Tumble & Blue

by Cassie Beasley

  “I didn’t break anything else!” Blue protested.

  “You’ve got a friendship that needs mending, if I’m not mistaken,” his grandmother said, grabbing his hands and pulling him up off the bucket.

  She looked at the house. “And I’ve got a house full of relatives to deal with. Let me tell you, I can’t wait to see the backs of them. It’ll take the rest of the summer for us to put the place in order.”

  “What if . . .” Blue hesitated. “What if Ma Myrtle gives the new fate to the wrong person?”

  “If you ask me,” she said, “any person would be the wrong person. I’ve told Mama as much, but I’m not sure she’ll listen.”

  “But, Granny Eve, your curse is so . . . if she would just tell you how to find Munch, you could have a new fate!”

  She smiled at him. “Do you know I’m the best gardener in three counties?”

  “I don’t see—”

  “Look at the size of that watermelon you skewered.” She nodded toward a melon as big as a truck tire. It had a silver trophy stuck through it like a toothpick. “I was planning on taking that one to the fair. It looks like a heavyweight champion to me.”

  “I’m sor—”

  “I can grow another,” she said. “And when I do, I’ll be proud of what it represents. My own hard work and skill. Not some talent spun out of the swamp by a power I don’t properly understand.”

  “But your curse!”

  “I’d erase it in a heartbeat if I could,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t take a great fate in exchange for it.”

  “I would,” Blue said fervently. “I would do anything for a new fate.”

  “I understand,” she said. “Everybody feels their own way about this strangeness of ours.”

  Blue wasn’t sure that was true. Most of the cursed Montgomerys seemed to feel exactly the same way he did.

  “Maybe I’m different because I was wrong about myself for so long.” Eve looked thoughtful. “For all of those years, everyone assumed I had a talent for gardening.”

  “But then your husbands died,” he whispered.

  “Yes they did, and I loved them fiercely. And when I finally realized the curse was to blame, I was . . .”

  Her eyes had gone damp. Blue looked away.

  She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to start talking about myself. I’ve just been remembering lately. Back when I thought it was all a result of magic . . . well, back then I didn’t enjoy gardening half as much as I do now.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  A REAL HERO

  Tumble and Blue met on the road, on their way to apologize to each other.

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Tumble said, kicking at the sand with the toe of her sneaker. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you to leave. I should have listened to your explanation.”

  “About that . . .” she said. “Can we go for a walk? I don’t want to talk about it in front of my parents, and Ida doesn’t want me over at your house.”

  Blue thought about it. “I’m sure Ida will get over it. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who stays mad.”

  They walked down the dirt road, trying to stick to the spots where the pines shaded them from the heat of the sun.

  “My parents brought me here because I couldn’t stay out of trouble,” said Tumble. “And they don’t even know about my fate. Blue, I’m not a hero. I’m a . . . I think I’m someone who needs saving all the time.”

  “No you’re not,” Blue said. That didn’t sound like Tumble at all.

  “Beast chasing me, the tree, the flare,” she said, ticking incidents off on her fingers.

  Blue frowned. “Those could’ve been accidents.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve been having accidents since I was a baby.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tumble took a deep breath. “I found out about a year ago,” she said. “At one of my old schools we had to make family trees for an assignment. It was supposed to be a craft project. Our teacher said to be creative. I was painting mine on this huge roll of white paper, and I wanted it to be taller than I was.”

  “That’s a big family tree.”

  “It would have been a piece of cake for you to do one that size,” said Tumble. “But my family isn’t like that. I mean . . . I only have one first cousin that I know of. So, I figured I was going to have to do a lot of research to find enough family members to make the tree look good.”

  “You could’ve asked your parents,” said Blue.

  “I did,” said Tumble. “But even after they had named all of the relatives they could think of, the tree was still too short. I started looking around online for relatives, but instead of finding them, I found this article about my brother.”

  “You have a brother?” Blue wondered why she hadn’t mentioned him before. “Where does he live?”

  Tumble stopped walking. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic snack bag. It held a short pencil, a pink eraser, and a ragged picture.

  “Here,” she said, passing it to Blue. “This is Jason.”

  The caption underneath the photo said, “Local Teen Remembered for Heroic Actions.”

  The boy in the picture did look like he could be Tumble’s brother. Blue saw that they had the same nose, and the same square jaw. Jason was wearing a football jersey and holding a helmet under one arm.

  “He died,” Tumble said. “I was a baby.”

  Her voice was so odd, distant and whispery and not at all like the Tumble whom Blue had come to know. He glanced up from the picture and saw that she was digging and digging at the dirt with the toe of her shoe.

  “I knew he’d died, but my parents told me it was . . . they said he was sick. That he’d had a terrible asthma attack. But the article said that wasn’t the whole story.”

  Blue didn’t know if he should speak.

  Tumble took a deep breath. “Jason was a real hero,” she said. “Not like me. We didn’t live in an RV back then. My parents had a house, and one night, there was a fire.”

  A chill trickled down Blue’s back. “And Jason . . . ?”

