Scout's Honor, page 22
They want you to think you have a chance.
Gum cracking, Gabby swung her sword into a leg, succeeding only in bringing two of the Scranch’s mouths toward her. Hundreds of teeth rattled in the darkness.
I broke formation, leaving the back legs standing so I could pull the grub’s attention away from Gabby. I leapt up, using my daggers to stab into the Scranch’s farthest jowl and pull myself upward on its torso, ice-pick style.
“God, Prudence, way to hog the Root shot!” Faithlynn said, somewhere below my swinging legs. “Are you so determined not to share the spotlight?”
“I’m not hogging anything!” I shouted down at her. My forearms shook as I held myself off the ground by dagger handles and force of will. “We’re trying to get rid of it, aren’t we?”
The moment my concentration broke, the Scranch swung hard from side to side, dislodging me and, unfortunately, only one of my daggers. I tucked and rolled, my spine landing against one of the warped oak trees. I got back on my feet and rushed forward to help Jennica pull her whip sword back. It took both of us to tear off one leg.
As we ran toward the next leg, I was jerked backward by the pigtails, feet momentarily off the ground, pain exploding through my head. I was sure that it was Faith—yanking my hair to keep me from climbing the back of the grub—but when I reached up, I could feel only the sharp spines of Scranch leg. Molly ran to my rescue, setting a hand on my shoulder to keep me still as she started using her sword to try to cut me free.
“Hang on there, Rapunzel,” she said, “You’re leashed to this leg! I think I’m gonna have to try cutting the hair and not the spike.”
“You know, I’ve always wanted a bob,” I said, feeling loopy with fear as the grub was momentarily distracted by our sister scouts. “Try to leave me enough to show under my tea hat or my mom will flip out!”
Faithlynn was shouting. New formation numbers. The rest of us limped forward into position. With only one pigtail, I felt lopsided. I was so scared, every footstep felt like walking in space. Floating, untethered.
I tripped over something shiny. My other dagger on the ground. I picked it up and squared my shoulders. In my mind, I thought about being six and playing Ladybird in the backyard with Chancho. How had that felt more real than actually facing down death in the field?
“Now,” Faithlynn said, addressing all of us and the grub in the same voice of fourteen-year-old dictatorship, “I am going to go for the Root, and you are going to get those fucking legs off.”
“Isn’t that what were we doing?” Gabby asked.
“That’s what you were failing at,” Faithlynn said. “It still has four of its legs!”
Agitated with us, the Scranch hunkered low to the ground and dragged its belly through the dirt. It roared. Its breath was curiously cold and stank of rotten eggs. I thought of a passage in the Handbook: “If you’re close enough to smell, you’re close enough to taste.” I’d never realized it was a warning. Or possibly a threat.
The grub sprang forward. It snapped at Jennica, who screamed and fell back. A leg dragged Faithlynn forward. Faith welcomed the momentum, letting the Scranch pull her halfway to its mouth before she barrel-rolled over the leg and thrust her axes into the grub’s haunch. She succeeded in pulling it downward, the veins in her arms bulging with the effort.
When Molly made the run around the back, I knew exactly what she was going to do. We all did. As Faithlynn pulled the Scranch to the ground by sheer force of will—and Gabby and I followed formation, doing our best to pin down the other two legs—the grub would be in easy position for someone to get its Root.
A Scranch isn’t made for standing on; its knobby body is like a giant’s fist, all knucklebones. Molly ran up the back easily enough, though, her Scotchgarded Keds taking its spine like a balance beam. She cranked her sword as she went, proudly displaying her hand-me-down steel for once.
“Look what you made me do!” she sang out, her sword lifted to the sky. “Root shot!”
The leg that Faithlynn was holding tore away from the body and fell toward me. One of the burrs clipped me in the shoulder and knocked me into the dirt. I thrashed beneath it, feeling my skin tear as I tried to free myself.
