Scumble

by Ingrid Law

  “Yeah!” I said. “Tonight I’ll run around the world at the speed of light and bring us back pizza from Italy.”

  “Or wontons from Mr. Lee’s Panda Palace!” said Fedora.

  “Not from the Panda Palace, Fe.” I rolled my eyes.

  “That’s right, Fedora. Mr. Lee’s is just a mile from here,” Dad explained. “We’re thinking bigger than that. We’re thinking savvy-big, like your mom and your cousins. By the end of your brother’s birthday, he’ll be able to get us wontons from the other side of the globe!” Dad winked at me, adding, “You can bring Ryan Manning back some salt-and-pepper squid as a consolation prize.”

  “Ewww, squid.” Fedora made a face, then bounced in her chair, chanting: “Noodles! Noodles! Bring me noodles!”

  “Do you hear that, Ledge? When you get to China, grab some noodles for your sister.” With a grin, Dad folded his paper, ignoring the way Mom shook her head in disapproval. I wasn’t sure who was more excited about my potential new savvy: Dad or Fedora. In my gut, I knew it wasn’t me.

  Fedora and I both remembered when our cousin Samson Beaumont turned thirteen three years before. It was impossible to forget the birthday party where our quiet shadow of a cousin vanished while blowing out his candles. Now my sister watched me like I might sprout eyeballs from my elbows or evaporate if she looked away. And when Dad and I went outside to wait for my supersonic savvy to kick in, Fedora wouldn’t stay behind.

  “You look ridiculous,” I told my sister as she followed us out the door. Having heard plenty of savvy-birthday stories with endings more calamitous than Samson’s vanishing act, Fe had dug Dad’s old football helmet out of the basement.

  “Better safe than sorry!” She raised her chin, rapping her knuckles against the plastic hiding her short brown hair—hair cut just as neat and trim as mine and Dad’s. Just the way Mom liked.

  Helmet or no helmet, there wasn’t much anyone could do to prepare for a savvy birthday aside from taking basic precautions: No big parties, no friends, no sharp objects. I was surprised Mom had let me use a fork at breakfast. Allowing Josh or Ryan or Brody to come over had never been discussed.

  I hated that my buddies wouldn’t see me turn awesome; I would’ve liked to see their faces. Each of my friends had his own gig. Ryan was magic on the sports field—any sports field—and Josh was the ladies’ man. Josh had even locked lips with Misty Archuleta during a field trip to the planetarium once, after giving her a necklace with a big silver M on it. Everyone had known about the kiss before the bus got back to school because Big Mouth Brody spilled the beans like an All-State bean-spiller.

  When we were rug rats like Fedora, I’d been best at LEGOs and Erector Sets; I’d even constructed a model of the Eiffel Tower out of toilet paper tubes that my third-grade art teacher thought was artistic genius.

  “The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Ledger!” she’d said. “How beautiful!”

  So much for genius.

  It didn’t matter: By the time my first pair of running shoes were broken in, my LEGO pieces were gathering dust and I was sitting in the back of the art room, keeping my creations to myself. I stopped daydreaming about building things and started focusing on the pavement.

  Five years and six shoes sizes later, I ran around the block under the midday sun, chasing my thirteenth birthday savvy speed. Dad had made Fe Official Timekeeper, giving her a mechanical stopwatch and a whistle.

  “Bricka bracka firecracker, sis boom bah! Ledger Kale! Ledger Kale! Rah! Rah! Rah!” Fe shouted her favorite Super-Rabbit cartoon cheer every time I finished a lap, hitting the reset button on Dad’s watch.

  “Is anything happening, Ledge?” she asked every time. “Feel any different?”

  “No,” I replied, working to catch my breath after sprinting full speed. Full, normal, boring speed.

  “How about now, Ledge?”

  “No.”

  “Now?”

  “No!”

  “What about now?”

  “NO!” I yelled at Fe, rounding the block again, my frustration and temper the only things gaining momentum. On my tenth lap, Fe hit the stopwatch and I stumbled—my toe catching on a lip of sidewalk forced up by tree roots, as if my own family tree were reaching up to trip me. Thrown off balance, I fell, skinning my knees, my elbows, and my pride, while a limb-tingling sensation crawled beneath my skin like I’d landed on an anthill.

