A Clatter of Jars

by Lisa Graff

  Hal rolled his eyes at Renny. “It’s called Camp Atropos for Singular Talents. Not Camp Atropos for Losers Who Don’t Use Their Talents. Anyway, you don’t hear me complaining about Del.” Hal pointed to the Blue Team’s half of the field, where the head counselor had used his Numbing Talent to turn the remnants of last night’s rain into a slippery slush. Most of the Red Team’s best players had skidded onto their rear ends in it, which was why they were now languishing in their enemies’ jail. “And I’m pretty positive Nolan hid their flag so high up that tree that no one but him can get it down. Just admit that you can’t actually read minds.”

  Renny bent down to tug at the top of his sock again. “I know what’s in your back pocket,” he said.

  Hal snorted. “That’s stupid.”

  Renny merely shrugged, like he dealt with morons who didn’t believe in his incredible Scanner ability every day. “I’ll bet you ten dollars.”

  “Fine,” Hal said, although he was clearly still skeptical. “Ten dollars. What have I got in my pocket?”

  “Three Caramel Crème bars,” Renny replied.

  At that, Hal laughed. “I think you meant to get on the bus to Fair Camp,” he said, reaching a hand to his back pocket. “Because there definitely are not any Caramel Crème—” He stopped talking when he pulled out the wrappers, the chocolate smeared across his fingertips. “Why, you little—”

  From his own pocket, Renny removed Hal’s wallet, which he’d swiped several minutes earlier. “I already took out the ten bucks,” he told Hal. “That’ll buy Miles a lot of candy.” If the Caramel Crème company really was going to stop production on the candy bars soon, like Teagan had said, then Renny figured he better buy up as many of the things as possible. He tossed Hal the wallet. “Thanks.”

  Renny expected Hal to try to slug him then, or to throw his hot water bottle at him, at least. So he was surprised when the wallop hit the back of his head.

  Hal seemed surprised, too. “What the—?” he began, as Renny whirled around.

  The pebble was still floating in the air, small and round and black, fluttering like a bird. Tied around it with a thin length of swampy yarn was a scrap of notebook paper. As Renny and Hal watched, silent, the green yarn untied itself and then the paper unwrapped itself, too.

  I need your help.

  Once Renny had read it, the note crumpled itself into a ball and dropped to the ground, but the pebble kept floating. Renny tugged it out of the air, following the length of swampy yarn as it floated past Miles in the grass (“Can I get another Caramel Crème bar?”), deep into the shadows of the trees.

  “Hey! You can’t just leave in the middle of the game!” Hal shouted from the field.

  When Renny reached Lily in the trees, he waved the pebble at her. “Most people tap me on the shoulder when they want my attention.”

  Lily held out her thumb, and the small length of swampy yarn wrapped itself around it, tying itself into a knot. “I need you to read Jo’s mind,” she told him. “She’s dangerous.”

  “The camp director?” Renny raised his eyebrows. So far all Jo had done was insist that he go swimming a lot, and that hardly seemed like something to worry about. He rubbed the back of his head, still sore from its run-in with the rock. “I think you’re more dangerous than she is.”

  “Did you know there’s a Recollector at this camp?” Lily asked him.

  Despite the heat of the afternoon, Renny’s body went cold. He glanced back at Miles, who was lying on his belly in the grass now, staring at bugs.

  “One of the counselors or someone, I don’t know who,” Lily went on. “Somebody gave me a memory, a really important one, so that I could do something about it. Don’t you think that doing something to stop a dangerous Mimic is a much better way to help the whole camp than making punch?”

  Renny rubbed the warmth back into his arms. Lily didn’t know about Miles. “I have to get back to the game,” Renny told her.

  “Jo’s a Mimic,” Lily insisted. “She must be. She’s been copying our Talents. Us campers, I mean. This whole time. She has hundreds of Talent bracelets in her office. In jars, Renny. Just sitting in jars.”

  “Jars?” Renny asked.

  “I need you to read her mind to figure out how she’s doing it. You know it’s illegal, right? To Mimic people’s Talents without telling them? And people could get hurt, Renny. People have already gotten . . .” Lily wound the length of yarn around her thumb.

