The Secret of Ferrell Savage (8 page)

Mary was pale. She sat down on the couch, leaned forward, and put her face in her hands. “I can't believe it,” she said. “This is awful.” Her voice was muffled, and she shook her head.

“Well, I think I've got it under control, though. I'm pretty sure that if I stay away from meat and other animal stuff, I won't have a problem.” I tried to sound firm about it, even though I wasn't at all certain. “After all, I've never eaten anyone.” I almost added “yet,” but I stopped myself.

“I'm not worried about you,” Mary said, her face still covered. “What are people going to think if they find out?”

“I know it's gross and all, but it was a long time ago, and who cares now? Nobody's even heard of Alferd Packer,” I said.

Mary stood up and paced around the room. “Everyone in Colorado knows who Alferd Packer is!”

“Maybe smart people like you, and people who listen in history class. But not regular people like me.”

Mary sighed and held up her hands in disgust. “I
can't believe this is happening to me,” she said.

“But this is my problem,” I said. “It has nothing to do with you.”

Mary's voice trembled as she spoke. “There's something I never told you before. I've never told anyone.” She sat back on the couch, and I sat next to her. “My great-great-grandfather was Shannon Wilson Bell.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. Now it was starting to make sense. “He was one of the guys Alferd ate.”

Mary nodded.

“Gosh, I'm sorry, Mary. I always knew there was something weird about me. I guess it goes back a long way. Wow, I'm really sorry.” What else could I say? What does any guy say to the girl he's crushing on when he finds out his family ate hers for dinner? This could be a real relationship buster.

“So, you come from a long line of weirdos. At least your family shows some strength and gumption. I'm related to someone who was stupid enough to be eaten by a cannibal.”

“Maybe it's not because he was stupid. Maybe he was a slow runner,” I pointed out.

“What kind of idiot goes up to the mountains and gets himself eaten by another person? Couldn't he
have outsmarted Packer instead? No, because obviously he was a loser.”

“But that's him, not you,” I protested.

“It's a pattern. Don't you see? My great-great-grandfather was on his way to finding gold, but he got eaten instead. Then my great-grandfather made a fortune, lost all his money in the stock market, and jumped out the window.”

“Ooh.” I cringed.

“My father's great-aunt was a genius who invented a carpet cleaner that contained toxic ingredients and who went to jail when hundreds of cats and dogs got sick. And my grandfather? Well, he wrote a book that turned out to be made up of words he stole from other writers. See? Everyone from my dad's side of the family is a loser!”

“Wow, that's a lot of bad luck,” I said. “What about your dad?”

“My dad was fine until he invested everything in a company that went bankrupt right when Mom found out she was pregnant with me. He lost all the money. That's when he left her.”

“What's he doing now?” I asked.

“He's a telemarketer. He calls people's homes while they're eating dinner and asks them if they want
to switch their cable provider.” She stood up like she was about to leave, but didn't. “That's what my future looks like.”

In all the years I'd known Mary, I'd never seen her look so small, like a mouse in a dark corner. She stood there, fidgeting with the tie of her hoodie and looking down at the floor.

“You're not like them,” I repeated. I got up from my chair and took a step closer to her. I was surprised she didn't back up. “You're not stupid. And I don't know about your dad, but I do know he'd have to be stupid to leave you and your mom.”

Then Mary did the weirdest thing I've ever known her to do. She stepped toward me and wrapped her arms around me for half a split second, maybe less. Then she pushed herself away, and I was flung in the opposite direction. And as I was being flung away, I realized what had just happened.

Mary had hugged me.

BEFORE DINNER MOM SENT MARY
and me down to Spinelli's for a bag of red lentils. It had snowed an inch or two the previous night, and our feet crunched as we walked. I felt a little awkward after the hug and couldn't think of anything to say. Mary was quiet too.

The way I saw it was like this: Mary's and my friendship was like my old Converse shoes. I had outgrown them in the fall, and as much as I knew I needed and wanted a new pair, I wasn't quite ready to make the move. I had worn them—with the holes in the big toe knuckles and the red paint from Mary's
and my summer camp mural—for almost a year and a half. Then one day the shoes felt tight and squeezey, making all my toes aware of one another. For weeks I tried loosening the laces, wearing the shoes without socks, wearing them in the shower so they'd stretch out when they dried on my feet. But nothing worked. It was beyond my control. My feet had grown, and it was time for a new pair of shoes.

Mary's and my friendship had become squeezey, and it was time for something new.

We sat at the deli counter, drinking root beer; Mr. Spinelli's treat. “Anything for you, Miracle Survivor Boy,” he had said.

I sat high on my stool and stretched my arms over my head. “Ah,” I said, “I feel like the weight of last night's dark hours has been lifted off my shoulders.”

“Way to mix the metaphors,” she said.

“Metaphor, schmetaphor. Who cares?” I leaned forward and put my elbows on the counter.

“Now I see why the little conniver looked right at me when he talked about family trees,” Mary said. “He knows I'm related to Shannon Bell.”

“Yep. The kid knows his stuff all right.” I took a long swig of root beer.

“I simply cannot resign myself to the fact that I'm related to such a long line of defeatists.”

