Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose (4 page)

BOOK: Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose
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Small? Modest? As she experimented with different designs, Mama turned our whole apartment into one HUGE ever-changing garden display. She kept moving the ficus, hanging signs, arranging flowerpots.

Too much plant chat! I had escaped my too-green apartment … to listen to Ro and his worm.

Reuben poked me. “What about
your
gift?” he asked. “Seen any poison ivy or huge bees lately? Broken any bones?”

“Were you talking to me?” I poked back. “The guy with the slam-dunk gift? For your information, that cutting has been as peaceful as any of Mama's plants. An ordinary twig.”

I jumped up. “In fact, that thing should be ready to plant now at Rooter's.”

All the joking went out of Reuben. “Let's bring it back to the graveyard,” he urged.

“I know the perfect spot at Rooter's.” I ignored his doom-and-gloom tone. “Come on, we'll surprise Mr. K.”

“Can I bring my worm?” Ro piped up.

“Sure, we'll take him on a field trip,” said Juana. “Get it?
Field
trip?” She glanced at Reuben's serious face. “Never mind.”

“Ro!” Gaby roared, dusting her jeans. “You spilled worm poop on my pants.”

“Soil,” Ro corrected.

Reuben rose slooowwwly. “I'll go with you,” he said, all poke-turtle cautious. “But I still think it's wrong.”

I stomped through the door. I wasn't going to listen to Reuben's gotta-have-respect speech
again.

I fetched the little stick, got transplanting instructions from Mama, marched everyone down to Rooter's, and stuck that thing in the ground.

I'm not saying that what happened next began at that moment. Or that the cutting caused it. I
am
saying that a change occurred.

I would call that change a coincidence. Unlike doom-and-gloom Reuben, I would never call it a curse.

CHAPTER EIGHT

From that day on, the city got hotter and HOTTER and HOTTER. Ninety degrees, ninety-three degrees, ninety-seven degrees. And the rain stopped falling. It was the hottest, driest May on record. Water was rationed. Mama took a quick shower only every other day, so we could save water for her plants.

In our apartment, the pansies, primroses, philodendrons, and ficus survived. Outside, the green things shriveled and turned brown. Grass blades disappeared from sidewalk cracks. We had to set out bowls of water for the thirsty sparrows.

Rooter's looked as sad as one of Reuben's lost planets. Even Captain Nemo wouldn't
have been able to save it. All twenty-nine plots looked pitiful. Even the weeds shriveled. And my rosebush? My fierce puddle of thorns? It drooped like the weepiest willow.

Now, a drought is a drought. Nothing supernatural about that.

But here comes the strange part.

In its perfect place by the fence, close to Mr. K.'s roses, sat the transplanted twig. The thing didn't grow or die. It stayed exactly the same. But around it—and this was
really
strange— those small Texas roses bloomed. The only bright patch of color in the brown garden. Maybe the only roses growing in the city.

“Must be the soil,” I told Reuben when we stopped by the garden after school. There was no sound from the blacktop on Evert Street. No shouts. No quick-dribblin'
bounce-bounce-bounce.
The blacktop had been empty for days. No one could play b-ball in the heat.

“Probably a lot of worms by those roses,” I went on. “You know, making that rich worm-poop dirt.” The heat shimmered around the yellow flowers. “Anyway, roses like sun. They can't grow in shade.”

I scratched at my sweat-soaked T-shirt. “Mr. K. said those old-time roses were tough,” I continued. “Remember how his grandma stuck a cutting in a potato?”

“Jackson.” Reuben took a deep breath. “I got an idea for a new Nemo villain.”

“Go on.” I was surprised. I was the idea man on our Nemo team. I wrote; Reuben drew. That's how we had worked for years.

Reuben scuffed at the sidewalk. “This bad guy is … invisible.”

“Invisible?”

Reuben crossed his arms. “A ghost.”

I stared at him. “What gave you
that
idea?”

Reuben gazed out at the yellow roses.

“So you're saying Rooter's is haunted?”

Reuben was silent.

“And a ghost is tending those flowers?”

“They're blooming, aren't they? And everything else is dying.”

“But we've never
seen
—”

“What you expecting, Jackson?” Reuben snorted. “A floating sheet?”

CHAPTER NINE

Well, I don't have much experience with ghosts and restless spirits. They belong in dark mansions and crumbly castles.
Not
in a city garden. Halloween is ghost time. The other 364 days of the year, they should stay put.

Reuben and I checked out the Internet. We visited the library. We found lots of stories about ghosts. Mean ghosts and kind ghosts. Foggy ghosts you could see and chill-breeze ghosts that you couldn't. Some broke vases and pushed people. Some drifted up and down stairs. One smelled like lavender, another like paint.

There was nothing about haunted plants. Or ghosts that liked to tend roses.

But one Friday after school we found a battered book with a brown cover at the library.

“It must be a hundred years old,” said Reuben, gently turning the brittle pages.

“Phew!” I held my nose. “Talk about musty.”

The book was full of the usual ghost stuff: ghost ships, ghost pirates, ghost ladies who wept. But it did have one important chapter: “How to Banish Ghosts.”

Reuben and I read that chapter twice. Then we sat silent, thinking.

Finally my man cleared his throat. “You gotta communicate with it, Jackson. Find out what it wants.”

