Scumble

by Ingrid Law

  But even if it didn’t bother Bitsy, the unusual indoor-outdoor wind reminded me that this wasn’t Indiana. Here, I was completely surrounded by unexplainable people, the kind of people who would be real headline news in Sarah Jane’s cockamamie paper—or any other newspaper, for that matter. We weren’t an ordinary family. And this wasn’t going to be a normal wedding. Thinking of the family rules, I turned to Sarah Jane.

  “Tell me what it’s going to take to make you leave.”

  Chapter 4

  CONVINCING SARAH JANE TO LEAVE COST me ten dollars, three candy bars, two Captain Marvel comic books, and my backpack. If she were the newshound she claimed to be, and weddings sold a gazillion papers, I wondered if Sarah Jane would really stay away. I almost wished we could trade places. I would’ve been happy to let someone else sit through the marriage ceremony in my place.

  But Fisher Beaumont’s wedding didn’t completely reek, or make me yawn my face in half the way I had expected. Family and friends gathered in a glade above the ranch’s main buildings, surrounded on three sides by towering ponderosas.

  Two tall birch trees grew in the center of the open space, their branches laced like fingers to form an arch. The bride and groom stood beneath the trees, flanked by a pair of ancient juniper stumps that twisted like sawn-off pillars. Each stump supported a basket of flowers blooming in super-fast motion—seed to sprout to flower to seed again—while one hundred hummingbirds hummed overhead. Aside from looking like the backdrop to one of Fedora’s animated princess movies, the effect was kinda cool.

  My knee bobbed up and down mechanically. I tugged at the necktie Mom had made me wear. If Sarah Jane had doubled back to sneak a scoop, she was certainly getting an eyeful of odd. Substantial amounts of strange. An entire paper’s worth of peculiar.

  But despite my nagging Sarah Jane worries, I actually liked watching the bride. She was pretty. And she could float.

  Really float.

  Six inches off the ground float.

  The earth’s pull didn’t trouble Mellie Danzinger the way it did the rest of us. My cousin Fish was marrying a girl from another savvy family, just like Grandpa Bomba did when he married Grandma Dollop long ago. There were unusual families like ours from California to Maine, making double-doozy weddings like this one happen now and then.

  Fish’s swirling gusts of wind ruffled the gauzy stuff of Mellie’s dress and veil as she hovered in her own small, anti-gravity pocket of the world. But when the minister opened the Beaumont family’s big pink Bible, Fish pulled his bride down to earth with a cockeyed grin.

  Fish’s hair looked like it had been hit so many times by powerful blasts of wind that it was starting to grow in farther and farther away from his face, like dry grass trying to grow on a wind-scoured mountainside. I supposed that Fish, at twenty-three and all grown up, was old enough to get married. But my cousin still seemed way too young to be going bald already like his poppa.

  “That poor kid’s got his mom’s bloodline and his dad’s hairline,” Dad chuckled softly next to Mom.

  “What’s Dad laughing at, Ledge?” Fedora whispered, jabbing me in the ribs with her elbow. As tense and tight as a coiled-up watch spring, I resisted the urge to jab back. I knew I’d be the one to get in trouble if my sister started whining.

  Sitting with the rest of the guests in the glow of summer-evening sunlight, I jumped every time a twig cracked or an insect thrummed. When I wasn’t watching the bride, I was scanning the edge of the glade or turning to look over the heads of the people behind me, searching for the telltale glint of prying green eyes.

  “Ledger! Stop fidgeting,” Mom whispered in my ear as I shifted uncomfortably against the hard, molded plastic of my seat, beginning to feel exactly which parts of me had gotten banged up outside the five-and-dime. If I hadn’t been worried about Sarah Jane the Snoop, I might’ve dozed off like Grandpa Bomba, whose colorful, overstuffed arm chair stood out amid the sea of smaller plastic ones.

  “It’s nearly over, Ledge,” Mom breathed. And with a quick flash of her savvy smile, she added, “Sit still for twenty minutes, then you can run free.” The commands that came with time limits had always been the worst; the more specific Mom got, the harder she was to ignore.

  I was stuck. Staring forward like a statue. Frozen in a savvy-powered time-out that did nothing to improve my mood, or my nervous jitters. Fixed in place, I could feel my own savvy start to build. Like an itchy foot inside a winter boot, it threatened to drive me mad.

