A Snicker of Magic (19 page)

Jonah and I sat side by side on the bench seat of a Dr. Zook’s delivery truck. Oliver was behind the wheel, driving a little bit too fast down a dusty country back road.

“Slow down a little bit!” Uncle Boone yelled from the back. “Or this piano’s gonna smash me flat.”

When I woke up that morning, I had no idea part of my day would include a full-blown Beedle mission, but soon enough, Jonah was calling about a know-how, a delivery truck, a piano, and making Boone a Beedle associate. Because we needed somebody who could do the heavy lifting. One perk of having a do-gooder best friend is every day’s got an adventure tucked away in it.

“We’re delivering a piano to Toast Terry,” Jonah said to me at school. His eyes were sparkly bright, the way they always get when he’s plotting good deeds.

“A piano?” I squealed.

“Shhhhh!” Jonah chided. “It’s not like a baby grand, just a little upright. It’ll fit in the back of the Dr. Zook’s
truck. But Oliver threw out his back at square dance lessons with Charlie Sue. Do you think Boone will help?”

So I asked Boone if he’d do me a favor and he said, “Anything!” And so off we went. Big Bruce helped Jonah into the front of the delivery truck, then loaded the wheelchair into the back with the piano. Boone stayed in the back, too, so he could keep the piano from scooting around whenever Oliver took turns too fast. The ice-cream delivery trucks didn’t need freezers, thanks to Oliver’s marvelous invention. But I was still a little bit worried about Boone getting piano-smashed. Big Bruce was back there with him, mumbling something about how he might as well just unload the piano by himself since Boone was about the size of a skinny pencil.

According to Jonah, Big Bruce was part of a small, secret group of Beedle associates. Jonah said he never had an accomplice before me. But he and Oliver knew every so often, in emergencies, they’d need help with logistics, deliveries, and heavy lifting. Up until now, Big Bruce and Jewell Pickett were all the help they’d ever needed. But with Oliver’s back out, and Jewell working overtime to keep her mind busy, we needed Boone, too. I figured Boone would be thrilled about joining me on Team Beedle. I guess he was, a little bit. But he didn’t much care for the heavy-lifting part.

Jonah flicked open a small door on the dashboard, which probably had a glove compartment at one time. Now it was refitted to carry small pints of ice cream. He pulled the lid off a pint that smelled like pancake batter.

“Ah!” Oliver grinned, recognizing the smell. “That’s a new flavor called Sarah’s Sunday Breakfast. What’s the verdict?”

“Pretty good,” Jonah said. But he only took a couple more bites before he passed the pint to me and reached for the Blackberry Sunrise.

Jonah cleared his throat and tried to refocus on the folded newspaper in his lap. But I could tell he was too excited about our mission to focus. “Toast is gonna love this,” he sighed. “He saved up for a piano last year, but his dad was let go from the water plant. Toast gave his savings to his parents. He never told me that. His mom told my mom that he’d done it. He deserves something spindiddly as this.”

“Are we just gonna drop a piano in his front yard?” I asked.

“Front porch,” Jonah clarified. “I figure they can wheel it inside from there.”

As Oliver drove, Jonah read tidbits of news from seven different counties. He’d circled stories and pictures and classifieds, anything that gave them a clue to what somebody might need.

“The Freely family down in Sweetwater needs an air conditioner,” said Jonah. “We can take care of that, easy.”

“There’s an obituary in there for Delora Riggins,” Oliver sighed. “I know her husband, Clifford. I’ll drop by Ponder’s and get a pie for him. Maybe run over there and give him some company.”

And on and on they went. You’d think after reading about so many needs, they’d start feeling tired, but they never did. They only got more excited about figuring out ways to help.

“Is something troubling you, Felicity?” Oliver asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”

“There is one thing I’m troubled over,” I said. “Florentine had me believing I was about to sit down on an invisible person. She said you could tell the story better than her.”

“Ah! Abigail Honeycutt.” Oliver nodded. “She ain’t invisible.”

“That’s what I figured,” I sighed.

“She
was
invisible,” Oliver said. “She’s long gone by now. You remember Charlie Sue telling you that her family used to be able to turn invisible? Same with Abigail Honeycutt. The difference is that Charlie Sue’s people knew how to pull out of it. Abigail didn’t.”

“How the hayseed does somebody go invisible?”

“It’s easier than you think,” Oliver said.

“Are we almost there?” Boone yelled from the back.

“Not even close,” Oliver hollered. Then he got back to his story.

“That bench Florentine told you not to sit on? That’s where Abigail Honeycutt sat, right up till the day she faded away.”

“She died?” I asked softly. I felt Jonah’s shoulders stiffen. He’d been extra-especially quiet during the past few days. He said it had to do with only having a few pieces of paper
left in the jar. He said he knew he should be excited about his dad coming home. But he couldn’t help but worry, too.

“She died eventually,” Oliver said. “Everybody does, of course. But nobody knows when she passed because she faded first.”

I blew my too-long bangs out of my eyes and said, “You better start explaining.”

Oliver said, “Abigail Honeycutt was married to the only man in town wealthier than the Weatherlys. His name was Lionel and he was the kindest, most gentle soul you’d ever meet. Lionel and Abigail had a son, Burl. And shortly after Burl was born, they built Dr. Zook’s Famous Ice Cream Factory. The name came from a bedtime story Abigail made up for Burl. Dr. Zook was a superhero in disguise. A frazzled chemist by day. A crime stopper by night. That sort of thing. The Honeycutts set up the ice-cream factory, then put the parlor on Main Street. They brought thousands of jobs into Midnight Gulch. I saw an old newspaper clipping about it, and the reporter said that’s the happiest people had been since the Threadbares were here.”

