 Young Hellions by Carson Merrick ONE 
"Okay, Mizz Richards, that'll be…"
"Just a moment. How silly of me to forget! I also need some flour. Twenty pounds, if you please."
He smiled. "Certainly. That'll bring your total to five…"
"What am I saying? Ten pounds should suffice."
"Fine." Another smile. "Your total is four-eighty-five." He went to the end of the counter to retrieve the flour.
"Mister Mortenson," she spoke to the lad's parent, "young Ulysses has a way with numbers."
"Josh, if you please, Mizz Richards." He was returning with the flour.
"The way he is capable of adding up such a list of items…" She sighed and opened her purse. "Well, it is a wonder."
"Thank you, ma'am," the proud father looked at his son. "He certainly didn't get it from my side of the family, that's for sure." He laughed and returned to stocking the shelves with cans of meat and vegetables.
The flour was plopped into a crate with the other dry goods. "There you go." He took the bills from her outstretched hand, opened the register and retrieved a dime and a nickel. "And there's your change. Let me help you carry this out to your wagon."
The father took one basket while his son the other, and they carried them out of the store. Heat and sunlight beat down on the small Nevada town as the crates were placed in the back of the wagon, the young man propping a shovel against them to prevent their movement in the long journey ahead.
Meanwhile, the father helped the elderly woman into the seat.
"Thank you so much, Mister Mortenson. And thank you too, Ulysses."
He nodded. "Call me 'Josh', ma'am."
She cackled in delight and flicked the reins. The horses set off down the street.
The father saw the disheartened look on his son's face. "Give it time, son. Most folks have known you as Ulysses for so long now, it'll take some time for them to get used to 'Josh'." He put his fingers through Josh's hair, mussing it. "Still can't understand your dislike of the name; you were named after a President, after all."
"Well," the young man straightened his hair after the fatherly attack, "it usually becomes 'Uly' or 'Ses'. If everyone prefers a single syllable name, I'd rather it was 'Josh'."
"That's fine, son. So long as you feel good about yourself, and still know who you really are, I have no objection to you calling yourself whatever you want." He put an arm around Josh's shoulder. "Come in. Let's finish the stocking and get home for supper."
After supper, when the last dish and pan had been washed, dried and returned to its place in preparation for its next use, Josh headed for the back door. "I'm going over to Bart's for a while. Is that okay?"
His father looked up from the Bible and looked to his wife in the other chair, who paused in her knitting to nod. "Okay, son, but don't be out too late. We have a shipment coming in early tomorrow."
"Right, Dad, I didn't forget." He grinned and opened the door.
Mr. Mortenson grinned at his wife. "No, I don't expect he would forget."
Josh walked across the small back yard, along the short alleyway beside the store and onto the wooden sidewalk along the main street of town. Ahead he saw two young women approaching. He quickly diverted his eyes to the opposite side of the street, as if there is something interesting to see over there.
"Hi, Josh."
He looked around quickly, as though surprised to see them. "Oh! Evening, Helen, Rachel." He quickened his pace to pass them without having to say anything more. He was sure he heard some giggling as he turned the corner by the hardware store. He absently wiped his palms on his trousers, barely noticing how quickly they had become damp.
"Evenin'." Bart spoke as Josh came into the yard.
Josh looked around until he saw Bart's head poking up between the azalea bush and the porch. "Oh, there you are. I thought I was hearing voices or somethin'."
"Oh, is that your special power?" He stood and came into the yard. "And here I thought it was a super-fast intellect." He grinned.
"Sh!" Josh looked around nervously. "We don't want anyone to know about that!"
Bart shrugged it off. "Ain't nobody here. Mom and Dad have taken Doris over to Aunt Tilly's place. Uncle George is feeling a bit poorly and they've gone over to lift his spirits."
Josh looked around. "Now that would be a right interesting power to have." He saw Bart's confusion. "The power to make people feel better, you know."
"Yeah, but what good would it do? Not like something we can do."
"No, but I think it might be more useful that adding up numbers in your head…"
"That's not all you do."
"… or being able to breathe underwater."
