“Yes,” said Tumble, “and she won’t do that if we don’t knock her socks off right now!”
Blue shook his head.
“I can’t believe you. We just talked about this—”
“Don’t be mean to Ida about it, okay?” he snapped. “She’s my cousin, and she’s really scared, and I don’t want you to.”
Tumble made herself be silent for a few seconds, just to be sure she wasn’t being unreasonable.
She wasn’t.
“Blue, so what if Ida gets a little scared? This could change her whole life. It might even save your entire family!”
“It’s not right.”
Tumble groaned. “It’s gerbils!” she said, making the itsy-bitsy gesture with two of her fingers. “They’re tiny.”
“Tumble, just don’t,” he hissed as the twins emerged from the house.
“Blue, we’ve been planning this for ages.”
“Don’t.”
■ ■ ■
By the time Ma Myrtle appeared, everyone was sweating.
Tumble’s hair stuck to her face and her neck, and she was sure at least half of the moisture running down her back was from nerves. Blue was wrong about this. He just was. He was looking at poor Ida, and he was feeling sorry for her, and Tumble got it.
She did.
She felt sorry for Ida, too. But you didn’t let someone make a terrible mistake just because they were frightened. You grabbed a pair of long johns and a stapler, and you kept them from going over the edge of the building.
Tumble didn’t know how she was going to do that yet, but she plucked her emergency backpack off the ground and put it on as Ma Myrtle started in on a very unhelpful speech about how Ida would probably “perish in the attempt.”
The fourth Tenet of Heroism was ever-prepared. The backpack was heavy, and it was hot. But Tumble had a solution in it for every occasion, and she wasn’t about to be caught offguard.
While Ma Myrtle rambled, she ran through a mental list of her supplies and tried to find a use for them all. Water bottle in case of dehydration. Bug spray because bug spray was important when you lived near a swamp. First aid kit for bites, cuts, and abrasions. Pocketknife for cutting bandages. Heimlich-maneuver sheet . . . in case someone choked on a gerbil? Waterproof matches, diaper pins, roadside flare, trail mix—Tumble didn’t know how any of that was going to be useful, but she would figure it out if a problem arose.
By the time she’d finished her inventory, Ma Myrtle had finished talking. It was time.
If this went right, really right, Tumble could cross off the last x’s. She could be different. She would know that she was a hero and not a damsel. Other people didn’t have to save her. It would be over. She reached a hand into her pocket and her fingers found her brother’s picture. Just a few more minutes.
Ida stood by the table, swaying on her feet.
Jenna reached into the first cage and carefully lifted the friendliest gerbil out.
Ida raised her cupped hands in front of her, staring straight ahead like she was about to walk a gangplank, and Jenna set the pale brown gerbil on her palms.
The people on the porch drew in a collective breath and held it, waiting for the inevitable. The gerbil would bite Ida’s fingers. Or it would claw its way up her bare arms and go for her throat.
No one was expecting a fatal wound from such a small animal, but they were expecting something more than what they got.
Which was nothing.
Jenna was leaning over the gerbil, whispering “Don’t bite, don’t bite,” and the gerbil was quivering with suppressed loathing, and then . . . it was over. Jenna lifted the gerbil out of her twin’s hands and passed it to Howard, who had been tasked with putting it back in its pen.
Millie Flat, who was in charge of preventing an en masse gerbil escape, slid the top screen open for him and then snapped it back into place without ever glancing at Howard’s face.
The experiment was repeated again. And again.
It wasn’t working. Tumble could tell. There was no sign of Ida’s curse fading; the gerbils obviously still hated her. The third one even held its open mouth against her finger for a breathtaking second.
But Jenna was able to soothe them all. This plan wasn’t messing up her talent even a little. The Montgomery fates were just too strong.
By the third gerbil, Ma Myrtle was looking pretty soothed herself. Tumble had been right. They weren’t going to convince Blue’s great-grandmother to call off the Revue this way or tell the twins how to find Munch or . . . anything useful.
Ida wasn’t letting it go far enough. They needed to do something bigger. Even if they didn’t make it to the maze, they had to go back to the basic plan at least.
Ida was supposed to hold all nine of the gerbils at once.
Tumble took a deep breath. Blue would be mad, but not for long. Not after Ida discovered that she didn’t have to be afraid of animals anymore. Not after Tumble proved that their fates didn’t have to be set in stone.
The failure to act in the face of danger is a failure you can’t afford.
There was danger here, real and true, even if Blue couldn’t see it clearly.
Tumble took a step toward the gerbil cages.
“Excuse me,” Howard said loudly, crossing his arms over his chest. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Tumble froze, one hand on top of the screen that separated the used gerbils from the outside world. She had expected Howard to notice her, of course. Even if Millie was too busy staring at her feet to know what was going on with everyone else, Howard was standing right by the cages, too.
But Tumble had thought he would ask her quietly what was going on, so as not to interrupt the twins.
And she would say she just wanted to hold one of the gerbils.
And Howard would say something like okay, as long as you’re careful.
