Of a Feather Page 7

  I wander up to my room and sit down at the desk. When Mom’s at the hospital, the only way to communicate is by letter. I turn to a clean sheet of paper in my math notebook. I start to write:

  Dear Mom,

  I shouldn’t have said what I said about Phil and the plate. It’s totally healed. I don’t even think there’s a scar. I’m sorry you’re in the hospital.

  Please get better. For good this time.

  I cross out the last line. Then I cross out the whole thing. I rip the paper and throw it across the room. Then I throw the whole notebook across the room.

  I walk back down to the bird room. That’s what I’m calling it. Why call it a dining room when the only one dining in it is a bird?

  I sit down and face Rufus, who’s still snoozing.

  I am toxic. Mom is in the hospital again because of me. Beatrice is already tired of me—I can tell from her voice—and it’s only been a week. I should probably leave this owl alone before I ruin him, too.

  That thought cracks through the others. The buzz sizzles up my spine: alone. Tears spring out. Alone, and homeless. Mom told me I can’t go back to Gram’s. How much longer will Beatrice let me stay here? I give it another week . . .

  “I’m sorry,” Beatrice says. I didn’t even notice her follow me in here.

  No, no tears. I strangle the sadness, push it back. “It’s not your fault my mom’s been locked up.” Fine—no one wants me? I can go it alone. Live in the wild like Sam in My Side of the Mountain . . .

  Beatrice kneels down beside me. “It’s not anyone’s fault, Maureen.” She looks me square in the eyes. “And she’s not locked up. She’s getting help.” Beatrice holds out a Pop-Tart.

  The buzz of alone bounces around the emptiness inside me. Who’s going to help me?

  I take the Pop-Tart. “Should we wake Rufus up?”

  “He’ll wake up when he needs something.”

  I need him to wake up, to give me something to focus on that’s not in my head.

  “Eat,” Beatrice says, laying a hand on my shoulder.

  I almost jump out of my skin. It’s crazy how nice it is to feel a hand on my shoulder right now.

  I take a bite of the Pop-Tart. It’s warm and just the right kind of crumbly. In five seconds, I scarf the whole thing down.

  I do feel better.

  Beatrice pats my shoulder. “I’ll get you the other one.” She stands and leaves the room.

  Rufus coos softly, ruffles his feathers.

  What if I save this owl? What if I prove he can be trained? Imagine if we show her, Rufus. Imagine when she sees us soaring together. Then she’ll understand. Then she’ll let us stay.

  We’ll show her, I think to Rufus.

  Beatrice brings me the other Pop-Tart on a plate. I take it, curl up in my fleece blanket, and tap on the tablet.

  Search “owl falconry training.”

  I find listservs, YouTube videos, webpages. I put in my ear buds and start my research.

  * * *

  One thing that’s cool about living with Beatrice is that she’s not nosy. She moves around her house, doing her own thing, first reading, then cleaning Red’s mews. So she doesn’t bother me until dinner, when she knocks softly on the door and says, “I made food.”

  I’ve sketched out a whole plan for training Rufus. At night, in secret. And then, by the time his wing is healed, we’ll be such an amazing falconry team that Beatrice will have no choice but to get permission to fly him as our passage bird this season.

  I put the tablet away and stand. My legs are tingly and wobble—I guess I need to move around more. Beatrice is sitting at the kitchen table eating some kind of soup and I join her.

  “Rufus slept all day,” I say, flopping into a chair.

  “He’s exhausted,” she says, slurping a spoonful. “The injury didn’t seem that old, but he was pretty hungry. He was probably stressed and starving for a few days. That would tire out any bird.”

  I take a bite of soup. She says it like this only happens to birds. I’ve been stressed and hungry for more than a few days before.

  “Red missed you at feeding time.” She stirs her soup around the bowl. “What have you been doing all day?”

  I worked past feeding time? Yikes. “Um, reading stuff. About owl rehabilitation.”

  She smiles a little. “My daughter used to get that look.”

  “What look?” I ask, feigning innocence. There’s no way she can know about my secret plans. And then my brain processes the more important fact that was just revealed.

