Tumble & Blue Read online

  Ma Myrtle spent a lot of time making phone calls to Montgomerys all over the world. She was the only person who knew exactly when the red moon would rise and exactly how to claim the great fate when it did. And she would be the one who decided which member of the family won the chance to change his or her fortune.

  Over the next few days, relatives showed up in droves.

  Mostly, the arrivals were the ones with bad fates, as Blue had suspected they would be, but others came, too. The empty rooms in the huge old house were filled. Then they were overfilled. Until, at last, an elderly uncle appeared who couldn’t climb the house’s many staircases, and Blue found himself ousted from his space on the ground floor.

  It was five o’clock in the morning, and there wasn’t a single empty room to be had.

  Blue would have to sleep in the attic.

  Ida helped him move his belongings. There was no bed in the attic, but they found an air mattress in a closet. Ida sat on the floor, her pink pajama pants turning gray from all the dust, and tried to figure out how to inflate the mattress while Blue rearranged boxes and ranted about Howard.

  “I thought maybe he would share with me! Just his bedroom floor or something. But he wouldn’t, and when I tried to force open the door—”

  “Ow,” Ida said sympathetically.

  “Who electrifies their doorknob?” Blue kicked a cardboard box. There were dozens of them. He could barely manage to clear a space for the mattress.

  “Howard does. Since we were kids. He’s not a sharer.”

  Blue’s hand still felt numb from the powerful shock Howard’s booby trap had delivered. It didn’t improve his mood. “This house is going to fall down if one more cursed person shows up. How many relatives do we even have?”

  Ida shrugged and leaned back against an old washing machine box. “You know how Montgomerys almost never change our last names. Even people who wouldn’t normally count as relations, like our sixth cousins twice removed, are still part of the family.”

  She set aside the instruction sheet that had come with the mattress. “I think we need a pump of some kind for this.”

  “Great,” Blue grunted, pushing against a heavy crate.

  “I know it’s a pain,” Ida said. “I finally had to move in with Jenna, and we’ve never shared a bedroom before. Her pets . . .”

  “Sorry,” Blue said, feeling guilty for complaining. “But she keeps the gerbils in their cages right?”

  “Don’t call them cages,” Ida groaned. “They’re ‘habitats.’ And the little monsters haven’t managed to escape. Yet.”

  Gerbils were the compromise the twins had come up with years ago. Because they were, in theory, safe enough for Ida to be around. But Jenna had trained them. She called them the Gerbellion, and they were smarter, faster, and stronger than normal gerbils.

  “It’s okay.” Ida looked around the attic. “At least there aren’t cobwebs in our room.”

  “Or boxes.” Blue’s shoulders were starting to ache. The big crate was too heavy to shove. “What’s in these things anyway?”

  “It’s . . .” Ida hesitated. “Just junk. Don’t bother looking. I’m sure we can find somewhere else to put them when Granny Eve wakes up.”

  “Not unless she’s got another house hidden somewhere. That guy who can hit anything with a slingshot—”

  “Great Uncle Morris. Perfect aim.”

  “Whoever he is, he’s sleeping in the pantry.”

  Blue had been introduced to most of the relatives, but remembering their names was impossible. It was easier to think of them as their fates. That cousin who caused car accidents. The aunt who always had a head cold. The semifamous poet. The toddler who sang country music. That guy who had to live outside in a tent because he caught stuff on fire all the time.

  “They’re everywhere,” he said, slumping down on top of the crate.

  “Howard says Ma Myrtle has lost her last marble.” Ida looked toward the attic’s window. It was half hidden behind a stack of storage tubs. “But I think she just wants to distract herself from the fact that she’s . . . you know.”

  Blue did know. “It’s still not fair to the rest of you! I mean, this is your house.”

  “Yours, too, now.”

  He shook his head. “You know I’m only here for the summer.”

