by Ingrid Law
I glanced up in time to see Gypsy poke her head out the door of the Bug House, a giant, iridescent blue-green butterfly stealing a secret ride in her curly hair. It was strange that Gypsy hadn’t noticed it. Gypsy usually saw everything.
Seeing the heavy equipment coming toward the conservatory, Gypsy slipped back inside, but not before the enormous butterfly took flight, its wings beating slow and steady like an inhale . . . exhale. My own breathing slowed as I watched the bug land on the wooden beams just above the exterior door. The thing was awesome—sis boom bah beautiful.
I swore under my breath, wishing Gypsy had stayed safely outside with the big-honkin’ butterfly. But Gypsy had told Autry she’d watch over the Alexandras—no matter what. She was keeping her promise. She should’ve been saving her own skin.
Grandpa had fallen. The Bug House was about to. Samson and Bitsy had done everything they could. Now it was my turn. Made wrong or made right, it didn’t matter.
I had to act.
Chapter 35
THERE WAS MORE AT STAKE THAN the Bug House now. More than Autry’s livelihood or home. The workmen hadn’t seen Gypsy. No one knew she was inside.
I took a deep breath and held it, watching the bulldozers push aside Grandpa’s uprooted boulders one by one. Then I dropped into a crouch, about to begin an all-new race. Splaying my fingers against the ground, I prepared to start blasting booms and buckets into bits, to pull apart bolts and washers and gaskets and valves. I’d stop Cabot. If I had to, I’d fight him bolt and nail for the King of Damage crown.
My fingertips and palms began to prickle, to creep with that oh-so-familiar savvy itch. Then fear returned, marching through my brain on a thousand tiny feet. What if I lost control? I pictured myself toppling the conservatory the same way I’d pulled down the barn, doing Mr. Cabot’s dirty work for him. Crushing Gypsy in the process.
Closing my eyes, I bowed my head, wondering . . . praying . . . demanding to know: Dear God, what had I been built to do?
Something whispered against the fingers of my right hand. I opened my eyes. Gypsy’s Queen Alexandra was there, fanning me with its wings. I startled, but tried not to move, not wanting to injure it. The butterfly only stayed for a second before it took off and flew away.
I stood and shook my head to try to clear it. To move beyond my fear. I didn’t have much time. Already, the wreckers had shifted half of Grandpa’s boulders and they kept moving . . . moving closer. There were only three boulders left to push away.
I had to think through my choices—quickly. I was beginning to suspect that, for me, choice might be the key to scumbling. Racing here from Sundance, my feet had been on autopilot, but my brain had been in overdrive. Breaking the twins’ bikes, asking Winona to let me help her rebuild the motorcycle, putting a twist in the windmill, bending Sarah Jane’s initials into the fence . . . all those things had been choices, not reactions. Every time I’d made the choice to do something, my scumbling had gotten better. I’d controlled my savvy instead of letting it control me.
Now it was time for me to step up, just as Samson had. To show the world who Ledger Kale really was . . .
Not the kid his dad wanted him to be.
Not the kid his mom made him be.
No Cowboy. No Sledgehammer. Not defective, either.
Only two boulders left . . .
Soon, one.
I knew I was going to have to Bust! Things! Up! But now I knew too, just as Winona had known, that sometimes things have to come apart before becoming something different—something better.
I crouched down again, letting the fear beneath my skin subside as I looked at SJ and her dad. I thought of the birch tree that protected their house; Cabot had chopped down every tree in their yard but that one. I pictured the birch trees in the glade above us and remembered climbing them, always secure up in the branches. And as a bulldozer pushed Grandpa’s last boulder aside . . . as the excavator smashed into the outer door of the conservatory . . . I imagined a picture of my own.
And turned my savvy loose.
Within seconds, everything began to change. Workmen leaped from their seats as their trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes started rattling apart. Panicked, one man clung tightly to his steering wheel, even as the roof over his head pulled away, twisting in a warp and stretch of metal. But Marisol and Mesquite were next to me, ready for action.
“We’ve got your back, Ledge.” Marisol punched me on the left shoulder, dropping her heavy backpack.
“We’ll take care of the crew,” Mesquite added, smacking me on the right and dropping her pack too. “The wreckers are yours!” For the first time, I was glad to have the twins by my side.
