The Secret of Ferrell Savage

by J. Duddy Gill

  Oh yeah, I definitely scored there!

  “Dang, Mary. Yours is so shiny, it’s blinding me,” Eilio said. “How’d you get it like that?”

  “Months of rubbing and polishing. Mine lacks aerodynamics, but it makes up for it in resistance. Feel.” She held out her sink, and we all took off our mittens to stroke the bottom of it. “No friction between me and the snow.”

  “Where’s yours, Eilio?” she asked. I was wondering the same thing.

  “Aw, I’m just here for the swag,” he said.

  “Well, I’m here to win,” Mary declared.

  “You will,” I said.

  We all wished one another luck, and after I watched her walk away, I lay back down and let the warm sun heat up my down jacket. That’s one of the things I love about Colorado—even when the ground’s covered with snow, the air can feel like springtime.

  I guess I lay there for too long, because by the time I got up and registered, I was number fifty-nine out of sixty contestants. Mary was fourth, and I watched her go. She curled her legs up tight and sailed down, smooth and sleek.

  “Go, Mary,” I whispered, making fists inside my mittens. But just before she got to the bottom, there was a loud pop, and her rubber plug went flying in the air. She came to a dead stop.

  “Awwww!” the audience shouted, feeling her pain.

  “Call a plumber!” a big kid yelled. Some folks laughed, but Mary shot the big kid a look that I’m sure made him feel like he’d just been flicked in the forehead. I’ve gotten many of those looks from Mary, and believe me, they sting.

  She walked off the hill with her head hanging low, dragging her sink on its rope behind her.

  Coby was number forty, and he zinged by on his lid. But he went off course and into the crowd, taking a couple of grown men down, like bowling pins. Jerry Dunderhead tried out his new and improved ski-ike, and this time he made it almost halfway down the hill before he hit a snow mound and was tossed into the air. He landed hard on his bike seat and then fell over, grabbing himself on the you-know-what. Every guy watching crossed their legs tight and said, “Aw, oh, oww!” Jerry was carried off with the help of his mom and his little sister.

  Lots of kids had made their marks on this hill—some of those marks not so pleasant—and now it was my turn. I looked at the finish line, way down below. My hands were sweating inside my mittens. It was rare that I ever had butterflies, but there they were, flying around in that space between my stomach and my heart, where the kissy-face marble was lodged. But I also had this other weird feeling. Something I’d never felt before.

  I wanted to win.

  I wanted to shred that hill and get the big trophy. And when I got the big trophy, I knew exactly what I’d do with it. I would give it to Mary.

  I sat up on the lawn chair at the gate, which wasn’t really a gate at all (it was just two stakes stuck into the ground). I leaned forward, waiting for Mr. Spinelli to pop the cap gun. I spotted Mary below in her teal-blue hat.

  Then bam! Mr. Spinelli’s gun went off.

  I pushed against the stakes with my hands and then reclined all the way back, stretching my neck just enough to catch a glimpse of the pollypry feather bending backward, like a palm tree in a hurricane. I kept my legs straight, my arms at my sides, and my toes as pointed as possible inside my boots. Then I tucked my chin down and closed my eyes tight. The sun was shining in my face so bright that I couldn’t have opened my eyes if I’d wanted to. Then I heard a rip. Then a bigger riiiip, and the next thing I knew, the Pollypry had sucked me in and swallowed me whole. I was caught in the bowels of the lounge, digested by the straps and metal frame.

  What happened next is all a blur to me, and everyone in town seems to have a different version of the same story. But when I put them all together and average them out, the gist seems to come down to this: At about fifty feet from the top, I was still building up speed when suddenly I vanished—just disappeared—and no one knew where I’d gone. The sled was airborne, flying off without me. But when the crowd finally spotted me on the hill, I was rolling, spinning, cartwheeling, and even did a backflip. All I know for sure is that I was twisted and mangled, and at one point I felt my knees hit the back of my neck. I rolled, and rolled some more, the world spinning—turning snow white, then sky blue, then back again—until I reached the bottom of the hill. Some people say the whole episode seemed to take hours; others say it happened in less than two Mississippis. Poor Mr. Spinelli forgot to look at his watch, so we’ll never know.

