Scumble

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Acknowledgements

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS • A division of Penguin Young Readers Group Published by The Penguin Group • Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is published in partnership with Walden Media, LLC. Walden Media and the Walden Media skipping stone logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of Walden Media, LLC, 17 New England Executive Park, Building 17, Suite 305, Burlington, Massachusetts 01803.

  Copyright © 2010 by Ingrid Law

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Law, Ingrid, date.

  Scumble / Ingrid Law.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-44245-6

  [1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Secrets—Fiction. 3. Reporters and reporting—Fiction. 4. Ranch life—Wyoming—Fiction. 5. Wyoming—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.L41836Scu 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010002444

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Phillip,

  who was always there for me,

  even when he wasn’t.

  Chapter 1

  MOM AND DAD HAD KNOWN ABOUT the wedding at my uncle Autry’s ranch for months. But with the date set a mere ten days after my thirteenth birthday, my family’s RSVP had remained solidly unconfirmed until the last possible wait-and-see moment. We had to wait until my birthday came and went. We had to see if anything exploded, caught fire, or flooded before committing to a long-haul trip across four states in the minivan. In my family, thirteenth birthdays were like time bombs, with no burning fuse or beeping countdown to tell you when to plug your ears, duck, brace yourself, or turn tail and get the hay bales out of Dodge.

  I’d known for years that something in my blood and guts and brains and bones was poised to turn me tall-tale, gollywhopper weird. On my thirteenth birthday, a mysterious ancestral force would hit like lightning, giving me my very own off-the-wall talent. My very own savvy. Making me just like the rest of the spectacular square pegs I was related to.

  My mom’s side of the family had always been more than a little different. I doubted there were many people with a time-hopping great-aunt, a grandpa who shaped mountains and valleys out of land once pancake-flat, and a mix of cousins who ranged from electric to mind-reading to done-gone vanished—Poof! I’d even had a great-uncle who could spit hailstones like watermelon seeds, or gargle water into vapor and blow it out his ears. When Great-uncle Ferris turned thirteen, his savvy had stunned him with a sudden, sunny-colored snowstorm inside the family outhouse, toppling the small shack like an overburdened ice chest that rolled down the hill with him still inside it.

  As for me, I’d been sure my birthday would treat me better—sure I had the perfect mix of genes to make me supersonically swift. Unlike Mom, Dad was ordinary, but even without a savvy, he was still one of the best runners in Vanderburgh County. So it was practically destiny that I’d become the fastest member of the Theodore Roosevelt Middle School track team. The fastest kid on the planet.

  Nothing worked out the way I’d hoped.

  On my thirteenth birthday, I didn’t get bigger, better, stronger muscles, or start racing at the speed of light. I didn’t get the ability to whiz blizzards in the blaze of summer, either. But it wasn’t like I hadn’t gotten a savvy of my own.

  Watches and windshield wipers everywhere, look out! I could blow stuff apart without a touch, dismantling small things in bursts of parts and pieces: a light switch here, a doorknob there, garage door opener, can opener, Dad’s stop watch, his electric nose-hair trimmer too. After the first few episodes, I shoved whatever I couldn’t fix underneath my bed. I didn’t want Mom and Dad to know how much stuff I was breaking. Already, I could see my future: No more training with Dad for the father-son half marathon in the fall. No track team, no more school, no friends. Rather than flinging crinkle-cut dills in the cafeteria, I’d be staying home to grow moss in pickle jars like my Beaumont cousins. Because if I hit Josh and Ryan and Big Mouth Brody Sandoval with ceiling panels and table hardware instead of handfuls of baby gherkins, Josh and Ryan might laugh it off, but Big Mouth Brody would tell for sure—and that wouldn’t go over well at home.

  Family rules said keep quiet. No one risked the consequences of sharing the family secret unless they had to; it was impossible to know what might happen if people found out that we weren’t normal. Nicer folks might want to hire us for our skills. Less nice ones might want to put us in a freak show, or lock us up to study us and try to decode our genomes.

  Well, secrecy was fine by me. The ability to bust apart a toaster wasn’t something I cared to boast about. It helped that Dad was clearly in denial, while Mom believed she had everything under control. As far as my parents were concerned, I was simply Ledger Kale, doohickey-destructo boy less-than extraordinaire. And I was happy to let them think it.

  So, nine days after I turned thirteen, Mom and Dad confirmed our family’s RSVP and we packed our bags, preparing to hightail our way west from Indiana to Wyoming.

  It wasn’t long before everyone regretted the decision. As Dad pushed the minivan to its limits, trying to make it to the wedding on time, we were stalled again and again by a procession of problems along the interstate. I mislaid the muffler in Missouri, busted needle bearings in Nebraska, and sent us skidding in South Dakota, three wheels on our wagon. Helping Dad chase down our wayward tire, I worried the whole transmission might be next.