  After the I-do’s, but before the final just-kiss-the-bride-already smooch, Fish’s youngest sister, Gypsy, stood up in front of everyone. Gypsy Beaumont hadn’t changed much since I’d seen her three years before at her brother Samson’s savvy birthday. She was twelve now, almost thirteen like me. But Gypsy still looked like one of my sister’s dolls after six months’ play and make-believe: tangled curls pulled into a sizeable rat’s-nest puff on top of her head, cheeks pink, shoes gone missing.

  Gypsy stepped lightly, carrying an old glass jar toward one of the stumps, oblivious to the sharp meadow grass and prickly pine needles under her bare feet.

  I recognized the jar Gypsy set down next to the fast-forward flowers. I could see the faded, antique, red-and-yellow Peter Pan Peanut Butter label easily from where I sat. It had to be the oldest peanut butter jar ever. But there was something far more interesting inside this jar than a smush of crushed-up nuts. This was one of my grandma Dollop’s jars, the jar she and Grandpa had had at their wedding—practically a family heirloom.

  Gypsy gave the white metal lid half a twist. Instantly, music rose from inside the glass. Trumpets, violins, and whatnot filled the glade, crackling with the static of a classical radio broadcast captured over fifty years past. Every note had been caught inside that jar, pulled from the air by our grandma Dollop, then canned the way other grandmas might can string beans or salsa. Only Grandma had known how her savvy held the music inside those jars, but she wasn’t around anymore for us to ask.

  I wondered what Sarah Jane would think of Grandma Dollop’s jar if she saw it. I tried to turn to look for her again before remembering that I was still stone for ten more minutes. All I could see was the ceremony in front of me, the trees, the stumps, and Grandpa Bomba swaying his wobbling head to the music.

  As the canned orchestra continued to play and I continued to stew, a woman in a floppy, flowery hat turned in her seat in front of me. Great-aunt Jules had small, squinty eyes and arms so round her watchband cinched her wrist as tight as the twist in a balloon animal.

  “Such a lovely tradition, my sister’s wedding jar. So many of us have used it. I can’t wait for the days when my own grandchildren ask for it.” She dabbed her squinty eyes with a tissue. “Dolly sure did have a savvy to hold on to!” Then Aunt Jules stopped sniffing. Tilting her chin in my direction, she eyed me like some sorry reject from the savvy factory.

  “Is it true nothing happened on this one’s birthday, Dinah dear?” she whispered loudly to my mom. It took all the strength I had not to say something rude. Dad gave a soft snort, covering it over quickly with a cough.

  “That’s nothing you need to trouble yourself with, Aunt Jules,” Mom answered. I simmered in my seat, but Mom touched the back of my hand once lightly, as if to say: Ignore her, Ledge.

  I didn’t care if she was Grandma Dollop’s older sister; I glared at Aunt Jules, feeling a vague prickle run beneath my skin. Then I watched, helpless, as the woman’s wristwatch fell apart. Gears and pins and cogs flew everywhere. But Aunt Jules didn’t seem to notice. Issuing two tisks and a tut over my sorry lack of talent, she turned back around as the fanfare from the peanut butter jar wound down.

  “Watch it, Ledge!” Fedora leaned across my frozen leg to waggle a finger in my face. “Don’t forget! Safety has no quitting time.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Dad brush a cog off his sleeve, shaking his head at Fedora’s puns—or at his defective son.

  If Sarah Jane was watching from some hidden spot, I hoped she hadn’
t witnessed my latest bit of damage— that she hadn’t guessed yet that I was an undeniable danger to metallic, mechanical, man-made things.

  Everyone cheered as Fish and Mellie kissed at last. Everyone but me. The cheers set off a frenzied swirl of color. Hundreds of butterflies rose into the air around the couple in a Technicolor tornado, then scattered and split the scene, all orchestrated by Uncle Autry like some insect rodeo air show. The towering birch trees began to creak and groan, bending and swaying as Fish blasted the glade with a happy, rumbustious storm.

  Women clutched their skirts. Men grabbed their neckties. I squinted against the wind but couldn’t even raise a hand to shield my eyes.

  “Let’s hope this is the worst the boy lets his love-struck bluster get,” Great-aunt Jules harrumphed as she lost her flowery hat to the wind. “I’d hate to see young Fisher damage these fine birches. Trees like these don’t grow up overnight, you know. Not since we lost the last Beacham with any talent.”

