The Secret of Ferrell Savage

by J. Duddy Gill

  To Mary Ann Duddy, who supports my dream and laughs on cue

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, first, to my sister, Mary, whose seventh-grade diary was the best book I ever read as a kid, and her honest words were what inspired me to write my own.

  Thanks to Meghan Gates, who introduced me to Alferd Packer and then read the manuscript before anyone else. Thanks to my Weird Martian Gnomes, Christy Lenzi and Elizabeth Reimer, who share this journey with me. Robin Prehn, a special thanks to you for being the best writer friend another writer could have. The story couldn’t have come this far without the critiques from brilliant writers Angela Ackerman, Jaye Robin Brown, and Deborah Halverson. And Jody Erikson, too, who isn’t a writer but offered great suggestions and is all-around lovely. Thank you, Susan Wroble, who once read my first writing attempts and said, “Keep going!” and because of that, I did.

  At Atheneum, I am grateful for the sharp eyes and creativity of Jeannie Ng, Kaitlin Severini, and Sonia Chaghatzbanian, who is also responsible for the adorable illustrations. And, especially, I’d like to thank my easygoing editor, Ariel Colletti, who loves Ferrell as much as I do, and Ruta Rimas, who also helped me raise him to be the fine young man he is today. Which leads me to an even bigger thank-you to the best agent in the world, Wendy Schmalz, who hung in there and found Ariel and Ruta for us.

  There are no words, even in a thesaurus, that can express my love and gratitude for Mike, Jane, and Annie. Let’s celebrate with pizza and kale!

  Chapter One

  EVERY WINTER, ON THE DAY after Christmas, our town holds the Big Sled Race on Golden Hill. You’d think that after fifty years they would’ve come up with a better title for the event, especially since no one’s used an actual store-bought sled in the race since before I was even born. It really should be called Get-to-the-Bottom-of-the-Hill-as-Fast-as-You-Can-on-Whatever-You-Want Race.

  I’ve seen kids slide down on beanbag chairs, cafeteria trays, old refrigerator boxes, and even a torn-off car door. Last year Jerry Dunderhead built what he called a ski-ike by attaching a ski to his mountain bike. He tipped over at the starting gate, broke his collarbone, and that was that. Still, it could’ve been so awesome. Then there were the four high school seniors who built this thing that looked like a boat. It didn’t go fast, so they had to jump out and push it most of the way, but it was cool. They had speakers hooked up to it, playing this song that I recognized but didn’t know at the time, The Ride of the Valkyries.

  Mr. Spinelli from Spinelli’s Market has been the judge and timekeeper since my dad was a kid. He stands at the finish line with his gold pocket watch tied to his belt by a thick piece of string. One year he dropped that same watch into the deep snow and couldn’t find it. So for the rest of the contestants’ runs, he had to count “one Mississippi, two Mississippi.” Some people complained he cheated when he declared his grandson, Franco Spinelli, the winner. And I saw that when Franco sped by with I ♥ MY GRANDPA painted on the side of his cardboard box, Mr. Spinelli got a little teary eyed, which would understandably slow down his Mississippis. Luckily, when the snow melted that spring, some kid found the watch and gave it back to Mr. Spinelli, and no one’s accused him of cheating since.

  Because you have to be at least twelve years old to compete, for the past eleven years my friends have been feeling an itch—worse than a scratchy sweater with no undershirt—to get their turn. It was like that every year. Twelve-year-olds are willing to bleed and break bones to win.

  But not me. I didn’t care about being the kid holding the big trophy at the end and watching all the other kids sniff up their tears and fake-clap. Being responsible for making my friends trudge all the way home, moping through the snow and dragging their home-built contraptions like they were roadkill, was not for me.

  On Christmas day Mary Vittles stopped by to check out my under-the-tree stash and to see my “racing apparatus,” as she called it.

  Mary and I have known each other since we were in diapers. She and her mom live down the street from us, and when Ms. Vittles went back to work at the Colorado Inn, my mom offered to take care of Mary. Ms. Vittles said she’d pay Mom, but Mom insisted Mary was good for me, that she toughened me up. Besides, Mom liked having Mary around.