  “You have a daughter?” I say, like a person who has totally not been snooping would. She can’t know I saw the pictures.

  Beatrice swirls the soup. “She’s older now. Moved out west with her father after the divorce.”

  The buzz whispers, Not your room. “I’m in her room, aren’t I?”

  “It hasn’t been her room in years,” Beatrice says, taking a bite.

  The buzz hisses, Not your home. “But if she comes to visit?”

  Beatrice smiles, but this time it’s more of a wince. “She hasn’t visited in years.”

  The buzz fizzles away to nothing. I’m okay for now. Rufus and I have time. Then I notice Beatrice looks on the verge of tears. I can’t handle another sad grownup in my life. I scoop soup into my face, clear my bowl, and head back into the bird room.

  Rufus is awake. He blinks his great golden eyes at me. He needs to do his business, I’m sure.

  “Hey, Beatrice,” I call. “I think Rufus needs to barf up that gross lump.”

  “Casting,” she calls back, her chair scraping across the floorboards. Her bowl clatters in the sink, and then she’s in the bird room, pulling on her gloves. “Or pellet. An owl casts a casting or pellet. He probably needs to do all his business. Course, he’s the first bird I’ve ever rehabbed that got fussy about pooping in his crate.”

  “Rufus is a gentleman,” I say, because he so obviously is. “He would never do something so gross as poop where he sleeps.” I open the crate, grateful to see her focused and real-smiling, not fake-smiling. Beatrice reaches in and grabs Rufus around his feet and wings. I grab the dirty towel from the bottom of his crate, snap open a fresh one, and stuff it in.

  Beatrice steps toward the second crate but then decides on a different path. “Close the door to the kitchen,” she says.

  I shut it, careful not to make too much noise.

  She holds Rufus out and lowers him to the perch in the center of the room. It’s a rubber-coated metal ring on a metal stick standing up out of a heavy base.

  Rufus reaches out with his talons and grabs the ring. He stands there, blinks a few times, then begins to teeter. He squawks, lifts his wings, and is about to stretch them straight, but Beatrice lowers her gloves around him.

  “He’s still too weak,” she says. “We can try again tomorrow.”

  My heart is racing from watching him—he almost perched! He also almost tipped over on his feet. “Try what again?”

  “The first step in manning a bird is getting it to trust you and sit calmly in your presence.”

  Manning. That’s a falconry term. “Do you mean . . . ?” I ask.

  “I get the sense you’re going to train him whether I help you or not.” She lowers him into the second crate. “It’s probably better if I help you.”

  This warmth tickles up from my bellybutton. “You serious?” I dare to ask.

  “Are you?” she asks me, really digging in with her eyes.

  She is serious. She’s going to help me do this. I nod my head in a most serious fashion. “I have a whole plan,” I begin, then pull out my notebook and show her all my notes.

  She nods as she reads. “So this is what you’ve been doing all day?”

  A part of me worries that maybe I didn’t do enough, that maybe she needs more proof. “He’s already eating off the glove,” I say, pointing to the steps in my notes. “Once he’s strong enough, I could try feeding him while having him perched on the glove.” />
  I see the corner of her mouth tick up. “Let’s see if we can get him standing on a perch, period.”

  The corner of my mouth hitches up to match hers. “Okay.”

  That promise—just to try—is enough for now.

  * * *

  Monday morning, I don’t open my eyes until almost noon. Rufus had me up all night with his squawking and chirping. Beatrice and I fed him a bunch of tidbits from the glove, though, and he didn’t snap at me once. I’m calling it progress.

  I scramble off the floor where I’d camped near Rufus’s crate. The house is silent, the bird room dark and cool. I find Beatrice sitting in the kitchen, reading.

  “You didn’t wake me for school?” I ask, bewildered.

  “No school,” she says, flipping a page of her book. “It’s Labor Day.”

  I pull a chair out, sit. “Oh.”

  “I thought we could take Red for a walk.” She takes a sip of her iced tea, calm and unhurried.

