CALEB CAME THROUGH for me in fine fashion. The tiny balls he and Luke used to glue Miss Pritchett’s car to her parking space were also water soluble. Caleb just happened to have a larger version in the foot locker. He injected a ball with fabric dye, snuck over to Miss Pritchett’s house, and dropped it in her washer.
“So what’ll happen?” asked Frank when I told him about it.
“When water hits the ball, it’ll dissolve, and release the dye. She’ll have a washer full of pink clothes.”
“Oh man, that’s sweet and you didn’t have to do anything. Awesome.” Cole stretched out on a blanket next to the creek. It was just the three of us. Luke and Caleb were still fighting, and the girls were working on their fan blogs and doing each other’s hair.
I stepped into the creek and shivered at the cold. It was a hot day, over a hundred degrees. The water, in comparison, felt like it had ice cubes floating in it. After my feet adjusted, I slid the rest of my body under. The water was pale green with bits of gunk floating in it. Minnows swam with me and nibbled my skin as I swam down to the tree that trapped Luke and started the war between my cousins. I tugged at the branch, but couldn’t make it budge. We’d have to drag it out with a tractor or saw it apart under water. The incident put a big damper on fun at the creek. Nobody wanted to dive, swing on the rope, much less launch a trike. It sucked. The creek was the best part of summer.
I swam past the tree, took a look at a couple mammoth catfish resting under the root ball, and tried to catch a sunfish with my bare hands. When I tired of the chase, I swam back to the shore and collapsed on the blanket. My skin remained wet and cool, but the summer humidity made the air heavy and oppressive. It took effort just to get my lungs to expand.
“So what are you going to do about Luke?” asked Frank.
I opened my eyes to slits, no energy to do more. My mind wouldn’t come into focus, lazy as the horsefly that landed on my knee but couldn’t be bothered to bite me.
“Puppy, you better do something soon,” said Cole. “Luke hasn’t had an accident in days. Caleb says he’s due.”
“I can’t think. I’m too tired.”
Frank stood up and a shower of sand fell from his shorts. A few particles landed on my arm and I studied them, each unique in the bright sunlight.
“Don’t you wish Luke got tired? Maybe he wouldn’t have so many accidents,” said Frank.
“Luke doesn’t get tired, does he?” I flicked a piece of sand off my arm.
“No shit. The guy’s like on speed or something,” answered Cole.
“If he was asleep, it’d be easy to shave his head.”
“Caleb tried, remember?” Frank stepped into the water and let out a sigh.
“Yeah, but he didn’t stay asleep, did he?” I flicked a piece of sand off my arm. “He’s a light sleeper. That’s a problem. But if I could get him to stay asleep...”
“My dad takes Tylenol PM,” said Cole.
“Nah. Not strong enough. My mom takes some stuff when she’s working a lot. She can’t turn off her mind sometimes.”
“If it can knock out your mom, it’ll definitely knock out Luke. Can I help?” asked Cole.
“Sure.” I could use all the help I could get.
Cole and I circled the house. Grass blades bit our legs, but we pretended not to notice as we held a running conversation on baseball past Mom’s porch to confirm her location. She had her face shield down and never looked up from her sculpture. Aunt Calla was on her porch, too, singing “O Mio Bambino Caro” and sketching on her drafting table. She didn’t miss a beat when we went past.
Once we knew where they were, we went toward the kitchen. Mom joined Aunt Calla in her song. I stopped on the granite step and let the music enter my chest. The longing and passion vibrated there. It was the right time to go after the pills. Mom and Aunt Calla only sang like that when things were about to go perfectly. Their best pieces came after moments of pure happiness and everything around them was touched by their joy in creation.
Cole tapped my shoulder. “What are we waiting for?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I was just listening.”
“To what?”
I didn’t answer. A wind kicked up and pushed me against the screen door. I opened it and then saw the long grass of the lawn whipping around in a rhythm with Mom and Aunt Calla’s voices. The ravens clustered at the shed door, staring at me, their wings spread wide.
“Puppy?” Cole asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you feel that?”
“What?”
“The wind.
“Dude, you’re losing it. There’s no wind. It’s dead calm out here.”
“That’s what I thought.”
We went in and found Frank making lunch with the girls. When he saw me, Frank stepped away from April and dropped a piece of cheese.
Ella looked sideways at me. “What are you two up to?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Really,” she said. “You look guilty as a whore in church.”
April and Carrie both stopped what they were doing and eyed us with suspicion.
“We’re gonna go get some…ah…peroxide for these cuts…on our legs,” said Cole.
I wanted to pump my fist in the air. What a fantastic lie.
“What happened to your legs?” asked Carrie.
“Grass needs to be mowed,” I said.