  When my body reached the bottom of the hill, I heard all the screaming moms—mine above all the others—and people yelling things like “Whoa!” and “He’s a goner!” and “Hey, Dad, I want to try that!”

  Then the crowd was completely quiet, and I figured the last guy must’ve been coming down. I lay on the ground, spitting out snow and doing a quick inventory of my limbs, nose, and butt, making sure all those parts that should have been broken weren’t. Then I shook myself, turned my head around so that the world was upright again, and scrambled to my feet.

  Still nobody moved. Puffs of white clouds had stopped coming from their mouths. It crossed my mind that maybe during the fall, I’d developed the power to stop time. I was thinking I should take Coby’s dad’s beloved snowmobile for a quick spin, since he was frozen and all. But instead the crowd burst into an explosion of wild cheers and a thumping of applause that was muffled because they still had their mittens on. So time hadn’t stopped at all. Disappointed, I looked around to see what all the commotion was about. Maybe the next sledder was doing triple axels or something.

  But nobody was coming down. The cheers were for me, and within seconds I was bombarded with hugs and handshakes. Some people were crying, and others were thanking God that I was alive.

  Mr. Spinelli pushed back the crowd and had me stand on a podium, which was really just the bottom of an old, half-melted snowman. He announced through his loudspeaker, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe we’ve witnessed a miracle.” He looked up at me on my snowman-torso podium and whispered, “You’re lucky you’re not going to your own funeral tomorrow, son.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I said what my mom taught me to say when I was stumped for words. “All righty,” I said to Mr. Spinelli.

  “I present to you,” he yelled to the people, “our own Ferrell Savage, Golden Hill’s great survivor! Wave to the people, son.”

  At first waving made me feel like a show-off. But since I hadn’t actually won the race, there was no reason for anyone to have hard feelings on account of me. There should’ve been no moping kids, nobody sniffing up the tears of a loser.

  I searched the crowd for Mary, and there she was, heading home. She yanked on the rope until the sink slid in front of her. Without looking back, she stomped in her boots, making a deep gash in the snow and kicking everything in her way, including her kitchen sink.

  Chapter Three

  FOR THE REST OF THE winter break I couldn’t go anywhere without someone saying to me, “Hey, aren’t you that dude who almost got killed on the hill? You’re a true survivor, man.”

  All the attention blew me away, in a good way, but I still wished I’d gotten the trophy for Mary. Or, better yet, I wished Mary had gotten it. She’s used to winning; after all, she wins everything.

  As angry as she seemed to be about losing, I wondered if she thought my fall was awesome, like everyone else did. Just in case she tried some big vocabulary on me, I used a thesaurus to look up and memorize big words for “amazed.” I imagined she’d say something to me like, “I’m astonished! Your exploits have left me flabbergasted and astounded.” Sometimes she says stuff and I’m not sure if I’ve been complimented or insulted, so I try to be prepared.

  On the first Thursday back to school, I got on the bus, which made stops at the elementary and middle schools. As always, Mary sat on the left side of the seat, smack-dab in the middle of the row. Sarah Yellen sat next her. I grabbed the seat behind them, next to a little blond-haired g
irl with an Astro Boy lunchbox. I cleared my throat real loud, so Mary would know I was there. She closed the book she was reading and looked out the window.

  Sarah twisted around in her seat. “Hey, Ferrell! I saw you in the newspaper,” she yelled over her iPod’s music. “I wish I’d been here to see you instead of at Disney World.”

  “Gosh, thanks,” I said. I knew she didn’t hear me, though. She turned back around, bobbing her head to her music.

  Mary kept looking out the window, pretending she didn’t notice me. Ever since we’d started middle school, she had this new thing she’d do. She’d get mad at me, even when I hadn’t done anything. It was very confusing, and, to tell the truth, it was annoying. She wouldn’t ever tell me why she was mad; she’d simply ignore me. Sometimes I’d jump around her, singing and dancing, just to make her laugh, but she wouldn’t budge. Instead she’d turn away from me.