  Last Labor Day, there was a crazy loud barbecue at Gram’s place. I climbed up into this stubby apple tree with a bag of chips to get away from the crowds of kids running between the trailers. I must have fallen asleep there in the branches. When Mom found me to go home—back when we still had a home—the sky was purple, and my ears rang with the echoes of the party’s music. I’ve never lived somewhere so still, so quiet, as Beatrice’s. Against the stillness, the buzz inside me is a low growl. I thought it only showed up when I’m freaking out; I’ve never noticed it before when I’m just sitting. But there it is: this engine that’s always running, always alert. There are some parts of yourself you only find in the quiet.

  I take a deep breath, try to slow the buzz. Alone, alone, it chugs out.

  Beatrice takes another sip of iced tea. The condensation beads and runs down the sides of the glass. She flips another page. Outside, the wind tickles the leaves. A bird calls. In that stillness, I tell the buzz—silently, only in my head—You can rest. And for a heartbeat, it’s gone. I’m a buttercup soaking up the sun.

  A car blasts down the road, blaring music and kicking up a cloud of dust that covers all the front windows. The buzz returns. But oh—that moment.

  Beatrice folds a corner of her page, puts down her book. “You ready?”

  “Lemme grab a granola bar,” I say, pushing my chair back.

  She nods. “I’ll meet you out back.”

  After the walk, I go upstairs and find my math notebook in the corner of the room, where I’d thrown it. I take it to the desk, open it to a smooth, clean sheet of paper. Alone, alone pulses down my arms, through my fingertips. I focus on the quiet, on the breeze billowing the curtain, on the late afternoon light, warm on my skin. When the quiet reaches all the way inside, I try again.

  Dear Mom,

  I love you. I miss you.

  See you soon,

  Reenie

  I leave the letter in the mailbox with the flag up.

  * * *

  Monday night is another marathon feeding session with Rufus. Beatrice even goes to bed and lets me feed him on my own. It seems silly to have to keep sticking my glove into his house. I could just let him walk out and stretch his wings. But the buzz fires up and I can’t. What if Beatrice found out? What if I hurt him? So I feed Rufus off the glove again until he won’t eat another bite and then I just lie there, watching him, and try—desperately, painfully—to be patient.

  * * *

  “Everyone can turn in their homework at the end of the class,” the teacher, Mr. Brown, says Tuesday morning, and my brain vaguely recalls that there had been homework. Which is definitely not done.

  Oh well. That’s one good thing about this life being temporary: my grades won’t matter once I leave this school.

  “We’re going to start this year by looking at what makes our state unique,” he continues. “I want you to come up with something about living in Vermont that’s important to you. You’ll research its history and then interview someone about it. We’ll spend class today working in groups to come up with an idea.”

  Nothing is more terrifying than the Group Project. Especially for the new kid.

  People start clumping together like dust bunnies. I shrink into my seat. I’m not sure what would be worse: someone asking me to join their group, or not being asked to join any group.

  “Hey.” I look up and there’s Jaxon. Relief floods through me.

  “Yes, definitely,” I say, before he even has a chance to ask. I pull the neighboring desk next to mine. “Sit here.”

  Jaxon sits, pulls out his whittling.

  I monitor the remaining students as the clumping slows. Some boys have joined together and are making fart noises with their hands. Jaxon and I are safe.

  “Can I work with you guys?”

  Or not. She snuck up behind us.

  “Sure,” Jaxon says, making room.

  Jamie pulls over a chair. “Thanks.” She smiles her shiny white teeth at me.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Brown says. “Everyone take out some paper and start brainstorming topics. Let’s hear more talking, less farting.”

  This gets a chuckle, but the fart noises keep coming for at least another minute.

  “Oh,” Jamie says, and digs in her backpack. “Here.” She slaps a new comic book, still wrapped in plastic, on the desk.

  Jaxon’s eyes brighten. He puts the wood down. “Whoa.” He gently lifts the shiny packet and begins examining the cover.

  “It’s a comic,” I say, because seriously. Why is he getting worked up over a comic book?

