Iva Honeysuckle Discovers the World (6 page)

Discouraged, she walked home with her dog. It was too hot to go dowsing anyway.

In her front yard, Iva saw Lily Pearl flapping her arms. Her sister wore their mother's fringed Spanish shawl. Howard crouched on all fours in the grass.

“You're not being a good witch cat,” Lily Pearl yelled at him. “Do like this.”

She bared her teeth and hissed.

Howard stood up. “I don't want to be a witch cat. I want to be a ghost.”

Lily Pearl quit flapping and studied him as if she were going to paint his portrait. “Can you make ghost noises?”

“Oooooh!” Howard moaned. Iva thought he sounded more like he had a stomachache.

“Okay,” Lily Pearl said. “You can be a ghost. Now let's go haunt something!” They raced around back, screaming and laughing.

Iva watched them. Her mother's and Aunt Sissy Two's plan to have three sets of double-first cousin girls didn't quite work. Aunt Sissy Two had surprised everybody with a boy to pair up with Lily Pearl. Yet Lily Pearl and Howard were closer than hair on a hog. And you never saw Arden without Hunter.

How come, Iva thought, the other half in
her
set of double-first cousins was such a dud? If only she and Heaven could have a great big falling-out like the Priddys.

Iva pictured a blue line painted on the grass between their houses. Heaven couldn't cross that line. And Iva would never have to speak to her again.

E
eeerrk.
Sweetlips nosed the screen door open and wiggled through. Iva caught the handle before the door slammed, and eased outside behind him.

“Shhh.” She tiptoed across the porch and down the steps. Then she ran like a wild thing toward the shed.

The night before, Iva had decided she'd get up before anyone and go look for Ludwell's treasure. Her family sure wouldn't miss her. And she'd be gone before Heaven came crashing over to wreck her plans. Besides, discoverers always got up at daybreak to go to work.

Iva used to think daybreak made a loud noise, like a clap of thunder. One night she'd heard a loud thump. She'd run into her parents' room and cried, “Is it dawn yet?”

Her mother had mumbled into her pillow, “It's three in the morning!” The thump turned out to be Lily Pearl falling out of bed.

Iva figured dawn broke at five o'clock, and that was the time she had set her alarm for. But she and Sweetlips woke up before her clock beeped.

Early morning shadows still clung to the corners of the shed. Iva looked around. The pick was missing from its normal spot. Did she leave it on her last exploration? Oh, well. She needed something lighter anyway. She spotted the tall slim handle of a hoe. Her father chopped weeds with it in his vegetable patch, dirt clods flying. That should work.

She balanced the hoe over one shoulder, then set off down the street. Sweetlips frisked along behind her. He held his head high, ears alert. He liked being out early, too.

The morning was as fresh as a new-laid egg.

Iva breathed deeply. The air smelled the way her mother's sheets smelled billowing on the clothesline.

“We should be up at dawn all the time,” she told Sweetlips. She tried to whistle but couldn't remember if she was supposed to blow in or out. She blew out, hissing like a flat tire.

They hiked to Henderson's farm on the outskirts of town. Iva made a beeline for the grove of willow trees on the other side of the field. She waded into knee-high purple clover and tasseled ragweed. Sweetlips plowed along beside her like a possum nosing through grapevines.

“I think this is the right place,” she said. “Not so close to town.” She had worked out this theory in bed last night. General Braddock wouldn't have buried the gold with everybody in Uncertain watching him.

“Let's hurry and find the treasure so I can be famous,” she said. She would have her picture in
The Uncertain Star
!

Sweetlips took off. By the time Iva reached the willow trees, he was sitting by Calfpasture Creek as if he'd been waiting for years.

“Very funny,” Iva said.

Time to get down to brass tacks. She lined up the sun with the road. Shifting the hoe, she began taking long strides away from the creek.

“One, two, three, four—”

A faint cry came from upstream.

Iva dropped the hoe and froze. What was that? It sounded like a wild animal!

Discoverers faced danger all the time. They wrestled with crocodiles and dodged charging rhinos. It was part of the job.

Maybe it was a vicious boa constrictor. Iva had always wanted to fight a boa constrictor. Did boa constrictors have lips? Could they make noises?

“We must do this!” said a human voice.

Definitely not a boa constrictor. The voice sounded familiar.…

Sweetlips lifted his nose, sniffing the slight breeze. Baying, he bolted into the creek. “
A-roooooo!
”

“Get back here!” Iva yelled.

Sweetlips ran as if he smelled the biggest plate of liver and onions in the universe.

Iva kicked off her sneakers and splashed after him. “Some faithful discoverer dog you are!”

The water was shallow this time of year, barely up to her ankles. Iva flailed upstream, trying not to slip on moss-slick stones. She rounded the bend, then stopped.

Heaven stood in the middle of the creek. She cradled a doll in one arm.

The new-laid day suddenly turned rotten. Iva couldn't believe it. What was
Heaven
doing in the exact same place
she
was? And why did she have a doll?

