Of a Feather Read online

  She smiles. “It’s okay. But you’ve got to hurry if you’re going to catch the bus.”

  I head for the bathroom, checking the time on the old clock in the living room. Crud, it’s almost 7:15! I rush through my routine, toss on whatever’s clean, and go to the kitchen in a flash.

  “You need to remember that you’re not an owl,” Beatrice says, handing me a glass of juice. “You have to go to school all day. He sleeps.”

  “Could you resist him hooting at you to play?” I slug down the juice and take the Pop-Tart she proffers.

  She snuffs a laugh. “No,” she says.

  I scarf the Pop-Tart, and a second one, and then go for my backpack, which is still by the door. Did I have homework? Ugh—I’ll check on the bus ride.

  At school, I pull out the math work sheet I should have finished over the long weekend. The numbers swim on the page, I’m so bleary-eyed.

  It’s almost a relief when Jamie sits in the desk next to mine. “Hey,” I say, pushing aside the paper.

  She rummages in her backpack and then pulls out a round box and places it on my desk. “It’s an arc reactor,” she says. “Well, obviously not a real arc reactor, but, um, I made it. For you. Because—”

  “I’m Tony Stark?” I ask, picking it up. I’ve seen the movie.

  It’s a short metal can with a clear screw-on top that Jamie covered in slivers of silver sticker to make a pattern on the plastic. In the center is a triangle of wires. Jamie reaches over and pokes a finger at the bottom of the box, and the triangle blinks on. It’s made of tiny LED lights.

  “You made this?” I ask. “For me?” I clarify.

  Her mouth shrugs up in a little smile. “I like to make stuff.”

  I click off the light, then on again. I haven’t even been that nice to this girl and she gives me a present? No, makes me a present. That lights up. Is she so desperate for friends that she’s willing to settle for me?

  “I hope it’s okay,” she says quickly. “I mean, I’m sorry if it’s weird.”

  Maybe only some friends are dangerous.

  “I’m the one who’s being weird,” I say. “I’m sorry. About last week. And yesterday.”

  “Oh, um, it’s okay,” she says, fidgeting with the end of her braid.

  “It’s not okay,” I say. I click the arc thingy off and on again. “Thank you. This is awesome.”

  She’s smiling so hard, her cheeks nearly burst.

  Jaxon slinks into the room and shuffles to his seat behind me. “I brought in my Fish and Wildlife guide.” He slaps an inch-thick slab of paper onto the desk.

  Jamie and I are both kind of stunned that there’s an entire book of rules about hunting. We all three begin flipping through it, pointing and gasping at how insanely specific these rules are, and I kind of step outside myself for a second. I mean, I’m still sitting at my desk, still pointing at the tiny printed rules—“You can’t hunt a half hour after sunset? How do you even know when that is?”—but I’m also, like, three inches above that me, noticing that for the first time in a long time I have . . . friends?

  * * *

  At the end of the day, I see Beatrice is parked outside the school to pick me up.

  “I thought I was taking the bus,” I say, opening the door of the truck.

  “I have to pick up my order of food from the Farm and Yard.” She puts down her book and starts the engine. “We have our work cut out for us, prepping it all for the freezer.”

  “Was that a pun? Because gross,” I say, sliding into the passenger seat.

  She snuffles a laugh. “Not all of falconry is soaring with a falcon,” she says, pulling out of the parking lot.

  “Dr. Cho is going to stop by tonight,” Beatrice says. “It’s time to check on her patient.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask. “Are we releasing him? What about—”

  “Slow down,” she says, turning into the store’s lot. “I think Rufus is ready to go out to the mews.”

  “Outside?”

  “He’s ready to have a little more space to stretch those wings as they heal.”

  Rufus is screeching when we get home. Red is squawking from the backyard. Beatrice and I throw down our bags and start warming up mice. She hurries out to Red, I sneak into the bird room. Rufus is glaring at me, ear tufts raised. He starts hissing and clacking his beak.

  Boy, he’s in a crud mood.

  I slide on my gauntlet and approach slowly, calmly, quietly, just like all the books and videos say. I get low, stretch my hand toward his dish.

  “Let’s try something,” Beatrice says. She must have snuck in after feeding Red. “Put the mouse on your fist.”

  The buzz crackles. “But what if—” I’m not even sure what I’m afraid of, just that I’ll mess it up, that I’ll mess Rufus up.

  “No buts,” Beatrice says.

  I put the mouse on top of my fist between the fingers of the gauntlet. Rufus bobs his head, shuffles on the perch.

  I kneel just outside the reach of his tether. I stretch my hand forward. I whistle and flop the mouse around.