The two girls levitated the frightened worker up and out of his seat even as it began to jerk and bump beneath him. As they set the man on the ground, his scuffed white hard hat fell from his head and Fedora shot after it like a kitten chasing yarn.
Nabbing the hard hat, Fe ran it straight to me. Resting grubby fingers on my shoulder, she crouched to whisper in my ear:
“Keep safe, Ledger! Use your head—wear a hard hat!”
Even as I stayed fully riveted on my task, I could feel Fe jam the workman’s helmet onto my head and kiss the top of it. Then she ran to join Samson where he knelt supporting Grandpa’s failing body.
I wanted to cry out to Grandpa to stay strong a little longer, but I was barely hanging on to my savvy as it was; I couldn’t take the chance of letting a fraction of control slip.
I focused on the roiling pieces of the wracked and ruined equipment. Watching as those pieces began to morph and change. As they began to fuse together into a growing grove of metal trunks and branches—branches that sprouted leaves of glass and wire and shattered bits of mirror. Mirror that reflected the real me, doing what I was made to do.
I sculpted trees around the Bug House; each one reaching high and lofty. Each one its own strong, protective column. Its own graceful sculpture. Soon there wasn’t a single bolt or spring or wire that hadn’t become a part of my metal forest.
The wind whipped the scattered pages of Sarah Jane’s notebook off the ground. Some of the papers flew high. Others smacked into the trunks of the new trees, looking just like the peeling bark of her mother’s birches.
For this moment at least, the spiders and beetles and bugs inside the walls of the conservatory were safe, and the world’s largest butterflies still had their home away from home. Only the outer door and the entryway had been destroyed; the interior door still held strong. There was nothing more Mr. Cabot could do. Most of his crew had run away, or hunkered down, crouched low and cowering behind the one truck I’d left standing—the truck where Mr. Cabot had shoved Sarah Jane. Only now SJ was halfway out of the truck and cheering.
Mr. Cabot hadn’t budged. Still as a statue himself, he stared at the towering, sculpted trees that had once been his demolition fleet.
Slowly, I stood up, the metallic taste I was beginning to like melting away like a sliver of hard candy on my tongue.
“Mighty fine scumbling, Ledger. Mighty . . . mighty . . . fine.” Grandpa’s voice was so weak it barely reached me. As I turned his way, he held up a hand and smiled. I smiled back, tears burning my eyes. Then I pulled off the hard hat Fedora had given me and dropped it on the ground.
Marisol and Mesquite turned toward Mr. Cabot, who took a nervous step back. I expected the twins to polish him off, to pick him up and shake him before dropping him in the river, letting him sputter and splash down the water’s brand-new course.
Instead, the twins dug deep into their backpacks and pulled out heavy handfuls of lumpy, golden rocks. They piled them, crystalline and sparkling, into Mr. Cabot’s arms before he could refuse their hard-earned riches, every last piece of what they surely believed to be Eva Mae Ransom’s long-lost treasure.
I was stunned. Had Uncle Autry been wrong? Because it looked like Grandpa’s story might’ve been true after all. Maybe the twins’ attempts at helping me had improved their karma afte
r all.
“Is it enough?” Marisol asked, swiping at her tears.
“Enough to pay off everything Papi owes you?” Mesquite added, wiping her nose on the back of her wrist. “It’s got to be worth a lot. It’s got to be!”
“Take it!”
“Please!”
The twins pushed everything they had at Mr. Cabot, every last rough nugget from their backpacks. A few more from their pockets.
Unable to hold any more of the brassy yellow stones in his arms, Mr. Cabot hunched forward, removing his hard hat with his one free hand and allowing Marisol and Mesquite to fill it. He looked slowly from the twins to me—then to Gypsy as she stepped out of the conservatory and began to twirl in delight beneath the sculpted trees.
“Come, Sarah Jane,” he said at last, his voice unsteady. “We’re done here.” Cabot nodded at the remaining workmen and they hopped into the back of the CAD Co. truck without delay. SJ didn’t resist when her dad steered her back into the cab. But as Mr. Cabot started up the engine, SJ cast one long, last look my way—part apology, part thanks—and I wondered if any piece of what had just happened would make it into the next edition of her paper.