And then Tumble would, in fact, be careful. She would be very careful as she carried the friendliest little gerbil over and set it ever so gently on top of Ida’s rainbow hair.
Jenna would do her whispering thing, and Ida would be scared. But only at first! She would get more confident as time passed and she held two gerbils, and neither of them tried to murder her. And then the show could go on the way it was supposed to.
Everyone would see that Tumble really had done it. She had figured out how to beat fate.
But for some reason, Howard was loud. And every eye turned to stare at Tumble.
“What are you doing?” said Blue.
Tumble didn’t know. She couldn’t go through with the original plan, not with everyone on the alert.
And she couldn’t admit defeat.
Not today.
Blue must have seen the determination settle over her face. He reached for her. “Tumble! Don’t!”
Tumble jerked the screen off the pen, and five gerbils hopped out and turned their beady black eyes toward Ida.
“Everybody hold still!” Howard commanded, holding his hands out to either side to fend off anyone who might be thinking of coming near the freed gerbils. “Don’t startle them!”
“Ida, don’t move!” Jenna cried. “Don’t bite! Don’t bite!”
For three seconds, it was fine.
Then Ida cracked.
She thrust the gerbil in her hands at Jenna so forcefully that her sister fell back into the grass, and she took off running through the yard, sobbing with terror.
The Gerbellion leaped for the ground.
Millie and Howard dove to intercept, and Tumble watched with horror as a gerbil landed right on top of Howard’s head. It was the gerbil Millie had been trying to catch, and she was moving so fast that she couldn’t stop, and—
Tumble winced as Millie’s fist connected with Howard’s nose.
The people on the porch were dashing he
re and there and knocking one another into the shrubs. Some of them were screaming about mice even though the gerbils were nowhere near them.
Blue had already dashed after Ida.
“I’m sorry!” Tumble cried. But nobody was paying any attention.
Jenna was cradling the gerbil in her hands, checking it for injuries even as it struggled, eager to join the hunt for her sister. Millie was on the ground, clutching a gerbil and staring woefully up at Howard while he tried to use the hem of his shirt to stop the flow of blood from his nose.
And Ida . . .
Tumble looked around in time to see her throwing herself into Greg Montgomery’s fireproof tent.
Blue was hot on her heels. No doubt the gerbils were, too.
Tumble had to help. She had to undo the damage.
She ran for the tent, her backpack bouncing behind her. By the time she reached it, Blue had climbed into the little two-man tent as well. It now had three Montgomerys in it, and possibly a pack of bloodthirsty rodents.
The dark yellow fabric was writhing and bulging in odd places. Tumble could hear Greg’s confused shouts, and Ida’s terrified wails, and Blue saying, “Where are they? Do you see them!?”
The tent fabric ripped, and Greg’s arm appeared, waving crazily.
Tumble wasn’t sure if it was an accident or if the fire starter was trying to escape. “I’m here!” she said as she ran toward the arm. “Can I help? Where are the gerbils?”
She saw movement in the grass and bent over to see if she could spot a flash of fur. But it was only a lizard, skittering sideways into the fray as if compelled against its better judgment. As Tumble sraightened, Greg’s flailing hand slapped her backpack.
Tumble heard a loud hiss.
Snakes! That was her first thought. Snakes must be coming for Ida, too.
The situation couldn’t get any worse.
The tent gave up and ripped all the way. Ida, Greg, Blue, four gerbils, and at least two lizards sprawled across the grass. Blue had a gerbil clutched in each hand. Greg had one as well. And the fourth was crawling up the front of Ida’s shirt.
“You got them!” Tumble said, relieved.
Then Greg dropped his gerbil on the ground, pointed at Tumble, and screamed “FIRE!”
The hissing, thought Tumble. And Greg’s hand hitting my backpack. And . . .
The road flare. Tumble’s pulse surged. She started fighting to get the straps off her shoulders. Something was stuck; she was stuck!
The heat. She could feel it. Her emergency pack was supposed to be flame retardant, but a road flare was something else. She was going to—
Greg had one of his fire extinguishers in his hands so quickly it looked like he had conjured it. He blasted Tumble’s backpack furiously, with the air of someone who had done it many times before, and she stumbled forward.
But that wouldn’t work.
“It’s a flare!” she screamed. “It’s a flare!”
Greg gaped at her in horror.
Blue seemed confused about how to help when he had his hands filled with gerbils.
Then Ida was there, ripping Tumble’s arms through the backpack’s straps, freeing her just as the hissing, burning light tore through the back of the bag.
Ida threw it away from herself onto the ground. “Don’t let it catch the grass on fire!”
Greg started spraying the backpack with the extinguisher again.
“Thank you,” Tumble said in a small voice.
The whole fiasco had taken seconds. Blue’s grandmother was running across the yard toward them, a sloshing pitcher full of tea in her hand. Most of the liquid was gone by the time she reached them, but she dumped the last of it on top of the still-burning bag anyway.
“Oh, sweet mercy,” Eve said, tossing the pitcher aside and rounding to face Tumble. In a moment, she was spinning her in circles, checking her all over for injuries.
Tumble didn’t think she was hurt. At least not that way.
