A Clatter of Jars (8 page)

Chuck

H
ER CH
EEKS PUFFED WIDE AND
HER EYES SQUEEZED
tight, Chuck dunked her head beneath the surface of Lake Atropos, letting the chill prickle her skin through her swimsuit. Every day, it seemed, the lake grew colder and colder, as though some water-warming spell it had been enchanted with was quickly wearing off. But Chuck didn't mind so much. Since the morning they'd arrived at camp, the only seconds she'd had to herself were the ones she spent underwater.

“Hey, Chuck!” Ellie cried, as soon as Chuck popped her head above the surface. “Want to leave free swim early to practice for the Talent show?” Chuck drew fresh air into her straining lungs. “Dress rehearsal's tomorrow, and we've got a
lot
of work to do.”

“I want to swim.”

“But we really need to work on the act,” Ellie argued, windmilling her arms and legs to stay upright in the water. “I still need to show you how to—”

“I'm going to play Squid,” Chuck cut in. And she dove beneath the surface again, splashing as she swam for the wooden platform floating farther out in the water, where a few dozen campers and counselors were gathered.

Ellie followed her, of course. But Chuck did her best not to be bothered.

The rules of Squid were simple. One person acted as a “squid” and sat at the edge of the platform with her toes in the water, guarding “Neptune's gold”—which was really, in this case, a pair of swim goggles perched on the platform behind her. The other players tried to grab the gold, but if the squid tagged one of them first, then that player became part of the squid's “tentacles,” holding on to the squid's hands or feet. As more players were tagged, the tentacles grew longer, stretching far out into the water in all directions, and it became more difficult to get the gold. The player to grab the goggles became the new squid.

The first round went quickly. A girl named Molly was the squid, and she put up a noble effort to guard the gold, but little Gracie was using her Talent for lie-detecting to know when Molly was fibbing about how far she could reach, and one of the boys, Jason, could hold his breath for up to seventeen minutes, so no one ever knew where or when he was going to pop up from under the water.

“This is fun, Chuck,” Ellie said, grabbing tight to her hand as they rested for a moment at the edge of the platform. Chuck's arm grew chilly as she soaked in their shared Talent. There were ninety-seven frogs swimming along the southernmost bank of Lake Atropos at that moment. Fifty-five male, the rest female. Seven different species. “Playing Squid was a good idea.”

Chuck released her hand from Ellie's grip, then immediately squeezed the Talent back.

During the second round of the game, with Jason as the squid, Chuck was tagged right away. She took her place as Jason's tentacle—her right hand in his left—wishing she had a Talent of her own. Something that she didn't have to share with Ellie. Something utterly unique, like that silver knot she kept in her shorts pocket. Quirky and complicated and beautiful. Was that too much to ask?

An icy chill trickled up Chuck's arm, precisely the same feeling she got when the frog Talent passed to her from Ellie. Only it wasn't Ellie's hand Chuck was holding.

It was Jason's.

Chuck gasped in surprise, and when she did, her lungs—she could feel them—they
expanded
. Right inside her chest.

She glanced at Jason, still sitting on the platform, still trying to tag the other campers. He looked exactly the same as he had a moment earlier. But Chuck couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps he wasn't, really. That perhaps
she
wasn't.

Chuck sank below the water,
down down down
.

A long minute passed. Maybe two. Chuck opened her eyes, watching the fish swim past her in the murky water.

“Are you
okay
?” Ellie asked her, when she managed to tug Chuck above the surface. “I thought you were
drowning
. You were down there for
so long
.”

“I was?” Her lungs didn't ache. Not in the slightest.

Chuck squeezed Jason's Talent back into his arm, warm like hot chocolate.

“Hey, Ellie?” she asked her sister, kicking her legs underneath her. “Have you ever been able to share a Talent with anyone else? Besides me, I mean?”

Ellie squinted at her, water dripping off her hundreds of braids onto the straps of her swimsuit. “Are you sure you weren't down there too long?”

“Never mind,” Chuck said.

In the third round of the game, Teagan was the squid, sitting on the platform in front of the goggles, her hair shifting from black to red to purple as she taunted the campers. Chuck let herself be tagged on purpose. She went to join little strawberry-haired Gracie, who was hanging on to Teagan's left hand. And, the instant Chuck thought about soaking up a new Talent, it happened.

