Blue Bottle Tree Read online

  She giggled. “Yes, I love it!” I gave her the stick of gum and she carefully peeled the wrapper without ripping it so the tattoo would be perfect. I dabbed a little water on her cheek.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the zebra in an airplane.” She was tickled beyond belief.

  I dabbed water to her cheek again and smoothed it. “I’ve got to make it perfect,” I said. “What were you thinking about Penny? What’s the secret nobody knows?”

  “Oh, her again? I don’t know…” She chewed her stick of yellow striped gum and the sweetness exploded with a zing. “Wait. I might know one thing.” She held her cheek up for me to affix the zebra temporary tattoo. We went to a window and admired her reflection. The zebra was a blurry blob of orange, but she still gave me a hug.

  “What?” I said. “You want to swing again?”

  “Yes!” she squealed and hopped back up in the swing. I galloped under while it sailed higher and Ava was as happy as could be. “Oh no, you’re going to kill me, and you never told me anything!”

  “Okay, but we have to stop swinging.” It was a true conspiracy now. She looked back at Penny’s window, and kept her gaze on it to be sure she was not there. I caught the swing’s chains and stopped her, dropping down to sit in the grass. Victor had told me when it was time, I should be lower than her eyes, looking up to her.

  “She loves clarinet.”

  “That’s right. Everybody knows that,” I said. “She practices almost every day.”

  “But nobody knows how she won first chair.” Ava glanced back over her shoulder to Penny’s window again, and saw no movement in the room.

  “She beat Velvet West out of first chair. Everybody knows.” I could see the gum was losing its flavor and gave her a stick with red stripes. “Penny played better than Velvet when they had the auditions. That’s all there was to it, right?”

  “Well, not exactly.” Ava slid out of the swing and sat down beside me.

  “Well, what’s the secret?”

  “You promise not to tell?”

  “Of course I promise,” I lied. “Here, you want to keep the rest?” The pack of Fruit Stripe gum was huge. Ava accepted with delight.

  “She cheated.”

  “I don’t believe it. Penny would never do that. Anyway, how could she? They had to compete. And Penny just played better, right?”

  “Uh-uh, no. She cheated.”

  I nudged closer and we both looked up at Penny’s room, squinted our eyes. I whispered, “How’d she do it?”

  Ava whispered back, “She got one of her clarinet reeds and held it over the steam of a kettle, for a really long time—until the feathery end got all wrinkled. The next day, she snuck in the band room early and got into Velvet’s case. She traded out that reed with the one Velvet usually uses. That’s the only reason why she won. Because that reed was all cracked.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t very nice of her. Does anybody else know she did it?”

  “I don’t think so. I only know because I caught her. She made me promise not to tell.”

  “Well, I won’t tell anybody,” I assured her. I was the coolest spy. “You want another one?”

  I had concealed a tattoo of a zebra dunking a basketball and offered it to her now. “Yes!” she said. “But remember, you can’t tell.”

  “You’re the best, Ava. You’re the smartest nine-year-old I ever met.” I applied the ink blob carefully to her other cheek and she was pleased. “That’s going to be our little secret,” I confirmed.

  On my way back to the Radcliffe mansion, I happened to see Ray Dimple cruising in his slick blue car. It was just the right time to fire one up. He had been pretty cold since our Eskimo Pie job went bad. But when I said I needed a ride to Victor’s place, that got his attention and he let me in.

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, we’re like, best friends,” I said. He sucked a spark from the roach and coughed.

  “You invited to his party?”

  “I will be.” I could be cocky now. I would be an honored guest.

  Ray Dimple said he was in charge of bringing the weed and he dropped me at the Radcliffe estate.

  I knocked once, then paused, and knocked three more times. It was the code Victor had taught me. The lock clicked open and I made my way into his lair. “Vic?” It was a narrow and steep passage down and there was only a dim red light from the far end of the basement.

  Black leather whips and feather dusters decorated a wall. There was a mirror on the ceiling and a burgundy covering on the round bed. It was a calf’s hide dyed red. Masks with buckles and silver chains adorned another wall. He had a huge collection of these sinister toys. I wanted to whoop it up because I knew he would be so pleased with me. I could barely keep it in. “I did it,” I blurted. “I found out!”