  “It must be nice.” Ida’s voice was wistful. “To have a dad who doesn’t mind that you weren’t born with one of the good fates.”

  Blue wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I thought maybe if I called him and told him how crowded it was here, he might come back early. But I can barely find a moment to use the kitchen phone, and I think that girl who makes the lights flicker fried the one in the foyer.”

  “Cousin Ernestine—she has electrical issues. But we still have the answering machine,” said Ida. “Your dad can leave a message.”

  Blue had been checking the answering machine three times a day.

  “The two of us will just have to stick together until they’re all gone in a few weeks,” Ida said.

  “What?”

  “You know.” She gestured across the space between them. “We’re the only two who can’t . . . they’re all trying to convince Ma Myrtle she should choose them to make the journey into the swamp and we . . .”

  Blue squirmed. As nice as Ida was, he didn’t want to be lumped together with her like this.

  She didn’t seem to notice. “Our school takes a field trip into the Okefenokee almost every year, and I always pretend to have the flu.”

  Ida’s animal problem was no small thing. The same curse had eventually killed their great-great-grandfather. A plow horse had escaped from its pasture just to have the privilege of trampling him.

  “Stomping around in a swamp full of crazed beasts? No thanks.” She smiled weakly at Blue. “And you’re in the same boat. At least none of the others sees us as a threat. Maybe they’ll leave us alone until it’s over.”

  Blue opened his mouth to argue, to say that he wasn’t going to give up. To tell her that he needed a new fate as much as any of the other Montgomerys did. But Ida leaned toward him and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Anyway, we’ve already decided. Howard, Jenna, and I have. Granny Eve is the one who should have the new fate. I can’t go into the swamp, and Jenna and Howard don’t need to.”

  Blue’s stomach flopped inside him like a dying fish.

  Granny Eve’s fate. He’d forgotten. Nobody ever talked about it.

  And she’d been so good to him in her own gruff way. Blue had a feeling that a lot of people wouldn’t have been as understanding about an estranged grandson showing up on their doorstep with no warning.

  “Right.” He struggled to hide the upset in his voice. “Granny Eve. I hadn’t thought about . . . but of course if anyone . . . I guess.”

  Ida nodded. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Granny Eve isn’t that old, though. And she’s as tough as anyone I know. She could make it through the swamp.”

  Blue couldn’t find an argument.

  Granny Eve had practically carried poor Mrs. Lane inside after her fainting spell a few nights ago. And even though Blue had volunteered to do it, she’d climbed onto Okra Lane’s roof herself to make sure that there weren’t any stray pages from the Montgomery family history to be salvaged.

  “She’s really tough,” he said.

  Ida beamed. “Exactly. We’re going to make sure she gets the happy ending she deserves. It’s the least we can do for her after everything she’s done to take care of us. And now that you’re here, too . . . well, we’re an even stronger team, aren’t we?”

  Blue’s thoughts were so selfish he almost couldn’t think them.

  “We’re going to figure it all out,” Ida said confidently. “But for now—”

  She stood and reached for a pillowcase-covered bundle she’d carri
ed upstairs with the air mattress. She whipped the pillowcase off to reveal a lopsided Easter basket stuffed with knickknacks. She held it out to Blue.

  “Surprise!” she said. “I’m sorry none of it’s new, but I haven’t really had time to go shopping. I thought you deserved a Welcome to the House present, and this was stuff I had in my room. So . . . welcome to the house. And to the attic, I guess.”

  Blue examined the contents of the Easter basket.

  A rolled-up poster that turned out to be covered in paint splatters. Rainbow-colored, of course.

  A tin of breath mints.

  A half-burned candle that smelled like lemon cake.

  He picked up a picture frame decorated with wooden stars and turned it over in his hands. It was empty. His throat clenched up around an emotion he didn’t like at all.

  “I didn’t bring any . . .”

  “Oh, you can use Jenna’s printer if you need a photo,” said Ida. “She’ll pretend to mind, but she won’t really.”