"Well, that's a damned sight better than drowning, ain't it?"
Josh shrugged. "I'm not sayin' what we can do is not without value, but we have to find some useful purpose for it. Now, if we lived nearer an ocean or even a large lake…"
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Hardly anyone falls into Werner's Creek and drowns."
"You mean, no one." He looked around again. "Is Maud planning on coming?"
He nodded. "Said she'd be here come hell or high water."
"That Maud," he grinned, "always making jokes."
"Huh? What's so funny about that?"
"Think about it: 'high water' would be you and 'hell' would be her."
"Oh, yeah," he blushed, "if I had been smart as you I'd known that."
"No, Brad, that one didn't even take a genius to figure out. One might think our little Maud likes you a little bit."
"Nah. She just likes making jokes. I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it." He kicked at the ground. "It was just a joke, you think?"
"Sure, Bart. Oh, and here she comes."
Bart followed his gaze to see Maud skipping into the yard. "Hallo!"
"Sorry I'm late, fellows. Got caught up in a conversation."
"Whoa," Bart paled, "someone discovered our secret?" He looked around as if expecting the Sheriff to come into view with two deputies.
She shook her head and looked at Josh. "And just what was his great 'power' again, worrying?"
"I think that could be his secondary power…" He grinned.
"Or his nature," Maud added.
"Come on, guys, lay off!" He shook his head and glanced upward for some strength in his social battles. "So, what was this conversation that delayed you?"
"Okay." She looked solemnly from one to the other. "You remember when Josh told us that he had heard about a strange occurrence a few months before we were born… not all at the same time, mind you… but there was some sort of solar disturbance or something?"
"Yeah, he had talked to his mom and found out that while she was carrying him they had the annual picnic and everything seemed to get brighter or something."
"Right." She nodded and looked to Josh for confirmation. "And he developed a theory about it being some sort of brightening or increasing the intensity of the solar something or other…"
"The solar radiation," Josh said.
"Yeah, that thing. And since all our mothers were there and they were all pregnant at the time, he figured that was what made us so different."
Bart glanced sideways at Josh. "I remember the story well enough, but I dtill don't see how a little extra sunshine is going to do things to us like that."
Maud's glance spoke volumes. "And that's why Josh is the brains of this outfit. He knows those sort of things."
Josh raised his hand. "No, it's not something I 'know' exactly, but from the scientific theories I have been able to read, it is a theory I have devised." He shrugged. "Heck, this is so strange, I don't think anyone can really know how it came about." He saw Maud's face. "What?"
Her grin was ear to ear. "Well, a theory it may be but I think I have a further morsel to bolster it up."
"We're all ears," Bart said. "In a manner of speaking."
"Okay, I checked around and found that there was another mother-to-be at the picnic that day. And only one."
Another one? Josh thought. I wonder if this one has any unusual abilities. His pulse quickened. "And who was it?" he asked.
Her grin became devilish. "Missus Abrams was also there that day." She saw the look of shock on Josh's face. "I mean, you knew she was born just a few months behind us. And you had to figure her mom would have been there for the social event of the year."
"Yeah… I guess it makes sense…"
"And what's wrong with that?" Bart asked.
Maud patted Josh on the shoulder. "I guess you never noticed that our mental friend here has a certain feeling toward Miss Abrams."
Josh winced.
"Oh, that!" Bart laughed. "Its something we just don't talk about."
"So, Maud, what's your point? I thought it likely that her mother would have been there…"
"Yeah, and I know you never thought of going up to her and simply asking her if she did anything a little weird, like causing furniture to float around the room…"
"Or hearing conversations in the next town," added Bart.
Josh was turning pink. "Okay, so I never asked her. So, did you?"
She drew back. "What?! And let our little 'secret' out of the bag? Not a chance!"
After waiting a moment, Josh asked, "You've got my attention. What do you know?"
After another evil grin, she took a deep breath. "Her cousin was visiting from St. Louis when a rather embarrassing incident from the past came up." She glanced from one to the other. "I got this story from their maid, Annabelle, who saw the whole thing. Anyway, Helen was standing near the fireplace when the cousin started telling the story… and she vanished!" The maid was disturbed and thought she had imagined it. Everyone else thought she had merely fled the room while their attention was on the cousin, and then they lit out to look for her."