  He was at his table working, and held his hoof up for me to wait. There were freaky pictures on his wall and a pentagram with symbols in the points. One of his shelves held a collection of real bones and skulls, a bat skeleton, a rat. A small human skull. I pressed my lips together. He was not to be disturbed. For lack of anything else to do, I picked up a long-nosed skull. The jawbone was disconnected and it had a loose, pointed tooth. I wiggled it and it popped out in my hand.

  “Don’t touch,” Victor said. He had one eye on me from a mirror on his desk.

  “Sorry.” I stuck the tooth back and replaced the jawbone on the shelf.

  “Come here,” Victor said, separating himself from his work.

  “You’re not to visit Penny Langston at night again.”

  “I know, you told me. I’m not doing that anymore. The acorn trick is over. I know.”

  “Well, then? Why are you here? My work requires great focus.” He gestured to chemicals on his table. There was a beaker with frothy green liquid boiling over a Bunsen burner flame.

  “I did what you told me. You were right about the gum!”

  Victor tilted his head. “Go on.”

  I told him everything and played it out, ducking in the basement when the invisible swing flew by. His eyes blazed because I had done it. The Mad Dog had delivered. I had won my place. It was a great moment, knowing I had pleased him. It made me want to beg for another task. I would be his favorite. I would be his best friend. He traced his lips with a toe of his hoof.

  “You’ve done well, Rickey. I’m impressed.”

  “I’m glad I could help.” It was the sort of answer he liked.

  “You are now invited to my party.” I squelched a joyful shriek. “And there’s something more. I’m going to let you come with me tonight.”

  I was too excited to keep his somber mood, but I toned it down enough that he didn’t swat me. “Sure, Vic. Whatever you need. Just say the word.”

  “We need graveyard dirt.”

  “Seven’s funeral is tomorrow. I could get a handful of dirt from his grave.”

  “No, that won’t do. It has to be from an old grave, a very old grave. And Seven’s not dead, you know?” A crooked smile snaked across his face.

  I did not know what he meant by that. He liked to tease and play games with my head. But I didn’t know how he could say that Seven LaVey wasn’t dead. “Um, Victor? His funeral is tomorrow. I’m a pallbearer.”

  “I distributed a hundred and fifty pounds of weight in his coffin. It will feel about right, but he won’t be in there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The casket will be locked. I left a very official letter from Dr. Brandt, saying that Seven might have been poisoned, that his corpse had to stay contained. Confidential medical information, of course.”

  “I never went to a funeral before.”

  “I’ve got a surprise for you.” Victor was taking me into his confidence and I was so ecstatic I could have yelped. He gestured to his laboratory freezer, that I should open the door. “Seven has changed. Bring the tongue to me.”

  On a white styrofoam tray lay a huge tongue, wrapped in cellophane. Victor peeled the plasti
c back to expose ice crystals on gray taste buds. A crevice down its center with nine stitches of black wire held the split together. He was fooling with me. “This is way too big to be Seven’s tongue.”

  He cleared his throat. “Rickey…”

  I looked at it more closely. “Is it a cow’s tongue? That’s cool!”

  “It’s a freezer spell,” he said. “I’ve frozen Seven’s tongue.”

  “But that’s a cow’s tongue, right? Because it’s really big.”

  “I have not frozen Seven’s tongue literally, Rickey. It’s a spell that keeps him quiet.”

  “Because he’s not really dead?”

  “See that?” He pointed at aluminum foil which was stuck in the sewn-up laceration of the frozen tongue. “It has his name written on it nine times. Alum silences the voice. Then it was soaked in vinegar, to sour his words.”

  “But, dead people don’t talk anyway, do they?”

  He ignored me. “And these are poppy seeds, to confuse him. He’s changed.”

  “I’ll say.” Victor seemed content. “But that’s a cow’s tongue, right?”

  “I’m showing you this so you’ll understand when you see him.”

  “Victor, you’re the smartest guy. But I’m going to be a pallbearer at his funeral. Seven is dead.”

  “Would you like a servant?”

  “I guess.”