“It’s a miracle,” said Eve. “That’s what! Girl, what were you thinking, carrying a flare in your backpack?! Of all the foolish—”
“Owww,” Ida said.
Tumble looked around. A gerbil had attached itself to Ida’s earlobe. Blue was biting his lower lip as he tried to pry the little creature off without dropping the two in his hands.
“I can—” said Tumble.
“No, you can’t,” said Blue. He finally managed to coax the gerbil’s jaws open.
Ida reached up to touch her bleeding ear.
“You let the gerbils out,” said Blue, turning back to look at Tumble like he’d never seen her before.
“I was just trying to help.”
“No, you weren’t!” Ida shouted. “You were just trying to get what you wanted! I don’t want you coming back over here!”
“Ida, honey,” said Eve.
“I’m sorry,” said Tumble, aghast. “I’m really—”
“Not as sorry as I am,” said Ida, tears welling up in her eyes as she fell against her grandmother’s chest. There was blood trickling down her neck. “Go away! You ruined it. I was doing it. It was g-going okay. You only m-made it all turn out bad.”
Tumble looked at the Montgomerys spread across the yard. A few of them were still running around in a panic. Others were hobbling along with scraped knees and elbows from being shoved off the porch. Jenna was combing the grass, searching for any signs of her pets. Even Ma Myrtle had collapsed onto the swing, looking genuinely upset for the first time since Tumble had met her.
And Millie was sitting where she’d fallen, her whole body gone limp as a rag doll’s. She was staring longingly at Howard’s bloody face.
“I didn’t mean for it to go wrong,” Tumble said, turning back to face Blue. She took a step toward him. “I only wanted to help.”
“I told you not to mess with Ida,” Blue said.
“Blue, I needed to help her.” Tumble wished now that she had told him what she suspected. If Blue had known that she was worried about being a damsel in distress, he would have understood.
But he didn’t know. He looked away.
“I think you should leave, too.”
THIRTY-ONE
ULTIMATUM
Blue hadn’t realized how much he depended on Tumble’s company until he didn’t have it anymore. In the days that followed the attack of the Gerbellion, he was alone with his thoughts. He agonized over words. Words he’d said to Tumble. Words Howard had said to him. Words his dad had never said.
When your dad races, it’s everyone else who gets tackled by the deer.
Why hadn’t Blue ever wondered? People died in car crashes.
One night, he couldn’t stand it anymore.
A few hours before dawn he put on his running shoes, tucked his cell phone into the back pocket of his shorts, and crept downstairs. He slipped past Cousin Ernestine, who was sleeping on the sofa with her mouth hanging wide open, and headed for the front door.
Blue ran through the darkness, harder and faster and farther than he ever had before.
The sky was blacker than it had been on the first night he’d arrived in Murky Branch. He had trouble seeing the ground in front of him. But he didn’t fall. He ran past the sign, not looking at the number on it, reaching into his pocket automatically to stop his cell phone’s timer.
He ran to the paved road.
He ran, as fast as he could, away from Murky Branch.
Toward the end, he had to pause several times to breathe, and once, he had to duck out of sight before a passing car could spot him. But Blue made it. He crossed over whatever invisible line separated Murky Branch from the rest of the world.
He stopped and looked around at the empty road, the tall pines, the metal mile marker standing like a sentinel not far away. No one would be eavesdropping on him out here.
Blue found a place to sit on the side of the road, with his back resting against the rough bark of a pine tree. The ground beneath him was cushioned with fallen pine straw, and the muggy night air was cool against his overheated skin.
His legs were shaky. His hands were, too, but that was different.
Blue pulled out his phone.
The stopped timer was the first thing he saw when the screen lit. Thirteen minutes, nine seconds. It was his best time yet.
He didn’t know if that mattered anymore.
He dialed the number slowly. He wouldn’t leave a message this time. His questions were too big for messages. Blue was going to make the phone ring and ring and ring until his dad had no choice but to pick up.
And when he did, Blue would be calm. He wouldn’t accuse his dad of anything. He wouldn’t whine. He would just ask.
It took four calls.
“Hi there, Skeeter,” his dad said in a tired voice. “Everything okay down there?”
“When you win . . . do other people get hurt?”
The silence was a chasm between them.
Blue waited and waited. Finally, he said, “I want you to come back to Murky Branch. Come and stay here. With me.”
“Did your Granny tell you that?” his dad asked, voice tight.
“You need to come back.”
His dad inhaled sharply. “Now listen here, Blue. What I do for my job is my own business. And your granny is overreacting if she’s filling your head with that mess. People get hurt all the time. Not every little thing is our fault.”
Blue was on his feet. He didn’t remember standing up. “Why can’t you have some other job? Why do you have to win?”
“I just said that’s not for you to worry about. I’ll pick you up at the end of the summer, just like I promised. Isn’t that what you want?”
Blue squeezed his eyes shut. “No.”
“What?”
“No!” the word felt awful in his mouth. And true. “I don’t want you to pick me up at the end of the summer. I want you to come back right now. I want you to quit racing, and I want you to stay here with me, and I want you never to win again.”
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