Scumble (13 page)

“Where is everybody, Grandpa?” I asked, surprised when Grandpa Bomba stood from his chair without help. His bones made cracking, popping noises that woke Bitsy where she slept at the foot of his chair. She lifted her head and wagged her tail.

“Your uncle's checking the bee boxes,” Grandpa answered, his voice shaking only a little. “And the rest of the herd? Who can tell where they've got to. The twins disappeared with Fedora after lunch—out hunting again, I s'pose. Said they were hoping for better luck today.” Lately, Fedora had been tagging along behind Marisol and Mesquite nonstop, but the twins seemed happy to have a plucky new sidekick.

“Hunting?” I asked, realizing that I'd never paid attention to what Marisol and Mesquite did once they were done with me, their token karma booster. Now I wondered what Marisol and Mesquite might be wrangling my sister into. Hunting? I could picture Fedora in her helmet, crouched low in the grass, lecturing the twins about the dangers of bows and arrows or the right and wrong ways to safely set a snare.

“What are the vegetarians hunting?” I asked. “Wild tofu?”

Grandpa chuckled. “Your cousins have got other prospects in mind, I reckon.”

“Prospects?”

Grandpa just smiled and stretched again. “Rocket's rustling up some wire to put around his garden to keep the rabbits and the crank springs out,” he continued. “And Gypsy's giving your friend from town a butterfly tour.”

“Friend from town?” I echoed, confused. “
What
friend from town?”

Grandpa waved in the direction of the Bug House, trying his best to wink. “A pretty girl came looking for you earlier, Ledge. Can't remember her name now.” He scratched his head. “But I do remember she had two.”

“Two?” I repeated, even as the chair next to Grandpa's shuddered.

“Two first names,” Grandpa clarified, not even glancing at the chair. “Betty Jo? . . . No, that's not right. Mary Ann?”

I shut my eyes and whispered, “Sarah Jane?”

“That's it!” Grandpa slapped his leg and snapped his fingers. “But since you weren't here, Gypsy took it on herself to entertain your girlfriend till you got back. You know how she is about them butterflies. Loves 'em more than a box full of mittened kittens.”

“No.” I shook my head in disbelief. “No . . . no . . . no!”

“Ledger?”

“I've got to go, Grandpa!” I had to rescue Gypsy from the grip of Sarah Jane. Gypsy was too nice. Too sugar-gumdrops, stick-to-your-teeth sweet. Sarah Jane Cabot would run over her as easy as if she were driving one of her dad's CAD Co. demolition wreckers into the side of Candy Mountain.

“And she's
not
my girlfriend!” I hollered as I leaped from the porch, vaulting up and over the railing, not bothering with the stairs. But the ground on the other side was farther down than I'd expected, and my leap was going to land me on my face for sure.

I should've wiped out. I should have busted bones. Only, before I could, the earth jumped up to meet me with a rumble, accounting for my error in judgment by catching me halfway.

“Thanks, Grandpa!” I shouted over my shoulder, wondering where in the world Grandpa had found the strength to raise a column of earth and gently level it flat again.

“Don't thank me, thank Samson!” I heard him call back. I couldn't guess what he might mean. But with bigger worries elbowing to the front of my crowded mind, I knew I'd have to mull Grandpa's comment over later.

Still looking back at Grandpa, I bumped into Rocket as he came around the corner of the house carrying a heavy roll of chicken wire.

“Gah! Sorry!” I backpedaled as I squawked a skittish apology.

“Ledge!” Rocket dropped the wire. “Hey, Ledge! Stop! I need to talk to you.”

“Later!” I took off toward the Bug House before Rocket could yell at me for sending a hailstorm of bicycle parts down on his garden. Before he could give me another lecture about being careful.

“Ledger, just stop for a minute! There's something I need to clear up.”

I didn't stop. I valued my life too much. And I needed to put myself between Sarah Jane and Gypsy fast. I could just picture Gypsy telling secrets—giving Sarah Jane a handful of seeds that she could water to grow a giant, wordy beanstalk, a story so big, so fantastic, that people would come flocking to the ranch just to see if it was true.