  “Everyone thinks Seven is dead. And he is, in a way. But I resurrected him. He will be very devoted to me.”

  Victor once told me he was a god—because of his hoof and his special training. He was more than human. I looked around his basement room. Red lights cast long, dark shadows and the animal skulls seemed alive, observing me. If all those torture devices could talk… Maybe he was a god. Maybe he could boost me as a preacher. I would need a guy like him to help me fleece the flock. “And me? You can make Seven serve me? What is he, then, if he’s not really dead?” I snickered. “A zombie?”

  “He is.”

  I played along. I could play along with anything. I was the champion of playing ball. “I was always too nice to that guy anyway.”

  “He didn’t deserve a friend like you.” Victor’s eyes crossed the room to a huge bongo drum, six feet tall and painted with a life-sized skeleton. The cords holding the drum’s head looked like they had sewn the skeleton’s jaw shut.

  “Wow, that’s a cool drum. You know I play drums, right? I’m in the band.”

  “Do you want to play that one?”

  “Sure!”

  “The time will come. You carry the bass in parades? It takes a lot of endurance for that.”

  I nodded. He knew!

  “I’m going to need you to carry that to the dump for me. I’ll teach you a rhythm. You’re going to play it a lot.”

  I swelled with pride. Victor needed me.

  17 Seven Digs

  “Faster!” Mad Dog yelled. Rather than grasp the true hideousness of the situation and display a modicum of sympathy, Mad Dog was commanding me to work harder. The fact that I could not speak, was filthy and weak, was skin and bones and truly deathly—that I was a real live zombie for Christ’s sake—this did not faze him in the least.

  I was knee-deep in front of a hundred-year-old gravestone, throwing dirt out in a pile. Hoof wanted deep graveyard dirt. Dirt from the oldest grave in the cemetery. And exactly how far down I was supposed to dig had not been determined yet. More—at least we were sure of that. So, I went on. I was exhausted, but the night air was cool. I had a job to do, and some occupation was better than being trapped under the kiddie pool. Still, I had to make a periodic protest known. I begged for water, but it went unheard.

  “Hey, what’s wrong with him?” Mad Dog asked Hoof. “Can’t he even talk anymore?”

  “No, Mad Dog. Freezer spell.”

  “Right, I know. Right. Wow, I didn’t believe it. But it works. Look, old Seven’s not half the man he used to be.” He raised his voice and added, “He never was!”

  That was so hilarious they both doubled over laughing. I held fingers to my parched lips, stuck the shovel in the dirt, and leaned on it like I could not go on. “Give him this,” Hoof said, offering Mad Dog a flask of greenish liquid. “If you feed him he’ll respect you more, and work harder.”

  The datura juice sent my mind reeling. I fell in my hole, writhing in a convulsive fit. My pupils rolled back, white eyeballs gleaming. But as quickly as it had happened, it was over, and Hoof whipped me out of a postictal state. “Back to work, Seven.”

  “Holy shit! What’s in that?” Mad Dog prodded me with a riding crop.

  “Datura. You know what jimson weed is? I’ve crushed the seeds and leaves to get the juice. Here, you can try it. But don’t take more than a drop.”

  Mad Dog touched his finger to the bottle’s top and tasted it. He coughed and sputtered, drooled.

  “Dude, don’t spit my jizz!” Hoof said.

  Mad Dog spat and kept spitting. “I think my mouth is numb. That’s not really your…?”

  “Not really.” Hoof gave him a drink of whiskey. “This will help.”

  Mad Dog gulped and shook his head, instantly feeling better. “Good one, Vic. But seriously, I can’t feel my lips. Is that shit going to kill me?”

  “Does he look dead?”

  “Yes.”

  They nudged each other, clowning like brats. I paused for a second, shovel full of dirt, heaved it on the pile, and kept digging. No need to call attention to myself. My blade struck something hard, the remains of a pine coffin. I punched through it and scooped up bones—the small carpals of a wrist and a handful of phalanges.

  “Whoa there, Seven. I believe this is deep enough.” Hoof patted me on the head and wiped off his hand immediately. He had been hitting the whiskey and was more chatty than usual. “Yuck, you’re sweating.” To Mad Dog he said, “Gloves.”

