Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose (3 page)

We watched as Blood, still screaming, tore down the street.

Slowly I retrieved the cutting. Rewrapped the paper towels.

Reuben opened Rooter's gate and steered me inside. “Jackson,” he said, “we gotta decide what to do.”

Juana was suddenly alert. “What do you mean?”

Reuben scuffed his shoe on the wood-chip path.

“And why,” said Juana, “did you say 'the curse' like that?”

“Like what?”

“All spooky and mysterious.”

“It's nothing, Juana,” I said. “Reuben's just a little … worried.”

“You think that was a coincidence?” Reuben looked straight at me.

“What
was a coincidence?” Juana shook Reuben's arm.

“Okay, tell me this,” I said to Reuben. “How come nothing has happened to me? I was the one did the cutting.” I held out my arms. “Look, no poison ivy. No bee stings. No broken bones.”

“I don't know,” Reuben said slowly. “Maybe it's saving your punishment. Maybe you'll get it
bad.”

He glanced sideways at me. “Or maybe you're like your mama.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Mailbags says she has a gift. She can talk the puniest flower into growing. He says plants just plain like your mama.”

“So?”

“So, maybe they like you, too. You might have inherited, you know, that gift. Maybe it's protecting you.”

I sat down slowly. “Reuben,” I said, “that is the craziest thing I ever heard.”

“What's crazy?” Juana glanced from Reuben to me. “What's protecting you? If you don't tell me, I'm … I'm going to throw Ro's Luormatyou.”

“No,” howled Ro.

“Then spit it out.” Juana glared at us.

“Gaby and Ro might get scared,” Reuben said. “This is sort of a ghost story.”

“I
love
ghost stories.” Gaby plopped down beside me.

“I'm never scared,” Ro declared, cupping his worm.

So Reuben and I told how we had visited the cemetery and taken the rose cutting. Reuben's voice got all spooky and mysterious, talking about the bee stings and poison ivy and broken legs.

“Mr. K. sprained his ankle,” I corrected. “He didn't break his leg.”

“An ankle is part of your leg,” Reuben replied. “His leg got hurt.”

Juana regarded me. “I take it you don't believe in this curse.”

“What
curse?” I said. “The bee stings, the broken leg, the sprained ankle—those things just happened. Bad luck and carelessness. That's what the clean-up guy in the graveyard said.”

Ro started to cry. “I'm scared.”

“Here,
querido.”
Juana took him gently by the arm. “Let's find some dirt for your worm.”

Ro sniffled.

“You can put the dirt in my pockets,” Gaby offered. She followed them to a far-off plot and started to dig.

Shadows gathered in the garden as the sun started setting.

Reuben and I continued to sit.

No, I did not believe in the curse. On the other hand, I'd always had bad luck with roses. And if I had inherited my mother's gift, as Mailbags called it, someday I might find myself studying plants. Tending to plants. Even … talking to plants.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Drew a mind picture of me on the blacktop. Dribbling, shooting, scoring. Time after time after time. I was an ace at basketball, not flowers.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw: those old-time yellow roses. Those Texas roses waving from Rooter's fence. The wrapped cutting was damp in my hand.

Reuben was gone, helping with Ro's worm home. I could hear voices and laughter.

No, I did not believe in the curse.

But roses had always brought me bad luck.

We straggled home, with Ro riding me piggyback and Gaby carting dirt in her pockets. Reuben dogged my every step with doom-and-gloom sighs. When we reached our building, he headed for his apartment. His grandma, Miz Lady, was waiting. Or maybe he wanted to put some distance between himself and the cutting.

The rest of us knocked on Mailbags's door.

“A fine pet,” the man pronounced when Ro flourished his worm. “The perfect size. Won't eat much or take up much room.”

Mailbags himself takes up a lot of room. If the man jumped, I bet he could touch the ceiling. The worm was a skinny noodle beside
his buffalo self. As for eating, huh. Mailbags has come to our place for dinner. Whole zuc-chinis disappear.

Yeah, Ro's worm was in good hands. Mail-bags even had a whole book on the creatures. Gaby pulled the dirt out of her pockets and dumped it in a plastic cup. Then Mailbags handed Ro a bit of banana.

The boy raised it to his lips.

Mailbags laughed. “That's for your worm,” he said. “A little fruit twice a week and soon your pet will be fat as a tire.”

Gaby gasped.

“I'm kidding,” Mailbags said. “But watch, that worm will consume the banana and pass it through. In a few weeks, Ro will have the richest dirt around.”

“You can have it for your garden,” Ro promised.

“What about your worm?” asked Mailbags, walking us to the door.

“I'll get him more dirt and he can start again.” Ro waved good-bye. “He's going to live with me forever.”

“He-she,” muttered Gaby as we moseyed to the elevator. “And I don't want him-her living near me.”

I was about to step into the elevator with the Riveras, when I remembered the cutting. I'd left it at Mailbags's. That stick looked a lot like trash. What if he'd thrown it away?

“Wait, Jackson.” Mailbags trotted out to the hallway. Handed me the soggy paper towel. “You're looking wrung out, my man. Bad day?”

I didn't want to get into the whole curse thing. “Can I ask you something? About my mama?”

Mailbags looked surprised. “Maybe.”

“You've said she has a gift, a way with plants.” I rushed the words out. “You told her she should go back to college—”

“Wait a minute,” said Mailbags. “I don't see me telling your mama what to do. She made up her own mind.”

“Well, you gave her the college catalog.”

“A small thing.”

“Anyway, that gift she has. With plants.” I
glanced up at him, then down at my shoes. “You think I have it, too?”

