Scumble

by Ingrid Law

  “He didn’t get stung. Not even once. He just put the nest on the seat inside his truck—inside the truck!” Sarah Jane whistled. “You come from an interesting family, Cowboy. What other peculiar things will I find if I poke around?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the chance. With a sudden, spasmodic lurch, movement returned in a rush to all my limbs as Mom’s savvy hold dissolved. I shot out of my chair faster than I had on the last day of school, knocking over the seats in front of me as I bumbled back into wind-up action.

  I shook out both my legs and cracked my neck with a pop, suddenly aware of the noise rising from the basin of the ranch, where the wedding reception was in full swing. As the sun began its descent over the west ridge, light spilled from the barn’s open doors. The dance was hopping, beams and rafters shaking.

  Gazing down at the barn, Sarah Jane looked like she might be composing the newest edition of The Sundance Scuttlebutt in her head. Twiddling her pencil in one hand, she brushed her notebook along the papery bark of the birch trees with the other. Then she moved to lean against one of the juniper stumps, accidentally knocking both the flowers and the peanut butter jar to the ground.

  I let out my breath as the jar landed in a safety net of dry grass and pine needles. Sliding her pencil through the wire spiral of her small notebook, the girl righted the flowers, then bent to pick up Grandma’s jar.

  “Don’t touch that!” I shouted, pushing my way through the sea of plastic chairs. The jar caught the last slanting rays of the sunset, lighting up orange and pink in the girl’s hand. Holding my own hand out in front of me, I edged cautiously toward Sarah Jane like she unknowingly wielded a stick of cartoon dynamite.

  “You need to put that down.”

  Sarah Jane looked at me, then cocked an eyebrow at the jar. Before I could stop her, she dropped her notebook and began to loosen the jar’s lid, unleashing the staticky symphonic radio broadcast at full volume. Music flooded the empty glade in a shockwave of sound, startling Sarah Jane. She dropped the jar again, clamping both hands over her ears.

  Watching the peanut butter jar tumble in slow-motion toward a pointed rock, I lunged, knowing if the glass broke or the jar’s lid came all the way off, Grandma Dollop’s carefully captured radio broadcast would be lost forever. Sliding on my stomach, I made a game-winning circus catch, spinning the lid tight again as I rolled quickly to my knees.

  “What the—? The music came from that?” Sarah Jane demanded, pointing at the jar.

  “Of course it didn’t,” I lied, badly. “I—I mean, just forget it. Forget about everything!” Getting up, I shoved Sarah Jane back in the direction of the ranch’s exit again, hoping that, this time, she’d leave and stay gone. That the newspaper girl had seen Fish’s bride float up the aisle was bad enough; who knew what kinds of savvy talents would be let loose at the reception? I’d heard that the bride’s father could charm wild animals. The last thing I needed was Wyoming’s preteen queen of paparazzi looking into the barn to see a conga line of cougars, deer dancing beneath a disco ball, or three bears doing the limbo with my mom and dad.

  But Sarah Jane wouldn’t budge. She squinted from me to the jar, not saying a word, the printing press in her brain clacking away.

  Determined to maintain possession, I protected the jar like a football, securing it in the breadbasket hold Dad had taught me when he imagined all the things his super-fast son would do.

  “I’ll leave, if . . .” Sarah Jane began, a scary-girl gleam in her eye.

  “If what?” I asked, not trusting her.

  “I’ll leave if you give me that jar.”

  If I’d gotten my great-uncle Ferris’s savvy, honest to goodness steam would have shot from my ears.

  “Forget it!” I shouted. Changing my grip on the jar, I waved it in her face with one hand. “It’s just an old jar. See?” I tried, lamely, to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. But sweat drenched my palms, making the glass jar hard to hold.

  The girl stepped toward me, stabbing her finger into my chest. “If it’s just an old jar, why can’t I have it? At least tell me how it works.” Sarah Jane and I stood eye to eye, close enough for me to count her freckles, and smell her watermelon lip balm. She made a grab for the jar and we began a tug-of-war. But when a stream of blue sparks shot like Old Faithful through an opening in the barn’s roof below us, I let go. Rocket had started his fingertip fireworks show early.

