"That's the wildest thing I've ever heard in my life," my brother said after I ranted at him for a solid hour about the comings and goings of the last three days. I didn't know exactly what he referred to, so I immediately took offense.

"I thought you'd be on my side!"

He laughed. "Whoa. I am, don't get me wrong. I'm just in awe at the sheer dumbassery of you two."

I huffed once he paused and looked at myself in the mirror. This whole thing had been so badly planned that we didn't even order my uniform in time. Why a school of only boys needed uniforms eluded me. It wasn't like boys were known for being obedient and following strict dress codes. I was told to wear muted colors and no prints to start school until the uniform arrived, so I had to borrow some of dad's clothes to try to make this work. I put my hair in a low pony tail, figuring that was the manliest do I could whip up.

I turned this way and that, flexing my muscles in an attempt to look like a man's man.

This was going to be a disaster and I already knew it.

"At us two?" I asked over the phone's loudspeaker. "It wasn't me who uprooted us to a different country without much of a plan."

I heard him sigh on the line. "Try to understand dad, he's got a lot going on."

"So do I." My arms flailed and I stomped my foot like a petulant child. "He couldn't even figure out living arrangements beforehand. Now we're stuck trying to repair a crumbling house in town just so that he can get in the people's good graces and meanwhile we're living in the tiniest, dingiest hotel I've ever seen. There isn't a single Starbucks or whatever the hell the Canadian equivalent is, and I already Googled it up, but there's no boxing gym in a 200 miles range. This sucks."

"You'll survive. You've survived worse."

I sobered at that, hating it for the truth it was. I wished he hadn't brought it up.

I saw myself in the mirror again. A girl whose circumstances had made her more times than they'd broken her. Why was I acting like a brat now? I had to grab these lemons and make tequila shots with them. I had no choice but to make this work.

"You're right," I said. "I'm going to take this town by storm."

"Pobrecitos, they won't know what hit them," he said. "Hey, I gotta go. My class is starting soon."

School was about to start soon for me, too, so I grabbed my backpack and room key and took a deep breath.

"Any further advice for me?" I asked.

"Try not to kill dad."

I rolled my eyes. "I make no promises."

We hung up and I switched to the maps app, so that I could follow the route to school. I had to snort at the simplicity of Silver Grove's layout. It was a straight shot from anywhere A to anywhere B. I put my phone back in my pocket and walked to the front of the little inn we were staying in, where they were serving the usual breakfast that could be found at a gas station convenience store. Sugar packed instant oatmeal. Cereals. Fruit. I grabbed a couple of bananas and an apple, wondering how I was going to survive until lunch. Today dad was meeting with a contractor who would tell us how long it'd take to renovate the house enough so that we could move in, and I really hoped he'd say a week at minimum, because I needed my arepas for breakfast.

I was thinking of a good desayuno criollo by the time I hit the sidewalk, peeling the banana. I stopped at a corner to let a car through when I found myself in the company of somebody. I looked up and groaned.

"It's you," I said with as much surliness as I felt while eating the fruit.

"Good morning to you, too," Dean said. He looked up and down the road one last time before crossing it ahead of me. He carried a backpack and the massive duffel, no doubt filled with hockey stuff. He'd strapped the stick to the side of the bag and it bounced as he walked. I couldn't help but trail my eyes down his frame and be impressed with what I saw.

Well, not only could I not think that way because I was supposed to be a boy now, but also because it didn't look to me like he needed any more air to his ego.

Somebody who was driving by us stopped by the sidewalk and lowered their car window. I had a second's flashback of fear to a time when this might have been certain trouble, but then it turned out to be a smiling old woman and I remembered that I was in a small town in the middle of Canada. These people all probably knew each other, and if anything they were afraid of newcomers like my dad and I.

I forced my heart rate to lower watching her reach into her car and give the boy a Tupperware with what she said was her famous sausage links with grits. He bent down to receive it and she gave him a gentle pat on his cheek.

"We're so proud of you," she said.

"Thank you, Mrs. Morris," he replied, all polite and sweet unlike I'd seen before.

"Do you think the Bears have a good chance this season?"

He gave her a tight smile. "The Eagles won't know what's coming for them."

She laughed and after a few more pleasantries drove away with whoop whoop sounds from her honk. I looked back at Dean and realized that he was a celebrity in town, clearly because of hockey.

I decided to ask the obvious question. "So, are you really good?"

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye while walking to school. Up ahead a group of boys headed in the same direction spotted us and started waving their hands. I recognized about half of the boys. Dean nodded at them, but he didn't forget my question.

The corner of his lips curled into a smirk I was quickly getting very familiar with. "Good is putting it mildly. I'm the best."