"You mean she literally vanished?"
Bart scratched his head. "Where'd she disappear to?"
"To nowhere, silly, she simply became invisible. After everyone left the room, the maid went out to look as well. She did not see Helen reappear but when she came back into the parlor a minute later, Helen was back, still standing in the same place."
"Jeez!" Josh shook his head. "I sure hope that story is not making the rounds."
"Annabelle swore she had told no one… as if anyone else would believe her. I made her promise to tell no one else."
"But won't that make her suspicious. Won't she wonder why you want it kept such a secret?"
She grinned. "I'm not that dense! I told her there's been a bug going 'round and people have been seeing things. Told her that Latimer was fired from his job when he mentioned something. And that's before my father learned of the strange illness. Told her see should go have it checked out." A wink ended her tale.
Josh looked at Bart dubiously then turned back to Maud. "You think that'll work?"
"Of course! After the episode last year with the missing liquor, she won't dare tell a strange story like that."
"What missing liquor?" Bart asked.
"Oh, just Mr. Abrams noticing the levels in the bottles were a little lower than they should be. All the help was trotted in and had a breath-check."
Bart leaned forward. "And was it Annabelle?"
Her eyes rolled. "Of course it was Annabelle, silly. I mean, otherwise there wouldn't be any point, would there?" Before he could respond, "And they did not find her out because it had been a day or two since she had last taken a drink."
"And you knew about this because…?"
"Well," she shrugged, "I just happened to run into her when she was a little bit tipsy. She had me swear to keep it a secret." She looked from one to the other of her companions. "You guys don't get out and about too much, do you?" She shook her head. "You really ought to get out and talk to more people sometimes. People love to talk and you could certainly find out a lot."
"Yeah, right." Bart nodded. "I'll get right on that."
"There she is." She nudged Josh in the back. "Go on!"
He whispered, "No, there are people with her. I can't ask her anything with people around. It would blow our secret."
The eyes rolled again. "Oh, brother! I'll be right back."
She stepped around him and started down the sidewalk. Josh took one step and reached for her.
"Let her go," Bart pushed his arm back. "We both know it has to be done but neither of us can do it. So," he shrugged, "let Maud exercise her powers."
"I never thought being social could be considered a super-power," he said, "but there are certainly times when I wished I had that power."
Bart grinned. "Don't you realize that once Maud gets her over here, she's not gonna talk anymore. You're going to have to be the one to convince her to join us."
Josh went beet red. "Darn! I forgot!" He glanced one way and the other.
"No, don't even think about it! You're not going to chicken out on us now. We already talked about this. Just relax and go slow." He shook his head. "I don't care if you stay red in the face, you just tell her what you need to."
Josh wiped his sweaty palms unconsciously on his trousers. "I don't know if I can."
"Remember, this is nothing personal, this is business. We just need to know if she wants to join us."
"And what if she won't? Our secret will be out of the bag!"
Bart dropped his voice to a whisper as Maud approached with Helen. "So what? We know her secret too! If she blabs, so do we!"
"Hell, Josh, Bart." Helen nodded to each of them, but seemed to keep her attention on Bart. "Maud says you two wanted to see me about something."
Bart shook his head. "No, not me. It's Josh wants to talk to you."
She turned her head slowly to Josh. "Yes?"
Josh could not seem to get his mouth to work, and it was suddenly getting oppressively hot. It even seemed to be affecting Helen, her skin was turning a bit pink as well. "Helen, hello." Her pink deepened, and suddenly he felt a little easier talking to her. "I… that is, we wanted to talk to you about something we heard about."
She seemed to pale slightly. "Yes?"
He began relating the story they had gotten from Annabelle – without mentioning the maid's name – and watched the color drain completely from her cheeks. She stammered, "I don't know… I can't imagine where you could have gotten… where you heard such a story." She started to step away but Maud's hand restrained her.
"Hear us out, Helen." The girl looked from Maud to the two boys and nodded slightly, her color returning some.
