

"Yeah," I say, leaning over Sasha to talk to Olivia.

"You have nice breath," Sasha says and smiles. I don't know what to say. Sasha's always blurting things like that, tiny compliments, like you have eyes the color of peonies, or you have the best socks. It's part of her Spreading Kindness Campaign.

"Want a ride home from that too?" Olivia asks me.

"That would be great."

"Cool," Sasha says. "We could just give you rides every day so you don't have to do the bus thing, which is way too bourgeois for you.

"Cool." I shut the door and they turn their car around at the top of the driveway. Cool, I think. Cool.

They honk the horn and I wave. The car has a cute horn, just a little tooty beep. I want a car like that. Back in middle school, Sasha and I had the same homeroom in seventh grade and we used to salute the world when we were supposed to pledge allegiance to the flag. We'd put our hands on our shoulders and mumble that we pledged allegiance to the world, to all countries and people, for peace and justice. No one ever noticed. I should start doing that again. I wonder why we weren't close in eighth grade. Different classes, I guess. It's crazy how what classes you have determines your whole life when you're in middle school. And it's all so arbitrary, just some principal randomly picking names and potentially ruining your whole year, if not your whole life.