Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose (2 page)

But the old man had been struck by rose-rustling fever. He talked and planned, and before we could say no way, no how, he was driving Reuben and me to a country graveyard. He had read a newspaper article about developers discovering a cemetery in a stretch of woods, with markers dating to 1842. Since folks back then planted flowers
by graves, he was sure we would find some old roses.

And we had, twined round the grave of Rose Cassoway.

“Rustling is
stealin'.”
Reuben's whisper shivered through the cemetery.

“No,” I explained very slowly and for the fourth time. “Rustling is just a word. These old roses are public property, Mr. K. says. Anyway, we're not going to dig up a whole bush. We're just taking a cutting.”

“From a
graveyard,”
Reuben said.

“You afraid some ghost will jump out?”

Reuben didn't crack a smile. “Remember Nemo Comic Number 2? When the Flawt stole the golden orb from the emperor's tomb. Remember the curse?”

“That was made up!” I said.
“We
made it up. This is real life. There aren't any curses. Anyway, that was an
orb
, we're only taking a little twig.”

“I just … don't … know.” Reuben's voice trailed off. “Hey, let's go home and finish our new Nemo strip.”

I sighed. Persnickety, careful, and poke-turtle slow—that was Reuben. Every Captain Nemo he drew, he eyeballed and erased. Every b-ball he threw had to be carefully aimed. The boy
tiptoed
into adventure.

But we've been best friends since first grade, creators of Captain Nemo Outer-Space Comics since third. And now we were rose rustlers.

I tried to joke Reuben out of his worry. “Wooooo,” I moaned, flapping my sleeves. “I am the ghost of Rose Cassoway. Who dares touch my precious rooooooses?”

“Wooo all you want,” Reuben said. “I still think it's wrong.”

“Woooooooo.” I clicked my shears.

“Shhh,” Reuben said sharply. “What's that?”

“It's Rose Cassoway, of course.”
Snip.
I neatly cut the vine. The small piece fell.

Crackle-crick.

Something grabbed my shoulder.

“Aargh!” I screamed.

The grip tightened.

“Please,” Reuben whimpered.

A voice spoke: “What in the … Sam Hill are you doing?”

The voice didn't wail. It didn't moan. And what kind of ghost said “Sam Hill”?

Cautiously I peeked over my shoulder.

A bearded man smiled at me. “Sorry to scare you boys,” he said, dropping his hand. “I didn't want you getting too close to that fence.”

Reuben and I stepped back.

“I manage the clean-up crew for the housing development in the field close by,” he explained. “We've got orders to cut all the growth in this
abandoned cemetery, then tear down that old fence and put up a new one. You know, tidy things up a bit. The job should take one day, two at the most. But the strangest thing …” The man shook his head. “The crew yesterday got poison ivy.
Bad
poison ivy. Must have been some on that fence.”

“What about you?” I snuck a glance at his hand.

“I wasn't here.” The man squinted at the fence. “Came to check out the situation today.”

I squinted, too. I'd recognize poison ivy anywhere, thanks to all the fields I'd tromped in with my plant-loving mama.
Leaves of three, let them be.

“Huh.” I squinted harder. “I don't
see
any poison ivy.”

“Neither do I,” said the man. “That's what's so strange. And this isn't the season for it. The only way I can figure, maybe the guys had a reaction to those flowers.”

On the fence, the little roses swayed.

Reuben shivered. “See, Jackson?” he whispered. “The curse.”

“Curse?” the man asked.

I squirmed. “My friend here thinks that, well, taking something from a graveyard—”

“Brings on a curse,” Reuben finished. “You gotta show respect.”

“Curses only happen in movies or books,” scoffed the man. “I tell you, this is nothing but carelessness. With bad luck thrown in. When Jake broke his leg—”

“Was he close to the fence?” asked Reuben.

“Yeah,” said the man. “He tripped over that gravestone.”

Reuben crossed his arms. “Just like you, Jackson.”

I crossed my arms right back. “Reuben, you gotta stop all that woo-woo talk
now.
You're scaring yourself.”

Reuben snorted. “Wasn't me screaming.”

“I yelled.”

“Screamed,” replied Reuben. “Like a girl in a horror movie.”

“Yelled.”

“Okay, okay,” the man broke in. “Yelled, screamed—you made a noise.” This time he squinted at us. “You two jumped like a couple of outlaws.”

I squirmed again.

“Yeah,” said the man. “Like a couple of outlaws … caught doing wrong.”

“We were just taking a cutting.” I picked up the fallen rose twig.

“You two gardeners?” asked the man skeptically.

“Sort of.” I sighed, thinking of my puddle of thorns at Rooter's. “We're getting this twig thing for a, um, friend. Anyway, these roses are public property. We're not breaking any laws.”

“Still doesn't make it right,” Reuben muttered.

“We gotta go,” I said to the man. “Our friend's waiting.”

“He driving the getaway car?”

I pictured Mr. K. behind the wheel of the Datsun he'd rented. He had started bossing that car the moment he stepped on the gas.

“Come on, I'll walk you out.” The man smiled at me. “Don't want any more yells—or screams.” He fished an empty candy wrapper from his pocket. “Wrap that stick in this
paper. It'll protect your hand against thorns and a possible rash.”

As we filed past the other graves, I glanced back once. In the shadow of Rose Cassoway's stone, the tiny pink roses gleamed. The cutting shifted in my pocket.