  One day, over chocolate soy pudding, I told my mom about it. She explained that because of her dad, Mary might be suffering from abandonment issues, making it harder for her to trust people and to let them get close to her. I had no clue what Mom meant.

  Coby had another explanation. He said, “That girl’s in a middle-school funk. When my sister gets like that, I give her some space.” Those were words I could understand.

  But I didn’t want to give Mary space. Not today. I wanted to hear what she thought of my fall. I sighed real loud, in an I’m-here-and-I’m-waiting-for-you kind of way. I got no response. But the little girl next to me said, “Look. Santa gave me Astro Boy boots.”

  “Nice,” I said. “I like them.”

  “I have the Astro Boy movie, too. I’ve seen it about twenty hundred times,” she said.

  “You’ve got a real thing for him, huh?”

  “Yeah. I want to marry him, but I can’t yet.”

  “Why not? Because you’re only, like, six?”

  “Age is not the problem. I have to learn Japanese first. That’s what he speaks, you know. The movie was dubbed.”

  “All righty,” I said.

  Finally Mary turned around.

  “It was kind of dumb of you, don’t you think?” she asked.

  I felt my eyebrows shoot up to the top of my forehead.

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “You could’ve broken your neck, and then you’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, and you’d have to sit up at the front of the classroom, where your head would always be in the way of the chalkboard, and it would be almost impossible to march in the band and to play the trumpet at the same time. Plus, it would be difficult to dance.”

  I hadn’t thought of any of those possibilities. “Well, I’ll never make band, anyway. You said I sound like a dying cat when I play. And I’ve never been able to dance. But, yeah, I would hate it if my head got in the way of people’s view of the chalkboard.”

  “Exactly,” Mary said. Then she sighed, like she’d just gotten a big load off her chest.

  “So, are you saying that my exploit did not astound you?” I asked.

  “You used the dictionary.”

  “No, I did not.” I didn’t lie. I’d used a thesaurus.

  Mary turned back around and faced the window. I leaned over Astro Boy’s future wife, so I could see the side of Mary’s face. I could tell she wasn’t really looking at anything, because her eyeballs were still. When she looks at things that are passing by, her eyes dart back and forth. Maybe everyone’s do. I’ve only noticed it with Mary.

  The bus stopped, and a bunch of kids got on. Glenna Sweet, an eighth grader, rubbed the top of my head when she went by. “What’s up, Fer?” she asked, and smiled at me. I was totally taken by surprise. I’d been smacked on the backside of my head before, but no girl—except for my mom—had ever messed up my hair like that.

  “Hmph,” Mary retorted.

  We pulled up in front of the elementary school, and I slid to the side to let the little girl out. “Sayonara,” she said. “That means ‘good-bye’ in Japanese.”

  “Sayonara,” I said back.

  A fourth grader wearing a short-sleeve shirt and no jacket held up the bus line when he stopped in front of me and yelled at the kid behind him. “Gimme a pen,” he ordered. The kid scrounged through his backpack, pulled out a Sharpie, and handed it to the tough kid. “Sign my arm,” he said, and handed me the pen.

  “But it’ll take forever to wash off,” I said. “Your mom will—”

  “Just your initials, then. Come on, I haven’t got all day,” he said.

  Dang, little kids can be pushy nowadays. I scribbled my initials onto his forearm, and he nodded his approval. “Cool,” he said, and headed down the aisle and off the bus without so much as a thanks.

  Minutes later the bus pulled up in front of the middle school. Mom had told me that when Mary was doing her emotional thing, I should be patient. So I was being patient. I stayed in my seat and waited for her to say something.

  She shoved her science book into her backpack. “The whole town is talking about you like you’re some kind of living legend.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I leaned in close, in case she wanted to say something sweet to me that she didn’t want anyone else to hear.

  But nothing sweet came out of her mouth. She put her hand on her forehead and said, “See what happens when you let your mind wander all the time? A brain is like a muscle, and you’re losing control of yours.”

  I considered this, but only for a moment because there wasn’t time. We were the last ones on the bus. “So, then . . . you’re saying I’m not legendary?”

