Also Known as Rowan Pohi Read Online Free PDF Page A

aware, more watchful, around my father. Even when he was asleep down the hallway in his bedroom, even when
I
was asleep, some part of me stayed alert.
    I'm not saying that I considered him some kind of monster. I knew my father loved me and my brother. But facts are facts: he hurt Mom. Now that my eyes had been opened, I couldn't completely shut them.
    Mom once told me he'd never physically hurt her before that, ever. So what was the deal? How had he gone from Dad Before to Father After? Was this one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, a freak event that would never be repeated? Or did it signal some kind of ominous crack in his foundation?
    One thing's for sure: my father proved that your life can change for the worse because of one thing you do, one act you commit. Sometimes I wondered if it could also work the other way around. Could you do one reckless thing, throw one desperate Hail Mary pass to transform your life from Before to After in a good way?
    My father was trying hard to clean up his act. He had finished his anger management classes and stopped drinking. Still, I did have nagging worries. I didn't obsess about it, but, well, maybe one day he would lose his temper again and try to hurt me. Or worse, my brother. That was not going to happen. Not Cody. Not on my watch.

EIGHT
    O N THURSDAYS I WORKED FIVE HOURS AT MY FATHER'S garage. I didn't help on any of the serious repairs. Mostly he kept me busy doing oil changes and vacuuming out the cars before we gave them back to the customers. I knew how to rotate tires too, though he didn't have me do that yet. All in all it wasn't bad work. The other mechanics treated me fine. I got paid twelve dollars an hour, off the books, which was more than I could earn anywhere else. And I needed the money.

    That afternoon I took Cody to the bead store, like I'd promised. Its real name was Kopsky's Gifts and Novelties, but Cody called it the bead store because there was a huge section devoted to beads for making jewelry. It was by far Cody's favorite store. It wasn't so much the beads that interested Cody as the large selection of Indian stuff.
    As I stepped into the store, a wave of incense smell washed over me, sickeningly sweet. Mr. Kopsky stood behind the counter, arms folded. He was a big, lumpy man with thick black hair, and he wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs. I had been to his store at least a dozen times and had never once seen him smile.
    Cody made a beeline for the far wall, where a sign proclaimed GENUINE NATIVE AMERICAN CRAFTS . I wasn't convinced about the
genuine
part. A few items looked real; for instance, some arrowheads displayed in a locked glass cabinet, but there were lots of cheap items (wallets, leather moccasins, purses woven from beads, toy headdresses) that could have been made by anyone.
    Naturally, my brother ignored the inexpensive stuff and zeroed in on a necklace made of porcupine quills and three large bear claws. The kid had good taste—the necklace looked like the real deal. There was a tiny white price tag lying face-down on the display table; when I flipped it over, I almost gagged.
    'A hundred bucks!"
    Cody gave me a pleading look. "I want it."
    "You can't afford it." I steered him to the bins with the low-priced items. "You better stay over here."
    Cody twisted his neck to look over his shoulder. "But I want that necklace!"
    "Then you have to save your money. You can do that, but that means you won't be able to buy anything today."
    I knew Cody pretty well. I figured there was no way he'd be able to leave that store without buying some kind of treat.
    "Oh, okay." He sighed.
    I left him looking at smudge sticks, miniature drums, and dream catchers while I wandered around the store. A few minutes later I went back to check on my brother.
    "Made up your mind?" I asked him.
    He showed me a small toy hatchet decorated with feathers.
    "It costs ten dollars," he said.
    It was a flimsy thing that would likely break in less than a week. I felt a