  “You’re positive she has copies of Talents?” Renny asked. “Good ones?”

  Lily nodded. “Jars and jars of them,” she said. “Will you help?”

  Buttered popcorn.

  The memory hit Renny suddenly, as though it had plopped directly into his mind from the tree above him. Renny scratched below his ear, where the buttered-popcorn memory seemed to have settled.

  Renny had been playing his harmonica, he remembered, scratching. His grandma Esther’s harmonica.

  Which was peculiar, because he didn’t remember having a grandma Esther.

  Scratch scratch scratch. Renny had been looking for something. No. Scratch scratch. He’d found something.

  Renny whipped around, his gaze landing on Miles, belly down in the grass.

  Pearl, alabaster, porcelain, frost. Renny remembered seeing the colors dancing above Miles’s head. He’d seen them with the harmonica. Scratch scratch.

  Jo had been looking for Miles.

  “Renny?” Lily said again. Around and around she wound the yarn at her thumb. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  Jars and jars of Talents, he thought. He stopped scratching the buttered-popcorn memory.

  “No,” he said at last. “I’m going to help somebody else.”

  Lily

  “THE LINE MUST BE BREAKING UP,” LILY’S MOTHER SAID.

  Lily pressed the receiver hard into her cheek, and tried to make herself as small as possible against the lodge wall. The only public phone in all of Camp Atropos was located just outside the door to Jo’s office, and you had to get Del’s permission to use it. Luckily, Del had left her alone when she said she needed to discuss a personal matter with her parents.

  “I can’t quite hear what you’re saying, Lily Belle,” her mom went on.

  “I heard her fine,” Lily’s stepfather, Steve, replied. Lily could picture them perfectly, sitting at the kitchen table with her mom’s mobile between them, on speakerphone. Lily’s mother, a Talented multitasker, would be drafting a shopping list and mending a hole in Steve’s sweater while mopping a coffee spill with her foot, and Steve would be twisting apart a sandwich cookie. He could do it perfectly every time, so that all the cream ended up on one side, no messy breaks. “Lily told us that their camp director is a Mimic, and she’s duplicating all their Talents. Stuffing them into jars.”

  “Oh, I heard that,” Lily’s mom said. “I just thought it was so ridiculous there must be something wrong with the phone. You still have your Talent, don’t you, Lily Belle?”

  “Mimics don’t take Talents, Mom,” Lily said. She focused her thoughts at the bridge of her nose and turned her gaze to the moose head keeping guard above the lodge’s double doors. Just to check, she budged one of his eyes closed, then open. “They copy them.”

  “Lily Belle, it’s perfectly natural to get homesick. There’s no need to make up stories. If you want us to come pick you up, we’re happy to do it. Although we’ll see you on Sunday, you know, at the Talent show.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it!” Steve chimed in, a little too cheerily. “I hear Hannah and Max are making punch.”

  “Max is not making punch,” Lily shot back. But there were heavier things on her mind. “Max got hurt,” she said. Around and around went the length of yarn. That night, Lily knew, after the campfire, the lodge would be packed full of kids for the all-camp slumber party, but at the moment, it was so empty that her
words bounced off the walls.

  (Max got hurt. Max got hurt. Max got hurt.)

  “Nurse Bonnie told us about the accident with the juice,” Steve said calmly. “But Max is fine now. We talked to him a half hour ago. Nurse Bonnie has a Talent for salves. She said he’s fine to attend the slumber party tonight and everything.”

  “How’s Hannah doing?” Lily’s mother cut in. “Has she been occupying herself during free swim?”

  Who cared what Hannah was doing during free swim? “I’m going to go,” Lily replied.

  “All right. Bye, Lily Belle. See you on Sun—”

  Lily called her father next.

  “Liria!” her father said, as soon as he picked up the phone. Lily loved the way he said his nickname for her, with the lilt on the first syllable. “Bonjour from Marseilles! To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  Lily didn’t waste any time. Told her father the whole story—minus a few details—about the Talent bracelet and the stealing.

  “Oh, Liria,” he said when she’d finished. “If you don’t like camp, why don’t you call your mother and have her pick you up?”

