Scumble (27 page)

Mr. Cabot stood still for so long, I thought the Bug House might be saved. I waited for him to toss up his hands and turn to go. Instead he raised his cane and brought it down again in one swift slicing motion.

He'd given his men the signal to proceed.

The workmen adjusted their hard hats and fired up their equipment. The deafening rattle of tracks, drive trains, and hydraulic cylinders hammered my eardrums. The demolition crew moved toward the conservatory, grim-faced, the noise of their machinery drowning out the shouts of the twins as they drew nearer, and muffling SJ's cries to stop.

Maybe Sarah Jane could stop her father the same way we'd deflected Hedda. I dug into my pocket, pulling out SJ's loose notebook papers, only to have the wind scatter them from my hand. I realized quickly that it didn't matter. We didn't have a pencil.

As the bulldozers and excavators lurched slowly toward the bug house, Grandpa used the last of his strength—the last of Samson's strength—to shift earth and rock one last time, churning half a dozen monumental boulders up from deep in the earth to try to block the wreckers.

Bitsy barked again. But in the noise ringing and grinding from the bulldozers as they began the new task of pushing Grandpa's boulders out of the way, her woofs and howls went mute.

Moments later, Grandpa Bomba crumpled like an empty burlap sack.

Barely catching Grandpa as he caved in, Samson let go of Bitsy. The big black dog lunged straight for Mr. Cabot. Sarah Jane's dad was doing what he could to push her into one of the trucks, trying to remove her from what was about to become a dangerous mess of fallen wood and steel and glass and flying bugs. As Bitsy nabbed Cabot's pant leg, I ran to help Samson pull Grandpa out of the path of an oncoming bulldozer.

I glanced up in time to see Gypsy poke her head out the door of the Bug House, a giant, iridescent blue-green butterfly stealing a secret ride in her curly hair. It was strange that Gypsy hadn't noticed it. Gypsy usually saw everything.

Seeing the heavy equipment coming toward the conservatory, Gypsy slipped back inside, but not before the enormous butterfly took flight, its wings beating slow and steady like an inhale . . . exhale. My own breathing slowed as I watched the bug land on the wooden beams just above the exterior door. The thing was awesome—sis boom bah
beautiful
.

I swore under my breath, wishing Gypsy had stayed safely outside with the big-honkin' butterfly. But Gypsy had told Autry she'd watch over the Alexandras—no matter what. She was keeping her promise. She should've been saving her own skin.

Grandpa had fallen. The Bug House was about to. Samson and Bitsy had done everything they could. Now it was my turn. Made wrong or made right, it didn't matter.

I had to act.

T
HERE WAS MORE AT STAKE THAN the Bug House now. More than Autry's livelihood or home. The workmen hadn't seen Gypsy. No one knew she was inside.

I took a deep breath and held it, watching the bulldozers push aside Grandpa's uprooted boulders one by one. Then I dropped into a crouch, about to begin an all-new race. Splaying my fingers against the ground, I prepared to start blasting booms and buckets into bits, to pull apart bolts and washers and gaskets and valves. I'd stop Cabot. If I had to, I'd fight him bolt and nail for the King of Damage crown.

My fingertips and palms began to prickle, to creep with that oh-so-familiar savvy itch. Then fear returned, marching through my brain on a thousand tiny feet. What if I lost control? I pictured myself toppling the conservatory the same way I'd pulled down the barn, doing Mr. Cabot's dirty work for him. Crushing Gypsy in the process.

Closing my eyes, I bowed my head, wondering . . . praying . . . demanding to know: Dear God, what
had
I been built to do?

Something whispered against the fingers of my right hand. I opened my eyes. Gypsy's Queen Alexandra was there, fanning me with its wings. I startled, but tried not to move, not wanting to injure it. The butterfly only stayed for a second before it took off and flew away.

I stood and shook my head to try to clear it. To move beyond my fear. I didn't have much time. Already, the wreckers had shifted half of Grandpa's boulders and they kept moving . . . moving closer. There were only three boulders left to push away.