  Rufus screeches, flattens his ear tufts.

  “Come on,” I whisper. I whistle again, flip around the mouse. I move my fist closer.

  Rufus considers the mouse, considers the fist. He flaps a tiny hop and lands on my glove.

  HOLY CRUD, I HAVE AN OWL ON MY FIST!

  Rufus pecks at the mouse and twitters and chirps happily, gross morsels of meat going into his beak.

  I freeze, too psyched to do anything else. He’s heavier than Red but still so light. His talons tighten and loosen as he takes up the mouse and begins choking it down whole. A feeling I can only call pure joy pulses through me with his grip. He trusts me.

  “Gather his jesses.” Beatrice unhooks the leash holding him to the perch, and then shuffles away, gives me room.

  I use my free hand to tuck the jesses into the fingers of the fist with Rufus on it.

  “Grip them tight. He’s going to bate once he finishes, and you need to hold him.”

  It’s a difficult balance, holding the bird while weaving my fingers around his jesses. And now I have to also worry about him diving off my fist?

  “Now sit back.”

  This is some impossible gymnastics.

  “That’s it.”

  I’m sitting. I’m sitting and Rufus is perched on my fist. He swallows down the rest of the mouse and then looks at me. He fluffs his feathers, lifts and stretches his wings. I tense up, ready for him to bate. He glares at me. Can he sense my nerves?

  I bet he can. Yes, the books all talked about the need for a falconer to “exude calm.” I take a deep breath. Two. Rufus’s ear tufts lift. I take two more. My heart rate slows. The ear tufts relax. Rufus squeezes my hand through the glove.

  “Excellent,” Beatrice murmurs.

  I’m not sure how long we sit there. It feels like an eternity and also a single moment. The doorbell rings, and Rufus instantly twists his head and screeches. I startle, shifting my fist. I have pins and needles in my arm from holding it still for so long. And then he bates: Rufus flies off my fist and hits the end of the jesses, and my grip tightens, so he flops down, dangling from the strips.

  “Don’t panic,” Beatrice says calmly. “It’s just Lil. She can let herself in.” She gently lifts Rufus by his chest and places him back on my fist.

  He stamps and squeezes his talons and screeches, and then settles.

  Beatrice smiles. “You survived.”

  I realize I haven’t taken a breath since he bated. I suck in a gulp of air.

  Rufus bates again.

  Beatrice puts him back on my fist. “Now you try,” she says, showing me where my hand needs to go when he’s hanging upside down.

  When Rufus bates the next time, I brave lifting him myself. I have to do this—for Rufus. For me, too. I tuck my hand on his chest. He’s so small and frail and light and I’m totally going to crush him with my gargantuan fingers.

  But I don’t.


  I set him back on the glove. Rufus rouses, settles, then poops.

  “That’s a good sign.” The pride shines off Beatrice’s face.

  A smile creeps along my lips. I did it. He pooped.

  Dr. Cho knocks softly and comes in. “Am I interrupting?” Beatrice waves her in, and together they give Rufus a thorough checkup.

  “He’s fine to go into the mews,” Dr. Cho says. “Though you’ll need to keep up the work of manning him if you’re going to fly him.”

  I nod. He perched on my fist, is all I can think. He was comfortable enough with me to poop. I want to sprout wings and fly with Rufus.

  Dr. Cho and Beatrice go into the kitchen to start dinner. I sit on the couch with Rufus. He chirps at me. I stare at his perch area—all the books and webpages told me not to look directly at a predator bird such as a hawk, so I assume the same goes for a great horned owl. I have a lot of cleaning to do. There’s a casting and whitewash running down the rock. There are little feathers floating on top of the water in Rufus’s bowl.

  I catch glimpses of Rufus on my fist. He appears to just be hanging out, looking around the room, bobbing his head at the slightest noise.

  Beatrice pokes her head in. “Dinner.”

  I nod. I walk carefully, crouching low in case Rufus makes a fly for it. Rufus floats across the floor on my outstretched arm. When I hold him next to his perch, he hops onto it and stands there while I fasten the leash to the end of his jesses. Then he rouses and begins to preen. He’s happy. He knows he’s home.

  And we’re going to move him outside?

  I bring this up at dinner. “Isn’t it kind of a betrayal?” I ask nonchalantly, twirling spaghetti onto my fork. “I mean, to get Rufus all fat and happy in the bird room and then toss him outside in an aviary?”

  “He’s not a pet, Maureen,” Beatrice says. “He’s going to have to get used to the outside sooner or later. In the end, we’re sending him home.”

