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I remembered Mom sighing over a holiday picture postcard sent from the ranch the previous year. For our family's holiday photo we'd all stood smiling in matching red sweaters. The O'Connells' card had a photo of three-legged Bitsy looking up at an enormous pink-toed tarantula sitting on her head. In the picture, the tarantula wore a Santa hat and waved an unusual
ninth
leg at the camera.

“Your brother should've called his place ‘The Misfit Ranch' instead of naming it after some butterfly,” Dad had said, looking over Mom's shoulder at the picture.

“Tom!” Mom scolded Dad playfully. But she'd sighed again when she looked back at the picture. “Why didn't Autry send us a picture of the twins?”

“I prefer the spider,” I offered with an unapologetic grin. All my life, complaints about Marisol and Mesquite O'Connell had earned me the same lecture I got then:

“The girls lost their mother when they were born, Ledger. Autry's done his best as a single father, but—”

“But his girls are a pair of wild horses,” Dad finished for her.

“Papi? Are you coming?” two teen-girl voices rang through the nearly empty glade. I held my breath, wishing my mom's savvy would wear off as fast as it had in the van. The twins were the last people I wanted witnessing my predicament.

Mesquite and Marisol were like the two knobs of an Etch A Sketch—Marisol in charge of up and down; Mesquite, side to side. Working together they could lift and move objects without having to lift a finger. And, for some reason, maybe because they were twins, they'd been doing it since they were
five
. Now, at fourteen, they'd had a lot of practice. And whenever we met, they'd practice even more—sticking a spoke in my wheels any chance they got, finding gut-busting delight in humiliating me. I was glad the two girls were vegetarians, or they might've eaten me alive long ago. But if Marisol and Mesquite realized I was a sitting soy-bean now, I'd probably be upside down or in a tree in three seconds flat, lucky if they didn't pinch my shoes or pants me in the process.

“Paaaapi!
Let's go join the party!”

“ Be right there,” Autry called to his girls, smiling as they began stacking chairs, lifting only a finger—or two. In a voice too low for the twins to hear, Autry asked, “Do you want me to wait with you, Ledge?”

“No, thanks,” I answered through clenched teeth. The last thing I wanted was a babysitter. “I'll just sit here and take in the view.”

Autry winked, then looked out across the ranch, his eyes lit with quiet pride.

“It is pretty spectacular, isn't it? This land's been in the family for generations. Your mom and I used to come here when we were kids, long before the deed passed to me.” A sudden frown altered his features and he murmured, “I never thought I'd be the one to sink it.” Autry held the top of the seat in front of him in a white-knuckled grip. Above us, a cloud of gnats hovered like one of Fish's storm clouds, as if unhappy Uncle-Autry thoughts had summoned the dark swarm. I was about to ask him what he'd meant, but the twins were growing bored of stacking chairs.

“Papi!” they groaned together. Autry shook himself, looking up at the cloud of gnats as if he were surprised to see them. He sent the bugs packing with a quick wave, then stood, moving to join his daughters.

“Enjoy the view, Ledge,” he called back. “Join us in the barn whenever you're . . . er,
ready
.”

I'm ready
now
, I thought, staring ahead of me at the peeling bark of the birch trees and the slowly wilting flowers, noticing Grandma Dollop's peanut butter jar on one of the twisted juniper stumps. The jar had been left behind by everyone. Just like me.

Talking with Uncle Autry, I'd briefly forgotten my fear of nosy Sarah Jane and my worry that she might be hiding someplace close, writing down everything. But when a twig cracked behind me, my worries returned.

“Who's there?” I called.

I held my breath and listened. Unable to look at anything but the juniper stumps, the birch trees, and Grandma Dollop's jar, I imagined a horror-movie spider the size of a Volkswagen climbing over the chairs behind me—or worse, the twins coming back to the glade to torment me.

“That was a pretty weird wedding.” Sarah Jane's voice was loud in my ear. If I could've jumped, I would have.

“I knew it! I knew you wouldn't leave!” I bellowed. “I thought we had a deal. You promised!”

“I changed my mind.” She shrugged, moving into my line of sight. “The candy bars you gave me were all melty.” She clucked her tongue. “So, I decided I'd come back for something more.” I watched as Sarah Jane dropped her backpack—
my
backpack—and wandered to the front of the clearing.

“So, do you come from a family of circus performers or something?” Sarah Jane looked up, down, and all around, as if searching for the lift or wires that had held Mellie off the ground. “This could be front-page stuff. Front-page!” she murmured, pulling out her battered notebook.

I snorted. From what I'd seen of Sarah Jane's rinkydink paper, it only
had
one page. Everything she wrote was front-page stuff.

“I said it before and I'll say it again,” the girl went on, “weddings sell papers, Cowboy. A wedding with super-duper special effects and crazy flying stunts will sell even more. The butterflies were a nice touch. I suppose Mr. O'Connell had something to do with those?”

“What do you know about my uncle?”

“I know he's good with bugs. People around here ask for his help all the time. He even took a wasp nest down from outside my bedroom window a few years ago. He didn't spray the nest or anything. He just climbed a tall ladder like a knight scaling a tower, stood there for a few minutes like he was having a conversation with the wasps, then pulled the nest down with his bare hands. His
bare hands
,” she repeated, jabbing the air with her pencil for emphasis.

“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.

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.”