Mateo taps the spare half-shell helmet clipped to the rack over the back tire. “I still say you should bolt some great big Viking-style horns onto this. Can you imagine Paige rocking that with her braids?”
Kimana doesn’t bother looking at him. “My dad’s a police officer, remember? Safety first. He might let me paint it, but that’s it. But you could always wear a helmet and glue buffalo horns on it to go with that big head of yours.”
“Hey, my head’s not that big.”
I sneak a glance at Kimana, who mouths the words “real big” and spreads her hands apart like she’s showing me a big fish.
I grin and take a knee, my worn jeans sinking into the dust. “You said it makes noise when you try to start it, but nothing happens?”
“Yeah.” She sweeps her long black hair over her shoulder and hunches down beside me. “When I stomp down on the starter, it coughs like it wants to go, but it never catches. Nothing happens. I’d have my dad look at it, but they’re training new Fort Hall officers, so he’s pulling double shifts this week.”
“Have you tried kicking it?” Mateo asks, and we both look at him. “What? It works.”
“No, and I didn’t poke it with a stick either, but thanks for the advice.” Kimana fake-whispers to me, “This is why I didn’t ask him to fix it.”
Mateo sniffs. “No one appreciates my genius.”
He’s actually pretty good at fixing things, and I know they’re both still trying to distract me. If the engine isn’t starting, it’s either no spark or no fire. I just gotta figure out which it is. Maybe it’s just a loose wire, or some other easy fix.
When we were little, our moms drove us back and forth to each other’s houses. But after Kimana’s mom died, her dad dropped out of the rodeo and became a police officer so he could work closer to home, and Hutsi moved in with them to care for the kids. But these days, if Kimana is going to help at my place, she needs her wheels back. Without a running engine, this little Honda 50CC of hers might as well be a pile of rocks.
“Show me what it does.” I stand up and step back to give her room.
She throws a leg over the bike, sets her foot on the starter, and stomps it down. A growl starts but chokes off each time she kicks it.
“Okay, wait.” I raise my hand and stare at the bike for a minute.
“You want me to ask my dad?” Mateo offers, but I shush him.
As far as puzzles go, this one is easy. There are only so many ways an engine can fail to catch, and I certainly didn’t need anybody’s help to figure it out. I tap the fuel tank. “You sure it’s got gas?”
“Oh, come on. I checked that first thing.” Kimana folds her arms. “I checked the oil too.”
“Chill. I’m just checking off the list. Any chance you’ve got water in the tank?”
“We never leave the gas cap off.” She checks the tightness of the cap.
I touch the spark plug at the top of the cylinder, but it’s snug and secure. No loose wires.
I scan the head, jug, crankcase, and exhaust. Nothing seems wrong from the outside. “When’s the last time anyone cleaned the carburetor?”
“Um . . .”
Snatching a nearby screwdriver from off an upside-down bucket, I unscrew the hockey-puck-shaped metal tin to take it apart, but it’s pretty clean inside, and the float seems okay. As I put it all back together, I peer at the engine and try to think of what I’m missing. It’s just like any other engine I’ve worked on a hundred times. The answer is here somewhere. I can almost hear my dad teasing, You want a hint? And I blink a few times and shake my head.
Mistaking my motion for defeat, Mateo says, “I bet my dad would come right over. He should be done with the cows—”
“Just give me a minute. I got this.” I know I do. I just need to figure out the right angle.
Giving up after you fail once is like abandoning a calf ’cause it didn’t stand up the first time it ever tried. I touch a chunk of hard-caked mud on the fender, an idea sparking in my head. Sometimes the simplest answer’s the best one. I grin at the muddy handlebars. “Who went mud racing?”
“Dakota took it up in the hills with some friends last week,” Kimana says. “I think he said he slid down a hill on his side with it.”
Scratching with the screwdriver, I gently tease clumps of mud off the handle grip and run the blade around the creases until, all at once, the red kill-switch button pops up, little flakes of dirt falling away.