“Wait!” I called, rushing to grip the edge of Mr. Cabot’s open window, hopping next to the truck as it rolled forward.
“You have to tell her!” I said to him. “You have to tell her everything.”
Cabot hit the brakes long enough to turn and glance from me to the brand-new forest of glass and metal trees. His mouth worked like he was chewing jerky. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. Without another scowl or glower, he took his daughter’s hand and spun the truck around to drive her home.
As I turned to watch the truck thump-bump carefully over the narrowest crack of the rushing gully, I felt a wave of relief. And not only because Mr. Cabot was leaving.
I was relieved to see the minivan parked under the windmill and Mom and Dad standing on the other side of the river, looking for a way to cross. I’d never been so glad to see my parents in my life. But . . . had they seen me? Had they seen what I’d done?
Catching sight of Mom and Dad now too, Fedora bounced on her toes, hollering: “Mom! Dad! Look what Ledge can do! He can build things up!” With her motorcycle helmet bobbing, my sister shadowboxed the air above her, shouting: “Build! Things! Up!” And as Dad helped Mom step carefully over the pinched canal, he held his own hand high, punching the air. Giving me a big thumbs-up.
Waiting for Rocket and Uncle Autry to return to the ranch, Dad and Mom swung into action doing the things parents always do: making calls, feeling foreheads, furrowing brows, and shooing the dog off the bed. I brought Grandpa’s colorful afghan in from outside and spread it over his frail frame. It was the first time I’d set foot inside the O’Connells’ house all summer, and it felt in a small way like I’d found a port, won a race, crossed a threshold after a long, uncertain journey, stepping into to a place where I fully belonged at last.
As tough as rawhide and more stubborn than a two-hundred-year-old mule, Grandpa wasn’t finished drawing air into his lungs yet.
“I don’t think I ever finished my story . . .” he mumbled as we tucked knitted zigzags in around him.
“Shh . . . Grandpa, it’s okay,” Mesquite replied, floating him a drink of water.
“You weren’t telling us a story,” Marisol added gently, patting Grandpa’s wrinkled hand. “Just rest.”
“No, no . . .” Grandpa coughed. “I have to finish my story.”
“Which story, Grandpa?” I asked.
But it was Samson who answered, his voice husky. “He wants to finish the story of Eva Mae El Dorado Two-Birds Ransom.” Samson sat next to Grandpa: jeans, T-shirt, long hair shadowing his own tired eyes. He looked like any regular sixteen-year-old boy. I blinked at him again and again, waiting for him to disappear. But he didn’t and I was glad.
“Come close children . . .” Grandpa coughed again and we all leaned in, seeing that Grandpa still had the tail end of a tall tale left to tell, and knowing he wouldn’t part from this earth allowing a story to go unfinished.
“Where did we leave off?” Grandpa wondered, his words a coarse-graveled whisper.
“I remember! We left off at the part about the treasure!” Fedora called out as she and Gypsy each took hold of one of Grandpa’s hands. Leaning closer, Fe whispered, “We found it, Grandpa! We found her treasure. It was here all along, just like you said.”
“Of course it was, my dear Fedora,” Grandpa croaked as he tried to chuckle. “Eva Mae’s treasure is still here . . . here now . . . sitting all around me.”
Chapter 36
FOR BETTER, WORSE, OR DIFFERENT, SOMETIMES when things go back to normal, normal simply isn’t normal anymore. Mom and Dad ushered me and Fedora home just as the summer heat peaked and school supplies showed up in every store. I’d scumbled my savvy better than anyone could’ve expected after such a disastrous, stinking start, and Mom and Dad agreed to let me return to school on savvy trial-probation. Everything should have returned to normal . . . felt normal . . . been normal. Instead, everything was the same, but also completely different, like I was looking at things with all-new eyes.
I’d been back at Theodore Roosevelt for six weeks before I stopped waiting for Mom to put her savvy whammy on me every day before school. She even let me choose to avoid the barber shop, allowing my hair to grow past my ears and get good and shaggy instead. Mom let me pick out my own school clothes too. In fact, after coming home from Wyoming, I got to pick a lot more things for myself—like whether or not I wanted to keep running.
