Iva Honeysuckle Discovers the World (10 page)

“If you want this to work, you have to do it my way.” Heaven tilted her head back and shut her eyes. Iva did, too.

Heaven intoned, “Bless this ground, and bless this…garbage. Bless this piece of wood we found, and help us find the gold.”

“What in the name of Adam's house cat are you kids doing?”

Iva's eyes flew open like window shades.

Swannanoah Priddy towered over them.

“Swan, we discovered something real important,” Iva said. “Can you help us dig it up?” She'd have to give Swannanoah part of the gold, but it would be worth it.

“You discovered,” Swannanoah said, “a post.”

“A post?” Iva repeated weakly.

“Long time ago there used to be a wood fence around the dump. The fence fell down and sunk into the ground.” Swannanoah walked away, chuckling.

Iva wondered how long before everyone in town knew Iva and Heaven Honeycutt were found praying over a rotted fence post.

T
he pup tent smelled like the inside of Arden's closet, but Iva didn't care. She was alone, except for Sweetlips.

Uncle Buddy had put her tent up that afternoon. “Have fun camping out,” he said before leaving for his shift at the box factory. Iva didn't explain the tent was
not
a place to play.

She sat cross-legged on the quilt she'd brought from her room, along with some of her earthly possessions. She opened her crayon box. Her hand hovered over the bottom row, where her best crayons lived. Her favorite crayon, Blue Green, was missing from the number one spot.

Reminding herself to tie Arden's socks into knots, she chose her second favorite, Teal Blue. She leaned over her old third-grade map and drew a five-pointed star in the middle of Virginia to mark Uncertain. Well, where she
thought
Uncertain was.

She stared at the star until it seemed to drift into North Carolina. She was supposed to have been the star of Uncertain this summer. But she was such a rotten discoverer, she didn't even know the location of her own town.

Iva ripped her map in two. The pieces fluttered onto the October 1939 issue of
National Geographic
. She had planned to read an article called “We Keep House on an Active Volcano,” but now she didn't feel like it.

Ludwell Honeycutt's tire-pressure book lay next to the magazine. Iva picked it up and opened to the first page.
The Book of Great Discoveries Made by Iva Honeysuckle
. What great discoveries? She hadn't found Braddock's gold. Her great discovery summer was a total flop. She hadn't gotten her picture in
The Uncertain Star.
And…she had let her great-grandfather down.

“In here! Hurry!”

Lily Pearl shoved through the tent flap. Howard scuttled in behind her with Lily Pearl's Halloween trick-or-treat pail.

“What are you brats doing?” Iva said, crowded against Sweetlips.

“We had
pork chops
for supper,” Lily Pearl said, as if she'd endured a hideous crime. “Time and again I told Mama how much I hate pork chops, but she
will not listen
. So I'm leaving home.”

“What about you?” Iva asked Howard. “You
like
pork chops.”

“He goes where I go,” Lily Pearl stated. She took the pumpkin pail and unpacked five men's handkerchiefs, her mother's rhinestone bracelet, and one Blue Green crayon.

Iva pounced on it. “
You
stole my crayon! And what're you doing with Daddy's handkerchiefs?”

“They pack nice,” Lily Pearl said. “We can hide in here, can't we?”

“No. Howard, get off my
National Geographic
magazine. It's very old.”

Outside, something screeched, like two cats fighting on a back fence.

“
Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now. Just now I found a peanut, found a peanut just now.
”

The tent flap flipped back. Arden and Hunter poked their heads in, singing, “
It was rotten, it was rotten, it was rot-ten just now. Just now it was rotten, it was rot-ten just now.
”

“Go
away
!” Iva exclaimed.

“We're joining your little campout,” Arden said. “We even brought marshmallows.”

“Take them back,” Iva said. “You're not invited.”

“Will you tell ghost stories?” Lily Pearl asked. “Howard and me love to be scared.”

“
Ate it anyway, ate it anyway, ate it a-nyway just
now. Just now I ate it anyway, ate it a-nyway just now.
”

“Shut up that stupid song!” Iva said, pushing Arden's face.

Arden slapped Iva's hand away. “It's a camp-out song.”

“And we sing it real good,” said Hunter.

“
Got a stomachache, got a stomachache, got a sto-machache just now. Just now I got a stomachache, got a sto-machache just now.
”

Iva had a stomachache listening to them. “Get
out
just now!”

“You should be glad Mama even let you camp out,” Arden said. “You left Daddy's tools all over town. Cazy Sparkle found them and sold them at her yard sale. Mama had to buy back our own tools.”

“I spent the whole day cleaning the shed,” Iva said. “My punishment is over.”

But it wasn't.

Arden and Hunter continued to sing. “
Called the doctor, called the doctor, called the doc-tor just now. Just now I called the doctor, called the doc-tor just now.”

“If you don't get out, you're going to need a doctor!” Iva felt like running away herself. Why couldn't she have five minutes' peace?

“I want a marshmallow,” Howard said.

Arden stopped caterwauling. “Hunt, you know that girl in our class, Burgin Clatterbuck? Her mother
makes
marshmallows from scratch. She uses Knox gelatin.”

Hunter wrinkled her nose. “Ewww.” Then she joined Arden in the next chorus.

“
Died anyway, died anyway
—”

Iva stuffed the handkerchiefs and rhinestone bracelet back in Lily Pearl's pumpkin pail, and thrust it at her. “Get out, everybody. Right
now
!”

