Of a Feather Page 11

  It’s too much. I can’t hear anything but noise everywhere.

  The bug buzzes, flying off, its wing-whipping whir getting softer and softer.

  I failed. Again.

  I’ll never hunt.

  I close my eyes, bury my head as deep as I can between my wings, muffling the great roar of noise, that deafening blast of information I have no idea how to pick apart.

  * * *

  The first flicker of sunlight cracks across the stars, and somewhere outside my nest, voices whisper. And then the furless creatures are walking alongside the web around my nest. The Brown Frizz is radiating energy, but the Gray Tail looks half-asleep. They’re chirping at each other, and then they split the web.

  The Brown Frizz is wearing her paw with meat and chirping, so I flap down as has become our custom. The meat sets my gizzard grumbling, and I decide that even the Most Pathetic Owl Who Couldn’t Hear a Bug Unless It Was Buzzing Up His Butt deserves to eat every once in a while. The Gray Tail slips the little strips of skin into my leg sparkles and the Brown Frizz grabs on to them.

  I contemplate trying to fly off and tear those stinking skin strips right off my sparkles, but every time I attempt this feat, I end up in a bat hang, so I decide to give up that particular thought. At least for the moment.

  The Brown Frizz begins walking with me through the grass. Red was right: my enclosed nest does look a bit like a smaller breed of the one that the furless creatures sleep inside. The forest I listened to all night looks thick and dark and full of menacing creatures hungry for a bite of owl.

  “Brown Frizz,” I squawk. “I don’t think I am going to be a very good hunting partner. In fact, to be clear, I may never catch any prey that isn’t a root.”

  The Brown Frizz does not seem upset by my hoots. Rather, her beakless maw is twisted into what I’ve come to understand as a sign of Good Feelings. She growls something and then holds out some meat.

  “All right,” I say. “I will eat your offering. But I want to be clear—I am not a hunter, and I will only reliably kill roots.”

  The Brown Frizz mumbles something and keeps making her Good Feelings face. Maybe she only wants to catch roots? No, that can’t be it. The Brown Frizz could very well catch a root on her own. No—she must know something I don’t. Or she just trusts that I’m more than just a root catcher . . .

  “Well, you are certainly not what I expected.”

  I whip my head around and there’s Red sitting on old Gray Tail’s featherless wing. She’s quite a big hawk, with a sleek head tapering to a long, sharp, hooked beak. Her red feathers seem to glow in the skinny shafts of sunlight.

  “How’s that?” I ask, trying to ruffle up my dull tree-bark-brown feathers. I straighten out my ear tufts and fan my tail.

  She turns her head, examining the yard around us. “I was expecting a half-plucked hatchling. You’re a real bird.”

  That gets my feathers fluffed. “Half-plucked hatchling?”

  She flaps her wings and flies to a stumpy tree sticking up in the yard. “With the way you were grousing all night about never being able to hunt and getting eaten by a clutch of field mice? I thought to myself, No way a full-grown owl would dare to even dream of such a pathetic end. But I see I was wrong on at least one count.” She gives me a long stare over her hooked beak.

  She heard me? That was a terrible nightmare. How could she have heard anything? Great Beak—was I hooting in my sleep?

  This is bad. Even for the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl in All of Owldom.

  “It was just a dream,” I chitter. I try to flap over to another one of those stumpy trees in the yard—it appears that the blighted corpses of several trees remain sticking up in the grass—but I hit the end of those blasted leg tails and end up hanging tufts down.

  “That’s more what I was expecting,” Red chirps, her eyes bright.

  She thinks this is funny?! “DO NOT LAUGH AT ME!” I screech, flapping and thrashing.

  The Brown Frizz hisses. Her paw reaches out. Distracted, I forget to thrash and suddenly I’m upright. I grasp the clenched paw beneath me. The Brown Frizz’s heart skips along happily and she makes her Good Feelings face.

  She helped me. Again. She always helps.

  She holds out a little scrap of meat. I gobble it down.

  She believes I can be a hunter. A hunter of more than roots. Of mice, of voles—of squirrels, even.

  She believes in me.

  Maybe I need to give this partnership thing a try.

