Accidental Evil
More by Ike - The Hunting Tree
More by Ike - The Vivisectionist
More by Ike - Lies of the Prophet
ACCIDENTAL EVIL
B
Y
IKE HAMILL
Dedication:
For my father and brother & family who live in the real Kingston Lakes.
Special Thanks:
Cover design by BelleDesign [BelleDesign.org]
Thanks again to Jayn Olinick, who continues to send me wonderful notes!
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events have been fabricated only to entertain. If they resemble any facts in any way, I’d be completely shocked. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of Ike Hamill. Unless, of course, you intend to quote a section of the book in order to illustrate how awesome it is. In that case, go ahead. Copyright
©
2016 by Ike Hamill. All rights reserved. (2)
[ Magic ]
J
UNE
29
“G
EORGE
,
GO
call your brother,” Mary said.
George was sitting on the bench next to the fan. It was blowing in the only cool air to be found in the house. He didn’t want to move.
“George,” she said again. Mary wiped the sweat from her forehead with her arm as she turned. His mom always got into a foul mood when she canned fruit. For some reason, boiling store bought fruit made her even angrier.
George didn’t answer. He pulled himself from the booth and slapped his bare feet across the wood floor until he got to the bottom of the stairs. The narrow treads were painted. They got sticky when it was this hot.
“Ricky!” he called.
From the kitchen, he heard something clatter into the sink. His mom would get even angrier if he yelled again. George bolted up the stairs. He wasn’t timing it, but he figured it might have been his fastest climb yet. The air at the top of the steps was perfectly still. The shaft of light coming through the far window showed him the dust hanging there. It swept out of the way as George turned for his brother’s room. The door was cracked open, but George banged on it anyway. Better safe than sorry.
There was no answer.
“Ricky!” he called again.
No answer.
George pushed open the door. The hinges squeaked and George figured out why his brother hadn’t answered—he wasn’t in his room. The window was open. George parted the translucent curtains and stuck his head outside. His brother was there, sitting on the porch roof with two steel rings in one hand and a blue ball in the other.
George forgot about telling his brother that it was dinner time. He forgot about the heat. He climbed out through the window and shuffled down the shingled roof.
“Whatcha doin’?” George asked.
“Forget it,” Ricky said. He put the rings down next to himself.
“Come on. Show me what you’re working on,” George said.
“No,” Ricky said. He shook his head.
George looked up to his older brother. He didn’t have much choice. Ricky was fifteen and on the verge of becoming an adult. George was only eight. But as much as he looked up to his older brother, George knew a thing or two about manipulating him.
“It’s probably no good,” George said. “You’ve got some pretty good tricks, but a lot of them are just killing time.”
Ricky studied his brother and then gave a forced laugh. He wasn’t falling for it today.
“You’re right,” Ricky said. “Just a filler. If it were a really good trick, you might want to see it, but you don’t want to see a stupid filler trick, right?”
George decided to change tactics. “I was just joking, Ricky. Please show me your trick?”
“How about a nice card trick? Come on. Let’s go inside and I’ll show you a good one.”
“I kinda want to see the rings though.”
Ricky shook his head. “I’m not showing you that one.”
“Why not?”
“Because you always get upset when I won’t show you how it’s done. I’m not going to tell you how this one is done, so I’m not going to show you the trick.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“I promise I won’t ask.”
“You always ask.”
“But I won’t this time, I swear,” George said. Ricky looked at him and then shook his head. George realized that his brother wasn’t going to give in—not until George sweetened the pot a little. “I’ll wash all the blueberries tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“Then on Monday. I’ll wash all of them on Monday.”
“You’ll forget by then and then claim that we never had a deal,” Ricky said.
“I underpants swear,” George said. It was their most sacred oath. As far as he knew, nobody had ever gone back on an underpants swear.
Still, Ricky didn’t seem swayed.
“All the blueberries on Monday and Tuesday, and you’ll never bug me to tell you how I do it, no matter how bad you want to.”
George considered this carefully. His father had taught him this—never appear eager to agree, it would weaken his position. Finally he nodded. “Okay.”
Ricky studied him for a second and then nodded back. “Okay. You have to understand though, I don’t have all the patter down yet. It’s still rough.”
“That’s fine.”
Ricky held up the rings with one hand and the ball with the other.