  “But . . .” She should’ve known her father wouldn’t think her problems were big enough to rearrange his schedule for. Lily sighed. “Couldn’t you come a little early? I mean, you were planning on coming Sunday anyway, right? For the Talent show?”

  In the pause that followed, Lily knew what the answer was, without even needing the words. She’d heard enough pauses in her life.

  “I’m so sorry, Liria,” her father said at last. And he did, truly, sound sorry, but that didn’t fix things, did it? “You know that traveling helps ease my heartache.”

  Lily placed the receiver back in its cradle on the wall. And then, so softly that even the empty lodge wouldn’t repeat it, Lily whispered, “What about mine?”

  If no one was going to help her, Lily decided, then she was going to have to help everybody.

  Taking two steps toward Jo’s office and the hundreds of jars locked inside, Lily focused her thoughts at the bridge of her nose. Slowly, through the door, she lifted every last jar—one inch, then two—off the shelf.

  “You work things out okay?” came a voice from behind her.

  Lily swiveled around, her heart pummeling against her ribs. Behind the office door, the jars settled back onto their shelves with a soft series of clank!s.

  Del turned his head to the noise, then back to Lily.

  “Oh,” Lily said, catching her breath. “Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine now, thanks.”

  She eyed the office door again, then glanced at Del.

  “You want to join your cabinmates at archery?” he asked her.

  Around and around Lily wound the yarn at her thumb. “Um,” she said. Around and around. “Sure.” And she crossed the lodge floor, passing beneath the moose head and down the steps to the dirt path.

  Tonight, she thought, scurrying through shade-then-light-then-shade-again. Tonight, when everyone was at the campfire, she’d have her chance.

  Liliana Vera was going to help everybody.

  Renny

  “BUT WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE REHEARSING FOR THE Talent show,” Miles said as they bustled through the trees toward the lodge. “It’s the last day before dress rehearsal.” Cabin Twelve had taken over the flag circle, Cabin Twenty-Six was at the archery ring, and the rest of the Cabin Eight campers were at the arts-and-crafts cabin. But Del had told Renny that Jo was in her office, so that’s where he and Miles were headed. Besides, Renny didn’t need any more practice at faking a Talent.

  “We’re supposed to be rehearsing,” Miles said again. Renny could see the tip of Miles’s pinkie beginning to twitch.

  “You’re not even technically in the Talent show,” Renny reasoned, grabbing for his brother’s hand. “You just help out from the audience.” How great would it be to have a real act for the Talent show? To see his parents’ faces light up when he performed? To read something they’d said about him in one of their interviews and not feel his gut twist inside him, knowing it was a lie?

  Renny knocked and knocked on Jo’s office door, but no one answered. Miles watched the kids from Cabin Thirty-Three, who were rehearsing on the stage at the far end of the lodge. A girl named Molly was telling time perfectly, down to the second, without glancing at a clock.

  “Two-oh-seven!” she cried, popping her eyes open. “And eighteen seconds. Nineteen.”

  “Renny,” Miles whined again, “I really think we’re supposed to be rehearsing.”

  Renny pounded harder on the door—so hard that he didn't hear the footsteps behind him.

  “Can I help you?”

  Renny squared his shoulders as he turned, pretending that Jo didn’t scare him in the slightest. “I know you’re looking for the Recollector Talent,” he told her. Sometimes the best approach was an honest one. “And I know where you can find it.”

  Jo scratched a spot below one ear. She looked as though she were trying to fit a piece into a puzzle that she hadn’t realized she was missing. When at last the puzzle piece seemed to snap into place, Jo pulled her harmonica from her sweater pocket and lifted it to her lips.

  “I can play the harmonica,” Miles informed them. “I learned last year in music class.”

  “I know, Miles. Shh,” Renny whispered.

  Jo played a melancholy tune, her eyes set on Miles. Renny recognized the song from the radio.

  Los golpes en la vida

  preparan nuestros corazones

  como el fuego forja al acero.

  “Miles Fennelbridge,” Jo breathed.

