by Gina Linko
ALSO BY GINA LINKO
Flutter
Indigo
Copyright © 2018 by Gina Linko
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The Library of Congress has cataloged this book as follows:
Names: Linko, G. J., author.
Title: Flower Moon / Gina Linko.
Description: New York : Skyhorse Publishing, [2018] | Summary: Tempest and Tally Temple, mirror twins inseparable since birth, are now thirteen and being pulled apart by the same force that has separated other twins in their family, but Tally is determined to fight back.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017031374 (print) | LCCN 2017043624 (ebook) | ISBN 9781510722750 (eb) | ISBN 9781510722743 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781510722750 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Sisters--Fiction. | Twins--Fiction. | Individuality--Fiction. | Supernatural--Fiction. | Magnetism--Fiction. | Carnivals--Fiction. | Family life--Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.L66288 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.L66288 Flo 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]--dc23
Cover design by Sammy Yuen
Cover illustration by Manuel Šumberac
Printed in the United States of America
For Zoe, Maia, Jack,
and, of course, for you.
1
Seeing as it was the last day before summer break, the other sixth-grade classes were doing stuff that made sense: signing each other’s yearbooks, playing hangman on the whiteboards, or participating in the student-teacher field day on the front lawn.
But not Mr. Umberto’s class—my class. No, we were in the science lab, watching my twin sister pass out eight-by-ten laminated copies of Mr. Umberto’s school photo, while the hooting and hollering of the kickball games outside floated in through the lab’s open windows.
Tempest had persuaded Mr. Umberto to let her do another science presentation in front of the class, even though the last one hadn’t gone so well (let’s just say that near-electrocution isn’t exactly smiled upon in a middle-school science lab).
“Yes, we get to draw mustaches on Mr. Umberto,” Tempest said as she started passing out magnets. “Tally helped me prepare these photos last night, and if you look beneath the plastic covers, there should be a bunch of fuzzy-looking, black pieces of iron floating around.”
Tempest held up a photo of our bald and way-too-smiley teacher. “Watch.” She raised the magnet in her hand and began to drag the iron filings into place, “drawing” hair on top of the glare coming off Mr. Umberto’s bald head.
Tempest waited for a reaction. To everyone else, I’m sure she looked like normal, everyday Tempest, but I saw the tension in her face, the stiff way she held her shoulders, her too-frequent blinks. She usually liked to stay behind the scenes, so this was a big deal to her. This was Tempest being brave.
Bradley Ballard balled up his copy of the photo and chucked it toward the wastebasket. “We’re not six years old,” he groused as he leaned back on his rear chair legs.
Bradley Ballard. I hated that kid. He was onions and anchovies. He was a spider floating dead in the bottom of your thermos.
“Leave Tempest alone,” I hissed at him.
I mean, he was right, kind of. We weren’t six. But, holy green beans, did I want to stick my foot out and hook it around the back leg of his chair. Just give it a good yank. And watch him fall ears over elbows onto his head. Oh, how satisfying it would be.
My foot twitched. I watched Tempest blink several times, holding one blink a blip too long. She swallowed hard, and my throat pinched.
I very much needed this experiment to go okay for her.
“I remember having a toy like this when I was little,” Marisol Phillips said. With a giggle, she gave an iron-filing Mohawk to her own Mr. Umberto, and the kids near her responded with a chorus of laughter.
Thank you, Marisol.
After that the class got real busy giving Mr. Umberto some much-needed hair. We snickered at the different creations: fuzzy Elvis sideburns, an enormous lumberjack beard, a sleek comb-over.
“I have my hair back!” Mr. Umberto joked. “It’s a follicular miracle.”
Tempest chuckled and continued her presentation. “Magnets attract and repel. What’s happening here is that the magnets are attracting the iron in the filings. But, you know, magnets are powerful. Magnetic fields are everywhere around us. Even inside us. The heart is the strongest electromagnetic field in the body.”
She paused here, and I could tell it was practiced, for maximum effect. Then she continued, her voice animated, everything about her screaming enthusiasm.
It made me think of Pa Charlie’s—our grandpa’s—old, antique Philco. It was a console radio from the 1940s, bigger than a kitchen stove and encased entirely in gleaming, polished wood. One day, a couple of years ago, out back in our garage, Pa Charlie pulled out its innards. Wires and tubes and coiled pieces of metal were strewn across the garage floor. It looked like nothing but a mess to me, it really did. But Tempest had sidled right up to Pa Charlie. “What are these things?” she’d asked. And Pa Charlie sat down on the floor, his half-moon glasses down on the end of his nose, and explained each piece to Tempest and me.
Capacitors and resistors, volts and frequencies. Circuits, amplifiers, transistors. Tempest’s eyes had lit up with each new word. She loved all kinds of mechanical stuff: taking apart Dad’s old pocket watch, copying blueprints for a combustion engine from a library book, that kind of thing. But after that day with the radio, she became obsessed—even if, to me, it was all about as interesting as mothballs.