  “I think . . . it must have happened really fast. They couldn’t get to me in my nursery. But Jason—he climbed up the side of the house to save me, Blue. He had to break the window to get me out. I guess we both breathed in a lot of smoke. But Jason’s asthma . . . he didn’t . . . he couldn’t breathe.”

  Tumble rubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand.

  “Tumble—”

  “It was my fault!” said Tumble. “He was this wonderful, heroic person, and he died saving me. And I don’t even . . . I can’t even ask anything about it.”

  “Tumble,” Blue said. “It’s not your—”

  “Like, did it hurt? Was he scared? I can’t ever know, and I stay awake sometimes imagining—”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “The worst part is that I owe him my whole entire life, Blue, and I can’t do enough to ever make up for it. Now that I know I’m a damsel in distress . . . I wasn’t worth it. How could I be?”

  “You’re worth a lot,” Blue said in his fiercest voice.

  “I can’t even save someone from gerbils without barbecuing myself! And how would my parents have felt, if after everything Jason did for me, I died that way?”

  “You’re worth a lot to your parents,” said Blue. “That’s why they’re here. And you’re worth a lot to me.”

  “But, Blue, don’t you get it? I can’t help you,” Tumble groaned. “I can’t do anything right.”

  “I didn’t want to be your friend because I thought you could save me,” Blue said. “I wanted to be your friend because you tried. With the board games and the race. Even with the gerbils.”

  Tumble’s hands were wring
ing the front of her shirt. “I ruined that. I know I did. Ida was doing fine, and I . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “You should probably apologize to Ida for that, not me.”

  “I will. And I have to apologize to Howard for his nose, and Millie, Jenna, your grandmother, even that Greg guy . . . it’s my fault he doesn’t have a tent to sleep in anymore.”

  “About Howard,” said Blue. “We’ve got to figure out some way to help him. He’s in serious trouble with this swamp cake thing. I’ll explain later. But Greg’s okay. He moved into someone’s van.”

  “I’ll apologize to all of them,” Tumble promised. “It’s the least I can do. The only thing I can do.”

  “No, it’s not,” Blue said. “Why do you keep saying—?”

  “Because it’s true!” Tumble cried. “This is why I’ve never told anyone! Because of course everyone will say I didn’t do anything wrong, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m here and my brother’s not.”

  Blue wondered what the right thing to say was. He couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to feel like Tumble did.

  “Is this why you’re so obsessed with Maximal Star?” he asked as they started back down the road.

  “I thought I could make it up to Jason.” Tumble was trailing behind him. “I thought if I was a hero, too . . .”

  “Maybe there’s some advice in the book?” Blue suggested. “Maybe he says something about how to help people even when you’re accident-prone.”

  Tumble looked up. “You never finished that copy I gave you, did you?”

  “I stopped just after Maximal saved that woman from the charging hippo.”

  “Oh, I love that part!” said Tumble, brightening a little. “It was so smart how he used the diaper pin.”

  “Um, yeah. It was interesting.”

  Tumble sighed. “Well, if you’ve read that far, then you know that Maximal isn’t anything like me. He doesn’t ever cause disasters. He only saves people from them. I wish . . . you know what I wish?”

  “What?” Blue asked. He hoped it didn’t involve hippos.

  “I wish I could ask him how to fix my problem. If there was a way for someone like me to turn herself into a hero, he would know it. If I could just meet him, Blue!”

  “Your parents still won’t let you go?”

  Tumble shook her head. “I haven’t even asked. There’s no way they would . . . unless . . .”

  Blue looked back over his shoulder and saw her standing in the road, a familiar expression on her face. Tumble had a plan.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m supposed to be apologizing to you,” said Tumble.

  “You already did.”

  “No, I mean, I’m supposed to be really nice to you. My parents are glad that I have a friend.”

  “I’m glad to be your friend,” said Blue. “What does that have to do with—?”

  “If you were to invite me to go with you to meet Maximal Star, as a peace offering, it would be so rude of me to refuse.”

  She gave him a hopeful look.

  “I guess,” said Blue. “But who am I supposed to get to take us?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  TRYING IS THE TRICK

  Blue thought for sure it would never happen.

  The Maximal Star event was scheduled for the day before the Grand Revue. And as the Revue approached, the Montgomerys were so frantic with plans, and Ma Myrtle was so demanding, and the house was so in danger of falling apart, that Blue felt certain his grandmother would change her mind.

  A stage had been set up in the front yard. Cousin Greg was working on something he called a canapé cabana beside the garden. Ernestine’s ukulele had been sabotaged. And Blue had seen two of his great-uncles unloading what looked like a red velvet throne from the back of a furniture truck.

  The eve of Ma Myrtle’s death was going to be more like a carnival than a funeral.

  But somehow, even with all of that going on, Granny Eve was sitting in her Thunderbird at exactly three o’clock. She was unwinding the rag rollers in her hair, and honking the horn for Blue to hurry up.