Arden and Hunter backed out, laughing. Lily Pearl crawled out in a huff, Howard crabbing behind her.

“I'm never running away to
your
house again,” Lily Pearl flung at Iva.

“Me neither!” Howard ran to catch up to Lily Pearl.

“Why wasn't I born an only child?” Iva said to Sweetlips.

He put his nose down on his front paws and sighed. He didn't know, either.

Iva lay down on the quilt and watched fireflies flickering in the grape arbor. Lily Pearl and Howard played Witchy, May I, leaping from shadow to shadow. Arden's and Hunter's faint voices sang,
“Went to heaven, went to heaven, went to hea-ven just now. Just now I went to heaven, went to hea-ven just now.”

The cousins were paired off, having fun, living up to Iva's mother and Aunt Sissy Two's grand plan. All but Iva.

Iva felt at rock bottom. Nothing worse could happen.

Then she heard something snuffling outside the tent.

“Iva? Can I come in?”

Iva closed her eyes. If she pretended to be dead, Heaven would go away.

“I've got something for you.” Heaven's voice rose in a tantalizing lilt.

Iva smacked the tent flap open. “What?”

Heaven steamrollered herself inside the tent, carrying her pillow under her arm.

“Don't get comfortable,” Iva said. “You're not staying.” Heaven seemed to take up more room than Arden, Lily Pearl, Howard, and Hunter all together.

Heaven dug something out from her pillowcase. “I just came back from Cazy Sparkle's yard sale. I put that TV lamp on layaway and got you this.”

In the faint light, Iva could make out a skimpy-haired doll in a dusty ruffled skirt. “Thank you, but I don't play with dolls.”

“It's not a doll.” Heaven turned it upside down. “See, you hide your extra roll of toilet paper under the skirt.”

“In case you haven't noticed, my tent doesn't have a bathroom.”

“Put
other
things inside it,” Heaven said, sliding out a shiny brass sign that said
Office
. “I cleaned it up for you. Since you're into that discovering stuff, I thought you'd like this.”

She
did
like the sign. And the fact that Heaven finally admitted Iva had a real life's ambition. “Thanks. I'll put it on my bedroom door.” Not that it would keep anybody out.

“You won't mind if I take the doll back?”

“No.” Some things never changed.

“I have something else for you,” Heaven said. “Close your eyes and open your mouth.”

“The last time I did that, I kicked the bottom of my cradle out—”

“Iva, just do it!”

Iva closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Something cool and sweet dropped on her tongue. Butter rum!

“Hey, that's the kind of Life Saver Ludwell gave Daddy when he was a little boy,” she said.

“My daddy, too,” Heaven said. “My daddy is younger than Uncle Sonny, but he still remembers our great-grandfather. He's told me a few things about him.”

“You didn't come to bring me a toilet paper doll you took back and a Life Saver.” Iva knew Heaven always had an ulterior motive. “What do you want?”

“Can I sleep over?” Heaven asked. “We never do that. Hunter sleeps over with Arden all the time.”

“I know,” Iva said. “I feel like I have three sisters most of the time.”

“Well, can I?”

They laid down their heads outside the tent. Iva thought about Yard Sale, the world's cutest kitten that Heaven was allowed to keep at Miz Compton's house. She thought about Heaven's job as assistant church-school teacher. She thought about how Heaven hadn't gotten into trouble for digging in the dump yesterday—well, for leaving tools all over town. Heaven, it seemed, had everything on earth. Why should Iva let her stay over?

Yet…there was something comforting about her sturdy self lying next to Iva.

“You're taking an awful long time,” Heaven said. “I guess that means no.”

“No. You can stay.”

“Thanks.” Heaven lay on her side, facing Iva, and huffed in her ear, “Yesterday was fun, wasn't it?”

“Digging garbage in the hot sun is your idea of fun?”

“Yeah.”

Iva giggled. It
had
been kind of fun, in a weird way. Even more weird, she and Heaven had actually gotten along.

“You know, you do interesting stuff,” Heaven said. “Like that treasure map. You figured out the clues and looked for it all by yourself. And you almost found it!”

“The gold could be anywhere.
If
it's there at all,” Iva said glumly.

“I bet you'll find it.” Iva knew Heaven was tuning up for an all-night gab fest. “I could help you look. We could—”

“I want to go to sleep now.” If she didn't cut her off, Heaven would jabber until daybreak.

“Okay. G'night.” And, miracle of miracles, her cousin shut up.

Heaven conked out almost instantly. Iva worried the tent would collapse under the force of her snoring.

Rolling over, Iva gazed up at the sky. Katydids
wheek-wheeked
in the treetops. A thin moon seemed to curve around the first stars.

She wondered if all the stars had been discovered yet. She wondered about that friend business. Miz Compton could be right. If Iva wanted a friend, maybe she'd have to be one first.

Heaven mumbled something. Great, Iva thought. She talks in her sleep.

A white streak arced across the sky. Iva traced the path of the falling star, fascinated. It seemed certain where it was going. The star appeared to drop behind Heaven's head.

Was that a sign? Was the friend she'd been looking for really her mouth-breathing, troublesome double-first cousin?

The tent flap fluttered as Heaven snored.

Maybe, Iva thought. Maybe the grand plan might work after all.