  Another gust of wind carried a cloud of dust and grit in our direction. Great-aunt Jules began to sniff and snort, pressing a round finger beneath her nose to keep herself from sneezing.

  “Lands! Don’t get me going!” she exclaimed, holding her breath. “If I start sneezing now, I might send myself back in time to the last wedding on this ranch. It would take me forever to catch back up!” Aunt Jules jumped back in time twenty minutes every time she sneezed, making me wish for a jumbo jar of pepper. I’d happily send her back in time—back to the days of the dinosaurs.

  The wind settled as soon as Fish and Mellie swept down the path toward the barn, where the real party was about to start. Looking pleased to see his younger brother hitched and happy, Rocket Beaumont strode with the rest of the family between the rows of chairs, moving electrons in his wake and giving everyone sitting or standing near him a hair-raising moment.

  No one could forget that Rocket was electric. When he was seventeen, Rocket triggered serious power outages and mondo mayhem after a car accident put the Beaumonts’ poppa—my uncle Abram—in the hospital. A year later, Rocket decided he’d be better off at the ranch.

  People chatted and laughed as they followed the newlyweds down the hill. Fedora took off at a run, eager to retrieve her helmet; she’d been hopping mad when Mom made her take it off for the ceremony. My parents quickly sidestepped Great-aunt Jules. Mom and Dad must have assumed that I was right behind them as they followed the others down the path. But I was still caught.

  Not going anywhere.

  And, unlike my cousin Rocket, who’d been here eight years already, the only place I wanted to go was home.

  Chapter 5

  “SHE PUT A PIN IN YOU, then forgot you were stuck, didn’t she.” A man’s voice came from somewhere beyond my limited field of vision. I scowled, but the man chuckled softly, moving closer. When Uncle Autry sat down next to me, leaning one arm against the chairs in front of us so I could see him better, I relaxed.

  “How did you guess?” I muttered, feeling my face grow hot.

  “I didn’t have to guess, Ledge,” my uncle continued. “Dinah’s been my sister a lot longer than she’s been your mother. And she did the exact same thing to me plenty. I must’ve spent half the fourth grade stuck like an ant in tree sap back when your mom first got her savvy.” Autry O’Connell was younger than both his sisters, my mom and my aunt, Jenny Beaumont, but his face was lined from years in the Wyoming wind and weather, and threads of white salted his yellow hair. Today, instead of wearing a silk necktie like the other men, Uncle Autry cut a swell in a western bolo: a thin rope of braided leather with metal tips and a clasp that looked like a giant green beetle . . . wiggled its legs like a giant green beetle . . . and was, in fact, a giant green beetle.

  If the Flying Cattleheart was unlike other ranches, Uncle Autry was equally unlike other ranchers. There wasn’t a cow, sheep, or horse on Autry’s land. Autry O’Connell was an insect wrangler. Once known east to west and north to south as the man to call for the really, really big bug problems—and the really, really big bugs—his savvy gave him sway over all manner of creepy crawlies. Though, these days he mostly worked from home doing small jobs: raising ladybugs to ship to gardeners, or helping the people in Sundance keep ants out of their kitchens.

  I remembered Mom sighing over a holiday picture postcard sent from the ranch the previous year. For our family’s holiday photo we’d all stood smiling in matching red sweaters. The O’Connells’ card had a photo of three-legged Bitsy looking up at an enormous pink-toed tarantula sitting on her head. In the picture, the tarantula wore a Santa hat and waved an unusual ninth leg at the camera.

  “Your brother should’ve called his place ‘The Misfit Ranch’ instead of naming it after some butterfly,” Dad had said, looking over Mom’s shoulder at the picture.

  “Tom!” Mom scolded Dad playfully. But she’d sighed again when she looked back at the picture. “Why didn’t Autry send us a picture of the twins?”

  “I prefer the spider,” I offered with an unapologetic grin. All my life, complaints about Marisol and Mesquite O’Connell had earned me the same lecture I got then:

  “The girls lost their mother when they were born, Ledger. Autry’s done his best as a single father, but—”

  “But his girls are a pair of wild horses,” Dad finished for her.

  “Papi? Are you coming?” two teen-girl voices rang through the nearly empty glade. I held my breath, wishing my mom’s savvy would wear off as fast as it had in the van. The twins were the last people I wanted witnessing my predicament.