I had to think through my choices—quickly. I was beginning to suspect that, for me,
choice
might be the key to scumbling. Racing here from Sundance, my feet had been on autopilot, but my brain had been in overdrive. Breaking the twins' bikes, asking Winona to let me help her rebuild the motorcycle, putting a twist in the windmill, bending Sarah Jane's initials into the fence . . . all those things had been choices, not reactions. Every time I'd made the
choice
to do something, my scumbling had gotten better. I'd controlled my savvy instead of letting it control me.

Now it was time for me to step up, just as Samson had. To show the world who Ledger Kale really was . . .

Not the kid his dad wanted him to be.

Not the kid his mom
made
him be.

No Cowboy. No Sledgehammer. Not
defective
, either.

Only two boulders left . . .

Soon, one.

I knew I was going to have to Bust! Things! Up! But now I knew too, just as Winona had known, that sometimes things have to come apart before becoming something different—something better.

I crouched down again, letting the fear beneath my skin subside as I looked at SJ and her dad. I thought of the birch tree that protected their house; Cabot had chopped down every tree in their yard but that one. I pictured the birch trees in the glade above us and remembered climbing them, always secure up in the branches. And as a bulldozer pushed Grandpa's last boulder aside . . . as the excavator smashed into the outer door of the conservatory . . . I imagined a picture of my own.

And turned my savvy loose.

 

Within seconds, everything began to change. Workmen leaped from their seats as their trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes started rattling apart. Panicked, one man clung tightly to his steering wheel, even as the roof over his head pulled away, twisting in a warp and stretch of metal. But Marisol and Mesquite were next to me, ready for action.

“We've got your back, Ledge.” Marisol punched me on the left shoulder, dropping her heavy backpack.

“We'll take care of the crew,” Mesquite added, smacking me on the right and dropping her pack too. “The wreckers are yours!” For the first time, I was glad to have the twins by my side.

The two girls levitated the frightened worker up and out of his seat even as it began to jerk and bump beneath him. As they set the man on the ground, his scuffed white hard hat fell from his head and Fedora shot after it like a kitten chasing yarn.

Nabbing the hard hat, Fe ran it straight to me. Resting grubby fingers on my shoulder, she crouched to whisper in my ear:

“Keep safe, Ledger! Use your head—wear a hard hat!”

Even as I stayed fully riveted on my task, I could feel Fe jam the workman's helmet onto my head and kiss the top of it. Then she ran to join Samson where he knelt supporting Grandpa's failing body.

I wanted to cry out to Grandpa to stay strong a little longer, but I was barely hanging on to my savvy as it was; I couldn't take the chance of letting a fraction of control slip.

I focused on the roiling pieces of the wracked and ruined equipment. Watching as those pieces began to morph and change. As they began to fuse together into a growing grove of metal trunks and branches—branches that sprouted leaves of glass and wire and shattered bits of mirror. Mirror that reflected the real me, doing what I was made to do.

I sculpted trees around the Bug House; each one reaching high and lofty. Each one its own strong, protective column. Its own graceful sculpture. Soon there wasn't a single bolt or spring or wire that hadn't become a part of my metal forest.

The wind whipped the scattered pages of Sarah Jane's notebook off the ground. Some of the papers flew high. Others smacked into the trunks of the new trees, looking just like the peeling bark of her mother's birches.

For this moment at least, the spiders and beetles and bugs inside the walls of the conservatory were safe, and the world's largest butterflies still had their home away from home. Only the outer door and the entryway had been destroyed; the interior door still held strong. There was nothing more Mr. Cabot could do. Most of his crew had run away, or hunkered down, crouched low and cowering behind the one truck I'd left standing—the truck where Mr. Cabot had shoved Sarah Jane. Only now SJ was halfway out of the truck and cheering.

Mr. Cabot hadn't budged. Still as a statue himself, he stared at the towering, sculpted trees that had once been his demolition fleet.

Slowly, I stood up, the metallic taste I was beginning to like melting away like a sliver of hard candy on my tongue.

“Mighty fine scumbling, Ledger. Mighty . . . mighty . . . fine.” Grandpa's voice was so weak it barely reached me. As I turned his way, he held up a hand and smiled. I smiled back, tears burning my eyes. Then I pulled off the hard hat Fedora had given me and dropped it on the ground.