  Yellow surgical gloves were produced. Hoof held out his arms like a deformed scientist. Mad Dog snapped one glove on his right hand, another over the hoof, which looked ridiculous with empty fingers flopping. He took a spade for this delicate work, broke up clots of deep graveyard dirt, and dribbled them into a ziplock bag—which was balanced on his gloved hoof—and he separated the bones into another bag. Then he produced a pair of black stockings from his inside jacket pocket. He emptied a spade into one of the legs, which stretched it down, and he shook it, bouncing, until there was a big clump at the toe. He then tied it off, and swung it like a lasso. “Yee-haa!” he cackled like a moron, and whopped me on the forehead. My reflexes were gone. The swinging of the lasso looked more like a propeller’s whir and he had clocked me before I saw it coming. They laughed as I tumbled, but I could smell Penny Longstocking’s scent. It was delicious.

  “Hold this open,” Hoof said to Mad Dog. Mad Dog gathered up the extra material so the untied foot of the stocking was open. Hoof dropped an egg into it. “I’m going to let you lay the spell,” he said. “This egg has been sitting outside in the sun for a month.”

  Mad Dog stood straighter, honored. “What do I do?”

  “Spread the dirt out.” Mad Dog mashed the toe of the stocking down, spreading the dirt out like a pancake. “Now, put the other stocking with the egg on top of that. Take this.” Hoof crumbled the rotten wood from a long shard of the coffin and gave it to Mad Dog. “Crack the egg.” Mad Dog drove the coffin spike through the egg and into the graveyard dirt. Stake through a vampire’s heart. The egg was noxious and overwhelming. The yolk had turned brown and it seeped through the one stocking and soaked the graveyard dirt in the other.

  “Is that it?” Mad Dog asked.

  “Not yet. We have to feed it. It won’t have any power if we don’t feed it. Come here, Seven.”

  I approached and he raised my arm with his hoof, found a boil from an infected ant bite, lanced it, and squeezed pus out onto the stockings. “That should do. Wrap it all together and tie it off.” Mad Dog did.

  A half hour later, just before dawn, I was digging again. Not in the ce
metery, but under Penny’s tree. “It’s in the hour before dawn that they’re most susceptible,” Hoof said. “As she enters the light sleep of early morning, we can control her dreams. “You have to bury it. Now.”

  Hoof swatted me away. When I had gone far enough, he jerked my tether—the rope around my neck—and held me in place. Mad Dog buried the toxic stocking. “When she comes here again, this will make her weak. It will make her sick.” They patted dirt over their devilry and scattered big magnolia leaves on top. “Blessed are the strong,” Hoof intoned, “for they shall possess the Earth.” He gave Mad Dog a black book with a pentagram on the front cover, and indicated where to read.

  “Cursed are the weak, for they shall inherit the yoke.”

  With this they were both pleased, so much so that Hoof gave Mad Dog the reins. “You’ve earned it,” he said. Mad Dog jerked my leash, choking me. I was flung to the ground, flailing and gasping, trying to loosen the collar enough to breathe. My knees flexed involuntarily and I rolled. They kicked me and howled to the dawn.

  18 Chasing Penny Crazy

  It was the first night that I slept well in days. Finally, the acorns and rocks on my window had stopped. I might have kept sleeping forever, but the bird woke me up. He had perched on the window sill, and was fluttering and tilting his head to get a good look at me. Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill. Everything’s okay, he seemed to say. I sat up and got dizzy. I almost fell down when I stood. The bird flew off, but at least he had been there. I was crazy to think this bird and I had a connection, that a bird had an interest in me.

  My hair was a frizzy mess and my skin was more pale than I had ever seen it. I pinched a fingertip and it didn’t blanch. Something was terribly wrong. Victor was sure I was suffering from a curse, and I believed him. The Eye of Marie was gone, but I was still weak, weaker every day like the life was draining out of me. Even after a dreamless sleep of nine hours, standing up made me so dizzy I had to steady myself.

  My mom was having coffee and reading the news. Ava was trying to set another tattoo on what was approaching an entire left arm sleeve of crazy zebras. “Good morning, Sunshine. We have cheese grits and eggs,” Mom said.