  “Ms. Vittles has rent to pay and a little girl to provide for. It’s a luxury for me to be able to stay home and take care of Ferrell,” Mom always said. We weren’t rich or anything, but Dad’s job as senior librarian at the Golden Hill Library kept us well fed. Ms. Vittles never married Mary’s dad, who ran out on them before Mary was even born.

  “It’s been tough on poor, sweet little Mary,” Mom always said.

  Don’t be fooled by the words “sweet little Mary.” She’s kind of like honey mustard. The taste isn’t bad, but you still feel like you got tricked into trying it. So, whether or not Mary and I were really friends was never a question for our moms. We’re stuck with each other. I’m pretty sure I mean that in a good way. She’s bossy and a know-it-all, but there are things I like about her.

  I’ll need some time to think about what they are, though.

  When Mary arrived, Mom and I were clearing the dishes off the table.

  “Mary, sweetheart, how about a little Christmas supper?” Mom offered even before Mary had taken off her coat. Mom pointed to the platter of leftover Tofurkey. “I’ll fix it up with some cranberries and potatoes.”

  “No, thanks,” Mary answered. She pulled off her hat and smoothed the static out of her brown, wavy hair. “My hypothalamus is sending signals that I’ve reached maximum consumption.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “I’m full,” she said. “Mom brought home some real turkey and a slice of ham from the restaurant. I made canned corn and sweet potatoes with butter.”

  I’d never eaten meat, but just hearing her say the words “turkey” and “ham” made saliva drip from my fangs. Even the butter, something else I’d never had, sounded so good and smooth. Just saying the word tasted sweet and creamy. Butter.

  Mary tossed a chunk of Tofurkey to Buddy, my beagle. “All right, let’s see what you built,” she said. She headed toward the kitchen door that leads to the garage, but I didn’t budge. She looked over her shoulder. “You’re not coming.”

  I shrugged.

  Mary turned around and put her hands on her hips. “No way,” she said. “The race is tomorrow and you haven’t built your apparatus yet! You have”—she looked at her watch—“less than ten hours to put something together.”

  She told me this as if I didn’t already know.

  “It’s all up here,” I said, pointing to my head. “I have a plan, it’s brilliant, and you’ll be surprised.” I couldn’t tell her my brilliant plan was to be a spectator.

  She shook her head in disbelief. “You’ve got nothing.”

  She was right. The sled-making department in my head was empty.

  “Let’s go give yours another ride,” I offered. “Just to see how the drain’s staying plugged.”

  Mary was big on Dumpster diving. Back in the fall she had found an old metal kitchen sink—the kind with rounded edges—and she was determined to make it into a Big Sled Race winner. She’d cemented a plug into the drain hole, sanded it down, and waxed it up. Then she’d sat inside the sink and fallen over backward in the snow. I would have said, Oh, well, it doesn’t work, and gone to find something else. But not Mary. She immediately began abdominal muscle exercises to help her hold her balance while curled up in a ball. After three weeks of training she tried it again. She sat in her silver sink, lifted her legs off the ground, leaned back just so, and zoom. The ride was supersmooth and steady. I hadn’t seen the oth
er contenders, but I still predicted she would win.

  “I’m not worried,” Mary said now as she leaned against the counter and folded her arms. She tried to make her brown eyes look sleepy and calm, but I didn’t buy it. I know Mary. She hates losing, so she works super extra hard at everything she does. She was our school council’s vice president, beating out the eighth graders, and last year her science project on heliotropes won second at state.

  I rubbed my hand over my belly and was just considering a third piece of pumpkin pie for myself when Mary said, “So, did you get too busy and run out of time, or are you just being indolent?”

  “Maybe,” I said. I didn’t know what “indolent” meant.

  “Maybe what?”

  “That second one,” I said.

  “Lazy,” she said, throwing her hands hopelessly into the air. “It’s like your mind just stops working sometimes.”