  “Ferrell, you are a victim of circumstances. That’s all.” She stood up in the aisle and looked down at me. “You’re getting all this attention as if you’re a hero. What’s heroic about a guy almost killing himself?”

  “Well, yeah,” I agreed. “Becoming a human avalanche and then living to tell about it isn’t exactly like scoring a winning touchdown, but I guess some people think it counts for something.”

  “Those people are imbeciles,” she said.

  I stood up next to her and tucked my lunch bag under my arm. “Look, is this all because you’re mad at not winning? You did great. I bet next year, if you try again and get that plug in tighter, the trophy is yours.”

  “No, it’s not that. I mean, yeah, I wanted to win and I’d planned on winning. . . . But, no, this is about you and how you looked like you were dead. And I’d hate you forever if you died.”

  Her face turned bright red, and then she turned and marched toward the front of the bus. Mary Vittles had said something almost nice to me, and now she was embarrassed.

  “But you would’ve hated me more if my head were always getting in the way of the chalkboard!” I shouted.

  “Definitely,” she called over her shoulder.

  And there it was. No further explanation necessary.

  Chapter Four

  WHILE WE WERE IN MR. COMFY’S homeroom, the principal, Ms. Goodkind, made an announcement. “I expect that whoever stole the door off the third stall in the boys’ bathroom will return it and properly reattach it . . . immediately.”

  Of course, Ms. Goodkind knew, just like the rest of us, that it was grody Brody Flushenstein who’d swiped the door, because we’d all seen him sliding down Golden Hill on it last week at the race. Ms. Goodkind could’ve made a big deal out of it and yelled at grody Brody over the PA system, but she didn’t. I put my chin on my hand and stared out the window, thinking how principals like Ms. Goodkind should win some sort of award for not getting on kids’ cases all the time.

  Just then I felt a smack on the back of my head that knocked my chin out of my hand.

  “Hey, man, you better go!” Eilio leaned across the aisle.

  “What the . . .? Go where?” I asked, wondering if I should smack him back.

  “Ms. Goodkind just called you to the office. You didn’t hear that? Get the wax cleaned out of your ears!”

  I knew by the way everyone was staring at me that Eilio wasn�
�t joking. I made my way to the main office, shuffling my feet on the linoleum in the hall. So what if I didn’t hear Ms. Goodkind call for me over the loudspeaker. My ears are not plugged up. It’s just that the volume of my daydreams is too loud.

  I stopped at the school secretary’s desk to ask if I could walk right into Ms. Goodkind’s office or if I needed to knock.

  “Good morning, Mr. Savage,” Ms. Bland, the secretary, whispered. She stood up and reached across her desk. She gently touched my shoulder and asked, “How are you feeling? Do you think you should be in school today?”

  “Yeah?” I didn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but I was confused.

  “I heard you came this close to crossing over into the other world.” She held her index finger close to her thumb, showing me exactly how close “this close” was.

  “You mean dying?” I asked.

  She gasped and then put her hand to her mouth, like I’d just said a bad word. Then she nodded.

  “Well, I’m not sure how close I really came to death. I’ve never died before,” I said.

  “Was there a bright light? Did you see your dead relatives? Did they call to you?”

  I thought for a moment. “No dead relatives. But the sun totally got in my eyes. I should’ve worn goggles.”

  “Oh, yes. Goggles,” the secretary said slowly.

  The principal’s door opened, and Ms. Goodkind stepped out.

  “Good morning, Ferrell,” she said. “Please come in and have a seat.”

  I sat in the soft chair across from her desk, a chair I assumed was reserved for important people, like superintendents and angry parents. In a corner of the room a small microwave oven went ping. Ms. Goodkind opened the oven’s door and pulled out two plates of biscuits with something in their middles. Spicy warm smells of something I’d never eaten before wafted through the room. She set one of the plates near the edge of her desk, toward me.

  “Well, I’m sure your mother fed you well this morning, but I’m hoping you still have room for a celebratory breakfast. May I pour you some orange juice?” she asked.