Pretty soon after, Tempest started inventing things: a homemade hearing aid for our neighbor; a solar heater for Bones’s doghouse; a motorized mouse for our old cat, Mary Anning, to chase.
Those inventions made me awful proud of Tempest.
But that day, with the radio—when I looked back on it, it made me sad too.
It was maybe the first time I noticed it. Any serious difference between my sister and me.
Watching Tempest’s magnet demonstration, I suddenly missed my twin something fierce. A sharp pang filled up that space under my ribs—my breadbasket, as Pa Charlie would call it. I missed the Tempest who hadn’t yet decided she had better things to do than to be with me, graffitiing the neighborhood sidewalks with chalk art, digging for fossils out in our back field, nursing our latest stray skunk or puppy or disgusting crayfish back to health.
We used to be inseparable: me coming up with the schemes, Tempest following my lead, my always-faithful partner.
I missed that.
In the Trenton Sisters Mystery books I read, neither of the sisters went off and did her own thing.
I watched Tempest put on her enormous green safety goggles. She clasped her hands under her chin all excited-like, the goggles making her pigtails stick out at odd angles. “Fellow sixth graders, how would you like to levitate a frog?”
> I felt the tips of my ears burn then, embarrassed at how dorky Tempest sounded, and all my sadness vanished, just like that. I knew it made me a snot. But we were almost thirteen, for creamed corn’s sake. Did she have to say things like “Fellow sixth graders”? And the pigtails, when was she going to give those up?
Tempest produced a glass jar from one of the cabinets and pulled something out of it. “Tally, come here. Hold this,” she said, shoving her closed hands toward me.
I got up from my desk. “Is it the frog?”
“Of course!” Tempest answered, handing it to me. The frog felt slimy and alive, its heartbeat quick and even against my palm.
“Isn’t he going to mind being levitated?”
“It’s a she, and I don’t think so. But I haven’t asked her.” Tempest smiled to herself as she continued with her setup. On the lab table in front of her sat all the bits and bobs of her experiment: tangles of copper wiring; a glass jar filled with green liquid; several sizes of batteries; and two large, super-strong electromagnets that Tempest had gotten special permission to use.
And of course the wriggling, slimy amphibian in my hands.
“Do frogs have ears?” I asked.
“Sorta. The circles behind their eyes, they’re called tympanum.” She clamped one of the wires to a small battery, then the other end of it to the electromagnet. I felt a hum—a strange pulsing vibration—thrum to life around me. It prickled at my skin, setting my teeth on edge.
I looked at Tempest, and her eyes met mine for only a second, her brow knit.
Just then, the frog started in my hands, and she jumped from my grasp, landing on the floor with a dull thud.
“Get her!” Tempest said.
“Yeah, Tally. Hop to it,” Bradley teased.
“You girls need, um, help?” Mr. Umberto asked. He glanced at the clock, looking nervous. We had ten minutes left before the bell. Mr. Umberto was probably sorry he had ever agreed to this.
I bent down on my knees and reached for the tiny green booger of a frog, but she slipped out of my hands. I lunged after her, knocking into a couple of kids’ legs and their desks, until finally I caught her.
All the while, that weird buzz shifted and surged around me. Growing.
It actually pushed me back on my heels for a second, and I struggled to catch a breath. It was like my asthma was acting up, almost exactly. After a minute, the air seemed to steady itself, the whirl and hum settling into more of a purr. But I still felt it take root right inside my throat, my eardrums, even my back teeth.
I stood up and looked out at the audience of kids in my classroom. Weren’t any of them feeling this?
But, no, it didn’t seem like it.
“Come here,” Tempest said. She messed with a few more things on the table, and then she clamped another wire to a super-big battery, one that looked like it belonged under the hood of a car. The moment the prongs of the clamp hit the battery, it sparked something inside and around me. The thrum of energy kicked up a notch. I staggered backward a step.
Tempest watched me closely, her tongue sticking out through the corner of her lips like it always did when she was in deep concentration. But then she looked away.
Mr. Umberto checked the clock again. “Tempest, how exactly are you going to accomplish this levitation? And can I help?”
“We’re nearly ready. And it’s magnets, sir. If you get a powerful enough magnetic field, it acts on the frog’s electromagnetic charges—specifically, all the water inside its body. We could use mice too, but frogs are better. Tally?” She turned to me.
I took a step toward Tempest and her equipment, but the air pushed back at me something fierce.
I took another step, and the closer I got to Tempest’s equipment, the stronger the atmosphere pushed against me. My teeth were darn near chattering with the vibration of it all.
A sharp bolt of fear sizzled right down my spine.
I mean, how much of a warning did a girl need? Tempest was about to blow this place up or set the whole lab on fire—and humiliate herself in the process. I couldn’t let her go ahead with whatever this was. I had to do something.
Anything.
I made a decision then.
I took a step closer, feigning like I was handing over that slippery frog. But I fixed my feet just right, and I forced myself to trip over the extension cord running across the front of the room.
I really gave in to the drama of it, made a right production of things—flailed my arms, yelped out loud, the whole shebang.