  As Sarah Jane turned toward the crackling stream of electricity, I grabbed her shoulders, turning her one hundred and eighty degrees to face the other way. A second stream of sparks issued from the barn’s open doors and Sarah Jane tried again to turn. Not knowing what else to do, or how else to distract her, I held my breath, scrunched up my face, and planted my lips on hers, the same way I’d seen people do in the movies.

  I’d never kissed a girl before and didn’t have Josh the Ladies’ Man to offer me pointers. But Josh had never said anything about Misty Archuleta slugging him in the ribs, which is what Sarah Jane did to me without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Gah! Yuck!” Sarah Jane stuck out her tongue, spitting as she propelled away from me. “What do you think you’re doing, Cowboy?” But my diversionary tactic worked, distracting her from the sparks and the barn, making her stomp away after giving me another solid thump—her fist connecting with the point of my chin, knocking me head over heels.

  Sitting hand to jaw on the ground, punch-drunk and fuddled, I watched the girl march away until she disappeared into the fading light, still tasting her fruity lip balm. It was only then that I realized that Sarah Jane had taken Grandma Dollop’s jar.

  Chapter 6

  I SUCKED IN AIR, IGNORING THE clang of my pulse as I tried to convince myself that there were worse things than Sarah Jane Cabot having the ancient peanut butter jar. After all, there were hundreds more jars down in the barn right now. The entire family had brought their souvenirs of Grandma Dollop, and not just for the wedding.

  “Why are we taking these?” I’d asked Dad as he loaded our collection of jars into the van. I’d helped him haul the box up from the basement, then watched as Mom dusted and tested each of them, filling the kitchen with music, news reports, and old-time radio shows. Dad and I had listened twice to the goose-bump-raising, sauerkraut-scented call of Bobby Thomson’s historic home run against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dad had wanted to keep that one. Mom packed it anyway.

  “It was your aunt Jenny’s suggestion to bring along the jars.” Dad shrugged as he wedged the box into the van.

  “Such a perfect idea, too!” Mom sighed as she added extra Gatorade to the cooler. “Leave it to Jenny to know just the thing to do. Surrounding your grandpa with all of Grandma’s jars will give him great comfort in his last days.”

  “What d’ya mean, last days?” Fedora demanded, yanking off her helmet.

  “Grandpa’s grown so frail, honey,” Mom explained, using her thumb to wipe jelly from the down-turned corners of my sister’s mouth. “Grandpa’s been living with Aunt Jenny and her family ever since Grandma died. But he decided long ago that he wants to be at the ranch when he passes on.”

  “Passes on?” Fe’s eyebrows drew together.

  “Before he dies, Fedora,” Mom told her gently.

  Sitting alone in the glade, I swallowed hard, knowing how dead I was going to be when Mom learned I’d lost Grandpa and Grandma’s wedding jar. Not just Mom. Everyone would be mad. How could I stick to the rule to keep quiet when I’d let slip one of the few savvy objects that made so much noise?

  A mosquito buzzed in my ear. Fireflies lit all around me, despite being rare in Wyoming. Grumpy with the bugs, I pulled myself to my feet, betting Uncle Autry had sent them to check on me.

  The evening sky held a lingering glow bright enough for me to see the pages of Sarah Jane’s notebook where she’d dropped it. I picked up the notebook and jammed it in my pocket, leaving no trace of our wedding-crasher behind. Stomping my feet, I followed Autry’s trail of fire
flies, careful to leave a wide berth between me and the Bug House as I passed it. Knocking the door off the conservatory and setting free a hundred thousand bugs would only make my lousy day one hundred thousand times worse. It was bad enough when my zipper blasted into tiny, metal XYZ pieces halfway down the path and I found my good Sunday church pants down around my ankles.

  With dirt staining the front of my shirt and my necktie tied around my middle to keep my pants up, I stood outside the barn’s open doors, staring in. Streamers hung from every rafter in thick, rainbow-colored webs. There was a dance floor in the center of the room, and folding chairs and tables filled the rest of the space. The evening air was cool, yet I was drenched in sweat. I was angry, but something else was wrong. My skin itched like mad. There was a jackhammer inside my head. My stomach twisted into nauseating knots.

  Gypsy danced near the newlyweds. Her fluff-headed cheer set my teeth on edge. Watching her spin and twirl in a one-person jitterbug made my stomach churn worse. But as she chatted and laughed to the empty space in front of her, I realized that she must be dancing with the ghostly, invisible Samson.