“Tell me about it. How do you think I felt when I found out I was related to a cannibal? But, you know, I think everything's going to be okay. I'm glad I don't have to race Littledood again.” I slid to the edge of my seat, closer to Mary. “And I think it's cool . . . our little moment back at the house. You know . . . our sort-of hug thing.”

“Ferrell Savage, you most certainly are going to race against Bruce Littledood, and you're going to tell him so first thing Monday morning, because I will not have people standing around, looking at me, just waiting for me to fail the same way my ancestors did. And as for a hug, well, you're just plain crazy, thinking I'd embrace someone who devours my relatives, because that was no hug. I was looking at an ad on your computer screen, and you got in the way, so I simply moved you, is all.”

I was speechless. What had just happened?

“I'm impaled,” I finally said.

“You mean ‘appalled,' ” she shot back with a snarl.

No, I meant “impaled.” I felt a sharp pain right in that spot between my heart and my stomach, right
where that stupid marble lived. I was pretty sure the kissy face had grown pointy teeth and had just chomped me from the inside out. I hoped to never experience that kind of impalement again for as long as I lived.

PEOPLE THOUGHT I WAS THE
next best thing to Superman, just because I'd survived the fall down the hill. But they were wrong. All I had done was throw together a weak contraption and then be dumb enough to enter a race with it. And dumber than that, I'd done it all for Mary. I was not proud.

From then on, no more doing anything for Mary. Mary could go fly a kite in an electrical storm during a tornado after eating a dozen donuts and get dropped in an ocean filled with pirate ships and sharks where she'd get a cramp and . . .

Never mind. I didn't really want anything bad to happen to Mary.

Anyway, Bruce Littledood was giving me a chance to redeem myself. And that's what I was going to do. I'd take my Pollypry and make it stronger than before. I'd fix it so it wouldn't swallow me up and spit me out its backside, like it did last time. I couldn't expect to win against the Titanium Blade Runner, but I could prove to myself that I was brave enough to try. When I lost, well, at least the town would have a new hero. I really was never cut out for the job.

On Sunday I planned to tell Mary that I was going to race, but she didn't show up. All day I paced around waiting for her. Was I sad that she didn't come? Did I miss her? No way. Not one bit. In fact, I started to wonder why her mother made her come over, anyway. It wasn't like she couldn't take care of herself when she was alone at her own house.

On Monday morning I started to put on my semi-new Converse and thought of Mary's and my squeezey friendship. But as I slid my feet into the shoes, I realized our relationship wasn't changing. She was just as bossy as ever. I pulled off the shoes and threw them to the back of my closet, next to my old, well-worn, and too-small Converse. I couldn't wear either pair. The last thing I wanted was to look at my feet and be reminded of Mary.

I searched the bottom of my closet and considered
my other options. I had my snow boots, but the wool lining made my feet sweat in school. That left me with my golf shoes. Dad had bought me a pair, hoping I'd take up golf with him, but it didn't happen. I kept getting distracted, and instead of hitting the ball, I'd dig up a clump of dirt next to the ball and send it flying. We quit playing because Dad was afraid that after I put so many holes in the course, the manager was going to make us pay for repairs.

I picked up the shoes. They were bright white on top, and underneath they had shiny, sharp Big Bertha Spikes, like the teeth of a shark. Perfect. Nobody was going to bother me with these on my feet.

I went downstairs, trying not to stomp and click in my shoes. Mom was in the kitchen, pouring hot water into the coffee press.

“Ferrell, honey? You don't look like your usual self this morning,” she said.

“I'm not sick,” I grumbled. I grabbed the orange juice from the fridge.

“No, I didn't mean that you look sick,” she said. She handed me a glass for my juice, then smoothed out the back of my hair. “You're just not soft and sweet like you usually are.”

I was done with soft and sweet.

“Is something going on with you? Are you all right?” she asked.

“I'm just dandy,” I said, thinking “dandy” would sound cooler than it did.

“Well, all righty, then,” she said. “So, what would you like for breakfast, Mr. Dandy?”

“Don't call me that,” I said.

I sat down, and Mom put a box of Frosted Grainios in front of me. She shook her head and said, “Looks like someone's in a—what did Coby tell you it was?—a middle-school funk.”

“Boys don't funk.”

“Of course they do. Growing up is painful and difficult. You start caring about things you didn't used to care about. Grades, girls, your clothes.”

“Care about my clothes? That'll never happen,” I said, hiding my feet under my chair. Man, I really hoped I wasn't going to start caring about grades now too. What a time suck. And girls? I was already through with that phase, thank you very much.

“Hey, Mom? How would you feel if everyone knew we were related to Alferd Packer?”

She shuddered at the mention of his name. Then she said, “I don't care what people think or know about us. My biggest concern has been to
protect you from feeling afraid. Afraid of yourself.”

I wondered if she wanted to eat meat the same way I did, and maybe she was afraid she would suddenly start eating her friends and family too. “He may not have been a monster, though,” I said. And then I told her what I knew was true. “You're definitely not a monster, Mom.”

“Thanks, Ferrell,” she said.

At school I stood at my locker, looking for my science homework, which was due in three and a half minutes and wasn't even close to finished.