  I sank lower in my seat with each new mishap, willing my savvy to go away, ignoring my sister as she shook her head inside the oversized football helmet she’d worn nonstop since my birthday.

  “Ledger!” Mom turned to face me in the van. “If you’re causing this trouble, stop.”

  “Yeah,” Fedora piped up. “Safety starts with S, Ledge, but it begins with you.” My sister’s second-grade teacher had been
a stickler for safety, and Fe carried her most memorable sayings inside her head, handing them out like toothbrushes on Halloween.

  “I mean it, Ledge,” Mom continued. “Keep it together—keep everything together—until we reach Wyoming.” She smiled her best bulldozer smile, the one hardly anyone in the world could stand against. Mom’s savvy word-and-smile combo had been making me and my sister eat our broccoli and keep our rooms clean forever, and Dad never forgot to take out the trash, though sometimes he did roll his eyes as he stepped out the door. Dinah Kale’s savvy put her in control. She’d even stopped a bank robber once just by telling him to sit down and be still, shackling him with five words and a smile until the police arrived.

  Now I could see that Mom was beginning to understand—the longer I sat trapped in the van, the more danger there was of me turning it into a unicycle. Already I could feel the itch and buzz of my savvy zinging beneath my skin. Another incident like the one with the tire, and my parents might be forced to ship me to Antarctica, where only seals and penguins would come out to watch me run the local half marathon.

  Knowing there were some normal human things my Mom wouldn’t stop me from doing, I started downing Gatorade like Uncle Ferris preparing to create a winter storm. By the time I spied the sign for Sundance, Wyoming, the closest spot on the map to my uncle Autry’s ranch, there were four empty bottles at my feet, and I had to water the cactuses in a serious way.

  “We have to stop now!” I announced.

  “Yeah, I’m dying here,” Fedora chimed in, straining against her seat belt. “My butt’s going to fall off and I’m thirsty. Ledge drank everything we had.”

  “Maybe a short pit stop, Tom?” Mom suggested on a sigh, casting a glance at the empty bottles. Dad nodded, his chin a lead weight. I sighed too, relieved my plan had worked. Already, the dome light above me was rattling in its fittings.

  The town was as still and silent as if the ghost of the Wild West outlaw the Sundance Kid had come back to haunt the place. My imagination was full of childhood stories of stout-hearted sheriffs in clinking spurs and masked banditos robbing stagecoaches, but the streets were deserted. Not even a tumbleweed bumbled up the sidewalk.

  Dad parked in front of a boarded-up T-shirt shop with a large red sign in its window. The sign read: FORECLOSURE. I knew what the word meant—the T-shirt shop was history. A spattering of similar red signs dotted front yards and buildings like a poison ivy rash. I’d seen notices just like them back in Indiana. The bank had put one up in Big Mouth Brody’s front yard last year, threatening to take his home, and making my loud friend quieter than I’d ever known him.

  “Make it quick, you two.” Mom’s smile was all business as she gave Fedora a handful of change for a drink. Fe and I raced out of the car, making a beeline past the doomed T-shirt shop toward Willie’s Five & Dime.

  It felt good to be out of the van. Even better to stretch my legs.

  If I hadn’t already been worried about my savvy, and if nature hadn’t been screaming my name through a bullhorn, I’d have stopped dead in my tracks in front of the five-and-dime. A fully restored thing-of-beauty motorcycle stood parked at an angle next to an empty Crook County sheriff’s truck. The vintage Harley Knucklehead, powder-coated in gold paint, glinted in the sun like newly unburied treasure. Treasure I could turn pronto into trash if I wasn’t careful. I was still looking over my shoulder at the bike as I rushed through the swinging door after my sister, ignoring the smell of hot dogs and convenience store nacho cheese goo.

  “Ouch! Hey, watch it, Cowboy!”

  A couple of white-blond braids, a flash of green eyes, and a sheaf of papers clutched tightly in a girl’s hand were about all I saw before I bolted down an aisle stocked with souvenirs and polished rocks, metal shelves rattling in my wake. Even as I sped toward the back of the store, I realized the mistake I’d made in my scheming. I’d traded one potential disaster for another. If my savvy went berserk inside the five-and-dime, there’d be fallen shelves, busted roller grills, drink machine fountains . . . and witnesses.

  By the time I hustled back out of the washroom, Fedora was busy sorting her change, fumbling to count out money for a bottle of orange juice and a bargain-bin magnet: a lacquered jackalope with two broken-off antlers, now just a rabbit with two bumps on its noggin.

  Mom’s puppet-master power still had us in its grip, though Fe, chattering away like a blue jay, was clearly struggling to resist. But the man behind the counter was barely listening to my sister. He watched the other girl inside the shop instead—the one whose foot I’d trampled. As I hurried toward the counter and saw the way the girl listened with open curiosity as Fedora babbled about fireworks and butterflies and our cousin’s wedding that evening, I could feel my savvy getting itchier and twitchier. Fedora was getting ball-park close to breaking family rules herself.