“Is that it?” Mateo steps closer.
“Try it now.” I stand back as Kimana gets on the bike again.
She slams her heel down on the kick-starter.
The engine roars to life, and I laugh as Mateo raises his hands in victory. “All hail Paige, queen of fixing things!”
Chapter Nine
A moth flutters in and out of the rafters over our heads as I lie on top of the straw stack inside the barn. Dust-coated spiderwebs crisscross the open spaces between the wood, and I can’t decide if the moth is avoiding the threaded snares with skill or by luck. There’s a good-sized hole in the metal roof above us, but his little mothy brain can’t find it.
Curled into a scruffy orange donut, Scuzbag sleeps on my belly, his rumbling purr vibrating through my chest as I stroke his fur. When I was five or so, Dad walked into the house to find a scrawny, filthy kitten sitting right in the middle of the kitchen table, licking the last of the butter off our dish. Butter smeared his whiskers and nose—some even hung off his ears, though how he managed that I don’t know. Quick as a horsefly, Dad plucked the half-starved ball of fluff up by the scruff of his neck, looked him up and down, and said, “Hey, you little scuzbag. That’s my butter.”
The kitten got fatter, but the name stuck.
My eyelids droop with Scuzbag’s vibrations, but I force them open again. I already moved pipe for Grandpa after school, carrying them clear of the mower. Normal three-inch pipe’s not so bad when it’s empty, but these were four-inch, and some of them had ends full of dried mud. I had to drag those.
It doesn’t matter if my arms feel all stretched out and full of jelly, or if that minivan by the bus got my insides all shaky. I gotta stay awake. If I fall asleep now, I’ll never get the chores done before dark. As is, I should be doing them now, but I needed to check on Royal—and Scuzbag used a sneak attack of cuteness. That ball of fluff sure knows how to work those adorable eyeballs of his.
Beside me, Scotty sits crisscross-applesauce, analyzing my pheasant book as he compares each fact to Royal and the encyclopedia he’s got stuffed inside his brain. “But peacocks and pheasants are nothing alike!” Scotty touches his fingers to his thumb one after the other. One, two, three, four, one. “They don’t even have the same nutritional requirements.”
Royal bobs his head like he agrees, but I roll my eyes. “It’s all they had at the library. They both have feathers, beaks, feet—what more do you want?”
“I want to know where he came from. Why did he pick our farm? What happened to his old home?”
“Maybe someone sold it.” I toss another handful of straw over the edge.
The pages flip under his clever fingers. “Maybe. Or maybe something tried to hurt him and he escaped.”
Royal tilts his head and blinks at me, and I still wish he could talk. Where has he been? What has he seen? Did he have to fight for his home too?
“Maybe that’s how he got hurt,” I say. “Something attacked, and he barely escaped. Oh! And that’s why he’s in the barn. He’s hiding.”
“Maybe. But it’s all guesses, not facts.” He turns a page. “I need facts.”
I curl my fingers behind Scuzbag’s ears, and the purring kicks up a few gears. “Speaking of facts—Kimana and I were talking.”
He closes the book and leaves it on the straw. “Yeah?”
“What if Miss Dolly’s really a hypnotist and she’s got
Mom and Grandpa brainwashed?”
“Hypnotist? Like at the fair?”
“Exactly. What if that’s what’s going on? Sort of like a spell, but it’s all inside their heads?”
Scotty shakes his head before I even finish talking. “No hypnotist could make them sell the farm if they didn’t want to. They can only make you do stuff you’re already willing to do. Don’t you remember? The people at the fair explained the whole process.”
“That was just a show. How do you even know what a real hypnotist can do?”
But before he can answer, T-Rex barks right outside the barn, and I pull Scotty down beside me. If anyone finds us up here, our Royal secret will be blown worse than a broken mainline.