Oliver slammed on the breaks, just in time for a fat white cow to meander across the road. He honked the horn, which made a sound like
waaaah-uuuuuu-guh.
Boone screamed an unsavory word as he tried to brace the piano.

“Most of their success had to do with hard work,” said Oliver as he stomped back down on the gas. “But folks know some of it had to do with Abigail’s magic. She was kin to the Smiths — so she knew all sorts of wild recipes — cookies
that gave people laughing fits, and punch that turned shy people feisty. Her most famous recipe had to do with memory; she baked homemade biscuits with blackberries and sugar stirred into the dough. Her blackberry biscuits helped people remember things; sometimes the memory was good and sometimes it was bad. But it needed to be remembered.”

“Like the Blackberry Sunrise,” I said, staring down at that infernal carton in Jonah’s hands. The carton I refused to touch.

“Exactly,” said Oliver. “That’s where the idea for the ice cream came from.”

Oliver continued, “The Honeycutts were older than most folks are when they had their baby, so they doted extra special on little Burl. He was a real creative soul, helped them name all the ice-cream flavors. Every year on Burl’s birthday, his parents took him on a trail walk down by Snapdragon Pond. They’d sit on the banks beside the tall reeds and watch the sun creep higher and higher above these sleepy old mountains. One day, the sun turned the sky lavender and gray and then silver metallic. The morning glories fanned open their petals. The wind blew ripples across the water. And Burl told his parents he’d never been happier. He said he wished every day could be a blackberry sunrise. And so, as a gift, Abigail mixed that memory into the ice-cream recipe. Every time Burl tasted it, he remembered that morning. Blackberry Sunrise was his favorite flavor.”

“Mine, too,” Jonah said, and he held the carton of ice cream up like he was about to make a toast. “Then what happened?”

“Just a sec,” Oliver said as the delivery truck slowed to a creeping crawl. He drove along a tangle of old barbed wire fence until he came upon a gravel road that led to a sweet little house in the middle of a sunflower field.

Jonah nodded. “Charlie Sue was right. Nobody’s home yet.”

“Perfect,” Oliver said, and he threw the truck into reverse and backed into the driveway. “Y’all can leave it on the porch!” Oliver hollered to Boone and Bruce. “And don’t forget to stick that red ribbon on it.”

I heard Boone huff and puff while he tried to get a good grip on the piano. Somehow, they managed to haul it out of the truck. Boone puffed out his cheeks, and his face turned stop-sign red as he helped Bruce carry it up on the porch.

“I’m gonna owe him big-time,” I sighed.

Jonah elbowed Oliver’s arm. “What happened to Burl?”

“Burl grew up,” said Oliver. “Burl’s dad wanted him to take over the ice-cream factory, but that’s not what Burl wanted. Burl loved the stage; he wanted to go to New York City first, see if he could make it as an actor. But his father didn’t even want him to try. They had horrible fights, the two of them.”

Oliver took off his glasses. Before he wiped the lenses clean, I saw a cluster of tiny words forming, and fading, against the glass:

Hear and remember

Hear and hold close

“So one day,” Oliver continued, “Burl climbed the bus headed north and he never came back. He didn’t tell his parents where he was going or how long he’d be gone. He only left a note for his mother. It read:

“And then …” I waited. “When did he come back?”

Oliver shook his head. “Never. Nobody saw Burl Honeycutt again after that.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“It was indeed,” Oliver agreed. “Abigail sat on that red bench every day at noon for ten years. The bus stops there by the bench. So Abigail would go and wait to see if her son got off the bus. When she finally realized he wouldn’t be doing that, she took all of her memories — all the good ones — and all the bad ones — and she steeped them in a teapot. Then she walked down to Snapdragon Pond and poured every last drop in the river.

I heard the heavy thud of Boone’s cowboy boots climbing up into the back of the delivery truck. “Done!” he hollered, raising his arm in victory.

Big Bruce rolled his eyes.

Jonah pointed to the ice-cream box. “Toss them some ice cream, Flea.”

I picked two pints, Rosie’s Strawberry Rhubarb and Bridgett’s Hawaiian Pineapple, and tossed them into the backseat.

“Hallelujah,” Boone sighed.

“Uh-oh.” Jonah pointed toward the far-off edge of the dirt road. “Car’s coming! Haul out, Oliver!”

Oliver stomped down so hard on the gas that my body slammed against the seat. I heard a loud
FWOMP
in the back of the truck, followed by another unsavory word, which no doubt came from Boone. He and Cleo are alike in lots of ways.

“You think they saw us?” Jonah asked.

Oliver smiled proudly and shook his head. “We barely made it.”

“Finish telling about Abigail,” I said.

Oliver nodded. “As time dragged on, the strangest thing began happening to Abigail Honeycutt. First her color started to pale a little. The bright orange dress she liked to wear faded to peach. Her black hair faded to brown. Her pale skin got even whiter. Then she started looking like she stepped out of a black-and-white photograph. And then she started to look transparent. Lionel gave her a red umbrella to carry so people could see her. So they wouldn’t run through her. But soon she’d faded completely, and the red umbrella was all anyone could see. One day the wind came and lifted that umbrella and spun it up into the stars.”

“She got rid of her memories because they hurt too much,” I said.

“They sure do hurt,” Oliver said. “They hurt like the dickens.”

Oliver patted his shirt, right over his heart. “They’ll help heal you, too, though, if you’ll let them.”