  15

  Reenie

  “Walk him slowly,” Aunt Bea says. We’re getting Rufus used to the backyard. It’s a step on the way to flying him on the creance.

  “More slowly than this?” I’m barely moving. It’s six a.m., so I’m also barely awake.

  She shakes her fist. “Follow his cues.”

  Right. Partners focus on each other. Rufus lifts his tail. I’m moving too fast. I roll my boots through the grass. He settles into a more upright perch.

  “Excellent,” Aunt Bea whispers.

  But I knew that before she said anything. I can do this.

  * * *

  Third period, we’re given detailed assignment sheets, with our group and topic printed at the top, that we have to fill out for our project. We march down to the library to begin research on the laptops. Jamie, Jaxon, and I sign out our computers and claim a round table hidden in the stacks. It’s like our own private fort.

  “I declare this table for hunting,” I say, stabbing my pencil—eraser down—in the center.

  Jamie whips out her pencil and jams it next to mine. “For hunting!”

  Jaxon pulls out his whittling pen, places it next to ours. “Hunting.”

  “How are you guys doing?” Mr. Brown says cheerily as he appears from between two shelves.

  “I’m doing falconry,” I announce.

  “I hunt deer with my dad,” Jaxon offers.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” Jamie says.

  Mr. Brown’s face curdles. “Um, okay, well—let’s see. Ms. L’Esperance, you seem to have a focused topic. Mr. Doucet, I like your focus on deer hunting.”

  “I’m doing the rules,” Jaxon says. “My dad’s a game warden.”

  “Excellent!” Mr. Brown cheers. “Now you just need a part for Ms. Hendricks by the end of the period. Get researching!” He claps his hands and moves on to another group.

  “Maybe I can make the poster?” Jamie suggests. “I can make charts on my computer at home.”

  “Each of us has to present something,” I say, pointing to the assignment sheet’s bulleted list of project requirements.

  “It’s just that, with hunting, all I can think of is the poor deer.”

  “Deer meat is food,” Jaxon says. “You might not eat meat, but other people do.” His scowl is the most emotion I’ve ever seen him show.

  Hoo boy. I try the trick I use with Rufus: I exude calm. I open my laptop. “Let’s see if Wikipedia has anything helpful.”

  Jamie ignores me, her eyes focused on Jaxon. “But hunting is different. A chicken on a farm has got to know life is short, but a wild deer?”

  “So I can hunt a chicken?”

  “Well, no, that would also be awful.”

  “Now hunting is awful?!”

  “Um, I mean, maybe?”

  Jaxon’s face has knotted into a snarl. He digs out his whittling and gives the wood a violent scrape. Jamie begins chewing her hair like she hasn’t eaten in days.

  The buzz pops: Dangerous. Our group partnership is crumbling. I’ve seen it too many times with Gram and Mom not to know. It starts with Gram getting on Mom about something small—You can’t leave pans in the sink or Any normal person can keep a job at Walmart—and like a fuzz on a sweater, all it takes is a few prying pokes to start the whole thing unraveling. Twenty minutes later, Gram’s slamming drawers and Mom’s crying in the shower. I always just want to scream at them, Stop picking! You love each other! Start there!

  Maybe that’s what I n
eed to say here?

  “Guys,” I say, closing the computer. “So Jamie doesn’t like hunting. Remember last week, when you two couldn’t stop fighting over whether what’s-his-face with a hammer could beat the other dude with a pitchfork?”

  Jamie snorts. “You mean Thor versus Aquaman?”

  “It’s Thor,” Jaxon says, repeating his conclusion from Friday’s lunch.

  Jamie rolls her eyes.

  “See?” I say. “Maybe we should do something like that. You could debate the issue.” I point to the assignment sheet, which lists “debate” as a possible format for the project.

  “Debate hunting?” Jaxon says, dubious.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Jamie could talk about what she thinks is bad, and you could argue the opposite.”

  Jamie scrolls through a site. “There’s a whole page here on the positive impacts of hunting.”

  Jaxon glances over at her screen. “I don’t see any negative impacts, so there’s no debate.”

  “What about the literal negative impact on the deer?” Jamie asks.