“Later!” I repeated, heading for the conservatory, relieved when Rocket picked up his roll of wire and shouldered it toward the garden, head down, work boots stomping.

But when I reached the door to the Bug House, I didn't know what to do. It was still too dangerous for me to go inside—I pictured swarms issuing from the busted roof to descend on the town of Sundance in legions of wings and legs and pincers and stingers. I circled the building twice, trying to figure out what my next move should be. Then stopped to pace outside the door.

Ten minutes passed, as slow as ten hours, and I thought I could hear voices on the other side of the door at last—girls' voices—laughing and chatting, though I couldn't hear what they were saying.

I had my hand on the door handle when I saw Marisol and Mesquite coming over the ridge, Fedora walking between them carrying a shovel over one shoulder and a small pickaxe over the other. At the same moment, Uncle Autry appeared at the top of the path that led from the bee boxes to the Bug House.

Autry and the twins couldn't find out that Sarah Jane was at the Flying Cattleheart. They'd blame me for sure. If they kicked me off the ranch, where else could I go?

I had to distract the others—to keep them from seeing SJ. I remembered the night of Fish's wedding and the way I'd puckered up to Sarah Jane to keep her from seeing Rocket's sparks. I needed another distraction. Kissing everyone on the ranch was definitely not an option . . . but the windmill on the other side of the log house just might be.

 

I was at the base of the windmill in a flash. The late-afternoon breeze toyed lazily with the faded wedding streamers that still clung to the cross braces of the twenty-foot steel tower. Above me, the blades of the wheel turned slowly.

I didn't want to wreck the windmill. I just needed a commotion big enough to keep all eyes away from the Bug House for a short while. Gypsy and Sarah Jane had been standing at the door. Sarah Jane would step out at any moment.

Gripping the cross brace closest to me, I ignored the sharp, metallic taste now becoming so familiar. Grinding, scraping noises rent the air as I began to bend the four towering supports of the windmill, making them totter. The windmill wobbled, a drunken mechanical spider that had lost half of its legs. Rocket and Grandpa looked up. Bitsy barked. I could see the others changing direction: Autry racing toward the windmill, the twins and Fedora moving at breakneck speed down the slope of the basin.

As the beams of the windmill swayed and groaned, I tried to strike a balance—to hold the thing together while allowing it to twist like crazy. I did my best to tame the chaos, inside and out, breathing through my panic the way Dad taught me to breathe through a side stitch. But I continued to let the itch and prickle of my savvy flow. I knew I couldn't maintain my concentration long. Sarah Jane needed to get her butt out of the Bug House now.

Then she needed to skedaddle.

Fast
.

By the time the others reached me, the tower leaned over the rubble of the fallen barn like a daisy stuck into the brim of a squashed straw hat.

As the others stared up at the contorted windmill, Gypsy stepped out of the Bug House, followed by Sarah Jane. I watched, hoping the Sundance newspaper princess would be smart enough to leave. I could almost make out the expression on Sarah Jane's face as she took in the warped and tortured mill; I was relieved when she didn't come to check it out.

Shouldering her backpack—
my
backpack—she followed a deer trail along the river toward the ridge instead of hiking up the access road, taking a sneaky way off the ranch. It made me twitchy with suspicion. But my diversion was successful, no one gave any indication that they had seen Sarah Jane.

“Now it's a windmill
and
a sculpture, Ledge,” Autry said after circling the bent-steel monstrosity half a dozen times. My uncle wiped his brow when he discovered that the windmill still worked. “I'd like to think that this is progress.”

I couldn't meet Autry's eyes. He didn't know I'd attacked the metal tower on purpose. Staring up at the surreal twist of metal, my stomach churned.

“Progress . . . sure,” I muttered. But I'd accomplished what I set out to do. Sarah Jane was gone and Autry and the twins would never have to know that she had been here. Not unless someone told them. And if I had anything to say about it, nobody would.

I went looking for Gypsy as soon as the fuss died down.

“I like what you did with the windmill, Ledge!” Gypsy said as she secured a crown of blue and yellow flowers in her hair a half-hour later.

“Forget the windmill,” I said. “Grandpa said we had a visitor.”