I did. And I tied Ryan in the boys’ cross-country time trials to boot. But I also chose to take another art class—and signed up for shop.
Sometimes I missed being surrounded by the sensational. I missed it so much, I sent Sarah Jane my address in Indiana, asking for a subscription to her paper. She’d written back right away, saying she was so happy she planned to kiss me the very next time we met. My face burned as I read the message and my palms began to sweat. I carried that letter in my pocket every day, even after the folds in the paper began to tear.
After that, a new edition of The Sundance Scuttlebutt arrived every week like clockwork. I brought the papers to school to share with the guys, laughing my head off as they believed all of SJ’s awesome stories like gospel. But I made a mistake when I showed them SJ’s letter. By the end of that day, Big Mouth Brody had told the whole school there was a girl in Wyoming who wanted to pucker up to Ledger Kale. When I found out he’d spread the rumor, every locker door in the eighth-grade hallway flew off its hinges.
I was prepared for the lecture I was bound to get at home when I fessed up. But whatever Mom and Dad had to say got cut off by a rumble in the floorboards and a phone call from Uncle Autry. After Autry’s call, no one cared too much about my savvy flub.
Grandpa Bomba’s death left the ground shaking beneath our feet for days. After the day he moved the river, he’d lived on longer than anyone expected, spending his final days on the ranch, just as he’d always wanted, and slipping away peacefully in his sleep.
We made it to Grandpa’s funeral on time and in one piece. This time, when Dad pushed the minivan to its limits along the interstate, there was no parade of problems to slow us down. Though, Dad and I did have to miss the father-son half marathon to get there.
“I know how hard you’ve been training, Ledge,” Dad said as we packed for our trip back to Wyoming. “Are you disappointed?”
“It’s okay, Dad.” I shrugged, remembering my last run from Sundance to the Flying Cattleheart and knowing that I’d already run the race of a lifetime.
“There’s always next year.” Dad scrabbled my scruffy hair. Then he added, “If you want—if you’re not too busy sculpting bleachers into boats, or transforming time clocks into tyrannosaurs. I never meant to push my dreams on you, son.” He smiled and held up his fist. After a pause, I bumped it with my own, tears welling up when Dad wrapped his other arm around me and pu
lled me into a tight hug.
October had painted the leaves of the birch trees golden, and joined with the autumn wind to carpet the glade at the Flying Cattleheart. Small puffs of clouds crossed the huge Wyoming sky in herds, like ghostly buffalo flying overhead.
I held Fedora’s hand tight through the funeral. I even let her wipe her nose once on my sleeve. Fe didn’t wear a helmet anymore—not since the day Mr. Cabot tried to destroy the Bug House. She no longer spouted safety quotes, either. My sister’s second-grade teacher may have been a stickler for safety, but her third-grade teacher was a science nut. Now Fe was building vinegar-and-baking-soda volcanoes, turning potatoes into batteries, and playing with magnets—though the broken jackalope magnet from Willie’s Five & Dime was still her favorite.
Standing near us at the funeral, Great-aunt Jules whispered loudly to Aunt Jenny behind a lacy, sodden kerchief.
“I daresay, young Ledger turned out to have some talent after all! Those are fine trees he built to protect Autry’s conservatory. Trees like that aren’t built every day, you know. The boy’s an artist!” Then, issuing two tisks and a tut as her eyes fell on Gypsy, Aunt Jules added, “Is it true nothing happened on Gypsy’s birthday, Jenny dear?”
Aunt Jenny smiled and said nothing, ignoring Great-aunt Jules with perfect poise. I smiled too. From what I’d heard, nothing usual had happened on, or since, Gypsy’s birthday earlier that month—nothing but a trip to the eye doctor and a brand-new pair of sparkly purple glasses, her vision test coming back a wild blue yonder from clear, crisp twenty-twenty.
Aunt Jules had said I was an artist. But she hadn’t been the first to see it. Somehow I suspected there were still surprises around the blurry corners of Gypsy Beaumont’s savvy future.
Gypsy stepped forward, barefoot as usual, holding the peanut butter jar that had tormented me all summer. After a nod from Aunt Jenny, she removed the last jar’s lid completely. I almost cried out as Gypsy let loose the music that had been trapped for years. Everyone had agreed to let it go . . . for Grandpa.