  “It’s food,” Jaxon barks.

  “You’ve already started on your debate!” I say, slapping them both on the shoulders. “You’ve had so much practice with superheroes, it’ll be nothing to switch over to hunting.”

  Jamie snorts a laugh. “I guess.”

  Jaxon shrugs. “I bet more of the class agrees with me.”

  Jamie smiles. “Not after my presentation.”

  Jaxon half smiles back. “Want to bet?”

  Then they both look at me.

  “Great idea, Iron Woman,” Jamie says.

  Jaxon opens his laptop. “That’s why I said Reenie should be the leader.”

  “Actually, I think it was my idea,” Jamie says, typing something.

  I fill out the assignment sheet while they continue this new debate. A flower of warmth blooms inside me, tickling a smile from my lips. They worked things out—we worked things out, together. They think I have great ideas.

  The bell rings for lunch. We close up our laptops and I follow them to the caf. I sit at an empty table with my hot lunch and just stir the slimy jumble the lady said was beef stroganoff. Some boys start to sit with me, but I tell them I’m saving seats.

  Saving seats. It’s weird to even say the words. To be waiting for someone—someones—and know they are going to show up. I have never felt lonely before. You can’t feel lonely if alone is your natural state. But just now, watching those boys walk away, looking at the empty seats, I felt lonely. And it felt good.

  Jamie and Jaxon sit down.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “For what?” Jamie says, opening her chocolate milk. She brings her lunch but buys a milk every day.

  “For thinking I could be Iron Woman,” I say. “For being nice to me in general.”

  Jamie makes this face like I’m speaking Nepalese. “I thought you were the one being nice to me.” She sucks down her milk.

  “Yeah,” Jaxon adds. He’s a boy of few words.

  “What’s crazy is that anyone would thank anyone else for that,” Jamie goes on. “Shouldn’t we all just be nice to one another? Shouldn’t that be the normal thing?”

  I shrug. “But it’s not.”

  She pulls out her sandwich and takes a big bite. “No, it’s not.”

  Daring bubbles up into my throat. “You guys could come home with me on the bus if you wanted. I mean, if that was something—for the hunting project,” I blurt.

  Both Jamie and Jaxon look somewhere between confused and worried. I’ve pushed it too far, too fast. The buzz roars. I should have listened. Friends are dangerous.

  “That’d be cool,” Jaxon says.

  “I can text my mom,” Jamie says, pulling out her phone from a pocket.

  The buzz fizzles away as quickly as it flared up. My jaw loosens, gut unknots itself, heartbeat slows. They want to come over. It was that easy. Just make the offer.

  Of course, it’s an easy offer to invite kids to Aunt Bea’s house. There’s no fear that Mom’s crying in the bathroom. No landlord lurking, looking for rent. No Phil. And I saw a box of crackers in the pantry I can offer as a snack. It’s easy to invite a friend over when your home doesn’t feel like it’s perched on a branch that’s about to snap.

  Jamie puts the phone back in her pocket. “My mom says okay.” She continues eating.

  Jaxon digs in his bag, sandwich in his other hand, pulls out a phone, texts his mom, then says, “Yeah.”

  I’ve got this smile so big, I can barely close my mouth over the spork. “Cool,” I say.

  * * *

  The three of us spend the bus ride home coming up with supervillain nicknames for our teachers.

  “Ms. Smythe is the Rock,” I say.

  “No, the Ice Queen,” Jamie says, leaning across the aisle.

  “The Ice Cube,” Jaxon says. “For math.”

  We all agree—Ice Cube it is.

  When we get home, I find the crackers and fill some mason jars from the tap. It’s kind of cheap, but Jamie and Jaxon don’t say anything. We’re too busy negotiating a name for Ms. Thomas, the English teacher.

  “Something evil,” I say, “because she’s so mean and yet pretends to be nice.”

  “She’s the Ice Queen,” Jaxon says, pointing a shard of cracker at me.

  “Two-Face,” Jamie states.

  Jaxon considers the proposal. “The bad guy from Batman?” he asks.

  Jamie nods, shoving a stack of crackers into her mouth. She glances at my face. “I’ll give you an explanatory comic.”