Easily pulling out of Gabby’s grip, the Scranch flipped itself over onto its back, sending Molly toppling. It caught her out of the air, pinching her between the tips of its two remaining legs. Sharp claws pressed into her stomach. It looked like it might spin her in a web like a spider.
Molly didn’t cry out or curse God. In the spotlight of the Scranch’s eyes, one moment she was held aloft.
The next, she was stuffed, unceremoniously, into the centermost mouth.
Face-first, thank God.
Legs kicking figure eights, she fought like a Ladybird all the way until the end.
But then it was the end.
In the Scranch’s jaws, the lump of her shattered.
The sound was awful. Beyond awful. So loud that I couldn’t hear my own screams. Fear like I’d never known flooded my system.
And the Scranch was still moving. Turning every particle that had been Molly Barry—her goofy laugh, her taste for pepperoni-and-pineapple pizza, the red roots under the pink hair she wore to match us—into fuel for killing. And all I could do was lie on the ground, frozen, watching it happen. Despite my years of training, the legacy status in my blood, the charms on my wrist, there was nothing I could do to save my friend. There was nothing any of us could do.
The air started to shimmer around the grub. There was a molasses-in-a-vacuum sucking noise and brief, intense heat, like an oven door open too long. All around us, tree trunks burst open with vertical slashes. The Scranch was swelling. Growing. Getting stronger.
Gabby helped pull me to my feet. Jennica was sobbing and babbling about losing her charm bracelet, her sweatshirt bundled around her arm.
Faithlynn called for us to retreat.
The light of our dead friend’s soul burned behind us, illuminating our way out of the park. We left our bikes and staggered into the street. Faithlynn flagged down a minivan—a mom on a predawn Starbucks run—to take us to the hospital.
I don’t remember us talking to one another until we were standing alone in front of the ER. At that moment
—before Jennica removed the sweatshirt from her wrist and we realized that it wasn’t her bracelet that the grub took, but her whole hand and most of her wrist
—before we were rushed into separate triage rooms
—before I fainted while trying to count the staples in my arm
—before Gabby’s parents put out a missing persons warrant for her but not for the rest of us
—before Dame Debby showed up with one of the Grand Dames from the regional clubhouse to take an official report
—before the police’s birdshit report about a mountain lion protecting its cubs—
the only thing anyone said aloud was “Molly must have thought she could make the Root shot because Prudence did.”
* * *
“After that,” I say shakily, focusing on the white light of the nearest camping lantern. “I knew couldn’t be a scout anymore. I was supposed to return to the field when my arm was healed, but I started having panic attacks just seeing Critters around the house. I couldn’t go to school. I was afraid of going to sleep because I didn’t want to see grubs in my dreams. When I got diagnosed with PTSD, my dad and my psychiatrist talked my mom into letting me officially leave the scouts. I didn’t—I don’t—want to face another Carnivore. Scouts are supposed to keep people safe, and I proved that I couldn’t.”
“Prudence,” Kelsey says with a soft slurp of her braces. “I had no idea.”
“Oh my heart.” Avi sniffles and wipes her wet eyes before launching herself at me, hugging my shoulders tight. “Prima, I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I say, patting the top of her head. “I should have told you the day of the initiation ceremony. I shouldn’t have let you get this far into training without letting you know exactly how dangerous scouting can be. What happened to Molly could happen to anyone. A Carnivore killed a scout a week ago. All Headquarters does is send out memorial lockets and train new recruits. Because there are always more grubs, the sisterhood has to keep going.”
The Beast lurches forward on her knees, picking up her sunglasses and crawling for the tent flap.
“I need some air,” she grumbles, shoving her sunglasses back on her face.
“Sasha!” I call after her. When she doesn’t slow down—or zip the door behind her—I carefully disentangle myself from Avi’s grip and leave the tent.
There’s no sign of the Beast in the backyard. Ahead, in the darkness, I can hear the scrape of the trash cans being shoved aside and the front gate creaking open. I jog toward the noise, slapping past the Pippy-Mint bushes that line the side yard.
