Scumble (17 page)

Cabot glanced behind him at the noise. Turning back to me, he raised his cane even higher, until the tip was less than an inch from my nose. I stared at it cross-eyed. I was caught. Just like one of Elmer Mann's pickled fish.

“Shall I call the sheriff, Mr. Cabot?” Hedda the Horrible called from her defensive position on the porch.

“No, Daddy, don't!” cried Sarah Jane, jumping over fallen fence posts to shove her father's cane aside and step between us.

“This doesn't concern you, Sarah Jane. Go inside!”

“It does concern me!” she answered. She pushed her long hair from her face. “None of this is Ledge's fault. It's—it's . . . it's mine!”

Cabot's whole body convulsed. He took an involuntary step back, a sudden panic painting his features.

I stepped back too, equally surprised.

“What did you say?” Cabot and I asked Sarah Jane at the same time.

“I told you. It's my fault!” SJ stood tall, chin raised. “I knocked down the fence, Daddy! I—I have secret magical powers that break things. I just look at things and they fall to pieces. Like . . . like this! Watch!”

Mr. Cabot turned to face his Lincoln as Sarah Jane held her arms out toward it.

“KA-POW!” she shouted, thrusting out her fingers. Naturally, nothing happened. Sarah Jane took a breath as if she was about to try again. Only this time when she shouted
KA-POW!
she stomped her heel down on my foot.

I bit back a cry as she smashed my toes with her shoe, but I couldn't stop the pain from triggering my savvy—just as she'd known it would. Less than a second after Sarah Jane's second
ka-pow
, the Lincoln's front fender was on the pavement, the radio antenna was an arrow in the sky, and Mr. Cabot was ducking to avoid the hubcap that was sailing toward his head.

“See, Daddy?” Sarah Jane crossed her arms, ignoring the way I hopped around behind her. “I'm
extraordinary
. More extraordinary than anything in that room of yours. You just haven't been paying attention! Y-you should've read my papers!”

“I've read all of your papers, Sarah Jane,” Mr. Cabot answered. “And I thought I told you not to make those copies at the five-and-dime.” He looked from the fender to the fence posts, then back to his daughter, obviously confused.

Sarah Jane went pale at the mention of the five-and-dime. Her voice went from a whisper to a wail as she stammered, “I-is that why you foreclosed on Willie's? Because Willie
let me use his copy machine
?”

“Of course not!” Her father stood up taller. “I foreclosed because I own his deed and he owed me money!”

Sarah Jane shook her head.

Cabot looked at me, spluttering, “This—this is your fault!” His face grew mottled and splotchy. I felt mottled and splotchy too. What was SJ
doing
? Why was she taking the credit for my damage instead of handing me over like a trophy to her father? Trying to follow Sarah Jane's thinking was like trying to follow a spinning top down a road full of hairpin turns. Every time I started to think I had her figured her out, she'd change direction.

“This is your fault,” Cabot repeated, glaring at me again. “Yours and your uncle's. You don't know how hard I've worked to keep my daughter from becoming like—”

“It's NOT his fault!” Sarah Jane screamed. Having exhausted every last shade of red and purple, Cabot's face went white. He gripped his cane, staring past Sarah Jane. Staring past me. Letting his gaze settle into the high branches of the tree next to the house.

“Hold your tongue, Sarah Jane.” Mr. Cabot was no longer shouting, but his voice still held a dangerous, simmering rage. “You know nothing about what you're saying.

“You,” he said then, flicking his eyes away from the birch tree to level them again at me. “Leave now. Or I'll have Hedda call the sheriff to escort you back to . . . back to that
ranch
,” he spat. “Sarah Jane, go to your room. I have
things
to take care of.” He indicated the jumble of fallen fence posts. “
Lots
of things.” Cabot shot me another dangerous look.

It was a look I didn't like. Not one bit.

I tried to swallow, but my voice was tight with dread.

“Mr. Cabot, I—”

“The
SHERIFF
, boy! I WILL CALL THE SHERIFF!” He didn't need to tell me again. I took off running. Away. Fast. Before any more pieces could fall off Cabot's car.