  “Perfect,” I say. Jamie’s instructing me in comprehending Jamie-Jaxon-ese.

  But the name “Two-Face” claws its way under my skin. I have so many secrets. If I told them even one, would they be here now?

  “So your aunt lives here with your family?” Jamie asks. “Your aunt’s the falconer, right?”

  “My aunt—” I begin. Any answer is either a lie or a risk. I wait for the buzz, but no hiss rises. “I live with my aunt,” I say, testing the truth. “My mom—she’s sick.”

  “Oh,” Jamie says.

  “That’s rough,” Jaxon says.

  “That’s super rough,” Jamie adds, like he gave her the right word to use.

  “It is,” I say. And this relief like cool water fills me to my forehead.

  Jaxon grabs another cracker. “These are good.”

  Jamie crunches a bite of hers. “They’re like healthy cookies.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I say, checking the ingredients on the side of the box.

  And we all kind of laugh. I opened this tiny piece of myself up to them, and they stayed. They think my crackers are good enough to be called cookies.

  I put the box down. “Do you guys want to meet Red?”

  They both jump out of their chairs.

  When Aunt Bea comes home, she kind of freezes when she sees the two additional kids in the yard.

  “I wanted to show them Red,” I say. “For our hunting project.”

  She drops her keys into a pocket. “Then I won’t take my coat off.”

  Aunt Bea is a pro; she explains everything step by step to Jaxon and Jamie. “These buildings are called mews, which is where the birds live. This glove I’m putting on is called a gauntlet.”

  When she brings Red out, Jamie and Jaxon nearly fall over. Watching Red soar, I feel like a proud mom—as if I have anything to do with her magnificence.

  “You want to try calling her?” Aunt Bea asks Jamie and Jaxon.

  Jamie nearly faints. Jaxon holds out his arm. Aunt Bea gives him a glove and then puts a tidbit on it and whistles. Red comes soaring down and even Jaxon can’t help but laugh and smile like a goof. Aunt Bea shows him how to cast Red, and she glides off into the trees. Jamie regains the power of speech and asks for a turn. She too seems nearly blown over by Red’s swoop to her fist.

  “Can I show them Rufus?” I can’t not show him to them. Not when they’ve seen all this. The
y’d be missing the most important part.

  Aunt Bea’s face clouds over. “Rufus,” she says. “Well, uh, I guess that would be all right.”

  “Thank you!” I’m practically popping, I’m so excited. I put on my gauntlet and go into Rufus’s mews. “Hey, buddy,” I whisper, trying to calm down for him.

  Rufus’s eyes crack open.

  I put a tidbit on my fist, whistle. He swoops down, and my heart jumps and races—every time it’s as amazing as the first. As he gobbles the meat, I take a deep, calming breath before tucking his jesses into the fingers of my glove and tying on the short leash from the jesses to my glove. I walk slowly out into the sunshine.

  “This,” I say, “is Rufus.”

  Jaxon and Jamie gape at his gloriousness. Aunt Bea nods, eyebrows raised, encouraging me to say more.

  “He’s a great horned owl,” I say. He bobs his head and lifts his ear tufts. “These feathers are called plumicorns.”

  “Like unicorns!” Jamie squeals.

  “They’re not magic,” Jaxon says.

  “How do you know?” I say defensively, smiling at my dragon bird.

  “Where’d you get him?” asks Jaxon.

  “We’re rehabilitating him,” I explain.

  “Rehabilitating?” Jamie asks.

  I tell the whole story—about the bal-chatri trap, the passage hawk, trapping Rufus by accident. My audience is entranced.

  “He’s a rehab bird?” Jaxon asks. “But he has jesses.”

  “Part of his rehabilitation,” Aunt Bea says quickly.

  Why’s she so jumpy? “We’re getting his wings back in shape,” I add.

  Jaxon looks confused. What is he confused about?

  Rufus’s head turns toward the driveway. A car pulls in, sending up a cloud of dust.

  “My mom,” Jaxon says.

  “Can I pet him?” Jamie asks, ignoring the waiting parent, even though it’s her ride.

  “Better not,” Aunt Bea says. “That owl’s still a very wild bird.”