  “ You okay, Le—? Whoa!” I barely registered Dad’s voice. Before he could finish his question, the stopwatch in Fedora’s hand blew apart—whiz-bang!—the main-spring zinging me in the backside, the rest of the parts flying like shrapnel. Dad ducked and Fedora leaped back with a merry shriek. I covered my head to avoid getting razor-thin gears lodged in my brainpan.

  Dad’s stopwatch was my first savvy casualty. Fedora dashed home, shouting, “Mom! Mom! Wait till you see what Ledge can do! He ran around the block ten times and zippo. Then—bang-zoom!—something savvy happened, and now he can bust things up!” Helmet bobbing, my sister pummeled the air in a comical three-punch combination, repeating “Bust! Things! Up!” as she shadowboxed around the house.

  “Do it again, Ledge!” she demanded. “Break something bigger this time! Go on . . . show Mom! Try!”

  I didn’t try. One look at my knees and Mom went to get the Band-Aids, while I watched Dad sort through the mishmash of pieces he’d picked up off the sidewalk. The stopwatch’s metal casing hung over his index finger, stretched out and bent. Looking at it made me queasy. I knew Dad would’ve liked to believe that the watch broke because I was too fast for it. He would’ve been proud if my cuts and scrapes were trophies won through a triumph of sudden super-speed, rather than tokens of my everyday clumsiness. But there had been no evidence that I’d become a single inch- or meter-or mile-per-hour faster.

  When nothing else happened on my birthday but cake and presents and lights-out at ten, nobody knew what to think. Mom and Dad debated whether I’d gotten a savvy at all.

  “Dad . . . I—I,” I stammered as he came to say good night. I’d already climbed into bed and pulled the sheets over my head, hiding from the last hours of my lousy, bungled birthday.

  “Don’t sweat it, Ledge.” Dad’s quick reply surprised me. “So, it turns out you’re an everyday Kale man like your dad. So what? It’s not like you’re defective. We can still run our half marathon the way we planned. Only, now you won’t have to slow down to let your old man catch up.” He winked, then glanced around my room, his gaze moving across long-forgotten art projects and model cars. Then he turned off the overhead light and wished me one last “happy birthday” before pulling the door closed behind him.

  Fedora had been wrong, I told myself. I didn’t break stuff. That kind of savvy would be bad news a dozen ways to Sunday. It would ruin my plans to hit the new Wild, Wild Water Coaster with Josh, Ryan, and Brody. I tried to imagine what would happen if I broke the longest water coaster in the world. The thought sent a prickling shiver down my spine. My bed frame shivered with me.

  I reached to switch off my bedside lamp, but it rocked and shuddered into a battery of brass and sockets before I even touched it. The painting my aunt Jenny had sent me for my birthday fell from my bedroom wall with a thwump in the sudden darkness. But I didn’t need light to remember what it looked like. Aunt Jenny had painted a boat on a stormy ocean, a boy on the deck—a boy who looked an awful lot like me, only braver.

  Not defective, not defective, not defective. I chanted the words to myself until I fell asleep, praying to God that they were true.

  After my Knucklehead demolition in Sundance ten days later, I was sweating bullets. Riding in the suffocating van, I closed my eyes and hunched my shoulders, trying to think of nothing. Trying to ignore the feeling of my savvy building steam again as I fought to forget my most recent awful memories: the smell of spilled motor oil; a sound like a thousand steel cans hitting asphalt; the glint of chrome and metal under the noonday sun.

  “ You okay back there, Ledge?” Dad’s voice brough
t me back. I opened my eyes, meeting his look of concern in the rearview mirror. The mirror yawed and tilted . . . shook . . . then fell. Dad caught it easy. I clenched my fists. My savvy was as useless as a pogo stick in quick-sand, and I wasn’t the only one who could see that I was sinking.

  “It’s getting worse, Dinah,” Dad said in an undertone as he handed the mirror to my mom. “I’m beginning to think this trip might’ve been a bad idea.”

  “We’re almost there, Tom,” Mom answered, her own tone less than reassuring. She turned to me and forced a smile. “Just relax, Ledger,” she said. “You can control things a little longer.”

  “You mean you can control things a little longer,” I muttered, too quiet for Mom to hear. As my fists uncurled and my muscles loosened, I wondered how long this latest round of enforced relaxation would last. The closer we got to Uncle Autry’s ranch, the more I hoped my parents weren’t both thinking the same thing: that it might be safer for everyone if they simply left me on the side of the road.