  For the first time ever, I envied Samson Beaumont. If I were invisible, Mom wouldn’t know that I’d ruined my clothes skidding to catch the falling jar. I wouldn’t have to be Ledge the not-so-supersonic runner, or Ledge the have-to-be perfect kid all the time. I could be anyone I wanted to be, because nobody would be watching.

  People talked and laughed over the music rising from the back of the barn, where Grandma Dollop’s jars took up two entire tables to themselves. Stacked higher than the three-tiered wedding cake nearby, the jars stood in towering spires. Marisol and Mesquite were already cutting and serving cake, shouting “Incoming!” as they levitated pieces across the room. Each plate bobbed in front of one of the guests until he or she took it with a laugh and a salute to the twins.

  A festive stream of spiraling blue sparks hissed past me like a firecracker, nearly making me jump out of my skin. I spotted Rocket leaning against a beam nearby, smiling awkwardly behind a scruffy beard, looking like a kid pretending to be a grown-up as he set off celebratory sparks. He called out to Fedora as she ran past him in her bobbling helmet.

  “Hey, Fe! I like your lid.”

  “Safety first!” Fedora called over her shoulder as she dashed away, playing chase with Bitsy and our youngest cousin, Tucker, who followed Rocket, Fish, Mibs, Samson, and Gypsy as the last kid in the big Beaumont family. Rocket shook his head with a laugh, his dark, fork-in-socket hair defying physics in the way only spiky-maned cartoon characters ever truly achieved.

  “Rocket! Oh, dear!”

  Rocket straightened his posture, brushed off his shirt, and searched for an exit as my mom approached, looking him up and down. Eyeing his shaggy hair and beard, Mom made a full array of mother-hen noises. With Dinah for a mother, my own hair hadn’t touched the tops of my ears once in my life. Seeing the way she fussed over Rocket, I stepped farther back into the shadows outside the barn, hoping to delay the lecture I was bound to get when she saw my dusty shirt and ruined pants.

  “You’ve always been such a good-looking boy, Rocket,” Mom started in. “Now look at you! It’s no wonder you don’t have a date for your own brother’s wedding. Where’s that Meeks girl? Didn’t she come? She could’ve stood in as your date, just like old times.”

  Running a hand through his untamed hair, Rocket saw Mom smile and took a step back, looking around for help.

  “It’s no wonder things didn’t work out between you and Bobbi Meeks,” Mom went on. “A girl wants a cheerful, clean-cut beau, not a moody caveman. What you need to do is go into town tomorrow and get yourself a—”

  “Aunt Dinah, stop!” Rocket’s blue eyes flashed and he flushed red behind his beard, quickly plugging his ears like a first grader, singing an off-key la-la-la to drown out my mom. I’d tried the same move enough times to know it wouldn’t work. Earplugs, loud music, headphones . . . drowning out Mom’s voice only weakened her control, it rarely stopped it altogether.

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” Rocket continued loudly, fingers still crammed in his ears.

  “If you’re so old,” Mom continued her assault, “why do you continue to haunt this ranch like a stubborn child refusing to go home at the end of summer camp? You need to—”

  “Aunt Dinah! It’s so good to see you!” Rocket’s sister Mibs broke in, coming to Rocket’s aid.

  Maybe if I’d had ink on my skin up in the glade, Mibs could’ve heard my screaming thoughts and saved me from Sarah Jane. A scribble, a note, a tattoo, even a stray jot from a marker on your skin, and Mibs Beaumont could read your mind. Just one more awesome savvy that I could’ve gotten, but didn’t.

  Jags of anger jabbed me. Ten thousand ants in icy soccer cleats raced up and down my arms. My fingers and palms itched with a horrible tingling sensation.

  “What happened to you, Ledge?”

  I’d been watching the scene between Mom and Rocket so intently, I hadn’t noticed Mibs’s boyfriend, Will, as he stepped outside the barn.

  “Wow, Ledge! Did you butt heads with a buffalo, or what?”

  “Something like that,” I muttered. I’d met Will Meeks before. He was an ordinary guy without a savvy. He’d only been a teenager himself when he and his sister Bobbi first got mixed up with the Beaumonts and learned the family secret.