  “Miles Patrick Francis Fennelbridge,” Miles began. Renny could tell just from the tone of his voice that his brother was reciting Talent history again. “Thirteen years old as of his last birthday. Talent: Recollector.” He looked up at Jo, his eyes suddenly wide with worry. “Renny and I have a brother bond. So you can’t tell anyone.”

  The way Jo smiled at Miles, you’d think he was a particularly tasty-looking tuna she’d spied in a fish shop. “Not a soul,” she assured him.

  Then she fixed her gaze on Renny.

  “I need that Talent,” she said, dropping the harmonica into her sweater pocket.

  Miles slipped back into his recitation. “Dorothy Ida Whitaker. Born 1880, died 1899. Talent: Tapissier.”

  “Miles can take any memory for you,” Renny told Jo. “Or give you one, if that’s what you want. He’s good at it, if I help him. Give me a Talent bracelet, and he’ll do it. I know you have some.”

  (“Able to weave dreams into cloth,” Miles went on. “Fun fact: For a fee, visitors to the Talent Library in Munich, Germany, can take a nap beneath one of Dorothy Whitaker’s blankets.”)

  “Your brother can’t be trusted with something so sensitive,” Jo told Renny. “If you want to negotiate with me, Renwick Fennelbridge, you’ll need to get me my own copy of that Talent.”

  Renny tugged at the top of his right sock. “A copy?”

  In response, Jo pulled out a key and unlocked her office. She swung the door open wide, so Renny could see. “I’ll give you any Talent you want,” she told him.

  Hundreds and hundreds of jars lined the shelf on the wall. Each held a bracelet, and each jar’s lid was labeled with neat blocky letters.

  “Those are all . . . ?” Renny began.

  “Talents,” she told him. “Not a bad one in the bunch.”

  Renny glanced at Miles, who was still busy reciting. (“Thomas Alphonse Martin. Born 1776, died 1875. Talent: Fledgling.”) Then he turned back to Jo.

  “How do I get you a copy?” he asked.

  Chuck

  CHUCK CROUCHED, SHOULDERS TENSED, BEHIND THE rickety equipment shed, eyes darting to her feet. Her water shoes were still drenched from the lake, so she’d squirmed under her bunk to retrieve her Kelly-green high-tops. Someho
w, they didn’t bother her anymore. Because even if she looked a little froggy, Chuck knew she was an utterly unique individual.

  An utterly unique individual who was currently hiding from her identical twin sister.

  (Please just be in the Talent show with me anyway, Chuck. That’s what Ellie would say if Chuck tried to tell her what she’d discovered at the lake. Please, Chuck? Please? And Ellie would frown when she said it, too. Here, Chuck, take my hand, and we’ll talk to some frogs. Chuck? Chuck?)

  When the voices on the path drifted farther away, Chuck poked her head out from behind the shed. It was only Renny and Miles with Jo, heading toward the lake.

  Chuck clenched and unclenched her hand. She was dying to experiment, to discover precisely what she could do with her Talent. So far Chuck knew what she wasn’t: a Frog Twin. Now she needed to discover what she was.

  (Please, Chuck? Please?)

  Once she knew for sure, Chuck told herself—once she discovered exactly what she was—she wasn’t going to hide anymore. She was going to tell everyone. She’d shimmy right up the flagpole, even, and announce it to the world. Chuck didn’t care how hard Ellie would frown when she announced it, either. She didn’t.

  She didn’t.

  The campfire. Chuck would have a chance to figure things out at the campfire.

  In the meantime, she hid behind the equipment shed, clenching and unclenching her hand.

  Renny

  IN A MILLION YEARS, RENNY NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED that he’d find himself paddling a canoe in the middle of a lake with his older brother. But if he ever had guessed it, he would have predicted that it would be exactly this horrible.

  “No water.” Miles’s voice was a trembly, terrifying whisper. His knuckles were white as he clutched the sides of the canoe, his chest heaving underneath his orange life vest. “No water.”

  Flick-flick-flick-flick-flick! went his fingers against the wood.

  “It’s okay,” Renny told him as he paddled. He tried his best to sound comforting. “It’s only water, Miles. And I’m right here.”