Marisol and Mesquite turned toward Mr. Cabot, who took a nervous step back. I expected the twins to polish him off, to pick him up and shake him before dropping him in the river, letting him sputter and splash down the water's brand-new course.

Instead, the twins dug deep into their backpacks and pulled out heavy handfuls of lumpy, golden rocks. They piled them, crystalline and sparkling, into Mr. Cabot's arms before he could refuse their hard-earned riches, every last piece of what they surely believed to be Eva Mae Ransom's long-lost treasure.

I was stunned. Had Uncle Autry been wrong? Because it looked like Grandpa's story might've been true after all. Maybe the twins' attempts at helping me had improved their karma after all.

“Is it enough?” Marisol asked, swiping at her tears.

“Enough to pay off everything Papi owes you?” Mesquite added, wiping her nose on the back of her wrist. “It's got to be worth a lot. It's got to be!”

“Take it!”

“Please!”

The twins pushed everything they had at Mr. Cabot, every last rough nugget from their backpacks. A few more from their pockets.

Unable to hold any more of the brassy yellow stones in his arms, Mr. Cabot hunched forward, removing his hard hat with his one free hand and allowing Marisol and Mesquite to fill it. He looked slowly from the twins to me—then to Gypsy as she stepped out of the conservatory and began to twirl in delight beneath the sculpted trees.

“Come, Sarah Jane,” he said at last, his voice unsteady. “We're done here.” Cabot nodded at the remaining workmen and they hopped into the back of the CAD Co. truck without delay. SJ didn't resist when her dad steered her back into the cab. But as Mr. Cabot started up the engine, SJ cast one long, last look my way—part apology, part thanks—and I wondered if any piece of what had just happened would make it into the next edition of her paper.

“Wait!” I called, rushing to grip the edge of Mr. Cabot's open window, hopping next to the truck as it rolled forward.

“You have to tell her!” I said to him. “You have to tell her
everything
.”

Cabot hit the brakes long enough to turn and glance from me to the brand-new forest of glass and metal trees. His mouth worked like he was chewing jerky. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. Without another scowl or glower, he took his daughter's hand and spun the truck around to drive her home.

As I turned to watch the truck
thump-bump
carefully over the narrowest crack of the rushing gully, I felt a wave of relief. And not only because Mr. Cabot was leaving.

I was relieved to see the minivan parked under the windmill and Mom and Dad standing on the other side of the river, looking for a way to cross. I'd never been so glad to see my parents in my life. But . . . had they seen me? Had they seen what I'd
done
?

Catching sight of Mom and Dad now too, Fedora bounced on her toes, hollering: “Mom! Dad! Look what Ledge can do! He can build things up!” With her motorcycle helmet bobbing, my sister shadowboxed the air above her, shouting: “Build! Things! Up!” And as Dad helped Mom step carefully over the pinched canal, he held his own hand high, punching the air. Giving me a big thumbs-up.

 

Waiting for Rocket and Uncle Autry to return to the ranch, Dad and Mom swung into action doing the things parents always do: making calls, feeling foreheads, furrowing brows, and shooing the dog off the bed. I brought Grandpa's colorful afghan in from outside and spread it over his frail frame. It was the first time I'd set foot inside the O'Connells' house all summer, and it felt in a small way like I'd found a port, won a race, crossed a threshold after a long, uncertain journey, stepping into to a place where I fully belonged at last.

As tough as rawhide and more stubborn than a two-hundred-year-old mule, Grandpa wasn't finished drawing air into his lungs yet.

“I don't think I ever finished my story . . .” he mumbled as we tucked knitted zigzags in around him.

“Shh . . . Grandpa, it's okay,” Mesquite replied, floating him a drink of water.

“You weren't telling us a story,” Marisol added gently, patting Grandpa's wrinkled hand. “Just rest.”

“No, no . . .” Grandpa coughed. “I have to finish my story.”

“Which story, Grandpa?” I asked.

But it was Samson who answered, his voice husky. “He wants to finish the story of Eva Mae El Dorado Two-Birds Ransom.” Samson sat next to Grandpa: jeans, T-shirt, long hair shadowing his own tired eyes. He looked like any regular sixteen-year-old boy. I blinked at him again and again, waiting for him to disappear. But he didn't and I was glad.