  I was used to Mary saying stuff like that. She always accused me of not paying attention or of being stuck in a daydream. When we do our homework, she calls me “airhead” or says, “Your brain’s a muscle—use it or lose it.” But it’s not that I’m not trying; it’s just that words, sometimes even full sentences, jump around the page when I read. And when I listen in class, it’s the same kind of thing. Words float around close to my head but don’t always make it in through my ears. I’d stopped trying to explain it to Mary years ago.

  That night, after she called me lazy, something weird happened. I walked Mary home, because Mom makes me do that if it’s after dark, even though it’s only half a block away. When we got to her house, I said “Bye” and turned around to leave.

  But she said, “Wait, I have something for you. Hold out your hand,” and I did. She put a round yellow gumball into the palm of my hand. It was warm and sweaty from her own hand, which probably should have been kind of gross, but I thought it was cool. I held up the gumball to the light and saw that it had a face. Two eyes and heart-shaped lips, like a little kiss. I said “Thanks” and watched her walk up the steps to her front door.

  I thought, Wow, a gumball with a kissy face from Mary Vittles, and then I popped it into my mouth. Only it wasn’t a gumball; it was a marble. I’m lucky I didn’t break a tooth, but I accidentally swallowed it. It hurt going down, and I felt it lodge itself in that space right between my heart and my stomach. As far as I know, it never came out, so it’s probably caught there forever.

  That night I watched It’s a Wonderful Life with my parents, but I didn’t hear a word Jimmy Stewart said. I thought about the marble, and for the first time ever, I was bothered that Mary had called me lazy.

  Chapter Two

  MOM AND DAD DROPPED ME off on the road at the top of the hill where all the other kids were making last-minute repairs on their sleds—or whatever you wanted to call them. Dad helped me pull mine out of the back of the station wagon.

  “It’s different,” he said, looking it over. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Looks solid, like it’ll give a smooth ride.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, hoping he was right. I’d never actually tried it out.

  The night before, after rattling my brain to find an explanation as to why I was suddenly bothered by Mary, I decided explanations were stupid and I didn’t need one. I simply knew I had to do what I had to do.

  So I went to the garage to scope out materials that would get me to the bottom of Golden Hill.

  Quick and easy to slap together was what I was aiming for. First, I thought of the wheelbarrow. If I took the wheel, the legs, and the handles off, it could work. But that would be too much like Mary’s sink, and she wouldn’t like that. Besides, I didn’t have the abs to keep it from tipping over.

  I could empty out a cardboard box and decorate it with Sharpie markers, but that’s what a lot of kids do, and Mary would not be impressed. As I continued to dig around, I found an inner tube, a couple of mismatched skis with the bindings broken off, a shovel, a plastic garbage can, a pair of sawhorses, and a purple recycle bin. All had possibilities, except for maybe the sawhorses. And then I spotted it—the perfect sled. An old lawn chair, the kind you lie down on—a lounge. I was going to lounge down the hill!

  I pulled it off the nail it was hanging on and unfolded it. The frame was lightweight, and the part you lie on was made of these wide straps that were woven together. Whenever someone sat on it for too long on a hot summer day, the big gaps in the weave left checkerboard indents on their back. Once, when we had left it out, a big gust of wind carried it over the fence and into the neighbors’ yard and into their dogwood tree, where it hung for weeks before another gust of wind finally blew it down and onto their lawn. The lounge had been through a lot.

  I looked at its legs. There was no way they would slide across the snow without a little engineering. The mismatched skis! I could attach them to the legs with . . . not nails; they’d stick out and grab the snow and slow me down. And not rope, for the same reason. Superglue. We had a pack of three tubes on the workbench. I couldn’t believe my luck. Everything was falling perfectly into place.

  And so, there it was, sitting in the snow and winning the admiration of my dad. My lounge-sled, ready for its first run.

  “Have fun, Ferrell. Don’t worry about winning. Just go enjoy yourself,” Dad said. He patted me on the back. “See you at the bottom of the hill.”

  “Good luck, honey. Don’t forget to pull your hat down over your ears to keep them warm,” Mom called to me from the front seat of the car.