  Taking the second exit to the right and continuing straight on till nowhere, we reached Uncle Autry’s ranch. I was first to the back of the van to grab my bag. But when the hatch swung open and two green eyes met my gray ones, I almost sent that rear door into orbit.

  Sarah Jane was sitting in the middle of my family’s luggage.

  Chapter 3

  FOR A MOMENT, STORIES OF MY cousin Mibs Beaumont’s thirteenth-birthday stowaway journey on a big pink bus flashed through my mind. Sarah Jane didn’t look any older than me. I wondered if it was a habit of teenage girls to run away and hide themselves in other people’s vehicles. For my sister’s sake, I hoped not.

  Sarah Jane held a finger to her lips in warning. Knowing that she was one of the few people who’d seen me wreck stuff in Sundance, I threw a picnic blanket over her before the rest of my family appeared to get their bags. I’d already pinched Fedora until she promised not to tell, but I couldn’t guess what this girl might blurt if Mom and Dad discovered her.

  “I’ll get our stuff!” My vocal cords stretched and snapped over the words like rubber bands pulled too tight.

  “Ledge—” Mom began.

  “No, really! I’m happy to get everything!” Untapped manners surfaced from some dark and dusty place as I herded my family away. Mom gave me a suspicious look.

  “Let the boy be, Dinah,” said Dad. “If Ledge wants to carry the luggage, more power to him. Don’t forget the cooler, son. Just . . . you know, try not to break it?” Dad’s words cut me to my sneakers, but I had bigger worries. As Dad nodded toward the cooler, I jumped to block his view of Sarah Jane’s green Converse low-tops jutting from behind it, hoping too that Dad wouldn’t notice the girl’s collection of papers where they lay next to our bags. I could see now that every sheet was a single-sided photocopy of a homemade newspaper, each with the same bold headline: SELMA WITZEL ABDUCTED AFTER BAKE SALE—

  TRADES STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB PIE TO ALIENS FOR FREEDOM

  The words sparked my curiosity. Who would have guessed that aliens liked pie? I suddenly wished aliens would abduct me, delivering me to some other planet where I might not feel so awkward and ham-handed. But no, not even aliens would want me, I thought. I’d probably break their spaceship.

  I shook myself to clear my head, then flipped the two-bit tabloids over. Dad hadn’t noticed Sarah Jane’s shoes or her cheesy papers. I watched him steer Mom toward Uncle Autry’s big log house, where Fedora was already skipping up the steps to greet the rest of the family inside. As soon as the coast was clear, I yanked the blanket off our uninvited guest.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed, keeping my voice low. “How did you get in here?” The girl’s face relaxed into a self-satisfied smile.

  “I’m a newshound, Cowboy. I go wherever I smell a story.” She swung her legs around and climbed out of the van. Then she held out a hand for me to shake. “Sarah Jane Cabot’s the name, but you can call me SJ—it’s what my friends would call me if I had any.”

  I wasn’t interested in becoming this girl’s friend. I already had friends. At least, I did before my savvy came along and broke my life. I reached past Sarah Jane, ignoring her hand, grabbing the handle of Mom and Dad’s suitcase instead. Cussing as it broke loose. But Sarah Jane didn’t notice my snub or flinch at my language. She was too busy looking around.

  “So this is the Flying Cattleheart!” The girl gave an admiring whistle. Built of logs, but no mere cabin, the O’Connell home looked like the lodge of an outdoors-man prince. “I’ve never been allowed up here before,” Sarah Jane added. She pulled a small spiral notepad from her pocket. Its narrow pages were warped and wrinkled, like the entire thing had been dropped overboard on an expedition for a big fish story. “This place is triple-wow deluxe!”

  I followed the girl’s gaze as she looked around. We stood in a bowl of earth that had been carefully sculpted by my grandpa Bomba back when he had the strength to move mountains. The place still looked Wyoming wild, but now it was crazily patterned and molded; like somehow Grandpa had mixed up the carved swards and jutting stones of Machu Picchu in South America with the curved, thickly sliced, stair-stepping terraces of the rice paddies in China, then colored it in sage green, sandstone red, and straw bale gold. He’d even changed the course of a river tributary to bring sparkling, silver-blue water through the ranch.