The doll wore a white lace dress. A white lace cap was jammed on its head. Two ears poked up from holes cut in the cap, and the tip of a brown-and-orange tail switched beneath the long skirt.

It was Yard Sale.

“Please!” Heaven begged. “Just a few teensy drips and we can go home, I promise.” She leaned toward the water. The cat arched its back like a croquet wicket.

Sweetlips bounded up and smacked his muddy paws on Heaven's legs. He had never seen a cat in a dress before. Yard Sale spat at him and clawed up Heaven's arm.

“Go away, you stupid dog!” Heaven yelled. Sweetlips danced around her, eager to play.

Iva sloshed over. “Heaven!”

“Get that mutt out of here!”

“He's just trying to save your cat!”

“
I'm
trying to save my cat!” Heaven breathed damply into Iva's face. “Get her loose, will you? She's scratching me.”

Iva gently unhooked Yard Sale's toenails from Heaven's collar. “What on earth are you
doing
?”

Heaven snatched the cat away. “What does it look like? I'm baptizing her.”

Iva was so astonished, all she could say was, “Immersion or sprinkle?”

“Sprinkle. You think I'd be crazy enough to dunk a cat?” Heaven puffed indignantly through her left nostril.

Yard Sale's tuft of orange fur bristled from beneath the white cap. Iva felt sorry for her. “Why are you torturing this poor cat?”

“I'm baptizing her so Mama can't make me get rid of her.”

“Did she find Yard Sale in your room?” Iva felt a bubble of pleasure. High time Heaven got in trouble.

“No, but Howard's been sneezing something awful,” Heaven said. “If I baptize Yard Sale, then she'll be a member of the family. And Mama will have to let me keep her.”

“Do you really think Aunt Sissy Two will—” Iva saw her dog bunching his hind legs to spring. “Sweetlips! No!”

Too late. Sweetlips leaped and nipped Yard Sale's tail. Yard Sale squirted out of Heaven's arms like a greased minnow. She landed on the other side of the creek and scrabbled up the nearest tree.

Heaven screamed.

Sweetlips
a-roo
ed and chased after the cat.

Yard Sale climbed higher.

“
Do
something!” Heaven shrieked, floundering to the other side of the creek.

Iva minced across, stepping on each stone carefully. She wasn't about to rush. For the first time in the history of the world, Heaven needed her.

Heaven hopped up and down.
“Hurry!”
Heaven was having a hissy fit with a tail on it. Iva knew why her cousin was so frantic.

Last summer they had climbed Miz Compton's mimosa tree to pick the frilly pink blossoms. Iva had planned to tie an army man to hers and drop it like a parachute. Heaven wanted to make ballerina dancers.

Iva had shinnied up the trunk, nimble as a monkey. Heaven had huffed and struggled to the first slender branch. It snapped like a toothpick, and she hit the ground on her butt. From then on, Heaven refused to climb a tree.

“What will you give me if I get her down?” Iva said, buffing her nails on her shirt.

“Anything!”

Iva thought. She didn't want Heaven's framed certificates for perfect attendance at Sunday school. She didn't want a bottle of toilet water from Heaven's collection. She certainly didn't want a tea towel from Heaven's Hope Drawer.

There was only one thing of Heaven's that Iva truly wanted.

“If I get her down,” she said, “can I have her? Your mother won't let you keep a pet, so you might as well give her to me.”

Heaven's gray eyes slid away from Iva's. “Sure. Just get her down.”

“Hold Sweetlips so he won't scare Yard Sale any worse.”

Heaven hauled Sweetlips away by his collar.

Iva jumped up and snagged the lowest branch of the tree. She hung for a few seconds, then swung up. Her bare toes gripped each branch as she climbed.

Yard Sale crouched above her. Her orange eyes flashed fire.

“Nice kitty,” Iva said soothingly. She stretched her hand out. “Co-o-ome here.”

Yard Sale tensed. Iva grabbed the hem of the cat's dress and scooped her up. Yard Sale dug her claws into Iva's neck. Iva gritted her teeth as she scrambled back down.

Heaven reached up and took the cat. “Poor baby!”

Iva dropped heavily to the ground. “What about me?” She rubbed her stinging neck. “Okay, hand her over.”

“No.”

Heat rose in Iva like mercury in a thermometer. “You stinker! A deal's a deal!”

“My fingers were crossed behind my back,” Heaven said. “So it doesn't count. Anyway, I changed my mind. I'm keeping her.”

“I'm telling Aunt Sissy Two! That cat can't live at your house!”

“She won't have to. Miz Compton said I could keep Yard Sale at her house,” Heaven said. “She told me that when she helped me buy her at Cazy Sparkle's.”

“You say!”

“I do say!
And
Miz Compton told me I can visit my cat anytime I want.” With Yard Sale over her shoulder, Heaven walked toward the road.

Iva boiled over with anger. How dare Heaven get to keep the cat and steal her best friend! “You can't have everything your way, Heaven Honeycutt!”

Heaven lifted Yard Sale's paw in a little wave.

Iva bent down by the creek to throw water on her face before she had a stroke. She was wrong. Heaven
did
always get everything her way.

That was going to change.