All except April went back to what they were doing. I felt April’s eyes on my back as I walked out and went to Mom’s bathroom.
When we were out of earshot, I said, “Stay here and keep an eye out.”
Cole nodded and leaned on the wall, while I slipped into the bathroom. My feet padded over the cool, cracked tile to the front of the medicine cabinet. The mirror opened with a creak and surprised me with the sheer number of bottles on the shelf. Mom stuffed the cabinet full of ointment, dewormers, lozenges, pills, and creams. I started at the bottom and worked my way up through antibiotics, burn treatments, and painkillers for Luke and Caleb’s various accidents over the years. I found Mom’s Ambien in the middle.
Cole popped his head in. “Puppy, hurry.”
I slipped the bottle in my pocket, closed the cabinet door, and walked back to Cole in the hall.
“Somebody’s here,” Cole whispered.
A rough hand grabbed my shoulder, and Luke burrowed his head between ours.
“What are you whispering about?” he asked.
“Nothing. Who’s here?” I grasped the pill bottle in my pocket and a rush of adrenaline flooded my system.
“Shasta.”
“Oh.” I pulled at my shirt to cover my pocket.
“What are you doing? Pitching a tent?” Luke looked at me as I fussed with my shirt.
I stopped, face flushed.
“I don’t blame you. She’s enough to give any guy a stiffy. Come on. Let’s see what she wants.”
We followed Luke obediently, instead of stashing the pills in my room as we planned. Cole kept snickering into his hand, so I punched him in the kidney as we walked into the kitchen. Everyone stopped talking and watched Cole gasp and arch his back. Shasta leaned against the sink with an amused smile on her face. Her wrists were bare and the bruises gone. She looked like nothing could touch her except the sun, which had streaked her dark hair with lines of gold. It hung loose over her shoulder, silky and shimmering as Aunt Calla’s best work. She wore a new bikini top, tiny with daisies positioned right in the centers. My face grew hot and my shorts tight. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to pitch a tent, right in front of everyone, including Mom and Aunt Calla who had come in from their porches. Why did I have to think of nipples? I’d never even seen live, in-person nipples. Wait. Yes, I had. My eyes strayed to my mom, and the tightness in my pants disappeared. Nothing makes a boner go away faster than the thought of your mom’s nipples. When I was younger, she used to walk around in panties when it was hot or she’d just gotten out of the shower. Anything else I might have seen was blissfully blocked out. When I was about six, Dad said she’d better stop or she’d scar me for life. To my amazement, she did. It was one of the few times anyone told Violet Gladwell MacClarity what to do and she did it.
“What are you smiling about?” Ella asked me.
I flushed again, but I couldn’t stop smiling. I was so glad my boner went away, I almost felt grateful to Mom for being so damn weird.
“What time do you want us over tomorrow?” Aunt Calla asked Shasta.
“Noon’s fine. Or whenever you can get everyone together.”
“Great. We’ll bring the ice cream. Girls, we better get started,” said Mom.
“Where are we going?” asked Cole, still rubbing his back.
“Marion asked us over for a barbecue to celebrate Shasta’s new restaurant contract. She just signed with O’Malley’s in Drayton.”
I wanted to congratulate Shasta, but I couldn’t take the chance of looking at her again.
“Puppy?” Shasta broke in on my thoughts. “Walk me to my truck?”
“Okay.” I tried to avoid looking at anything but her eyes. It was tough. My eyes really wanted to go down.
I walked beside her. At least that way I didn’t have to look at her. But I was so close. Her watermelon scent encircled me. Where’d the scent come from, her hair, her skin, her moist, shiny lips? I swallowed hard when I thought about all those parts of Shasta and swallowed again when I realized that she probably wasn’t thinking about any part of me.
She put her hand on the door handle of her truck. “You didn’t leave them alone, did you?”
Shasta was looking at me, but I stared over the truck bed.
“Puppy, you have to leave them alone.” She laid her hand on my shoulder and turned me to face her. “Puppy?”
“Maybe I did leave them alone,” I said.
“I know you didn’t.”
“How?” I asked. Her hand was still on my shoulder. I could hardly think for the warmth of it radiating through me.
“Just leave them alone, okay?”
“Is he bothering you?”
Shasta’s hand left my shoulder, but a tattoo of heat and pleasure remained on my skin. She got into the truck and tried to slam the door. I grabbed the door. Our eyes met.
“What’d he do?” I asked. “I saw the bruises.”
“Nothing,” said Shasta. “Don’t worry about it. Promise you won’t do anything else.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Her eyes left mine. “Let go. I have to get home.”
I let go of the door; she slammed it, and backed away without looking at me again. She left me standing in a swirl of dust and fear for her.