  Mesquite and Marisol were like the two knobs of an Etch A Sketch—Marisol in charge of up and down; Mesquite, side to side. Working together they could lift and move objects without having to lift a finger. And, for some reason, maybe because they were twins, they’d been doing it since they were five. Now, at fourteen, they’d had a lot of practice. And whenever we met, they’d practice even more—sticking a spoke in my wheels any chance they got, finding gut-busting delight in humiliating me. I was glad the two girls were vegetarians, or they might’ve eaten me alive long ago. But if Marisol and Mesquite realized I was a sitting soy-bean now, I’d probably be upside down or in a tree in three seconds flat, lucky if they didn’t pinch my shoes or pants me in the process.

  “Paaaapi! Let’s go join the party!”

  “ Be right there,” Autry called to his girls, smiling as they began stacking chairs, lifting only a finger—or two. In a voice too low for the twins to hear, Autry asked, “Do you want me to wait with you, Ledge?”

  “No, thanks,” I answered through clenched teeth. The last thing I wanted was a babysitter. “I’ll just sit here and take in the view.”

  Autry winked, then looked out across the ranch, his eyes lit with quiet pride.

  “It is pretty spectacular, isn’t it? This land’s been in the family for generations. Your mom and I used to come here when we were kids, long before the deed passed to me.” A sudden frown altered his features and he murmured, “I never thought I’d be the one to sink it.” Autry held the top of the seat in front of him in a white-knuckled grip. Above us, a cloud of gnats hovered like one of Fish’s storm clouds, as if unhappy Uncle-Autry thoughts had summoned the dark swarm. I was about to ask him what he’d meant, but the twins were growing bored of stacking chairs.

  “Papi!” they groaned together. Autry shook himself, looking up at the cloud of gnats as if he were surprised to see them. He sent the bugs packing with a quick wave, then stood, moving to join his daughters.

  “Enjoy the view, Ledge,” he called back. “Join us in the barn whenever you’re . . . er, ready.”

  I’m ready now, I thought, staring ahead of me at the peeling bark of the birch trees and the slowly wilting flowers, noticing Grandma Dollop’s peanut butter jar on one of the twisted juniper stumps. The jar had been left behind by everyone. Just like me.

  Talking with Uncle Autry, I’d briefly forgotten my fear of nosy Sarah Jane and my worry that she might be hiding somep
lace close, writing down everything. But when a twig cracked behind me, my worries returned.

  “Who’s there?” I called.

  I held my breath and listened. Unable to look at anything but the juniper stumps, the birch trees, and Grandma Dollop’s jar, I imagined a horror-movie spider the size of a Volkswagen climbing over the chairs behind me—or worse, the twins coming back to the glade to torment me.

  “That was a pretty weird wedding.” Sarah Jane’s voice was loud in my ear. If I could’ve jumped, I would have.

  “I knew it! I knew you wouldn’t leave!” I bellowed. “I thought we had a deal. You promised!”

  “I changed my mind.” She shrugged, moving into my line of sight. “The candy bars you gave me were all melty.” She clucked her tongue. “So, I decided I’d come back for something more.” I watched as Sarah Jane dropped her backpack—my backpack—and wandered to the front of the clearing.

  “So, do you come from a family of circus performers or something?” Sarah Jane looked up, down, and all around, as if searching for the lift or wires that had held Mellie off the ground. “This could be front-page stuff. Front-page!” she murmured, pulling out her battered notebook.

  I snorted. From what I’d seen of Sarah Jane’s rinkydink paper, it only had one page. Everything she wrote was front-page stuff.

  “I said it before and I’ll say it again,” the girl went on, “weddings sell papers, Cowboy. A wedding with super-duper special effects and crazy flying stunts will sell even more. The butterflies were a nice touch. I suppose Mr. O’Connell had something to do with those?”

  “What do you know about my uncle?”

  “I know he’s good with bugs. People around here ask for his help all the time. He even took a wasp nest down from outside my bedroom window a few years ago. He didn’t spray the nest or anything. He just climbed a tall ladder like a knight scaling a tower, stood there for a few minutes like he was having a conversation with the wasps, then pulled the nest down with his bare hands. His bare hands,” she repeated, jabbing the air with her pencil for emphasis.