The frog flew from my grasp, and I purposely tangled my foot in the cord and kicked hard, making sure to yank it out of the wall. On my way down to the floor, I swiped an arm across the lab table in front of me, bringing bits of equipment down with me. A battery, a knot of wires, and the beaker full of iron filings came crashing down with me, onto the classroom floor, with a disastrous clatter and clank. The class erupted in laughter.
I groaned dramatically and turned onto my back, pulling in a huge breath. Relief. The pulsing nastiness was gone.
But then I saw a pile of Tempest’s papers hanging over the edge of the desk. As I watched, the top one smoldered, then sparked and crackled. Somehow it caught true fire, a great flame leaping from the desk.
Chaos. Commotion. The whole class yelping.
“Okay, okay, kids. Calmly make your way outside,” Mr. Umberto said, snapping at the flame with a dish towel. I was nearly trampled by my classmates as he smothered the fire and wiped at his forehead. “Miss Trimble, are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” I called.
“I was asking your sister,” he said, looking down at me with something like exasperation.
I sat up, brushing iron filings from my forehead, and looked for Tempest. Her eyes met mine as she handed Mr. Umberto the fire extinguisher.
Her stare was hard. She knew.
I stood up. “I—”
“I’ll get the shop vac,” Tempest said, and turned and stalked to the door.
Mr. Umberto eyed me over the stream of the fire extinguisher.
“What?” I asked him.
“You did that on purpose.”
“What? Why—Who would—” I sputtered.
“She worked very hard on this, Tally Jo, and was very much looking forward to it. She had it all under control.”
I was irked now. “She did not have it under control!” Hadn’t he felt what was in the air? What Tempest herself had started? “I was just saving her from—you know—like last time.”
Mr. Umberto gave me a weary look. He shook his head and set down the fire extinguisher. “I’m going to go find Tempest. You, Tally, have a good summer. Okay?”
“I was saving her,” I repeated.
He turned back with a sigh. “Were you saving her, or were you saving you?”
I had some weird pang in my breadbasket again, and suddenly I couldn’t meet Mr. Umberto’s gaze. My eyes searched the floor for that darn wayward frog. “You want me to help clean up, or …”
“No. I’m sure your sister will clean up with me when she gets back with the shop vac.”
I nodded, feeling a lump of something curious and uncomfortable in my throat.
Then I left.
I kicked my heels around in the gravel of the playground, the early June sun burning down on the back of my neck, while the rest of my class milled around signing yearbooks and chattering excitedly about the fire. Tempest and Mr. Umberto were still inside.
“You okay?” Marisol asked, touching me lightly on the elbow.
“Yeah.”
“What happened in there?”
Suddenly, I was irritated. “What do you think happened? Tempest and her ideas.”
Mr. Umberto came through the doors just as the exit bell rang. “Everything’s fine now, kids. Fire’s out. You can come back in if you need anything. But, if not, enjoy your summer vacation!” His words were swallowed up in the swarm of kids racing out the school doors, hooting and hollering.
I watched the crowd, but I didn’t see Tempest.
“You should take it easier on her,” Marisol said, following my gaze. “Here.” She shoved my yearbook at me. “I grabbed it on the way out.”
“Thanks.” I followed Marisol toward the crosswalk, joining a knot of kids from our class.
“Can I sign your yearbook?” Seth Bowers asked when he saw me, and he took the book from my hands.
Bradley Ballard walked past with his usual posse, tossing something back and forth with his friend Evan. It took me a minute to realize it was Tempest’s frog.
“That really dills my pickle,” I grumbled and stomped over to Bradley. “Give it here.”
“No.” He smirked, tossing the frog high in the air. The frog flailed and flipped. My temper flared.
“Give me the darn frog, or I’m going to—”
“What? You gonna go tattle to Mr. Umberto? Or why don’t you go get your bonkers sister so she can fry us with one of her inventions?” He cackled. “And by the way, Tally Trimble, you know it was me who messed up her last little science thingy last time. We turned up the knob on that doohickey so it would go ka-blam.”
“You worm.” My fists balled at my sides.
Evan threw the frog into the air again, but I pushed Bradley out of the way and caught her, barely, grabbing just the ends of her skinny little legs. This poor frog. What a day.
“Go ahead, keep the thing,” Bradley spat. “Maybe your sister can kill it later and you can eat frog legs for dinner.”
“Shut up, Bradley. You leave my sister alone. You hear me?”
“Why? You don’t even like your sister, her stupid pockets full of batteries and wires and nerdy garbage. You hate her moronic inventions and that stupid smile on her face even when everyone’s making fun of her.” He took a step closer to me and hissed, “I see how annoyed you get with her, Tally. You want to sock her yourself.”
“Shut up, Bradley!”
“Tally, you know I’m telling the truth.” He laughed again.
I handed the frog to Marisol, who took her with a squeak. Seth looked back and forth between us.
I closed the space between Bradley and me, and I poked him hard once in the chest. “You shut your mouth right now, or I will shut it for you.”
