Free Jackson Jones and the Curse of the Outlaw Rose by Mary Quattlebaum

CHAPTER ONE

    Light barely crept through the gray trees. The damp ground sucked at my shoes and a breeze slid past my neck.
    I slapped at a bug.
    “Shhh,” whispered Reuben behind me.
    “What do you mean 'shhh'?” I whispered back. “Nobody can hear.”
    “We're in a
cemetery.”
Reuben's voice dipped lower. “We need to show respect.”
    I turned. “I
am
showing—”
    Next thing—
ow!
—I hit the ground.
    “You okay?” Reuben whispered.
    “Quit
whispering,” I said very loud. “It's making me nervous.”
    Reuben shot me a scared look. “Man, look what tripped you.”
    I struggled to my feet. “Stop it, Reuben,” I said. “I bumped into a gravestone, that's all.”
    Beyond the old cemetery, the dark forest rustled. “Let's go, Jackson.” Reuben's voice cracked. “Something's out there.”
    “We need to get what we came for,” I replied, edging past the moss-slick gravestone.
    Then I saw the name cut in that stone.
    Rose Cassoway.
    Behind the grave, a thorny rope of flowers twined round a broken fence.
    Roses. I should have known roses would do me in.
    A chill grabbed my whole neck.

    Roses have always brought me bad luck. But thanks to my mama, I am stuck with them— and all their little green cousins: African violets, philodendrons, pansies. Mama loves plants. Our home is stuffed with them. Thismight be fine in the country, where Mama grew up, but it is way too much green for a city apartment. I eat with a fern, sleep in a jungle, talk to a six-foot ficus.
    Whenever I complain, Mama smiles. She claims plants are good for you. Her words: “They clear the air, soothe the eyes, and decrease stress.”
    Decrease stress. That's a laugh.
    This past year has been the most stressful of my life.
    Right to that very moment in the graveyard.
    It all started on my tenth birthday last April. I had been sure I was getting a basketball. But Mama gave me … dirt. A plot in Rooter's Community Garden on Evert Street. And there was no way I could give it back. Mama had been so happy to give me a “little piece of country.”
    Talk about trouble. That garden constantly messed with me. And my puddle-of-thorns rosebush was the worst. My best bud, Reuben Casey, and I spent all summer trying to grow
something
(besides weeds). Then Ispent all fall trying to save the garden—my plot and twenty-eight others. I rescued Rooter's from certain doom, from being bulldozed and turned into a building.
    Now it was April again. I needed a break from plants.
    Instead, they were still in my face. Literally.
    That's because Mama had gone back to college to study plants. And she had started her own business, Green Thumb. Two days a week she tended the green things in offices; the other days she worked a normal job downtown. Green Thumb now had twelve clients, and Mama's business was growing. Literally.
    Well, I just started my own business, too. I have only one client—but he feels like twelve 'cause he keeps me so busy. Mr. Kerring is my next-plot neighbor at Rooter's. He is the oldest and bossiest person I know. The man can remember back to when Rooter's was a World War II victory garden, more than sixty years ago.
    Mr. K. was the very reason I was standingthat day in a cemetery. Shivering by a grave. Staring at roses.
    Crackle-crick.
That noise again from the forest. Closer this time. Reuben's eyes widened. “Jackson,” he whispered. “What do you think—”

CHAPTER TWO

    “Quit
whispering.” I grabbed the rose vine. “It's probably a squirrel.”
    “Or a bear.”
    I pulled some teeny scissors from my pocket.
    Reuben snorted. “You gonna trim the bear's toenails?”
    “For your information, these are house-plant
pruning
shears. I'm gonna take a cutting. Here, hold this end.”
    Reuben cautiously pinched the vine. “Tell me again why we're doing this.”
    “Because Mr. K. wants to be a rose rustler.”
    Of course, right then the man was waitingin a rental car by the side of the road. And Reuben and I were stuck in the