Josh lowered his voice. "I don't know how long you've been able to disappear…" he raised a hand to stop her protest, "…or how long you have known you have had the ability, but you are part of a very special group."
She looked from one to the other and started to say something but stopped, waiting for him to continue.
"There was something happened at the annual town picnic the year we were born. The four of us share a special bond…"
"What happened?"
"Well," he struggled to find the words.
"Give her the short version, Josh," Bart advised.
"Okay," he nodded, "there seems to have been some sort of solar disturbance at the time of the picnic – everyone seemed to notice it – and there were four women present who were with child."
"All four of our mothers," Maud explained.
Helen nodded. "I remember mother talking about it before. Something about the sun becoming exceptionally bright for a few moments. Some people thought it was the end of the world or something, but it went away after a few moments. Was that what you're talking about?"
"Yes." He nodded. "After a while, since nothing strange happened, the world went on as usual and everybody pretty much forgot about it."
Her embarrassment eased as her interest grew. "And that is the cause of my condition?" She looked at the other three. "And I gather that something similar happened to each of you as well?" She saw affirmation. "What? Do you disappear too?" Glances were exchanged and one of Helen's eyebrows rose. "Oh, something different, eh? For each of you?"
"Before you ask 'what?' I think we ought to get out of town a ways. I think it would be better to show you."
Helen looked back at her friend, still standing across the street. "Let's plan to meet somewhere in about an hour, all right?"
"Sure." Josh looked at Brad. "How about down by the stream?"
"Yeah," agreed Maud, "How about at the south end of the park where the dogleg is?"
They agreed and Helen left the group.
"Do you think she'll show?" Brad asked.
"Of course," Josh responded.
Maud grinned. "You can count on it."
They had been waiting for fifteen minutes. Brad had brought his father's watch and was giving updates every thirty seconds or so.
"Do you have any idea how annoying that is?" Maud snatched at the watch but Brad moved it out of her reach. "All right, you can watch it, just stop telling us the updates. She'll be here."
Josh shrugged. "And if not… I mean if something came up that she did not plan on, we can arrange it for another day. I am sure we have captured her interest."
"Absolutely." Maud nodded firmly.
"And I like your choice of location," he continued, "A perfect place to show what Brad can do and the best place to be if yours gets out-of-hand."
She scowled. "Hey! It's only gotten out of hand once… or twice." She finished sheepishly.
Josh shrugged. "See? It happens."
"Point taken. We still need to get somewhere where we can practice all out, unobserved, for a while. I still worry that I do not get to do it often enough to be able to control it." She stuck out her tongue. "All except you."
"What do you mean?"
"You get to practice yours all the time. Everybody's always raving about how smart Josh is! At least your talent is socially acceptable. Ours isn't! It's not fair."
"Don't pout, girl, I have my problems as well. There are plenty of times that things seem evident to me but I cannot mention it… either people would be upset or scared. And there's often no way to check on the answers without embarrassing a lot of people. I really don't know how far this ability can take me, other than adding up numbers for the shoppers."
"Okay, point taken. Sorry for getting huffy."
"No problem," he said, getting up off the log on which he was sitting, "sometimes we can only see our own problems."
. Bart noticed the motion. "What's up?"
"We have company."
The other two stood and turned to see Helen walking across the wild grasses of the park. Josh waved. Helen smiled and waved back.
"Glad you made it," he said when she had joined them.
She grinned. "I don't think I could have missed this for the world." She looked at the other two. "Well, let's see what you can do."
Maud pointed at Josh. "I think you already know what Josh is good at, but I think we'll step it up a notch for you. Come here." She drew Helen aside.
"What's up?" asked Brad.
"Just a minute, hold your horses!" Maud waved him off. The two girls huddled up near the tree and Maud seemed to be writing something down. They talked back and forth for a couple of minutes before returning to the others. "All right, we're ready. Here, Helen, you read." She passed over a piece of paper and tucked her pencil back into a pocket.