The motion sensor light clicks on over the driveway as a stream of vape smoke raises from between my parents’ cars. The Beast paces and puffs, looking like a bull getting ready to charge.
“Sasha,” I start, unsure if I want to apologize for not telling her exactly what risks she was signing up for or admonish her for smoking in clear view of the front window.
“There was no mountain lion attack?” she snarls. “You’ve been lying to me for our entire friendship?”
“What?” Surprise makes me stagger back a step. Of all the things she could have been mad about—the danger synonymous with being a Ladybird, the truth of how the senior scouts and I failed Molly, even the idea that I used to sneak out of the house way more readily than I do now—the mountain lion cover story was not what I was expecting. “Yes! I mean, only as much as I’ve had to lie to anyone who isn’t a scout. Kyle and Paul heard the mountain lion story, too.”
Sasha takes another agitated pull from her vape, shaking her head in disbelief. “Yeah, but that’s them! I’ve been doing this Ladybird shit with you all summer! Were you ever gonna tell me the truth? I thought we were best friends, dude!”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. “We are!”
“Not if you’re keeping shit from me!” She crosses her arms and glowers at me. “What else haven’t you told me?”
“Tons!” I burst out. All of the anxiety that I’ve kept to myself comes bubbling to the surface, overflowing out of my mouth. “I wish you’d told me before you joined up. I think you are going to hate joining Dame Debby’s circle. When you get something wrong, she hits your knuckles with knitting needles, which hurts like hell. And I am absolutely terrified about what the senior scouts will turn you into.” My sinuses pinch as tears start to form in the corners of my eyes. “I don’t want to see you, Avi, and Kelsey pitted against one another so you can make it on the leaderboard. I don’t want you to become cold-blooded hunters who only care about birdshit—like Faithlynn Brett and Tía Lo and my mom!”
“Then don’t quit!” she growls. “If you’re our Dame, then you can make sure we do more than hunt! We don’t care about keeping score. And we don’t care about joining those snotty seniors. All of us like being part of your circle. So why not just keep running it after summer’s over?”
“Because everything I have done this summer is so that I can finally just Forget … all of this!” I sob, tears spilling down my cheeks in hot rivulets. I feel too exposed out here, unarmed without my hoodie. “All of the horrible shit that being a scout has put in my brain!”
Sasha throws up her hands. “Why are you talking like it’s all bad? We’ve had fun this summer, and you just want to bail. So you can—what?—go back to killing time with the Criminal Element, sneaking into the movies, hooking up with Kyle, and hotboxing the shedroom?”
I wrap my bare arms around my stomach, stung. Because I have been dreaming about exactly that—my scout-free life, where my biggest concern is scraping together enough money to chip in for weed and malt liquor and worrying about whether or not the movie theater is finally going to make good on their promise to perma-ban us. Until tonight, I’d assumed Sasha was happy doing all that stuff, too. Except for making out with Kyle, of course.
“I just want to be safe,” I say in a small voice. I rub my wet nose on my bare wrist, leaving snot marks on the thin skin of my scar. “I want a life that isn’t fully prescribed by the Handbook.”
Her lip curls. “Then why don’t you just show us something that isn’t in the Handbook?”
I open my mouth, to tell her I can’t, that it’s too late, that I’ve already promised them to Dame Debby.
But then I stop. I’ve been teaching the Handbook my way already. Without corporal punishment, without pitting the scouts against one another.
What if I could also teach them how to stay soft, even when I’m not there to lead them?
* * *
The sun is barely up when I wake the babybirds and push them all out of the tent. The air is cool, the grass dewy damp against the hem of my pajama pants.
“Please tell me something needs killing.” Sasha yawns until her jaw cracks. “It’s too early to be alive.”
“Are we going on dawn patrol?” Kelsey asks, rubbing the dried drool on her chin with the heel of her hand.
“Oh my gee,” Avi says, bouncing beside me. Unsurprisingly, my baby cousin is a morning person. “I’ve always wanted to get invited to join Mom and Tía Anita—”
The back door opens, and my dad steps out in his usual Lululemon regalia, his yoga mat tucked under his arm. He blinks a few times in obvious surprise.
