Scout's Honor, page 16
“Please. Call me Beast. We’re sisters.”
AVI’S PICK: Field First Aid
CHARM: Medical kit with a cross
Perform in-the-field triage, including (but not limited to) wound dressing, splint crafting, and safe practices for moving an injured person from a dangerous area.
Display understanding of the difference between shock and paralysis related to grub energy consumption.
Earn CPR certification.
“Thanks a ton for coming to help us out, Paul,” I say, watching as he takes down one of Kelsey’s cookie-brownies in two bites. A Nike duffel bag thuds onto the table where our tea set would normally be. We’re homespun today. “Normally, the first-aid charm is earned when someone gets hurt, but I’d rather not wait.”
“Anything for the Ladybirds, man,” Paul says thickly, licking the chocolate from his teeth. He’s seated at the table under the pergola in one of the wrought-iron patio chairs from Tía Lo’s backyard. “Y’all kill shit so no one else has to. Thanks for getting that mad crab out of my yard.”
“No problem,” I say, brushing off the compliment. Paul’s house is on Mom and Tía Lo’s dawn patrol route. I only had to steer them toward the obvious entry point. “Just a little Scranch.”
The bistro chair shrieks against the concrete as Paul shoves himself backward. He unzips the duffel. “This here is Rescue Annie, the CPR dummy.”
Avi’s nose crinkles. “I’m sorry, Chancho’s friend Paul, but does your boss at the pool know you stole that mannikin?”
Paul’s pretty face twists into an offended scowl. “Does your principal know you wanna walk around with a retractable sword to kill monsters?” From the bag, he pulls out a dummy with beige skin and sculpted hair to match. Its mouth gapes wide enough to fit a deck of cards. “I’m just here to show you all how to practice resuscitating someone on this doll. And, uh, maybe have one of you get rid of something that keeps blinking at me in the showers at work. Pretty sure it’s one of your interdimensional aberrations. It looks like a centipede the size of a sausage.”
“A Frightworm,” Avi and Kelsey titter in unison.
“We can take care of that for you,” I tell Paul. “No problem.”
While the babybirds take turns pumping Rescue Annie’s chest, Paul tips his chair back on two legs and folds his hands together behind his head. His eyes cut over to me and he purses his lips in thought.
“Kyle’s getting worried, you know,” he says with a sigh. “About you having me and Chancho help out and not him.”
I look away from the scouts and lower my voice to a hiss. “I can’t have him help out. You know that. He can’t See what’s going on here.”
Paul lifts his hands in a noncommittal shrug. “I’m just saying the dude’s getting nervous. I told him you only want me for my mannikin—”
“Oh, and I might need you to come teach the girls how to jump hurdles,” I say, biting the inside of my cheek. “My form isn’t as good as yours.”
“Well, I am the Southie track-and-field GOAT. All-state three years running,” he says with a cocky grin. He drops the legs of his chair to the ground and leans toward me. “I normally wouldn’t repeat shit that KG tells me in confidence, but he’s starting to think you’re avoiding him, Prue. Maybe let him tag along and drink some tea sometime. Just so he can see for himself that there’s nothing to worry about.”
My stomach sinks as I imagine Kyle confiding in Paul and not me. “I’m not avoiding him. I’m protecting him. He doesn’t need to be part of the Ladybird world.”
Paul lifts his eyebrows. “Your world.”
“Only for another couple of weeks,” I grumble, thinking ahead to the end of summer, when my days will be my own again. When I’m not constantly looking over my shoulder for monsters, I’ll be able to give Kyle my full attention. I blow out an irritated breath and look back at Paul. “Have you thought more about whether or not you want to keep the Sight? When I’m done tutoring the babybirds, I can get you a dose of the Tea of Forgetting.”
His eyebrows fall back down. “It wouldn’t get rid of the monsters, though, would it?”
“No, but I hear ignorance is bliss.”
“Tell that to your worried boyfriend. He can’t See shit, so he’s making up things to be scared of.”
SASHA’S PICK: Kick Up Your Heels
CHARM: Can-can dancer
Master kickboxing basics.
Win two out of three rounds of sparring with a sister scout.