  I knew Grandpa hadn’t moved so much as a flowerpot full of potting soil in years. Yet something deep inside me stirred as I imagined how cool it must’ve felt to create something this awesome.

  A bee buzzed past me, heading for the large garden planted between the log house and the barn. The red-and-white barn was already dressed up for that evening’s party. Even the windmill behind it was decorated in streamers. Another barn stood by the river, a mirror image of the first—except for the roof, which was made of metal beams and glass.

  Autry’s second barn was an insect conservatory— a terrarium for giants. Inside the Bug House, a person could have seriously close encounters with stick insects as thin as straws and as long as a man’s forearm, and Goliath beetles so big they sounded like helicopters when they took flight. There were butterflies too—butterflies galore. The place was a zoo. Or a nightmare.

  Maybe my savvy had a bright side after all. I’d never been a fan of giant bugs, so I hadn’t been inside my uncle’s conservatory since I was little. My new talents gave me a less embarrassing excuse to stay away.

  Taking in the scenery, the two barns, and the windmill streamers, Sarah Jane looked ready to crash my cousin’s wedding and take notes.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” I growled through clenched teeth. “You’re going to get me into trouble. How did you get inside our van?” I demanded again.

  “Ask your sister,” Sarah Jane answered. “She practically invited me in, leaving the door open the way she did. After hearing her tell Willie about the big shindig here tonight, I figured I had to come see it for myself. Weddings are big news, you know!” She gestured with her notebook. “Weddings always sell a gazillion papers. But I barely got myself stowed before you climbed in, Cowboy.” She paused, looking me over like I was a sorry six-legged calf, not a cowboy. Resisting the urge to run, I tried not to squirm beneath Sarah Jane’s steady gaze.

  “That was quite a spill you took in town.” Sarah Jane flipped to a blank page in her notepad. “I’ve never seen one kid cause so much damage. Can I ask you a few questions about what happened?”

  “N-no! No way,” I sputtered, not wanting to discuss what had gone down in Sundance with her or anyone else. Not now. Not ever. Without looking at Sarah Jane, I wedged Mom and Dad’s bag under my arm and slung Fedora’s tote over my shoulder.

  “You have to go now!” I grabbed the handles of the cooler, trying to carry all the bags at once, feeling like a pack mule descending into the Grand Canyon on roller skates: everything going downhill fast.

  “I think I’m going to stay,” Sarah Jane replied, as if simply saying so made it flower-pick
in’ fine.

  “Well, you can’t,” I shot back.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I say so,” I answered, wishing I had a morsel of Mom’s talent.

  “Come on, Cowboy! I promise to blend into the background. You won’t even see me. I’m stealthy.”

  I snorted, thinking of my cousin Samson. “Trust me, I’d see you. I actually know people I can’t see, and you’re not one of them.”

  The corners of the girl’s mouth fought to stay straight. “I like you, Cowboy,” she said. “You’re funny.” Then she stopped smiling and narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Really? Tell me more about these people you can’t see.” Sarah Jane slipped a small nub of pencil out of one of her braids, licking the tip of the graphite once before pressing it to paper.

  I looked again at the newspapers in the back of the van, shaking my head over the paper’s title:The Sundance Scuttlebutt

  YOUR #1 SOURCE FOR NEWS OF THE STRANGE.

  Sarah Jane obviously had good instincts to steal a ride here.

  “Forget I said anything,” I answered. “And stop calling me Cowboy. My name’s Ledge.” As I spoke, a sudden gust of wind burst from the front door of the log house, coming from inside—and blowing out. I knew exactly who was causing the whirlwind of indoor weather.

  Even outside the house, Fish Beaumont’s gales were strong enough to set the windmill spinning behind the barn, making streamers flap and fly. Sarah Jane’s newspapers flew from the back of the van. Her braids whipped in the wind like two lengths of rope trying to lasso her escaping stories. The screen door opened and slammed shut repeatedly, rousing a black, wolf-like dog from a patch of shade up on the porch.

  My uncle’s dog, Bitsy, barked once, then yawned a mouthful of teeth, wagging her tail as she caught sight of me. Bitsy was accustomed to unusual phenomena. She’d limped onto the ranch as a tiny, three-legged pup years ago and never left.