I
F I COULD'VE RUN AND KICKED myself in the head at the same time I would have. The gray matter inside my brain was unraveling, and my eyeballs felt sharp and treacherous, as sharp as the barbed wire that ran between the wooden fence posts along the road outside of Sundance.
Wouldn't my own dad be proud?
I thought as I split town. These days, I was always running. Running
away
. Disconnected and undone, I stumbled and tripped along the road.

A mile outside town, an old slug-bug Volkswagen full of teenage girls rattled up the road behind me, music cranked and thumping. I jumped as they laid on the horn, and their 2CUTE4U South Dakota license plate fell off and flip-flopped into the ditch at the same time the rear bumper clattered to the ground. The girls drove on, oblivious. I didn't know if I'd made the bumper fall off, or if the punch buggy was simply ripe and ready for the salvage yard. But I did know that the time for that kind of sloppiness was over. It was just like Rocket said: I couldn't let stuff like that happen anymore.

Glancing down at the bumper as I jogged past it, my shoe hit the edge of the pavement wrong and I twisted my ankle, taking a classic Ledger Kale dive.

Lying on my side until my ankle stopped throbbing, I stared at my reflection in the chrome bumper. It was like looking into a funhouse mirror. But instead of being reflected into infinity as I'd been in the Bug House mirrors, in the bumper I was stretched out and squished—flattened sideways like a pancake. My nose was too long. My eyes bulged and colliding. My mouth a slanted comma.

“What happened to you?” I asked my distorted mirror image. “Did you get caught in the doors of an elevator?”

No.
My reflection shook his head.
Just caught between crazy Sarah Jane Cabot and her father.

With nobody else there to do it for me, I picked myself up. Testing my ankle, I found that I could put my weight on it without too much pain. I dragged the fallen bumper from the road. Its edges were sharp and it was grimy with dirt and oil. But it was surprisingly light.

I hefted the unwieldy bumper over my head.

Then I clanged it down against the nearest wooden fence post.

Over and over, I smashed metal against wood, feeling the sharp edges of the chrome bite into my flesh and the vibrations in the metal ripple up my arms. I roared like a knight swinging a broadsword, fighting the windmills of frustration, venting my anger without unleashing my savvy for the first time since my birthday. Why couldn't I have done that back at SJ's? Why have control now, when I didn't even need it?

I thought about the way Sarah Jane had tricked me, and the way she hadn't ratted me out to her father. I also thought about the way her hair looked all loose and jumbled in the wind—shiny and wild. Thinking about Sarah Jane made my head a mess. But I found that as long as I pictured the bumper staying strong and straight, the thing didn't twist or bend, no matter how much I raged.

When I couldn't lift the bumper one more time, I dropped it.

Absolute silence had fallen around me as the earth waited for me to finish my tantrum. Then, as though some silent word sped out across the landscape that I'd run out of strength at last, a cricket chirped and the hum and drone of insects returned. Birds chittered back and forth like television news anchors reporting from the scene. Somewhere close by, a prairie dog barked out small, rodent alerts, warning its friends that there was a lunatic kid on the loose.

Behind me, someone cleared his throat.

“That's some progress, I suppose. At least the barbed wire's still intact.”

I turned my head slowly. Across the road, Rocket leaned against the side of his truck, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. I hadn't heard his old F-1 arrive, or the squeaky sound of the truck's door opening or closing. I wondered how long my cousin had been watching me.

A trio of noisy choppers sped up the road between us. Rocket rubbed his shaggy beard with one thumb, gazing after the bikes as they passed into the distance. Then he turned his electric blue stare back at me and I guessed that I was done for. I might've been better off if Hedda the Horrible had called the sheriff to come and lock me up.

“So. Got it all out yet?” Rocket asked, his voice surprisingly calm, like he was asking me if I was done throwing up. Stomach churning, I thought I might start. Before my cousin had the chance to electrocute me on the spot, I rose to my feet and tried to make a break for it.

“Ledge!” I heard him call as I stumbled up the road on my sore ankle. “Ledger! Hold up!” I already knew what Rocket thought of me. I wasn't going to stop now just so he could say it to my face.