Helen read, "What is the sum of twenty-seven thousand, four-hundred and eighty-seven plus thirteen thousand, six-hundred and fourteen…"
Josh started immediately, "Forty-one…"
But Helen continued, "…times five hundred and eight, divided by nine thousand, eight hundred and seventy-six, times two hundred fifty-eight, less a quarter of a million, times three percent." She looked up.
His answer was immediate. "Fifteen thousand, six hundred thirteen point four, nine, one, six, eight, eight…"
"Okay, okay!" Helen laughed. "We didn't carry it out beyond two decimal places." She handed the paper back to Maud. "That was very good."
He shrugged. "But that's just a parlor trick. Numbers combine on their own in my head. I want to find out how far I can push it. What else I can do with it." His gaze was intent at Helen.
"Okay." Maud stepped between the two. "It may not be much but here's what I can do. And, yes, it is just a parlor trick too. But I think it can be developed." She stepped over to the log Josh had been sitting on. She rubbed her hands together and looked around, assured she had their undivided attention. "Here goes nothin'."
She extended her hands, touching one another, palms facing away from her body as if pushing something away.
Helen watched the hands a moment, then turned her attention where Josh and Brad were staring: the log. After a while, light smoke, almost like steam begin to rise from the log and, a few moments later, it burst into flame.
Helen's eyes widened. "That's a parlor trick?"
Maud dropped her hands and shrugged. "Yeah. I can’t control it very good yet. I need someplace to be able to practice and we haven't found that place yet."
Brad and Josh were throwing dirt on the log to put out the flames. It did not take more than a few seconds. "All of our abilities are in their infancy." Josh said. "We won't know what else we're capable of without practice."
"Nor can we learn to control it until then."
"Speak for yourself," Brad said.
Maud rolled her eyes. "And then there's Brad's trick."
"I don't need any practice for this," he said and walked over to the stream. "This comes completely natural." He knelt down and stuck his head into the water.
Helen looked at Josh. "And how long can he hold his breath?"
"Actually, he can't hold his breath for more than about thirty seconds." His smirk told her there was something else.
A minute or more passed. "So, if he's not holding his breath, what is he doing under there for this long?"
"You gotta see this," Maud said.
Josh motioned her to the bank and knelt down in the soft sand. "See?" She leaned over to see Brad had his mouth open. He was talking though she could not hear a word. What she did notice was that he seemed to take a breath after every sentence.
She sat back in shock. "He's breathing?" Her eyes were wide.
"Oh, yes," Maud answered. "That's his parlor trick."
Helen sat there a moment thinking as Josh tapped Brad's shoulder and he came up out of the water, breathing normally again. "Was that impressive or what, huh?"
Maud patted his back. "Yes, most impressive. Never saw a boy breathing before or one with so wet a head of hair."
He grinned. "Great, huh?"
Josh was watching Helen. "So what are you thinking?"
She sighed. "I first noticed I could disappear when I was about thirteen. It happened once and I was looking in a mirror when it happened. It scared me to death." She shook her head. "I don't think it has happened more than three times since then but I can't be sure." She looked squarely at Josh. "I don't feel any different when it happens and so, unless I am looking into a mirror, I don't even know when it happens."
"Unless everyone runs from the room looking for you while you're standing there."
She blushed and smiled. "Yes, there is that."
"So your ability is in its infancy, we'll have to see how to develop it."
"Why, Josh? Why?" She pointed at Brad. "He can breath underwater. I can imagine that might come in handy when trying to save drowning victims. And she," she indicated Maud, "can keep people warm on a cold night if nothing else. And you, you can do accounting like crazy. What good is making myself invisible?" She looked at the others. "What good can that possibly be to anyone except for getting me out of embarrassing situations?"
Maud went over and hugged the girl. "I don't know, Helen, but you have to admit that you are indeed one of us. For some reason, we have been given these incredible abilities. It is up to us to develop them and figure out how best to us them."
Helen looked up, tears welling. "We can figure this out?"
Brad laughed. "'We' don't have to."
"What do you mean?" Maud asked.
"Remember, we have a super smart guy working with us. Let him figure it out."
They all turned to look at Josh.
Oh, damn! he thought. The testing begins. |
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