“Me?”

“You're the one who took the cutting.” Reuben pointed to a sentence in the book. “You 'interfered with its natural sphere.'”

“But listen to this.” I read another sentence aloud. “ 'Be prepared. Contact may infuriate the ghost.'” I drew out the word: “In-fur-i-ate. What if it destroys the garden?”

Reuben shook his head. “I don't think this ghost is mean. It's just—well, something's not right. That's why you've got to communicate.”

Communicate. I got a sudden mind picture of me talking to empty air. “All right,” I grumbled. “But don't tell Juana and the kids what we're doing. Don't tell
anybody.”

“Yeah,” said Reuben. “We don't want to scare them. And if something goes wrong … Well, we don't want the ghost to transfer its energy, like the book says. To start haunting someone else.”

Reuben replaced the ghost book on the shelf. “Let's go.”

“Now?”

My man squared his shoulders. He looked like Captain Nemo on a mission.

Mission: outlaw rose.

We marched out of the library, up the street to Evert, past the empty b-ball blacktop.

A ghost. I was about to talk to a ghost. My hands were sweaty—and not just from the heat.

What if the ghost got mad? Started throwing things? Followed us home?

I shivered.

We marched right to Rooter's gate, then stopped. Reuben glanced at me. I wiped my palms on my shirt. Lifted the latch.

Stepped inside.

In its place by the fence, close to Mr. K.'s roses—the garden's only flowers—sat the transplanted twig.

Someone knelt beside it. I saw a mound of dirt. A flash of silver.

“Nooo,” I screamed, rushing forward.

CHAPTER TEN

I hurtled through plots. Stumbled over a shrub.

The figure whirled. I saw a face. Another flash of silver.

Ro dropped his spoon and burst into tears.

“What happened?” Juana and Gaby raced from the other side of the garden. Juana grabbed the little boy. “What's wrong, Ro? Who screamed?”

Sobbing, Ro pointed at me.

“I didn't
scream,”
I said, panting.

“You did! You did!” Gaby hopped about.

“Jackson
scared me,”
Ro howled.

“Shhh, it's okay.” Juana patted his back, frowned at me. “Why did you scream at Ro?”

“I
yelled
to make him stop digging.”

Gaby sniffed. “He can dig. It's a free country.”

“He can't dig there.”

Juana stiffened. “That's not your plot, Mr. Guard of the Garden. Ro's just looking for another worm. He'll put back the dirt.”

“My worm needs a friend,” Ro blubbered.

“Okay, Ro, okay.” I tried to soothe him. “I'll help you. Let's dig in Mailbags's plot.”

Gaby sniffed again. “There won't be any worms in that hard ground.” She swung her arm round the whole brown garden, then pointed at the yellow roses. “This is the only place where things are growing.”

“That's why—”

“Shhh,” warned Reuben.

“What?” asked Gaby, suddenly alert.

“Nothing,” said Reuben.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Tell me!” Gaby stomped on my toe.

“There's nothing to tell.”

Gaby shot me a sly look. She picked up the silver spoon. “Come on, Ro.”

She poked at the ground.

“Don't,” said Reuben sharply.

“Why not?” Gaby chopped away with the spoon.

That girl would infuriate the ghost for sure. What if it drifted up like fog? Started haunting her? It would serve Gaby right if she got poison ivy or a broken leg or a bee-stung puffed-up face.

“Dig, dig, dig,” Gaby sang. She chopped closer and closer to the transplanted twig.

“Stop!” I yelled, grabbing her hand. “You want to know? All right, listen.”

“Jackson, please.” Gaby dropped the spoon. “There's no need to scream.”

I rolled my eyes, then started in on the tale. Old book. Important chapter. Dead garden. Blooming roses. Communicate. Infuriate.

“Wait.” Juana held up her hand. “Why would a ghost want to haunt Rooter's?”

I squirmed. “Maybe I disturbed its natural sphere or something.”

“And digging around, Ro could have disturbed it worse,” said Reuben. “The ghost might have started haunting him. That's why Jackson, um, yelled.”

“Wow.” Gaby's eyes were very bright. “You're going to talk to a ghost.”

I shot Juana a glance. “Maybe you should take the kids home.”

“No way.” Gaby plopped down like a won't-be-budged boulder. “I'm gonna watch.”

Reuben shrugged. “The book did say that ghosts sometimes respond to a circle of kindness.”

“That's right, a circle of kindness.” Gaby crossed her arms.

“I want to be a circle, too,” howled Ro.

“Well, come on, then, and quit crying,” I said, exasperated. “Hold my—wait! Wipe the worm slime off first.”

Ro ran a grubby palm down the front of his T-shirt and grabbed my hand.

“Okay, let's make a circle.”

“Jackson,” Reuben whispered urgently. “Don't you want to practice first?”

“Practice what?” I said, trying to loosen Ro's slimy grip.

“You know,” Reuben continued to whisper. “Your communication.”

“Quit
whisperin.gr
I hollered. “Everyone can hear you—including the ghost.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“Well, you're making me nervous,” I replied. “Here, Ro, wipe your hand again. It feels nasty.”

“Circle of kindness, huh,” said Gaby, helping her brother. “More like a circle of grouchiness.”

BOOK: Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose
7.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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