  I waved to my parents as they drove off, and then I dragged my sled toward the registration line. Something sharp poked me in my leg, and then I remembered the most important part of my racing apparatus. The decoration. I pulled a long, white feather from my pants pocket, smoothed it out, and stuck it in one of the small grommets on the lounge’s frame. I had found the feather in a box in the garage, wrapped up in paper.

  I remembered finding this same feather in a desk drawer in the living room when I was in first grade, and I had asked my dad if I could have it. I vaguely remembered him explaining that the feather had come from something called a pollypry, which had saved my mother’s great-great-uncle from being killed. I hadn’t cared much about the story behind it; I’d just wanted to jump off the couch and try one-wing flying. But Dad had pulled it out of my hand and said, “I better take that out to the garage before your mother sees it.” The feather had thick, black crud at the bottom, where it had been attached to the bird; Mom had probably been worried about germs and diseases.

  I stroked my hand across the top of the feather and thought about how cool it would look fluttering behind me on the hill. If it ever had carried diseases, surely those germs were dried up by now.

  Next to the registration line, a crowd of kids had gathered around some short guy. At first I thought they were making fun of him for wearing a blue-and-green plaid snowsuit, but as I got closer and heard the oohs and aaahs, I saw they were admiring his sled. I squeezed into the crowd to get a better look.

  The sled had shiny, sleek, metal rudders; a polished wooden seat; and shock absorbers underneath.

  “Suh-weet,” I said.

  “I know,” the kid said. “I built it myself.” His bigheadedness was a little surprising, but, hey, there was no denying that this sled could be used in the army if we ever go to war in the North Pole.

  “I call it the Titanium Blade Runner,” he said.

  More oohs and aaahs came from the crowd, including me.

  “What about you?” he asked, looking at me. “What have you got?”

  I had forgotten I needed to give my sled a name. I thought for a minute, and then it was obvious.

  “Mine’s called the Pollypry,” I said.

  The plaid-clad boy’s jaw dropped, and his eyes got big. “Polly? Pry?” he sputtered, leaning toward me. “Why are you calling it that?”

  I backed up, wondering what in the world had made this kid so excited that he was about to jump out of his snowsuit.

  I pointed t
o the feather, thinking that would make it obvious. “A pollypry saved my mom’s great-great-uncle’s life.”

  “No way! Are you a Packer?”

  My head was starting to spin. First, we’re talking about sleds, then we’re talking about birds, and now he’s asking me if I’m a Green Bay Packers fan?

  “Gosh, no! I’m a Broncos fan all the way!” I said.

  “Go, Broncos!” a couple of people shouted.

  “Hey, I need to talk to you,” the plaid kid said. But the crowd was getting thicker around his Titanium Blade Runner, and I got shoved out of the way.

  I pulled off my hat and scratched my head. Wow, and people say I have an attention deficit disorder. That poor kid couldn’t stay on one topic for more than half a sentence.

  I put my hat back on, pulling it down over my ears like my mom had asked me to, and dragged the Pollypry toward the registration line.

  “Hey, Savage!” My two best buddies, Coby and Eilio, called to me from the line.

  “Whoa, that’s cool,” Coby said, checking out my lounge. “You’ll be like a tropical Santa Claus sitting on that thing. Look, you’ve even got a drink holder!” He threw down his garbage can lid to get a better look.

  Eilio ran his hand across the feather. “Is this supposed to catch the wind and make you go faster?”

  Coby laughed. “How’re you gonna control the thing?” he asked.

  I hadn’t thought of that. I lay down on it, and the feather towered over my head. I put my hands behind my head. “I’ll lean side to side, like this,” I said, and showed them.

  “Unless you fall asleep,” Eilio said.

  I shut my eyes and pretended to snore, and they howled with laughter.

  “Not too bad.” That was Mary’s voice. I opened my eyes, and there she was, hovering over me with her metal sink. “It suits you somehow.”

  I hoped that was a good thing. “Thanks,” I said, just in case.

  “The feather is a nice touch,” she added.