“Bring them over here, Dad.” Mom’s voice fills the barn, and we flatten against the straw. “Set that box down by the stack. I’ll sort it out later.”
Scotty’s wide eyes meet mine, and I shake my head real slow. Don’t make a sound.
“How many more boxes do you need?” Grandpa’s shuffling steps pass right under the straw stack, and I hold my breath, but Mom is a long time answering.
“I don’t know. What do we really need from here? We can’t take all this with us. I don’t even know where to start.” She sighs. “If Steve were here, he’d know what to do. I keep feeling like I’m missing something. It’s like there are these sinkholes hidden all over, and I never know when I’ll fall in another.”
Holes.
Holes in the roof.
Holes in Scotty’s jeans.
Dad’s name attached to a hole where my dad used to be.
This would all be so easy if he were here.
Beside us, Royal fluffs his tail and stretches his neck like he wants to see over the edge too.
Scotty waves a hand at the bird, trying to shush him as if he were a cat, but Royal spooks at all that waving, jumps up and turns away, his long feathers sliding along the wire and making all sorts of racket.
“What was that?” Mom asks from below, and Scotty’s eyes open even wider, his fingers fluttering.
Grandpa clears his throat. “I didn’t hear anything.”
Royal completes his turn, but there’s no hiding the rattle his tail makes as he shudders and settles down. It might sound as soft as falling sand, but Mom’s ears are sharp.
“There’s something up there. Have you seen any skunks or raccoons today?” A plastic lid scrapes against a container, and we lie real still, but she’s already coming to look. My heart speeds up with every footstep we hear.
“Mew!” Scuzbag sits up and arches his back, yawning.
I lift him off and scoot him up almost to the edge so Mom can see him from down below.
With his fur all mussed up, and his legs spread wide, Scuzbag glares at me over his shoulder for spoiling his nap, before settling down into a long stretch with another yawn.
“Oh, kitty. Was that you? I knew there was something up there.” Mom’s steps stop and retreat.
“Look at that yawn. He’s got a rough life, that one.” Grandpa chuckles.
“Sleeping sixteen hours a day and eating all the cat food and mice he can dream of? Yeah, real rough.”
“Oh, come on. You know that one doesn’t dream of mice. He dreams of butter.” Grandpa chuckles again.
My chest caves in a few inches at the same time that Mom makes a little half-laugh, half-cough. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
Mom sniffs like she’s got a cold, and the lid clatters against the container again. “Maybe we can make a list or . . . I don’t know. It’s . . . it’s . . .” She sniffs again, and Grandpa clears his throat.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I find things always seem a little brighter when I have some grub in me. How about we go back to the house and make something other than potatoes?”
Mom’s voice is a little watery. “Sounds like a plan. Come on, T-Rex. Let’s go find the kids.”
As their footsteps fade away, Scotty and I slowly raise up and peer over the straw. Mom and Grandpa are gone, but T-Rex only goes as far as the middle of the road before looking back at us and flopping onto the ground. He might be old, but he’s no dummy. He doesn’t need to follow Mom to find us; he already knows where we are.
Scuzbag grooms himself, licking a paw and wiping it down his head over and over.
“Good save, Scuz!” I reach to pet him, but he slides out of reach.
“He’s offended.” Scotty grabs his book again.
I laugh. “Sorry, Scuz.”
Scotty double-checks that Royal is secure and moves his food dishes to the other side so he can reach them without having to turn around again, then we crawl to the wall and climb down.
“I think he needs a bigger enclosure,” Scotty says. “He can’t turn around very well in there.”
T-Rex ambles over to greet his boy, tail wagging, and I scratch his head. “He only turned around because you scared him. He needs to rest.”
“But still. A peacock needs—”
“We’ll make a bigger spot as soon as we can. A couple days maybe. And then he’ll be even more healed up, okay?”
“Okay.”
We stop beside two pink plastic totes at the foot of the straw stack, the bright color more out of place than shoes on a bull.