  “We’re going?” Blue asked as he slid into the backseat. “I thought with everything—”

  “A team of mules couldn’t drag me back into that house right now.” She had put on makeup and a church dress. “We are going to eat food I didn’t cook, and we are going to watch people who are not related to us put on a show. We are going to see what this Magnificent Starlight—”

  “It’s Maximal Star,” said Blue.

  “Honey, as long as he’s not involved with the Grand Revue, he can be whoever he wants to be.”

  ■ ■ ■

  The Maximal Star event wasn’t any less crazy than what was going on back in Murky Branch, but at least it was a different kind of crazy. The famous hero was supposed to be speaking at six o’clock in a high school gymnasium, but even though Tumble, Blue, and Eve arrived at the school more than an hour ahead of time, the parking lot was almost full.

  Blue and Tumble sat on the Thunderbird’s trunk, eating barbecue sandwiches and potato salad they had picked up on their way.

  Tumble had only managed to take a few bites of her sandwich. It tasted good, but she was too busy staring toward the other side of the parking lot, where Maximal Star’s tour bus was parked. Every inch of the bus was painted a glittering silver white so bright that the sun reflecting off it made her eyes ache.

  Tumble couldn’t believe she was this close to him.

  People were milling around the bus, trying to see in, but women in tight silver vests and tall white boots were shooing them away.

  “Who are they supposed to be?” Blue asked.

  “Those are the Starlets,” said Tumble. “You know, from the infomercials? I thought they were just for television, though. I didn’t picture Maximal traveling with them. It must be kind of tough to do your heroing with that many people hanging around.”

  Almost everyone she could see was sporting Maximal Star T-shirts, buttons, or belt buckles. Many of them were carrying grocery bags, or even rolling carts, filled with copies of How to Hero Every Day.

  “The line for the signing after the talk might be really long,” Blue said.

  “Don’t worry.” Tumble realized she was jouncing her legs up and down so that the whole car shook. She stopped. “I’m in the Young Heroes Fan Club. I have a card. The invitation said we’re supposed to get VIP seating and first place in line if I show it at the door.”

  She had crammed her own copies of the book—a hardcover and three paperbacks—into her new emergency backpack. She’d made a point of not including any flares.

  The backpack itself was one she’d used in second grade. It was bright pink and covered with daisies. Tumble was worried that daisies didn’t send the most professional message, but it was the only bag she’d been able to find on short notice. No true Maximal Star fan would go to meet him without having her heroing supplies handy.

  Looking around at the crowd, she couldn’t help but think that none of them were quite like she’d expected a group of Maximal Star’s readers to be. There were men and women in camouflage who arrived driving trucks with all-terrain tires and snorkels, like they were preparing for something apocalyptic. But there were also a lot of people wearing shoes they could never run in. Most of the purses Tumble saw were definitely too tiny for a proper first aid kit, and there was a lady wearing a long necklace made out of diaper pins. Which was interesting and all, but not the point. The worst were the ones wearing costumes—shiny tights and flowing capes—like they thought saving people was a joke.

  And all of the kids Tumble saw seemed to be tagging along with parents.

  Where were the other young heroes? Where were the other emergency backpacks?

  For that matter, where were the acts of everyday heroism?

  Not too far
away, Tumble spotted an elderly man bending down to examine the tire on his Jeep. It had gone flat, but even though people were walking past him on their way to the tour bus or the booths that were selling collectibles and memorabilia, none of them offered to help.

  Tumble didn’t know how to change a flat tire, but surely one of those people driving the snorkel trucks did. She waited for someone to aid and assist with alacrity, but nobody did.

  She passed her Styrofoam cup full of uneaten potato salad to Blue and hopped off the trunk. “I’ll be right back.”

  When Tumble asked Maximal about how to be a hero even if fate was working against you, she wanted to be able to tell him that she hadn’t given up. Maybe he would step out of his tour bus, and he would see her helping the man, and he would be able to give her advice.

  Excuse me, young lady, he would say. (Tumble had always imagined that Maximal would be very polite.) I see you don’t know how to change a tire, but you’re still doing your best. That is exceptionally heroic of you.

  And Tumble would say, Listen, Mr. Star, I’ve got something to confess. I want to be a hero and save people, but I’ve got this huge problem.

  Oh? He would have a kind and understanding voice.

  I’m cursed—please don’t ask how, it’s a long and complicated story—to be a damsel in distress.

  Tumble didn’t know what he would tell her to do, but she knew he would say something true and useful. Maximal Star had the best advice, and if anyone in the whole world could figure out how to help her, it was him.

  She headed toward the old man and his Jeep, so lost in this hopeful fantasy that she didn’t even see the minivan backing out of its parking space until she heard Blue shout.

  “TUMBLE, MOVE!”

  ■ ■ ■

  Blue had been following Tumble for exactly this reason. If you thought about it, which he had, a busy parking lot was basically one big obstacle course filled with rolling Tumble-squashers.

  Instead of moving, Tumble froze, but the minivan’s front windows were down, and the driver had heard Blue’s shout. He hit the brakes.