The icy spark climbed Chuck's arm, the Talent for lie-detecting sprinting into her chest. When Jason swore he wouldn't sneak underwater, Chuck knew for certain he was lying. Chuck was so overwhelmed with her new ability, it took her a moment to notice that Teagan's hair—which mere moments ago had been a black-and-white checkerboard, reaching out at all angles to tag swimming campers—was now a perfectly plain brown. Slightly frizzy. Pulled back behind her ears.

But even stranger than that was the sight of
Gracie's
hair. With one hand gripping Teagan's and the other clutched in Chuck's, Gracie's usual strawberry hair was slowly turning . . .
violet
.

In a blink, Gracie's hair returned to normal. But Chuck was certain she had seen it. Somehow, Gracie had absorbed Teagan's Talent, just as Chuck had absorbed hers. Somehow—

A second icy spark crept up Chuck's arm.

While everyone else was focused on the platform, where Molly had just snatched the gold, Chuck shifted her gaze to her shoulder, her breathing heavy. There was a peculiar tickling at her neck.

Chuck's sweepy black cornrows were slowly,
slowly
, unwinding. She could see them from the corner of her eye, even though normally they didn't reach past her chin. Her cornrows were
growing
, and they were turning
green
. Pistachio green. As the campers watched Molly's victory dance and Chuck did her best not to faint right into the water, her hair wove itself into one long, thick green braid.

Shocked, Chuck let go of Gracie's hand. And then, on a hunch, she grabbed it again.

It wasn't ice this time that traveled through her, but warmth, like a bath after a day of sledding. The Talent gushed out of Chuck's chest, back down the length of her arm, and back into Gracie's hand. Beside her, Gracie—still focused on the platform and the dancing—rolled her shoulders as though something peculiar had passed through them. Her hair began to change again, working its way into a tangerine Mohawk, and still she kept laughing, none the wiser. Chuck squeezed harder, and Gracie's hair went back to normal, and then Teagan, still tentacle-gripped with Gracie, transformed from a normally coiffed counselor to checkerboard crazy once more. At the same time, Chuck could feel the warmth of the lie-detecting Talent leaving her chest, working its way back to its rightful owner.

Chuck dropped Gracie's hand and dunked herself fully under the water again, letting the coolness envelop her, trying to gather her thoughts.

All this time,
Chuck thought. All this time, Chuck had assumed she and Ellie shared a Talent for identifying frogs. But—she kicked down into the chilly depths a little harder—what if Chuck had never had the frog Talent at all? What if it had been Ellie's all along, and Chuck had merely borrowed it, just as she'd borrowed Gracie's a moment ago? Just as she'd borrowed Teagan's, and Jason's?

Maybe, Chuck thought as she kicked for shore, ignoring Ellie's hollering behind her, she wasn't a Frog Twin. Maybe she never had been.

Maybe, just maybe, she was something a little more . . .

Unique.

Renny

“
Y
OU KNOW,
I
PICKED YOU FOR MY TEAM,
F
ENNELBRIDGE,”
Hal grumbled, tossing a plastic water bottle between his two hands, “because I thought you'd be able to tell me where the Blue Team hid their flag.”

“That would be cheating,” Renny replied, tugging at the top of his right sock.

Miles had insisted on sitting out of Capture the Flag, because one side of the field backed up onto the lake. (“
No water!
” he'd shouted, and Renny had needed to grab hold of his fingers to stop the flicking.) So now, after gobbling down three Caramel Crème bars and handing the empty wrappers to Renny, Miles was passing his afternoon examining bugs at the edge of the field farthest from the water.

“That's cheating, too, by the way,” Renny told Hal, pointing at the team captain's water bottle. Whenever members of the Blue Team neared the rock that hid the Red Team's flag, Hal would heat up the water and use it to chase them off.

Hal rolled his eyes at Renny. “It's called Camp Atropos for Singular Talents. Not Camp Atropos for Losers Who Don't Use Their Talents. Anyway, you don't hear me complaining about Del.” Hal pointed to the Blue Team's half of the field, where the head counselor had used his Numbing Talent to turn the remnants of last night's rain into a slippery slush. Most of the Red Team's best players had skidded onto their rear ends in it, which was why they were now languishing in their enemies' jail. “And I'm pretty positive Nolan hid their flag so high up that tree that no one but him can get it down. Just admit that you can't actually read minds.”

Renny bent down to tug at the top of his sock again. “I know what's in your back pocket,” he said.

Hal snorted. “That's stupid.”