We stare at them for a few heartbeats before I drop to one knee and lift the lid. The smell hits me first. Horse, sweat, dust, and Dad. His gloves rest in one corner of the box, the leather fingers curled toward the palm as if they remember what it was like to be worn. Beside them, Dad’s favorite lasso sits wound up and tied off, the fibers stained from countless hours spent chasing after lost calves and cows.
Framed pictures fill the rest of the box, and Scotty crouches beside me to pull one out. It’s Dad and his first horse, Pia, riding herd beside Grandpa, a giant grin on Dad’s face.
I pull out the next frame, and it’s Dad and five-year-old me riding together inside the cab of a Deere 4850 tractor, with my hands on the wheel but his feet on the pedals. With me as his right-hand man, we could do anything.
The bus horn blares inside my head, and I try to lock the memories away where they belong. I shoulda been there, watching his back. He asked me to come with him, to help him move pipe from one field to the next, like we always do, but I was making him a surprise—a little robot that I designed myself, to help on the farm. I was gonna show him when he got back.
So I told him no.
Since then, I’ve dreamed that moment a thousand times, saying yes, yes, of course I’ll go. But I always wake up, and remember I said no.
I told him I’d look after things till he came back. I promised I would. Sure, he only meant to be gone for the afternoon, but that doesn’t make my promise mean any less. If anything, my promise means more now, because I gotta pull enough weight for both of us.
Reverently, I slide the pictures back inside and close the lid. My fingers curl around Dad’s wishstone in my pocket, and I try for the hundredth time to think of what his last wish might have been. “You think Dad would be glad we’re fighting for the farm, or mad that we’re disobeying Mom?”
“Course he’d be glad. Why else would I get a whole jar of grasshoppers? Dad would want us to save our family, right?”
Save the family. That sounds about right. Dad was always saving things. Calves, chicks, me.
The hens cluck and coo from the coop at the back of the barn, and I struggle to put words to the jumble in my head. “Maybe it’s like when calves get lost in the hills and need help gettin’ back home. Except it’s Miss Dolly leading Mom and Grandpa off somewhere inside their heads and we gotta bring them back.” I take the pheasant book from him and brush straw off the cover. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me who’s lost.”
“You’re not lost. You’re right where you belong: with me.” Scotty taps the tote, and the corner of
his mouth curves up. “But that doesn’t mean she’s a hypnotist.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s not either,” I tease.
“Science says she’s not.” Scotty pries open the other tote.
“Then it should be easy to snap them out of this crazy talk, right?”
“Maybe. As long as we don’t make things worse.” With a gentle finger, Scotty nudges aside dried flowers to touch a sun-faded photo of Mom barrel racing from her rodeo queen days. Trophies, crowns, and silk banners fill the rest of the tote.
“Worse like how?” I glance at the chicken door and let my gaze slide across the barn.
T-Rex snoring softly beside Scotty.
A pair of doves roosting in the rafters.
Scuzbag blinking down at us from above.
The black magic cat beside him—where’d he come from?
I shrug. “If the farm sells, everything’s gone anyway. What could be worse than that?”
Chapter Ten
My friends at school sometimes talk like dawn and sunrise are the same thing, that when you work from sunup to sundown, you must be the hardest working person in the history of work. But when I hear someone got up at sunrise, I wonder why they slept in.
Dawn is that moment when darkness begins to fade. The dark doesn’t give up easy, though. It clings to every shadow, hiding in nooks and crannies, clutching the cold night air tighter as the sky over the mountains fades from deep blue to gray and washes the stars away. Then, like a stone tossed in a pond, the sun pushes ripples of colors on ahead in all directions, lighting the bellies of clouds first, then filling the world with a strange half-light of red, pink, or orange. The brighter the sky, the colder the air, and thin crystals form on windshields and creep down blades of grass. The coldest time of the whole night is that last frozen moment just before the sun peeks over the mountains and breaks the spell.
The Wish and the Peacock Page 7