“Ah,” Mailbags said. “The green-thumb gift.” He considered my question. “Not sure yet what I think, but this is what I see: a boy who's on the blacktop more than at Rooter's.”

“That what you see?”

Mailbags nodded. “That boy, he's a quick dribbler. But come planting? Oh, he's sloooww.”

I felt relief course through me. “So you think b-ball is my gift?”

Mailbags palmed my head. “That boy is fast on the court. Got lots of fancy moves. Course, he
could
use some work on the hoops.”

“Hey!” I grinned, punching the elevator button.

“This boy, the one we're talking about—”

I stepped into the elevator.

“Well, he does have a way with … weeds.” Mailbags winked. “For him, they grow big as sequoias.”

I continued grinning as the elevator shot up. Huh, that Mailbags. Mama was always saying how we kids bugged him. Asking this
and that, following him around. “A full-time mail job and night college, too”—she'd shake her head—”the man doesn't have time to breathe, and you kids dogging his heels.”

Wait till Mama heard about Mailbags and the worm house.

When I opened the door, Mama gave me a hug and immediately felt my forehead. “You feel okay?” she asked. “You look tired.”

Yeah, well, a curse (even if it's not) can wear a boy out.

I wiggled away and held out the cutting. “Can you root this for Mr. K.?”

“How's he doing?” she asked, settling the cutting in a pot.

“When Reuben and I stopped by, he was bossing his nurse.”

“Then he's feeling better.” Mama laughed. “When he's quiet and mouse-meek, that's when I worry.”

Mama checked several small bags of soil, chose one, and tucked its contents round the cutting. “This little guy will soon feel good about growing and start putting out roots,” she said. “Pick a spot at Rooter's with good
sun. You can probably transplant in a few weeks.”

I watched as Mama gently touched the cutting. Mama and Mr. K. sure treat their green things differently. Mama chats to them softly, encouraging blooms. Mr. K. barks them into bigness.

“Mama,” I said suddenly, “do plants have feelings?”

She turned to me in surprise. “Not feelings like humans,” she said slowly. “And yet …” Mama brushed her cheek, leaving a dirt smudge. “Plants seem to sense the feelings of other species and respond. Scientists have done studies.”

“What kind?”

“Let's see, they've discovered that plants tend to withdraw and wither in places with shouting and loud noises.” She smiled. “But other scientists claim these studies prove nothing.”

“So plants can't really get angry, right? They can't, you know, take revenge?”

“Only people seem to do that.” Mama paused. “Sometimes, though, I can sense
what a plant might need—different light, more water. And I try to help.” She laughed a little. “As you know, the plants sometimes respond so well that the green takes over….” She waved at our living-room jungle. “Hey, why this sudden interest in plant feelings?”

“Just curious.” I hesitated, then touched the cutting myself. It was a little stick. An ordinary twig.

Nothing to worry about. I was just jumpy from Reuben's doom-and-gloom curse talk.

For the next few weeks, the cutting sat peacefully on the window ledge in the kitchen. I pictured roots forming, tiny white shootlets. A little stick, doing what it should. An ordinary twig.

Blood, though, was the opposite of peaceful.

The boy prowled the school halls. He shoved and tripped kids. Nothing new about that. But his right cheek was puffed like a blowfish. All his insults were slurred.

“Flower Boy” came out “Sshawa ba.” Kids giggled at his taunts.

Talk flew around school. Blood would be
puffy from that bee sting forever. The swelling was getting worse. No, it was better. The doctor had told Blood all he could do was wait.

The boy's eyes were two narrow slits in his fat-cheek face. Seeking out Reuben and me.

Not for the first time, I puzzled on Blood. Why was he so mean?

I had tried avoiding the boy, talking to him, even hitting back. My rosebush had stuck him good.

Nothing had worked. His meanness had gotten worse. Name-calling, punching, stealing. Maybe Blood had never learned such meanness was wrong. That it was flat-out wrong to hurt others. Even in kindergarten, when he had been Howard instead of that dumb name, Blood, he had given himself, he had tormented littler kids.

While Blood prowled puffy and the cutting perched peaceful, Ro's worm grew bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER. Ro carted that worm house EVERYWHERE. He murmured through the holes in the plastic lid, like a
business guy on his cell phone. And that worm? It would waggle its skinny head out of the dirt, as if chitchatting with a friend.

Ro had to move his pet to a bigger house, a plastic bowl. And still it grew. Bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER.

Finally, Juana asked an important question: “Is that worm eating too much?”

We were sprawled on the steps of our apartment building. The whole world smelled clean, washed by a recent rain. Grass blades waved from sidewalk cracks. Sparrows dipped beaks in small puddles. Most likely, the weeds in Rooter's were growing as big as Ro's worm. I knew I should mosey to the garden and see.

“That worm's a monster,” Gaby declared. “Wormzilla.”

“He's healthy!” Ro clutched his bowl.

“ Wor menstein.”

Reuben nudged me. “Maybe Ro has a gift, like your mama.”

A
worm
gift? All I can say is, if that boy's gift was as powerful-strong as my mama's,
then Juana and Gaby were in trouble. I had just escaped my apartment, where Mama's gift was in full force. She was planning her Green Thumb display for the city's big garden show in a month. The show took place every year in the convention center, she had told me. It was the best place for landscape artists and plant businesses to advertise.

“Advertise” usually means a sign, right? Maybe a TV commercial.

Not at this show. Some businesses created entire gardens inside. Fountains, trees, five kinds of flowers. Even waterfalls. Green Thumb did not have that kind of money, Mama told me. She would create a small, modest display.