Train with knitting needles.
“Cross!” I say, demonstrating with a punch. “Left hook! Jab! Left low kick! Let’s see some high knees! Five, four, three—”
Sweat flies off the babybirds as they attack the hot air in my backyard.
“How often are we gonna kick a grub?” Kelsey pants between knee strikes. “Aren’t we supposed to stab them and go?”
“What about when you’re disarmed? What about when you need to distract the grub?” I ask, circling around the sparring partners. I adjust Avi’s posture and step back. “Elbow strike, elbow strike, head kick! Switch!”
“What about when you’re a woman alone on a patrol in a world full of its own dangers?”
The scouts use the interruption as an excuse to drop their arms to their sides and catch their breath.
Mom strides out the French doors in her patrol uniform. She’s sparkling clean in moisture-wicking shorts and a tank top that shows off the muscles in her back.
“Mom!” I say, for sure sounding too surprised. “You made it! I mean, you said you weren’t sure if you’d be able to leave work—”
“The first day of sparring is crucial, Prudence. Proper form is essential for developing new talent,” she says primly. Clasping her hands together, she inclines her head toward the babybirds. “Hello, sister scouts. I know I’ve met each of you in different contexts, but here you can call me Dame Anita. Prudence has spoken very highly of you and your abilities. You should be very proud of all that you’ve accomplished in such a short time.”
Her face relaxes into an affectionate smile that softens her cheeks from catlike to maternal. I truly don’t know if I’ve ever seen that smile aimed at me before. I might have only ever witnessed it secondhand while Paz basked in its glory. It feels like sunshine.
The scouts puff up with pride. And I can’t help but puff up right alongside them.
15
For the good of her community, no risk is too great for a Ladybird.
—THE LADYBIRD HANDBOOK
On the kitchen counter, I have assembled rolled oats, wheat germ, honey, applesauce, and all of the edible seeds my pantry has to offer—from chia to pepita to sesame. The mixing bowls are clean. The parchment paper precut.
The day I have dreaded has arrived.
“Birdbark is a classic scout snack,” I tell the group sitting at the kitchen island. I debate mentioning that I have never successfully made a batch and decide that my charm bracelet has already announced this for me. “You can form it into bars to take on patrol or leave it loose to use as a topping for yogurt or ice cream. And I’m pretty sure if we cover it in Magic Shell chocolate at the end, it’ll even be edible. Kelsey, you made a batch for the car wash. Anything we should know going in?”
“Oh, uh, what?” Kelsey twitches to attention and slurps her braces. “Sorry?”
Despite being inside in the air-conditioning and gloveless, Kelsey and Avi both have a sudden sweaty nervousness that has me looking for a grub in the room.
Until I notice that what they’re trying not to look at is Sasha the Beast, texting under the counter.
“Hey, Sa-sha,” I say in a cajoling singsong. “Could you, um, not? I’m kind of hosting a baking show here.”
The Beast looks up, and my irritation is mirrored back to me in her blacked-out lenses. “It’s your cousin. He says you aren’t answering your phone.”
“Because I don’t answer my phone during meetings,” I say, hoping to imply that she shouldn’t either.
She takes the implication to heart and puts her phone away with a sniff. “He also says it’s an emergency.”
“An emergency?” I scramble to pull out my phone from under the birdbark recipe open in my Handbook. It has seven missed calls and video chats from Chancho. I text him quickly.
ME: I’m in a meeting. What’s wrong?
CHANCHO: I found a grub that needs killing. I’m at The Wooz.
ME: Call your mom?
CHANCHO: I did. She said to call you. Your scouts need more “real world training.”
I groan, then give an apologetic smile at the concerned faces aimed at me.
ME: What color are its eyes?
CHANCHO: Black. I’m untrained, not stupid.
“Change of plans,” I tell the girls, anxiously biting the inside of my cheek. “We’re going hunting.”
* * *
The Wooz is one of Poppy Hills’ only non-outlet-mall attractions. Although it is directly next to the outlets. Not quite an amusement park, not quite an arcade, The Wooz is a sort of permanent carnival. The main attraction is a two-story mechanical fun house that exits through a “human car wash.” Lots of kids have their birthday parties here. It’s a step up from a McDonald’s PlayPlace but several steps down from the Six Flags farther along the freeway.