“Broken legs, poison ivy, bees.” The man shook his head. “At this rate, we'll never remove that fence.”

“Bees?” Reuben asked.

“Got stung myself the other day,” said the man, striding down the path. “Huge bee swooped out of nowhere, buzzing like a jet. That's why I wasn't here yesterday. My arm swelled big as a cantaloupe.”

Reuben gasped.

“Don't even start,” I said firmly. “Bees
sting.
That's what they do. It has nothing to do with a curse.”

Three days later Reuben was still repeating his graveyard words.

He was a kid with a two-word vocabulary.

The curse. The curse. The curse.

“I tell you, Jackson,” he muttered darkly. “The curse.”

“It's a whatchacallit…
coincidence,”
I said. “Mr. K. just happened to fall.”

“And
sprain his ankle,” said Reuben.

“Well, that other guy broke his leg.”

“People keep getting
hurt.
Like in Nemo Comic Number 2: The Curse of the Golden Orb.”

“Oooh, and now we're in The Curse of the … the Outlaw Rose, dread flower of the
Old West. Reuben, my man, lighten
up.”
I gave him a poke.

Why did Reuben have to ruin a nice after-school walk to Rooter's with all his doom-and-gloom talk? Three days before, we had given Mr. K. the graveyard cutting and he had happily taken it home. And yesterday, that's right, he had fallen. But a tumble could happen to anyone, especially a guy who banged his cane. Mr. K. had lost his balance, that's all.

We had just visited him at his retirement home. Mr. K. had taken a break from bossing his nurse to ask if I could take the cutting to Mama to root. “This bum ankle,” he had explained sadly, “will keep me from getting the right soil.”

How could I say no? I carried the cutting, wrapped in wet paper towels, out of his building. On Evert Street, I raised it high on my palm, like a waiter in an ooh-la-la restaurant.

I stopped at Rooter's chain-link fence to take in the garden. The twenty-nine plots were showing new green shoots. And Mr. K.'s old-time yellow roses were blooming.

“I got a bad feeling,” Reuben said, all jumpy. “Why you gotta bring that thing to my building?”

“Well,
your
building also happens to be
my
building,” I pointed out. Reuben lived in Apartment 316; I lived in 302.

And here came our neighbors from Apartment 506. Juana Rivera and her too-loud sister and brother. Gaby, age seven, and five-year-old Ro.

“Shhh, no more curse talk,” I murmured to Reuben. “Nothing about outlaw roses. We don't want to scare the little kids.”

Like me, Ro carried something in his palm.

Like Reuben, Juana and Gaby regarded it grimly.

“You got a present for me?” I grinned at the little guy.

“Meet my worm!” Ro proudly introduced his wiggly pet.

“Disgusting.” Gaby shuddered.

Juana hunkered down beside her brother. “Why don't you let the worm go,” she suggested. “I bet he misses his friends.”

“I'm
his friend,” Ro pointed out. “I'm
protecting
him. If I let him go, a bird might eat him.”

“How you gonna take care of him?” Gaby asked.

“Mailbags will show me,” Ro announced.

Not that Mailbags was a big fan of worms, but he did know a lot about gardens. The man was always grubbing in his plot at Rooter's, growing zucchini and beans. And Mailbags lived in our building, too. Apartment 102. Ro didn't have to travel far for expert advice.

Gaby tried another strategy. “That worm is not even a 'he,'” she said. “It's a he-she. Male
and
female.”

Ro's eyes widened. “Cool,” he breathed.

We all bent closer to the worm.

That's when a big hand shoved me. And lifted the wrapped cutting from my palm.

I stumbled into Ro.

“Jackson,” the little boy cried. “You're squishing my worm.”

From behind me came a voice.

“What's this, Rose Jones? Your little sweet pea?”

Blood Green.

Blood was the meanest kid in the city, maybe on the whole planet. And that boy was BIG. Plus, he had strategy. He never smacked, hit, or taunted when adults were around. No, Blood waited till it was him against some scared kid. Then he let you have it.

All last year he had talked trash about me. Rose Jones. Farmer Boy. Pansy.

Then one day last fall it was me and him. Alone at Rooter's. When he jumped, I thought that was the end.

But he missed me—and tangled with my puddle of thorns. Literally. He got caught and stuck by my fierce pile of sticks. I had worked him free—on one condition. If he made fun of me, Reuben, Juana, or the little kids again— ever again—I would tell the whole school he'd been beat up by a rosebush.

His promise had lasted till he caught sight of Mama's new zucchini mobile. Now he called me Pickle, too.

Blood tossed the cutting high in the air.

“Come and get it, Rosey,” he brayed.

“Give it back, Blood,” Juana demanded. To me, she whispered, “What is it?”

Blood caught the cutting. Tore at the wet paper towels.

“Urn, Blood.” Reuben watched nervously. “You might not want to do that.”

“You gonna stop me, Art Fart?” Blood sneered. He waved the bit of rose twig. “Oh, a bitty wittle stick,” he cooed.

That boy dropped the twig on the sidewalk. Lifted his big foot to stomp.

Bzzzz.
I swear the sound came from nowhere.
Bzzzz.

A huge bee zoomed by. Zeroed in on Blood.

Stung him, right on the cheek.

Blood screamed.

“The curse,” whispered Reuben. His voice was filled with awe.