But I did stop—
fast
—when a crack of blue sparks lit the air, and a single serrated line of electricity blocked my path in a lingering bolt, cutting through the air in front of me and hanging there, filling my ears with static and making my hair stand on end. I turned to break left, and another crackling blue current reined me back. In every direction I turned, Rocket constructed a grid of jagged, glowing lines, boxing me into his very own savvy-powered electric fence.

“LET ME GO!” I dropped to my knees. “Just let me go!” My shoulders slumped and began to shake. I didn't want my cousin to see me cry, but tears dripped down my nose before I could stop them.

As soon as Rocket let his electric snare drop with a sizzling hiss, I tried to make another break for it, scrabbling feebly on hands and knees. Exhausted, I didn't stand a chance.

“Ledger, just stop,” Rocket said as he grabbed the collar of my shirt, dragging me backward and holding fast. I struggled, shouting wordlessly until Rocket got me pinned, one arm wrapped around my neck in a half-brotherly, half-nelson kind of way.

“I told Autry I'd find you and bring you back,” he said, not letting go. “What happened, Ledge? Why'd you take off like that? You're always running!” He shifted his grip on me, but didn't let go. “Look, I don't care if you and Sarah Jane Cabot are pen pals—I don't care if the two of you are planning a trip to Mars to get married—but if Autry knew, he
would
care. It was a good thing I got the mail today, even if I did take out a transformer. There would've been some dark swarms over the ranch if Autry had seen—”

“That's not it,” I cut him off. “I didn't take off because of the mail. I mean, that was part of it, but I . . . I . . .”

“You . . . you . . . what?”

“I know what you think of me,” I spluttered. The conversation I'd overheard inside the conservatory still stung. I swiped drips of sweat and snot from the end of my nose before blurting, “You think I'll never learn to scumble!”

“What're you talking about, Ledge?” Rocket huffed.

“I heard you!” I shouted at him. “I heard you talking with Uncle Autry in the Bug House. You said this boy will never learn.”

“What? You idiot!” Rocket rubbed his knuckles hard into my scalp, then released me abruptly. He settled down in the dirt next to me, running both hands through his hair with a crackle of static.

“I wasn't talking about
you
, numbskull! I was talking about me.”

“You?” I stared at Rocket as his words sank in.

“Yes, me.” Rocket held his hands up in fists, then thrust all of his fingers straight. Ten thin fountains of sparkling blue electricity plumed from his fingertips, each sparking jet towering a dozen feet or more into the air before subsiding again with a sharp snap.

“Autry sent me into town to get the mail and I took out the power for five blocks around the post office! I'm a human firework, Ledge.”

“Yeah, but you're . . .
cool
.”

“Y'think?” my cousin snorted. “I've done my share of damage, believe me. And not just to the Sundance post office after seeing mail arrive for you from a Cabot. I've made a mess out of power grids from Mississippi to Kansas. I can't even begin to tell you how many lightbulbs I've blown apart since the day my savvy hit. My momma used to keep a dustpan in every room in the house. I nearly thought I killed my poppa once, and I—” Rocket stopped. I watched him curl his hands back into tight fists. “I really
did
hurt someone else once, Ledge,” he said, then added quickly, “Unintentionally, of course. Not on purpose. Not ever. I wouldn't do that. But still, I hurt someone I cared about.” He rubbed the back of his left hand as if the memory of someone else's pain burned him there. I hung my head, thinking of the mark the flying fence posts had left on Sarah Jane.

“I hurt someone too,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“I know you didn't mean to hurt Fish, Ledger,” Rocket tried to reassure me. “I've been trying to talk to you about that for weeks.”

I hung my head lower yet. The gouge I'd left on my cousin had been an accident; I hadn't meant to destroy the barn and send all that shrapnel flying. But back at the Cabots', when SJ got hurt, I'd been angry. I'd been trying to make an impression. Just not
that
kind of impression.

“Who did you hurt?” I asked Rocket tentatively. “Were you a kid when you did it?” Sitting in the dirt next to me, Rocket rested his elbows against his knees, once again rubbing his thumb absentmindedly against his beard. Behind the scruff, his face looked pained.