  When Blue didn’t answer, her voice turned worried. “I know it’s not as good as some of your own stuff. I mean, your dad can buy you whatever you want I guess, but I thought it might be nice to have some things to make the room more homey.”

  Blue swallowed. “It’s great, Ida.” He forced a smile and reached into the bottom of the basket. He pulled out a gray plastic box. “I love it. All of it. Even this . . . um . . . this.”

  “That’s a no-kill mousetrap.”

  “Are there a lot of mice around here?” The attic did seem like the kind of place that would be infested.

  “No, it’s in case the Gerbellion gerbils ever escape.”

  Blue laughed, but Ida shook her head. “You’ve got no idea what they’re capable of.”

  FIVE

  BOXES

  The borrowed sneakers struck the sandy road with a sound that was more of a thuff than a thud. Blue tried to focus on that sound, tried to make it faster.

  Thuff, thuff. Think about that. Not the house. Not Ida. Not the relatives or the attic or the boxes or another whole stupid day without a single call from . . .

  Blue’s chest ached, but he told himself it was just his heart getting stronger, pumping harder. It was sending blood to his feet so that they could get him to the sign in twelve minutes.

  Don’t think. Just thuff.

  But Blue had learned that running and thinking went together whether he wanted them to or not, and this morning was no exception.

  He couldn’t stop worrying. About why his dad hadn’t called. About whether or not he hated Ma Myrtle a little bit for putting them through all of this.

  Only a horrible person would feel that way, he was sure. Ida wasn’t angry with their great-grandmother.

  She said that Ma Myrtle had just found out she was going to die. She said of course a dying mischief-maker would try to distract herself with a little mayhem. She said it was awfully lucky that Blue had come along when he did to help out.

  Blue wished Ida would stop saying things.

  He wanted to feel happy about promising to help his cousins win the new fate for Granny Eve, or at least, he wanted to feel noble and selfless. Instead, he felt that old familiar dread. The knowledge that he’d lost before he’d even begun weighed Blue down until it was so heavy he couldn’t keep running with it.

  He slowed to a jog. Then to a stomp.

  Blue stomped down his usual route, glaring at everything around him. Trees, ditches, the little gray house with no curtains that was the only other building on the road. An RV, gleaming red and as huge as a fire engine, was parked outside.

  The RV was new. Blue glared at it, too.

  Feeling suddenly ridiculous, Blue stopped glaring and took a swipe at the gnats that were swarming around his face. He caught a whiff of his cast and grimaced. He’d been sweating in it on his runs, and it had passed gross a while ago.

  It was actually a bad dream about Devon breaking his arm that had woken Blue up early that morning. He couldn’t go back to sleep, so he’d sat there, staring at the stacks of boxes. Wondering what was in them.

  He shouldn’t have opened them. He’d thought they’d be stuffed full of holiday ornaments, old photos, and clothes that didn’t fit anyone. Wasn’t that what people kept in attics?

  Not Blue’s family.

  He’d opened four of them before he’d given up and run away. They were all filled with awards. Blue had found a plaque that said 1st Place District Science Fair. A beauty pageant trophy for Young Miss Brilliant Smile. He’d found medals. Ribbons. Certificates.

  There were magazines with Montgomerys on the cover and shiny golden cups with their names engraved on the bases. The boxes, all of them, were filled with words like “Grand Prize” and “Top Place.”

  Champion. Victor. Winner.

  In most families, those things would have been kept on a high shelf. Or they would have been tucked away behind glass. But in the Montgomery house they were relegated to the attic with its single dim lightbulb and its bare wooden floor. They had been left up there, abandoned, with the dust and the spiders and Blue.

  The attic wasn’t a trophy case. It was where you put things you didn’t care to think about often.

  If Blue had ever won a medal, for anything, he would have kept it somewhere safe. It would have been so special, proof that for at least one shining moment he hadn’t come in last.