  I looked down at my ragged appearance, comparing it to the put-together buttons and service ribbons on Will’s crisp, clean army uniform. I doubted Will had ever made a mistake, been humiliated, or done the wrong thing once in his life. Then again, he had the luxury of being normal.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked him after a pause.

  I was surprised when Will shuffled his feet, getting dust on his spit-and-polish shoes.

  “I . . . er, thought it might be safer for me to avoid your mom tonight. When I ask your cousin to marry me, I want her to know I did it without her aunty Dinah making me.”

  “You’re going to ask Mibs to marry you?” My stomach took a water coaster plunge. The ants still swarming beneath my skin began to bite. I scratched the palms of my hands. Digging my nails in hard. Stopping just short of drawing blood. If Mibs and Will got married, they’d need Grandma’s peanut butter jar, just like Fish and Mellie. Great-aunt Jules had said it earlier: The wedding jar was tradition.

  The sick feeling in my stomach rose into my throat.

  I should’ve chased after Sarah Jane, I thought to myself, vibrating with anger. I should have tried harder to get the jar back.

  “Yo, Ledge! Incoming!” Marisol and Mesquite called out. I turned to see an enormous piece of frosted cake ducking and weaving full-speed through the crowd. When the cake stopped in front of me, I ignored it. But the twins were persistent. The edge of the plate bumped against my shoulder . . . once . . . twice . . . three times.

  “Are you going to eat that?” Will asked, one eyebrow raised as he watched the plate of cake carom into me. If Will hadn’t been standing there, I might’ve grabbed the plate and thrown it back at the twins like a Frisbee. Not wanting to look like a jerk, I reached for it instead. But my fingers closed on air.

  Glancing inside at Marisol and Mesquite, I could see them laughing. In seconds, the plate was back. Jabbing me again. Making my blood pressure skyrocket. I made another grab and missed again, only to see the plate coming back fast. Really fast. The marble-cake cannonball hit me in the chest, the force of the twins’ blow pushing me backward. Covering the front of my grubby shirt in crumbs and frosting.

  The buzz beneath my skin began to multiply. I wiped at the frosting plastered to my shirt, letting a loud barrage of barnyard language rip. After a full minute of noisy cussing, I looked up, realizing that the rest of the world had gone much too quiet. Everyone inside the barn stared out at me through the open doors. Someone had stopped the music. Behind the others, Marisol and Mesquite choked with silent giggles, covering their mouths with their hands and bending over double.

 
; Embarrassed and fuming, I began to pull myself up off the ground. But rising to one knee, I was hit by a sudden wave of dizziness. Unable to stand up without my stomach threatening rebellion, I stayed down.

  Something was happening.

  The tingling feeling that had started in my fingers and palms spread into my back and chest. It surged through all my limbs. My teeth buzzed inside my skull, vibrating like I’d downed six pops and seven pounds of sour sugar candy. But the taste in my mouth was metallic, not sweet.

  I felt like the boy on that boat in Aunt Jenny’s painting, trying to weather a stormy sea. Only, this time when my savvy let loose, it hit the barn with the destructive force of a tidal wave.

  Metal folding chairs flew into pieces. Tables wobbled, then collapsed, crashing and spilling plates and glasses everywhere. The jar tables went down in a deafening explosion of shattering glass. Metal lids rolled away like giant coins as polka tunes, country ballads, ball games, and love songs jammed the air with the din of a radio factory being hit by a rockslide.

  Then the entire barn started coming apart.

  When the first heavy beam fell, lurching from its fittings as nails and studs popped free, the party dissolved into chaos. People shouted. Bitsy barked. The twins levitated Grandpa Bomba outside in his overstuffed chair. Grandpa held on tight and let out a thin whoo-hoo! whoop as the barn doors fell off their hinges just as he flew through them.

  Mom and Dad tried to grab me, to drag me out of the way of the falling debris, while others tugged my sleeves or pulled at my collar. But crouched where I was outside the barn, I couldn’t move. I was an anvil: hardened steel and hard to budge. Heavy with the weight of what was happening around me.

  The understanding that I had a powerful savvy after all hit me like a hammer blow. It wasn’t just watches and windshield wipers that needed to look out. It was the whole, wide world.