“You girls are up early,” he says. His forehead wrinkles the same way Mom’s often does. “But Anita and Lo left for patrol about an hour ago. They went out the front door so that the back gate wouldn’t wake you.”
Avi visibly deflates. I step in front of her.
“Actually, Dad, last night Sasha and I were talking about stuff that isn’t in the Handbook, and I thought it might be a good idea to add yoga into our training. If you wouldn’t mind taking us through that ocean-breathing vinyasa sequence you showed me?”
“Well, sure, munchkin!” Dad says brightly. “We don’t have enough mats for everyone, but let me pop inside for some beach towels! I’ll be right back.”
Leaving his mat propped against the wall, he dashes inside. I wonder how long he’s been waiting to be more helpful to the Ladybirds than just buying flowers and staying out of the way.
Kelsey cocks her frizzy head at me. “Yoga? Is there a charm for that?”
“Nope,” I say with a shrug. “But I think we should start working on emotional regulation. The Wooz Nock-Jaw and yesterday’s Frightworm both got bigger as we fought them. You’ll be safer in the field if you can keep calm. Smaller grubs are easier to banish.”
The Beast gives me her friendliest Friendly Face, her teeth glinting in the early morning light. “Good idea, Dame Prudence.”
21
Fieldwork is the backbone of our organization.
—THE LADYBIRD HANDBOOK
It’s been three days since we took over Gabby’s boundary, and the senior scouts still haven’t caught the Scranch that killed Shelby. According to the daily regional email blast and Mom’s dinner gossip, Faithlynn, Jennica, and Gabby are stationed in the campsite at Solano Park, refusing any offers to take a shift off to go home, see their families, sleep in their own beds. Presumably all they’ve done is hike-hunt the Scranch and make sure it doesn’t eat any other campers.
“I hope they’re not just out there gassing it up for points,” I say, helping myself to more cauliflower rice and pigeon peas, forgetting for a moment that we’ve got family over for dinner who actually listen to the things I mutter under my breath. Or, at least, don’t pretend not to hear them.
“Prudence!” Tía Lo snatches the bowl away from me, chest-passing it to Tío Tino, whose plate is buried under four charred chicken breasts. “Ladybird scouts would never prioritize charms over people’s safety.”
“We earn charms in order to make people more safe,” Avi says, in a way that is neither agreeing or disagreeing. She reaches for the heavy glass pitcher of mint ice water on the center of the table and carefully refills both her own and Jaxon’s cups. Jaxon, whose face deep inside a book with a dragon on the cover, doesn’t notice.
“Right,” I say as Avi and Tía Lo wield their forks and knives in the same mincing manner, like they’re playing tiny violins rather than cutting meat. “But that means that if a scout wants to upgrade their weapon or to gain more field experience or even to qualify for a scholarship to college like Paz—”
“They would not choose to think about that when a sister has so recently died in the field,” Mom interrupts, the white streak in her hair trembling with indignance. “Shelby Waters’s memorial lockets have just been pressed, for God’s sake.”
“I wasn’t trying to dishonor the memory of a dead scout,” I say. My face is hot, and the corners of my eyes start to burn. I take a deep breath, hold it, and pray not to hear a grub pop up at my feet. Tía Lo hates when grubs run into her mint garden—it makes the leaves wither.
Across the table, Avi clears her throat. “I think what Prudence was trying to say is that it’s taking an unusually long time for the senior scouts to complete their mission.”
I send her a grateful look, and she gives me a nose-wrinkling smile in return. Since the sleepover, Avi has almost felt more like my friend than my baby cousin. Before hearing the story of how Molly died, she never would have risked taking my side in a family Ladybird argument.
“Last week, we saw them take down a small Scranch in two seconds flat,” Chancho says. He rips the flesh off a drumstick and whips the bone around, miming the senior scouts closing in on a grub. “Just boom boom, hatchets, sword. Poof!”