Renny merely shrugged, like he dealt with morons who didn't believe in his incredible Scanner ability every day. “I'll bet you ten dollars.”

“Fine,” Hal said, although he was clearly still skeptical. “Ten dollars. What have I got in my pocket?”

“Three Caramel Crème bars,” Renny replied.

At that, Hal laughed. “I think you meant to get on the bus to Fair Camp,” he said, reaching a hand to his back pocket. “Because there definitely are
not
any Caramel Crème—” He stopped talking when he pulled out the wrappers, the chocolate smeared across his fingertips. “Why, you little—”

From his own pocket, Renny removed Hal's wallet, which he'd swiped several minutes earlier. “I already took out the ten bucks,” he told Hal. “That'll buy Miles a lot of candy.” If the Caramel Crème company really was going to stop production on the candy bars soon, like Teagan had said, then Renny figured he better buy up as many of the things as possible. He tossed Hal the wallet. “Thanks.”

Renny expected Hal to try to slug him then, or to throw his hot water bottle at him, at least. So he was surprised when the wallop hit the
back
of his head.

Hal seemed surprised, too. “What the—?” he began, as Renny whirled around.

The pebble was still floating in the air, small and round and black, fluttering like a bird. Tied around it with a thin length of swampy yarn was a scrap of notebook paper. As Renny and Hal watched, silent, the green yarn untied itself and then the paper unwrapped itself, too.

I need your help.

Once Renny had read it, the note crumpled itself into a ball and dropped to the ground, but the pebble kept floating. Renny tugged it out of the air, following the length of swampy yarn as it floated past Miles in the grass (“
Can I get another Caramel Crème bar?
”), deep into the shadows of the trees.

“Hey! You can't just leave in the middle of the game!” Hal shouted from the field.

When Renny reached Lily in the trees, he waved the pebble at her. “Most people tap me on the shoulder when they want my attention.”

Lily held out her thumb, and the small length of swampy yarn wrapped itself around it, tying itself into a knot. “I need you to read Jo's mind,” she told him. “She's dangerous.”

“The camp director?” Renny raised his eyebrows. So far all Jo had done was insist that he go swimming a lot, and that hardly seemed like something to worry about. He rubbed the back of his head, still sore from its run-in with the rock. “I think
you're
more dangerous than she is.”

“Did you know there's a Recollector at this camp?” Lily asked him.

Despite the heat of the afternoon, Renny's body went cold. He glanced back at Miles, who was lying on his belly in the grass now, staring at bugs.

“One of the counselors or someone, I don't know who,” Lily went on. “Somebody gave me a memory, a really important one, so that I could do something about it. Don't you think that doing something to stop a dangerous Mimic is a much better way to help the whole camp than making punch?”

Renny rubbed the warmth back into his arms. Lily didn't know about Miles. “I have to get back to the game,” Renny told her.

“Jo's a
Mimic
,” Lily insisted. “She must be. She's been copying our Talents. Us campers, I mean. This whole time. She has hundreds of Talent bracelets in her office. In jars, Renny. Just sitting in jars.”

“Jars?” Renny asked.

“I need you to read her mind to figure out how she's doing it. You know it's illegal, right? To Mimic people's Talents without telling them? And people could get hurt, Renny. People have already gotten . . .” Lily wound the length of yarn around her thumb.

“You're positive she has copies of Talents?” Renny asked. “Good ones?”

Lily nodded. “Jars and jars of them,” she said. “Will you help?”

Buttered popcorn.

The memory hit Renny suddenly, as though it had plopped directly into his mind from the tree above him. Renny scratched below his ear, where the buttered-popcorn memory seemed to have settled.

Renny had been playing his harmonica, he remembered, scratching. His grandma Esther's harmonica.

Which was peculiar, because he didn't remember having a grandma Esther.

Scratch scratch scratch.
Renny had been looking for something. No.
Scratch scratch.
He'd
found
something.

Renny whipped around, his gaze landing on Miles, belly down in the grass.

Pearl, alabaster, porcelain, frost. Renny remembered seeing the colors dancing above Miles's head. He'd seen them with the harmonica.
Scratch scratch.

Jo had been looking for Miles.

“Renny?” Lily said again. Around and around she wound the yarn at her thumb. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Jars and jars of Talents,
he thought. He stopped scratching the buttered-popcorn memory.

“No,” he said at last. “I'm going to help somebody else.”