I gaped and in all honesty it was in jealousy. I wish I had something that I could say unequivocally that I was the best in. But I didn't have anything I really excelled at, other than being a contrary, obnoxious little shit. That wasn't an award anybody wanted to have.

We joined the other boys and I was still unable to wipe the frown off of my face. They thumped each other in the back, laughed and cursed together. It was silly to only realize it right then and there, at 17 years old, but that was the moment I knew that I both didn't know what the fuck I wanted in my life, and that I also didn't have a community. Boxing was a solo sport. It was you against yourself, really, honing yourself to beat your own limits. And then you tested that in front of somebody else, to see if by beating your own limits you also surpassed theirs. And even though I trained in a gym with other regulars, we didn't talk much and we didn't hang outside. Maybe because I was a kid and most of them were adults with their own lives. And even though I went to a boarding school and was surrounded by people all the time, it was always me and the demons in my head.

I stood on the fringes of the group at the school doors as realization after realization hit me. I felt like I was staggering after a fight of too many rounds, but I knew this was definitely not the right place or time to suddenly burst into tears.

Dios, but how I missed the old days when I did have the community. I missed afternoons with mami and Sofia, the cleaning lady. I missed hanging out with my cousins at grandma's house in San Antonio de Los Altos. I missed the weekend trips to the beach en el litoral with all the family except dad, because he was working. Always except dad. I missed all the things I lost that morning when mom and my childhood were taken away by a gang who needed to fill in a quota for their leader. And now I was stuck with only dad in a town where I didn't know anybody but they all knew each other.

Then suddenly, despite being in the midst of a mosh pit of boys, Dean turned around with a frown and his eyes met mine.

"What are you straggling there for? C'mon."

My feet reacted before my mind did and I joined the crowd. The second one to notice me was Pace, who put his heavy arm around my shoulders as he told everybody the story of how I punched their idol yesterday. The guy from yesterday, Brian, started telling me about how I could improve my skating technique. It was like riding a bicycle, he said. Once I found my balance my body would remember the motions forever.

"You can't really stand on ice," he was saying as the group steered me into the building. "You have to kinda, skate back and forth on the spot a little bit."

"Yeah," freckles added. Hunter was his name. "I have to show you some videos. Hockey players never really stay in the same spot a long time."

"Partially because they're zooming up and down the ice all the time," Pace said as he shook me by the shoulders. "If we're to make you a Bear, we need to make you strong enough to survive a full game."

"He won't ever have to play a full game," Dean said and as I turned to glare at me he raised his hands up. "Chill out, Johnny Bravo. Nobody does. We all come in and out of the ice depending on the plays. Besides," this he said with the smirk back in place. "With your temper you'll spend most of the time in the penalty booth."

I had no idea what that was or what he was talking about, and it must have shown in my face because they launched in an attempt to explain the wonders of the game to me. It was all flying over my head, especially because they kept talking over each other and all I could understand was the word aboot. My head was spinning in circles when suddenly the old man Lapierre, the school principal, headed our way and stopped in front of me.

"Welcome, Mr. Bernal. I need to have a word with you before class starts."

For a second I wondered if my dad was behind me, until I realized he was referring to me.

Right, I'd joined the exclusive club of the other two Mr. Bernals in the past few days.

"Bernal?" one of the boys asked. "Like Bernal Oil."

I tore my eyes away from the principal to find that it was Hunter who'd spoken, and a frown had fallen on his face. In fact, now that I looked at it, they'd all lost their friendliness all of a sudden.

I thought back to the day before when I introduced myself as just Charlie and realized that dad and I were supposed to be the town's enemies.

The beautiful sight of friendship I'd briefly experienced a few minutes before disappeared like the mirage of an oasis in the desert.

I ignored them and followed Lapierre to his office, angry that somehow dad had a way of ruining things even when he wasn't there.

The old man motioned me to sit down across his desk and he joined me on the other side. A second later I realized I was sitting too much like a girl, so I spread my legs as wide as was comfortable and realized that, holy shit, this was way more comfortable than being all proper and demure. At least I could enjoy this part of the whole deal.

"I trust that you read the package that we gave you when you signed up," he said, and I nodded just to get that out of the way. I totally hadn't read it. "However, it seems like you missed a vital piece in the dress code."

I looked down at myself with a frown. The black and green I wore was as per the school colors, so what else did they want from me?

"My uniform is supposed to arrive at the end of this week," I said, hoping that was that, but of course he wasn't.

"I understand that, but I'm referring to your hair."

I froze, resisting the urge to grab it and protect it from his eyes.

"What about my hair?"

He laced his fingers on top of his desk in a solemn move, as though about to deliver a death sentence. "It must not reach past your jaw line."

The only reason I didn't swoon in the old man's office was because that would raise too many questions. But trust me, I really wanted to.