“Gravity is our most trusted ally,” Ricky said in his magician’s voice. He tossed the blue ball straight up and took a ring in each hand as the ball came down. He aligned the rings so that the ball passed straight through them before it landed in his lap. “When I’m standing, I catch the ball on the bounce,” he told George.
Ricky switched back to his magician’s voice. “But what do we do when gravity abandons us?”
Ricky whispered something and tossed the blue ball again. This time, he didn’t toss it nearly as high. It rose to the level of Ricky’s eyes and then hung there, suspended.
“When gravity fails us, can we trust the sun to rise?”
George’s mouth fell open as he watched the ball. He saw the seam of the ball as it rotated slowly, hanging in the air. Ricky flashed the rings as he moved one to each hand again. Still, the ball hung.
“Will rain still fall? Will we still be able to walk on the ground?”
As Ricky spoke his patter, he passed the rings around the hovering ball. George watched carefully to see where Ricky might be avoiding the fishing line that must be holding up the ball. George didn’t see any of that—the illusion was perfect.
“Best to not defy our old friend gravity,” Ricky said. “Who knows what the consequences would be?”
Ricky slipped the rings down his arm and wore them around his elbow as he held his hand out under the ball. Still, it hung in the air. George saw Ricky’s lips move and then the ball dropped politely into his palm.
Ricky turned to George.
“Wow!” George said. He blinked several times and then said it again.
“I need to figure out new patter. I thought the gravity stuff would be classy, but I think it sounds jerky.”
“Wow,” George said. “How did you do that?”
Ricky’s face curled into a scowl.
George looked from the blue ball to his brother’s eyes. It took him a second.
“I didn’t mean it. You don’t have to tell me. Wow.”
“Don’t forget—Monday and Tuesday. You underpants swore.”
“Show me again,” George said.
From down in the kitchen, they heard their mother yell.
“No,” Ricky said. “We better get down there before she kills us.”
“One more time?”
“Later,” Ricky said.
[ Dinner ]
“George, what did I tell you about those dirty feet?” Mary Dunn asked.
George tipped one of his feet up to look at it. He legitimately couldn’t remember any instructions about his feet. He shrugged.
His mom waved her wooden spoon at him and gave a frustrated grunt through clenched teeth.
“Don’t go walking through the chicken stuff and then track it in to my house. If you’re going to walk around barefoot, then you have to wash your feet before you come in the kitchen.”
George nodded dutifully. He didn’t remember any of this, and was pretty sure she was making it all up for the first time. But he also sensed that it would be a terrible time to challenge her on this. Her face was blueberry-preserves-making mad.
“And where’s your brother?”
“He said he had to go to the bathroom,” George said. He slid his way down the bench to his spot next to the fan. His mom turned off the stove burner and tossed her wooden spoon towards the sink.
George heard the truck and pressed his face against the fan grate to see his dad get out. George was in a tunnel of moving air as he watched his father close the door on the black truck and walk to the back porch stairs. A second later, his father came through the back door.
“There’s Mr. Fancy Pants Office Man,” Mary said.
His father raised his eyebrows and tugged the tie down from his collar. Mary and Vernon leaned towards each other for a quick kiss before he turned for the fridge.
“Blueberries for dinner?” Vernon asked. His father contracted the word, so it sounded like, “Blue Breeze.”
George laughed. Mary rolled her eyes.
“Last batch of this store bought crap. The old lady is going to have to stretch this out until we get our bushes in. I’m not spending eight bucks a quart on these tasteless monstrosities anymore.”
Vernon got his special root beer from the top shelf. No kids were allowed to touch those brown bottles. Vernon saved those for after work. After removing the cap, Vernon slid into the booth across from George. His father reached across and took George’s chin between this thumb and finger.
“Let me see,” Vernon said.
George bared his teeth.
“No fist fights today then?”
When George shook his head, his father released his grip on his chin and smiled at him. George smiled back.
Ricky came through the door from the hall.
“Hey,” he said. He flopped down in the booth next to George.
“Wash your hands,” Mary said.
“I just did upstairs,” Ricky said.
The sight of his brother made George remember what had just happened on the porch roof. “Show ’em your new trick, Ricky. Mom, Dad, you have to see Ricky’s new trick.”
“It’s not ready,” Ricky said.
“Come on! It’s really cool,” George said.
Both of his parents were looking at Ricky. George elbowed him in the side.