  “Stop yammering, Fe, and pay for your juice,” I muttered, shoving past my sister. “Or I’ll beat you back to the van for sure.”

  “Ledge, wait! No fair!” Fe hollered, dropping half her change onto the floor, her need for speed rekindled. I was already moving toward the exit, but the green-eyed girl blocked the door.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any of my papers this week, Willie?” the girl called out as I tried to do-si-do around her, my urgency and frustration increasing with every stonewalled step. “Mrs. Witzel was abducted by aliens after the church bake sale last Sunday and I’ve got the inside scoop!” The girl held her papers high, adding to my irritation as she accidentally smacked me with them.

  Willie gave a negatory grunt. “You’d best be getting home, Sarah Jane,” he said. “Your daddy doesn’t want you using my copy machine anymore, and I don’t want any trouble.”

  I reached the door just as Sarah Jane turned to leave. In seconds, my running shoes crossed laces with her green Converse low-tops, and our combined forward movement carried us outside in a Twister-game tangle of arms and legs, and a sudden frenzy of flying papers.

  My bumbling stumble turned into a fast, hard fall, and I hit the sidewalk rolling—rolling like a boy-shaped bowling ball toward the motorcycle parked beside the sheriff’s truck. My mouth filled with the taste of panic, sharp and metallic. I lurched to a stop, my right shoe missing the front spokes of the Knucklehead by a centimeter. I hadn’t touched it, yet the machine began to teeter. To wobble. To vibrate and to shake.

  As Fedora rushed out of the five-and-dime in a single-minded blur shouting, “Ha! Beat you to the car, Mister Clumsy Pants!” my pulse sounded in my ears . . . once . . . twice . . . three times. Then, watching Fe race ahead and barrel down the block, every bit of savvy energy I’d been holding in for hours and miles broke loose.

  From front wheel to back, the Knucklehead exploded.

  Parts and pieces slammed into the side of the sheriff’s truck with heavy, thudding smacks and the clang and skreel of metal on metal. The bike’s handlebars hit the truck, smashing the windshield with a crash before bouncing back in my direction like a boomerang. A second later, the door of the sheriff’s truck fell off its hinges.

  Mechanical rubble littered the pavement.

  Fear thumped a hand-over-fist rhythm against my ribs.

  I barely noticed as Fe reached the minivan, tossed in her helmet, then ran to join Mom and Dad in the coffee shop across the street, leaving the van’s door wide open. That horrible zinging itch I’d had in the car was gone, but how was I going to hide this?

  If the sheriff arrived now, he’d lock me up and throw away the key. If the owner of the Knucklehead found me first, I’d be ding-dong, doornail dead.

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight, wishing that this whole savvy nightmare was nothing but a rotten dream. In the twenty seconds I spent down for the count, the girl named Sarah Jane gathered up her papers and took off. I knew I ought to do the same, because when I opened my eyes, my disaster was still real-life real.

  Jamming down the block, I slipped in through the van’s open door just as Mom and Dad exited the coffee sh
op—blind to everything but my sister’s stupid magnet, admiring it like it wasn’t even broken. Maybe they hadn’t noticed that the thing was supposed to be a legendary creature, not just some bunny with a lumpy head. But as long as Mom and Dad’s focus didn’t turn toward the mess I’d left behind me, Fe was welcome to our parents’ undivided attention.

  Headed out of town, my stomach twisted into a dozen different kinds of knots. I wondered if Sarah Jane would report me to the Crook County sheriff, or tell Willie what I’d done. I pictured a red foreclosure sign stapled to my forehead; at the rate I was going, I would soon be history.

  Chapter 2

  IT WAS DAD WHO FIRST PLANTED the idea that my savvy might be gold-medal material, despite Mom’s warnings that savvy talents are unpredictable. Dad had been building his hopes since we ran our first three-legged race; it hadn’t mattered that I’d tripped us ten feet from the finish line. We had big dreams.

  On the morning of my thirteenth birthday, I couldn’t eat. My stomach threatened a sick, seesawing rebellion, and I didn’t want to remember thirteen forever as the birthday I barfed up breakfast. My thoughts were a treadmill of hope and worry as I pictured the trophies I’d put side by side with Dad’s if things turned out the way we planned.

  Running, running, running, I thought. Let my savvy make me fast, fast, fast!

  “Imagine it, Ledger,” Dad said, letting the corner of the sports section dip as he gave me an encouraging thumbs-up. “By the end of today you’ll be able to run halfway across Indiana in the time it takes your pal Ryan to tie his shoelaces.” Ryan had beaten me easily in the eight-hundred-meter run at school. Dad had taken me out for pizza after, but I knew he wished I’d won.

  “Tom . . .” Mom gave Dad a warning look.

  I pushed my scrambled eggs into shapes with my fork—cars and lightning bolts and frowning faces—destroying them again as I did my best to echo Dad’s enthusiasm.