Shasta stayed with me, ever present in the back of my mind. But I wasn’t allowed to brood when there was ice cream to be made. I’d chopped pecans, pistachios, walnuts, and three types of chocolate so far. Dark chocolate was the worst. The one-pound block on the cutting board was hard, dense, and liked to deflect the blade into the meat of my fingers. I’d cut my hand twice so far, and April needed another cup, finely chopped, for her last creation. Ella kept screaming at me about dripping blood on the ingredients. I should’ve followed Cole and Luke’s example and worked on the car instead. I stayed because I owed April, but I wasn’t sure her favor was worth so much pain and aggravation. My arm was sore up to the shoulder. Who knew cooking could be so miserable? It didn’t help that my mind kept straying to Shasta. Whenever I was able to block her out, doubts about my scheme to shave Luke’s head crept in. Drugging Luke might not be the way to go. Caleb had tried everything else, but it seemed wrong. Maybe, just maybe, Luke wouldn’t have any more accidents. He’d had more than his summer average so far. Things could calm down.
“Do you have the chocolate done yet?” April said over her shoulder. She was furiously stirring a pot of custard at the stove and couldn’t stop for a second.
I showed her my board. “This fine enough?”
She pursed her lips as her eyes roamed over the mound of chocolate shavings. “I guess so. Measure, please.”
I cupped the mound of chocolate with the palms of my hands. Bits of chocolate melted when they touched my skin. After I dumped it in the measuring cup, I leaned against the counter, licking my palms.
Ella and April went on cooking like I wasn’t there. No words passed between them. They didn’t need to speak when accomplishing a task. They’d even correct each other’s mistakes without acknowledging one had been made.
My sisters’ silent communications brought my thoughts back around to Luke and Caleb. Maybe that was why Luke could counteract all of Caleb’s attempts on his hair. He knew beforehand. If it was true, my attempt was also doomed. Caleb knew my plan and would communicate it to Luke, unknowingly. No telling what Luke would do to me for trying it.
It just wasn’t worth it. He probably wouldn’t have any more accidents anyway.
Caleb waved to me from the porch. I licked the last morsel off my thumb and went out to him.
“I thought you’d never get done. Come on. We need to get a plan together.” Caleb opened the door and ushered me outside. “So when are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I don’t need to. Maybe he won’t have any more accidents.”
“Are you nuts? Of course he’ll have more accidents. He’s Luke,” said Caleb with a shove to my shoulder.
“I know, but don’t you think—”
At that moment a tremendous bang came from the driveway, followed by a whooshing noise. We looked at each other and then ran towards the noise. Before we got two yards, Luke ran screaming past us with the top of his head on fire. We chased him around the house. As Luke rounded a corner, Frank tackled him and thrust his head into the trough. A hiss of steam rose from the water and the two geese that were floating in the trough honked and flapped their wings. Frank pulled Luke’s shoulders back and an arc of water sprayed from the top of his head. The two of them collapsed in front of the trough while the geese hissed and charged them.
I kicked at the geese. “Get out of here!”
They flew a few feet away, but continued to crane their heads at Luke and Frank, their bills wide open, tongues flapping with loud hisses.
“So what were you saying about Luke and accidents?” Caleb rubbed his hand over the remnants of his own hair. His eyes examined his twin’s long, singed mane.
“Never mind,” I said.
Luke struggled to his feet and Caleb reached to give him a hand. Luke shoved his hand away. “I’m fine.”
“Fine? You’re not fine. You’re an idiot. You just set your own head on fire,” said Caleb.
“Screw you. It’s my head.”
Aunt Calla came off her porch. “What was that noise? So help me God, if you blew anything up.”
“Luke set his head on fire.” Caleb crossed his arms, smiling at Luke.
Luke flipped Caleb off as Aunt Calla raced over to him. She jerked his ear, bringing his head down so she could examine his scalp. “It’s a miracle. Nothing’s burnt except his hair, what’s left of it.”
Aunt Calla let go, and Luke walked into the house past Mom, who wrinkled her nose. “Oh, what a stink. What’d you do?”
I helped Frank up and slapped him on the back. “Awesome, man.”
Cole walked up. He stood shuffling his feet and looking guilty. Mom and Aunt Calla crossed their arms.
“Well, are you going to tell us what happened?” asked Caleb.
“It’s not my fault. It wasn’t my idea,” said Cole.
“We know that, dumbass,” I said. “What happened?”
Cole told us how the car wouldn’t start and Luke had the bright idea to squirt ether through the carburetor to give it a jump. Cole was behind the wheel and when he pressed the gas, there was a bang, a whoosh. The next thing he knew, Luke was running away with his head on fire.
Caleb shook his head and whispered to me, “It better be tonight.”
I nodded in agreement.
The sooner the better.