Gypsy nodded. “That's right! Your friend came looking for you.”

“Uncle Autry says we're not supposed to talk to Sarah Jane Cabot, Gypsy. She shouldn't have come here,” I blustered, folding my arms. “She's
not
my friend.”

Gypsy smiled like a china doll with a Mona Lisa face. “Okay, Ledge. Whatever you say.”

“You won't tell Autry or the twins she was here?” I narrowed my eyes at my cousin. Gypsy spun once, then adjusted her flower crown with a curtsy. I took that for a yes.

“So . . . what did she want?”

“Who?” Gypsy cocked her head, dropping flower petals onto one shoulder.

“SJ! I mean,
Sarah Jane
,” I answered through gritted teeth, trying not to lose patience with my flighty cousin. “Did she—did Sarah Jane bring me anything?” I stammered, half hoping that Sarah Jane might have come to the ranch to return Grandma Dollop's peanut butter jar. It was a slim hope, and a fraying one, but it was still strong enough for me to cling to.

Gypsy's thin brows shot up.

“What did you want her to bring?”

“Nothing,” I answered quickly. Too quickly. Gypsy's brows arched higher.

“She just asked a lot of questions. Mostly about you.”

I held my breath. “What did you tell her?”

Gypsy spun again once, then answered. “I told her that you like to bathe in the river, that you live in Indiana, that you run really fast when you want to . . . and that someday you are going to be an artist.”

“An artist?” I snorted, trying not to look down the hill at the vomitrocious mess I'd made out of the windmill.

Gypsy's Mona Lisa smile returned.

“Did you talk about anything else?” I asked, redirecting the conversation. “You didn't tell SJ about our family, did you? About savvies? You didn't tell her anything about—”

“Ledger, calm down,” Gypsy interrupted. “You've gone totally doolally. I
almost
told her, because . . . well, she really deserves to know. But—”

“Deserves to know? Gypsy—!”

Gypsy's calm stare stopped me.

“But I didn't say anything, Ledger. I promise. I showed her the conservatory instead! And the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing chrysalides!” Gypsy sighed, as if sharing her private, glassed-in fairyland had made her happy.

I dropped my head into my hands, pressing my palms into my eyes. This wasn't as bad as Gypsy telling Sarah Jane our family secrets, but it came close. What would Sarah Jane do with a story about twelve of the world's largest butterflies taking up residence at the ranch—endangered creatures getting ready to emerge in Crook County, Wyoming?

She'd make it headline news in her paper, that's what she'd do. I thought of the free Super-Duper Humdinger issue Sarah Jane had threatened me with the week before. I was still waiting for it to come.

Now I was praying
extra
hard that it wouldn't.

“Y
OU'VE REALLY GOT A KNACK FOR this, Ledge!” Winona declared three days later, after I stopped her from re-lacing wheel spokes wrong for the second time. I was sure that if she continued as she was, the front wheel of the Knucklehead would never stay round.

“Are you sure you've never done anything like this before?” Winona continued. I snorted, casting my millionth wary look at the lathes, drills, band saws, and brake presses that took up space inside Gus Neary's shop. To my surprise, I'd shown a talent for reconstructing the pieces of the bike on more than one occasion, discovering that I could spot a forgotten spacer the way my mom could spot a stain from fifty yards. Still, I sat in the doorway of the open bay as usual, half in and half out of the steel building, multiple escape plans ready.

“Trust me,” I answered. “I'm a whole lot better at taking things apart.”

“I don't know, kid.” Winona glanced from me to the bike frame, then back at me again. “You've obviously got some untapped skills. Heh, if Gus were here, you could be the son he always wanted.”

“I'd rather be the son
my
dad always wanted,” I mumbled. My throat tightened as I rotated a clamp on the Knuck's handlebars, but the wave of panic that usually followed thoughts of failure held back. For some reason, talking with Winona was easy, and working with my hands had a way of loosening my tongue. I often found myself saying things to her that I'd never said to anyone. Not Josh. Not Ryan. Especially not Big Mouth Brody.

“I'm supposed to be a runner,” I went on, double-checking the clamp.