  “It’s a first-edition Avengers,” Jamie says, raising her eyebrows like this means something. “Jaxon and I were comparing our collections last week and he didn’t believe that I had a first edition. It’s really my dad’s, but still.” She holds out a hand—like Ta-da! “Do you collect comics?” she asks me.

  “No.” Who has money for comic books?

  “Oh, well,” she says, fidgeting with the end of her braid, “my dad and I? We collect them—well, he collected them, and then he let me sort of latch on to his collecting.” This girl seems to latch on to anything that passes by. She continues talking. “I’ve tried to draw my own. I went to a cartooning camp, but my comics are still terrible. I can never come up with a good team. Oh my gosh—we should totally come up with a team name.”

  “Not Avengers,” I say. Cartooning camp? Is this girl for real?

  “Of course not Avengers,” Jamie says, snorting this little laugh, “though if we were the Avengers, I think Jaxon would be Cap, and maybe you would be—”

  “I’m Bruce Banner,” Jaxon interrupts, gingerly sliding the comic back toward Jamie like it’s made of glass. “My mom called me the Hulk when I was little. She’s the one who got me into Marvel.”

  “No way!” Jamie exclaims. “I can’t even imagine you—”

  Mr. Brown appears over us. “How are things coming along with you all? Have a topic yet?”

  I have never been more relieved to see a teacher. It would have been better to have worked on my own than watch the one person I sort of thought was okay get sucked up by Miss Comic Book Collection.

  “I thought,” Jaxon says, shoving the whittling into his pocket, “we could maybe do hunting?”

  Jamie pales. “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “I thought falconry,” I suggest strongly.

  “That’s a kind of hunting,” Jaxon offers.

  “So hunting it is,” I say, flashing a triumphant smile at Jamie. She’s not a hunter, not like Jaxon and me.

  “Maybe there’s another group you’d like to join?” I say, but at the same time Jaxon’s all, “Hunting isn’t just about killing animals and eating meat. It’s about wildlife management. My dad says hunting keeps the deer herd at healthy numbers.”

  “Oh,” Jamie says.

  I kind of feel bad about how freaked out Jamie looks.

  “And falconry’s about birds,” I add.

  “Oh?” Jamie says, and she gives me this little half smi
le.

  Why’s she smiling? We’re still doing hunting. Maybe it wasn’t the topic that was freaking her out. Maybe it was . . . me?

  Mr. Brown nods. “We had a hunting group a couple years ago. I think that’s a great idea.” He hands us a blank assignment sheet, tells us to start outlining what we’re going to do for the project and to assign everyone a job, then announces to the class that we’ll be in the library doing research for the rest of the week.

  “I don’t know anything about hunting,” Jamie says, tucking a strand of hair into her mouth.

  “I hunt,” Jaxon says. “And my dad’s a game warden with the Fish and Wildlife Department. He can help.”

  “I’ve learned a bunch of stuff training a . . . hawk.” I stop myself from mentioning Rufus just in time. If Jaxon’s dad is with the Fish and Wildlife Department, that means he’s in charge of making sure falconers follow the rules. Such as not training owls. The last thing I need is another state agency involved in my life.

  Jamie has chewed the strand of hair so it’s tight against her head. “I guess the whole point of the project is to learn something.” She releases the strand, and it’s like a switch flips: she’s perky again. “It’ll be great.”

  We’re back on track, I guess. “So, Mr. Brown said to assign jobs.”

  “Maureen should be the leader,” Jaxon says.

  “Me?” Did he just say leader?

  “I can see her as our Nick Fury,” Jamie says, and I don’t know if that’s an insult or what.

  “She’s more of a Tony Stark,” Jaxon replies.

  “Iron Man?” I ask, finally comprehending something.

  “Right,” Jamie says, smiling at me like I’m a dog who just mastered sit. “Maureen’s our Iron Man.”

  “Iron Woman,” Jaxon says with authority.

  A chuckle escapes Jamie’s lips, and this weird smile tickles the corners of my mouth. I write “Maureen L’Esperance—Iron Woman” under “Hunting” on our assignment sheet, and the smile grows. I mean, it’s not like I care or anything—this is just a stupid school project—but still, it’s kind of cool to be the Iron Woman of any group.