Tumble & Blue by Cassie Beasley

Author:Cassie Beasley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2017-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SEVEN

MUNCHGOMERY

“You’ve reached Alan Montgomery! Please leave a message. He’ll get back to you almost as fast as he drives.”

Blue didn’t leave a message.

Sometimes the unanswered calls made him feel hot all over, like someone had poured him full of gasoline and lit a match. Today, he couldn’t find that feeling. He couldn’t find much of anything on the inside except for a sick heaviness.

He trudged back upstairs, trying to think of things that made him angry. He wanted that heat to burn away the worry. Even the lime-green paint spilled on the banisters wasn’t enough to make him mad. He tripped over one of Chet’s cowboy boots, but it was hard to be angry with a three-year-old. He caught a whiff of the smelly cousin’s stench on the second floor, and tried to work himself up over that.

But Blue couldn’t hate someone for something they couldn’t help.

Out of habit, he stopped to give Howard’s door its usual kick.

Everyone knew that Ma Myrtle wanted to see Bagget Flat beaten at eating his own swamp cakes. Howard actually had a talent that could help them out, and instead of using it, he was being selfish.

The little smiley face painted on Howard’s electrified doorknob grinned. Annoyance sparked inside of Blue. He kicked the door again.

Selfishness, he thought. That’s it. Howard won’t share his room. He won’t do his part to impress Ma Myrtle.

He kicked the door harder. A stinging ache radiated out from the stitched-up gash on his shin. That did it.

Here Blue was, fighting so hard against his fate that he had thirty-nine stitches running up his leg. And Howard was hiding out in his own private room because he was too stuck-up to eat a few stupid pancakes.

Blue switched to his good leg and gave the door a solid kick that made his bones shake. The door rattled in its frame.

“Hey!” Howard shouted from inside the room. “Stop it!”

Blue kicked again. His foot was going to be bruised. And it was all Howard’s fault.

“Don’t make me come out there, Blue!” Howard shouted. “I’m not kidding.”

Blue kicked one more time.

Crack.

There was a splintering sound. Blue couldn’t see the damage, but he knew the sound meant he was winning. He was breaking down Howard’s door.

Howard shouted something Blue couldn’t hear over the fire that had suddenly roared to life inside of him. The fire wanted him to do it. It wanted him to turn Howard’s door into kindling.

He backed up all the way to the wall opposite Howard’s room. It was going to be like in the movies. He was going to throw his whole body at the door and explode into the room in a shower of wood chips. He lunged forward.

Just as a furious Howard yanked the door open.

Blue smashed into his cousin instead of the door and the two of them flew backward into the room.

Blue leaped up, ready to defend himself from Howard’s wrath, but Howard was scrambling across the floor to slam the door shut behind them. And he didn’t look angry.

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