We arrive ten minutes later, red-faced in our tea dresses. Chancho probably walked here. The scouts and I ran, taking the Hillside Trail as a shortcut. Thank goodness we’ve been doing sprinting drills on homespun days.
Over the main entrance is a huge orange sign, each letter easily as tall as I am. The crooked Z on the end looks ready to fall off and crush us all.
“I haven’t been here since, like, second grade,” Avi says, barely even out of breath.
Sasha sets her hands on her bare knees and coughs a wad of spit between her heavy black boots. “So, a week ago?”
“Be nice,” I warn.
“I’m just saying that the all-pink ensemble is a little Baby Gap,” Sasha says, waving a hand over Avi’s monochrome pastel outfit.
Avi thrusts her hands on her hips. “Excuse you, but the Handbook says that wearing pink helps establish us as a friendly, feminine presence in the neighborhood.”
“You know that just because something rationalizes its misogyny doesn’t mean you have to participate in it?” Sasha snorts.
“It’s not misogynist—it’s part of the camouflage,” Avi snaps.
“The camouflage is assuming that people don’t take little girls seriously,” Sasha snaps back.
“There’s more than one way to be a scout,” I assure them. I hold open the door and usher them inside The Wooz.
“And you know what?” the Beast continues, not paying attention to me. “I’m still mad about that sleepover you two had without me.”
“We can always have another sleepover, Sasha,” Kelsey says.
“If you promise not to smoke,” Avi says.
“Or light anything on fire,” Kelsey adds.
“You are so fucking square, it’s truly tragic,” Sasha says. She turns her nose up at Dizzy Bee, the spiral-eyed mascot that grins maniacally at us from every angle. “And so is this store.”
Since only games and rides cost money, The Wooz both opens and closes with a gift shop. Who could possibly need Dizzy Bee bumper stickers or sunglasses is beyond me.
“Remember your combat steps,” I murmur to the scouts as we skirt a display of coffee mugs.
“LACE: location, assessment, combat, escape,” Avi chirps obediently.
I nod. “Be aware of what’s around you. Look for anything out of place. Cracks in walls or wood. Anything warped or distorted-looking. Movement out of the corner of your eye.”
“Fangs, too many legs,” Kelsey adds. “General creepiness.”
“This whole place creeps me out,” Sasha sniffs. She picks up a SNOOZE WITH THE WOOZ sleep mask and straps it over her sunglasses. It gives her Dizzy Bee’s hypnotic spiral eyes.
“There!” Avi points behind me.
We all turn. With one finger, Sasha pushes up the eye mask. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I spy Chancho sitting at a picnic table, nursing a soda in a Dizzy Bee souvenir cup. Jaxon is with him, which is a relief. It would have been weird if Chancho had had the sudden urge to Wooz alone.
Racing through the analog arcade, past the dilapidated Skee-Ball games and miniature basketball hoops, we pass through the automatic doors and into the enclosed courtyard full of neon-orange tables. Other than my cousins, the courtyard is empty. To one side is the Wooz Café, its three pass-through windows releasing an almost toxic amount of hot-dog-water stench. To the other is a mostly empty carousel and the human car wash.
I can’t tell if the mulligrub drove away The Wooz’s customers or if this is just a standard day of Woozing.
Jaxon’s cheeks and eyes are red. A droplet of snot hangs from the tip of his nose.
“Aww, hermanito,” Avi simpers, rushing to her baby brother’s side. “What happened, Jaxy?”
He looks up at her, fat tears leaking out of the side of his eyes. “There’s an invisible monster, so I’m not allowed to go back into the car wash until it’s killed.”
“You mean banished,” Avi corrects.
He shakes his head. “No, I want you to kill it, please. That way it won’t come back. I want to go through the car wash twice.”
Paying absolutely zero attention to his siblings, Chancho stares at Sasha, eyebrows up so far that they disappear under his hat bill.