  But maybe, he thought, it was different when you were used to winning.

  What if everything was different for someone like that?

  A scream lived inside of Blue. He hadn’t realized it, but he felt it now. Maybe it had been there since his dad left. Or since that first day when he didn’t call. Or maybe . . .

  Maybe Blue had been born with it, like his fate, and it had been growing with him all this time. A poisonous vine that had been fertilized too much recently.

  Then, from Blue’s back pocket, an angry siren sounded. It was his cell phone alarm. The impossible twelve-minute timer.

  Blue let the scream out.

  SIX

  TUMBLE

  Blue didn’t go all the way to the sign that morning. He turned around and trudged back toward his attic instead.

  He was watching Howard’s sneakers scuff the sand, finally not thinking after that scream, when a voice, panting and excited, said, “I’m here to help, and help is here!”

  Blue almost leaped out of his shoes.

  He had gotten used to being the only one on the road. The other Montgomerys were all too busy fawning over Ma Myrtle to exercise, and besides, he ran early to avoid the worst of the heat.

  He spun around and saw that a girl around his own age had appeared behind him.

  Her cheeks were flushed as if she’d been out for a run, too, but she was wearing pajama shorts and a nightshirt with a picture of a man in a spangled white jumpsuit on the front.

  MAXIMAL STAR, the shirt said in glitter letters. BELIEVE IN BRAVERY!

  “Are you having heart trouble?” the girl asked. Her brown eyes were wide. “Abdominal pain?”

  “What? No!” said Blue. “Where did you come from?”

  The girl’s short brown hair stuck up in the back like she hadn’t had time to brush it. “Shin splints?” she said. “A stitch in your side?” She waved a white plastic case at him, and Blue realized it was a first aid kit.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I heard you scream.”

  “No you didn’t,” said Blue automatically. He felt a blush rising up his neck. “That was somebody else.”

  The girl squinted. “It was you.” Her tone was matter of fact. She stared down at his feet. “Maybe you’ve got an ingrown toenail.”

  This girl was weird even by Montgomery standards.

  “My toenails are fine,” Blue said. “Did you follow me all the way out here?”

 
Was she spying on him? There was a lot of spying going on at the house. Everyone was sizing up the competition, trying to gather dirt on everybody else so that they could tattle to Ma Myrtle and get a rival disqualified before the next crescent moon rose. In case it was the red one.

  It was only seven days away. Blue had spied a new lunar calendar on the wall in the kitchen. The red sickle moon was supposed to appear sometime in the summer— nobody knew exactly when thanks to Ma Myrtle. The relatives seemed to think that the end of May might be summery enough to count.

  “You shouldn’t waste your time with me,” he said to the girl. “I’m Blue.”

  He assumed she must be a new arrival, since he hadn’t seen her around the house before. She probably thought he was some super-powerful Montgomery worthy of espionage.

  But the girl only lowered her first aid kit, and said sympathetically, “Everyone feels like that sometimes. Do you want to talk about it?”

  It took Blue a minute to get it, even though dumb jokes about his name had always been the norm at school.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not sad. I’m Blue. Alan’s son.”

  That should do it. His dad wasn’t the most famous Montgomery, but he was high on the list. Everyone knew Fast Alan, the racing star.

  The girl only blinked. Then she beamed. “Oh! Blue. That’s a great name! I call myself Tumble. Are you a Maximal Star fan, too? I’ve got four copies of How to Hero Every Day!”

  “No?” Blue said. “Isn’t he the guy who has the protein shake infomercials?”

  She deflated. “He’s so much more than that. I guess you’re not a hero in training, then?”

  A what? “I’m Blue. You know . . . the one who loses.”

  “What did you lose?” She looked at the ground as if she expected to find a contact lens he’d dropped.

  Blue had thought this Tumble girl would have heard about his curse. It was one of the more memorable ones, after all. “No, I didn’t lose a thing. I just lose.”