Miles looked at his father, gave him an unwavering side-eye.
“Okay, okay.” His dad threw his hands up. “The kid’s probably telling the truth. I mean, he ain’t got no real reason to scam us.”
“Exactly. So…?”
“So, please get on the train and go back to school.” Miles’s father was suddenly full of frustration. His cell phone chimed. He checked it, then grabbed Miles by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a rough but loving hug, almost bouncing Miles’s body off his own. “That’s your mother. Let me get home so I can talk to her about it again.”
When Miles got back to his room, Ganke was sitting in front of his computer. On the desk beside his laptop lay a bag of cheese puffs.
“Hey,” Miles said, closing the door behind him.
“Hey,” Ganke said, without looking up from the screen. He stuck his hand in the bag and grabbed a puff, threw it in his mouth, and sucked the cheese powder off his fingertips. Then he glanced over at Miles, who inched past him. “Whoa there, Spider-Man. You left in tights and a mask, and came back in dusty jeans and a hoodie. What’d you do, take up a life of crime and rob a hipster?”
“You got jokes. But you have no idea.” Miles pulled the sweatshirt over his head, the black-and-red-webbed body suit underneath. “I just came from my folks’ house.”
“And you’re still alive, so I take it there was no second phone call from today’s classroom misadventures?” Ganke hoity-toitied his voice.
“Nah. But they’re in there counting their money and calculating bills. So robbing somebody to help them out don’t sound half bad.”
Ganke pushed his fingers back into the snack bag, pulled out what looked like an orange Styrofoam packing peanut, and tossed it in his mouth. “Miles, please,” he said. “You couldn’t rob nobody.”
Miles plopped down on his bed. He pulled his mask from the pocket of his sweatshirt and tossed it to the side. He wanted to tell Ganke about beating up the guy he caught trying to stick the kid up for his sneakers. How he pummeled him. How the guy’s blood dotted the sidewalk. How he snatched the sneakers from the guy’s feet and gave them to the kid as some kind of added justice. Miles understood that kind of vengeance. It was in him.
But he couldn’t tell Ganke that. Plus, if he was being honest with himself, Ganke was right, he couldn’t do it.
“Because no matter what you say, you’re just like me.” The words slow-motioned down Miles’s ear like sap and he instantly flashed back to the white cat, and from the white cat he flashed to his uncle, snarling, his hands reaching for Miles’s neck. Ganke continued, “Except, of course, I can dance. Oh, and you a Super Hero, remember?” He wiped orange dust on his sweatpants.
“Man, just give me some cheese puffs. And what does your dancing have to do with anything?”
“Why don’t you come steal them?” Ganke laughed, and held out the open bag to Miles, who snatched it. “Nah, but seriously, what if you…I don’t know, danced for money.”
“What?” Miles screwed his face up.
“Not like that, man. I’m sayin’…like, showtime.”
“No.”
“Miles, you’ve seen the kinda bread those kids get and you need—”
“Ganke”—Miles put a hand up—“I’m not pop-lockin’ up and down the train for quarters.”
“First of all you wouldn’t have to pop-lock. And secondly, with your abilities, we’d make dollars. Not quarters.”
“We?”
“Well, I gotta get my management fee. A small cut. Plus, somebody gotta collect the cash.” Ganke flashed an angelic smile. “At least think about it.”
Miles shook his head. There was no way. Miles definitely couldn’t be a jack-boy, but he also couldn’t be a subway dancer—a showtime kid. Because he couldn’t dance. He had all the coordination in the world when it came to jumping across rooftops or dodging punches, but to get his body to move on rhythm was a superpower he just didn’t have.
“How ’bout you think about this!” Miles shot web across the room, thick floss making a spaghetti mess on Ganke’s T-shirt.
“Petty, Miles.” Ganke shook his head and didn’t even bother trying to peel the string from his sleeve.
Miles shrugged. “What you doin’ anyway?” He grabbed the cheese puff bag.
“Researching my name for Blaufuss’s homework, which by the way you still have to do. I know you needed to go get some air, or whatever it is you did when you climbed out of the window, but I just hope you breathed in some poetic inspiration. Unless you plan on trying to get more extra credit.”
“Yeah…no. Extra credit is out.” But the thought of having to write a poem at this time of night, after the day he’d had, made his head feel like it was being pinched in a vise. “This is the what’s the meaning of your name thing, right?”
“Yep. And guess what? I don’t think my name means anything,” Ganke said.
Miles munched on a cheese half-moon. “Have you looked it up?” he asked, the cheese puff melting in his mouth.
“Yeah, before you got here. Matter fact I looked up a bunch of names. Like, Alicia, her name means ‘nobility.’ Oh, and a good one was Chamberlain. Dude, that jerk’s name actually means ‘officer who manages the household.’ Ha! But the best and worst one was Ratcliffe. Literally means ‘red cliff.’ Too bad Ryan won’t jump off one.” Ganke waved for the bag of cheese puffs, then rambled on. “Anyway, the point is, when I looked up mine, the only thing that came up was some definition from Urban Dictionary that said it means ‘kill.’”
“Kill?”
“Yeah, like…when you kill people, apparently you ganke them.”
Miles’s stone face of exhaustion cracked into a smile. Then that smile became a chuckle. “Nah, man. That’s gank. You gank somebody.”
“Oh, gank? I know gank. The internet said ganke.” Ganke eased up. “I was about to say, dang, my name means murder?” Miles and Ganke laughed. “But forreal, my name don’t really mean nothing. I don’t even think it’s Korean, which is weird.”
“Did you call your folks?” Miles asked. The laughter that had just lightened the mood of the room was gone. Ganke’s face grew heavy.
“You know I’m not tryin’ to call them. Plus, call and ask them what? Hey, did y’all just make up my name? Nah. I mean, I could call my mom, but I just don’t wanna hear her be sad, man. She’d probably be like, Your father named you, and burst into tears. And if I call my pops, he’d probably be like, Why, you don’t think it’s good enough? Or It’s the Lee that matters, son.” Ganke picked up one of his sneakers and kissed it, imitating his father. “What about you? You know what your name means?”
“I’m surprised you ain’t already look it up.”
“Well, real friends don’t let friends get out of doing their own homework,” Ganke said. “But whatever. Let’s see. Miles. Miles. Hmm.” Ganke let the name ring out while he pretended to ponder.