“Sasha Nezhad in a dress. I never thought I’d see the day.” He leans back, attempting to rest his elbows on the tabletop behind him. It’s a move that Paul would pull off with effortless finesse, but Chancho misses twice, looking like a chicken ruffling its feathers. He settles for putting down one elbow.
“You interrupted a tea meeting,” Sasha says. One of her hands fists in the skull-print skirt of her dress, which I’m pretty sure I recognize from eighth-grade graduation. It’s much shorter now. “Do you have a real emergency, or do you want to make cute fashion commentary?”
“If you think it’s cute, I’m good continuing the commentary.”
I snap my fingers twice at Chancho, forcing his eyes to focus on me. Left unchecked, my cousin will let the Beast throw insults at him all day just so he can keep batting his eyelashes at her. It’s how most of our lunch periods go, both in the cafeteria and when we sneak off campus.
“The grub is in the people wash?” I ask Chancho.
“The people car wash,” Jaxon corrects. “It’s a car wash for people. It has foam rollers and soap and everything.”
His older brother sticks his tongue in the side of his cheek in an attempt to appear casual. “It was near the fun house, but it was moving fast. It was just beyond the entrance. I saw the black eyes and got us the hell out of there before we could find out what kind of hungry it was.”
“So, you ran away. You’re a real hero,” Sasha drawls.
“We can’t all be scouts, Beast,” Chancho says, flicking his eyebrows. “Some of us have Y chromosomes.”
“Are you finding those particularly useful right now?”
“Are they flirting?” Kelsey asks Avi in a loud whisper.
“Not very well,” I sigh.
Avi and Kelsey both burst into giggles. Sasha makes a strangled sound of protest that I ignore.
“Let’s go, scouts,” I say.
At the ticket booth outside the fun house, I buy six student tickets and keep the receipt to bill Headquarters. The Wooz wouldn’t let us explore the people car wash in exchange for all the almond butter sandwiches in California.
The metal stairs clank underfoot. As we pass through the red-painted saloon doors, the bright summer sunlight disappears. Glowing green rope lights guide the way. Once we turn the first corner, I extend my tote to the scouts. Under my wallet and spare water bottle are loose knitting needles.
The girls each draw out a pair and fumble to hold them at the customary chest-high downward angle, squared up like boxers.
I help myself to the last pair of needles. Not knowing what kind of grub we’re after almost makes me wish I’d strapped on my daggers. But if it has black eyes, it won’t need steel.
I tap my needles together twice and say, “LACE up.”
“Location,” Avi whispers, her footsteps falling within inches of mine. “Dark fun house.”
“Assessment,” Sasha says, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair. “Smellier than expected.”
“The water in the people car wash is chlorinated,” I say.
“Oh no,” Kelsey says with a worried slurp of her braces. “That is going to ruin my hair.”
“We’ll have to muddle through somehow,” Sasha mumbles.
I’m just hoping we survive the combat and escape parts of the LACE. At the end of the hallway is another set of stairs. As line leader, I’m the first to step up—and find myself sliding suddenly to the right. Grabbing on to the handrail to keep from falling, I let out a small yelp. Embarrassment makes my cheeks hot.
“They’re seesaw stairs,” I warn the scouts over my shoulder.
“I got you, Prue!” Avi says, helpfully jumping on the other side of the stair to equalize it.
“We’ll all bunny-hop to the top!” Kelsey says. “One, two, three!”
We all leap up one stair at a time, four sets of feet landing more or less in unison. Kelsey counts down before each leap. My thighs burn from the strain by the time we make it to the top, but no one else gets thrown from the stairs, so I consider it a win. Ladybirds 1, fun house 0.
“Good thinking, guys,” I pant. “That was some real Ladybird teamwork.”
They beam at me in return.
The second story of the fun house has barred windows that overlook the courtyard. The thin light illuminates the many signs pointing forward, but reveal no lurking mulligrubs. If Chancho was wrong about seeing a grub in here, I’ll have no choice but to kick his ass.
Around the corner we find a pit full of foam cubes. My toes curl inside my Keds. It’s so difficult not to picture grubs lurking at the bottom, teeth and claws poised to strike. The anxiety fire in my stomach grows into a stabbing pain.