  Home. The word lands hard in my gut. She may be talking about Rufus, but I hear the echo of this idea in my own life. Rufus and I are both here on a temporary basis. Only difference is that I don’t have a home to be sent to. Alone, the buzz whispers. What’s the next step for me? What am I going to have to get used to?

  “Great horned owls are kings of the night forest,” Dr. Cho says, interrupting this terrible train of thoughts. “Don’t you worry about Rufus outside. It’s the rest of the animal world that will be shaking in their fur.” She smiles as she says this, like she’s made such a great joke.

  “I guess the aviary will keep him safe,” I say, reluctantly taking a bite.

  “That aviary has withstood ten years of hawks.” Beatrice chomps down on a big bite. “It can hold one baby owl.”

  * * *

  After dinner, we all take Rufus out to his aviary. It’s the one right next to Red’s. She screeches at us, and Rufus’s ear tufts go right up. He spreads his wings, hitting me in the face with his primary feathers, and raises all the feathers on his back, holding them up in a fantastic yet useless show of intimidating size. For extra measure, he begins clacking his beak.

  “This is a bad sign,” I say, spitting feather fluff. “We should take him back to the bird room.”

  “He and Red are just getting acquainted,” Beatrice says.

  “Red will show him who rules this roost.” Dr. Cho nods toward Red’s mews.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I whisper.

  Beatrice opens the door and I see that she’s made the mews all cozy for Rufus. There are two big sticks nailed to the walls forming branches, and a plywood perch up near the roof in a corner. There’s a rock on the floor and a bowl of water.

  “It looks okay,” I say. Actually, it looks a lot better than okay. And a lot nicer than our setup in the bird room.

  As if mirroring my thoughts, Rufus spreads his wings. I release the jesses and let him fly off my fist up to the plywood perch, which offers the highest vantage. He looks down at us disdainfully.

  Beatrice pulls a tidbit from a pouch and puts it on my fist. “Whistle.”

  I whistle. Rufus bobs his head. Considers my fist. I whistle again. Rufus launches from the perch and flies straight to my fist and gobbles the tidbit.

  Dr. Cho and Beatrice exchange a knowing look. There must be waves of light coming off me from how glowy I feel.

  Rufus finishes his meal and sits on my fist. I flick my glove slightly, and he rises into the air and flaps up to the plywood perch. He screeches, rouses, then blinks at us.

  “I think he’s found a home,” Beatrice says, and squeezes my shoulder.

  My eyes are watering again. He has, hasn’t he? At least for tonight, if not for forever. “Good night, Rufus,” I say.

  He squawks. I’ll take that as a good night.

  Upstairs in my room, I take out the little box Jamie gave me—the arc reactor. Clicked on, it’s a decent night-light. I dig out my whittled hawk and put it and the arc thingy on the windowsill near the bed. I drape Mom’s string of marabou around them. I never bothered decorating the room I stayed in at Gram’s. I lie back on my pillow, staring at the light and the hawk, the marabou fuzz glowing like a furry halo around them. The deep black night beyond sparkles with stars. Sleep just comes, gentle as a hug.

  12

  Rufus

  It is only when they close the web over the opening of this new cave that I realize the furless creatures are not staying here with me. That I am alone in the wild darkness. With a very large and huffy hawk less than a swoop from where I perch.

  I consider hooting for help.

  But who in the whole of the wild world would help a great horned owl?

  “So you’re the new bird.”

  It’s the hawk. I freeze. Flip up my ear tufts. Blend in.

  “If you’re trying to hide from me, it’s not going to work. You’re in an enclosed nest, a small version of what my partner lives in. I’m in the nest next to you.”

  Nest?

  “Meaning I can’t eat you, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”

  SHE’S THOUGHT ABOUT EATING ME?! The memory of the stabbing pain of the goshawk’s talon through my wing nearly causes me to drop off my perch.

  “Not the brightest bird in the roost, are you? You’re safe. From me and everything else. Stop trembling like a chick.”

  Is it much of a wonder that owls hate hawks?

  “Look, Owl, we’re the only two birds around and I haven’t had anyone to squawk with in more than a season, so get hooting.”

  “Was it an owl?” I ask.

  “What was that?” Her talons scratch along her perch. She hadn’t expected a response.

  “Was it an owl who was here in this nest?”

  “No,” she grumbles. “It was a goshawk that thought he was above talking to a lowly red-tail.”

  Just the word goshawk sends trembles through my feathers. “I do not like goshawks.”

  “No bird likes goshawks.” Her chirp is muffled—she must be preening. “Then again, no bird likes a great horned owl, either.”

  That just gets me fluffed. “You know, not all great horned owls are bad.”

  “All great horned owls are large, silent predators that kill you in your sleep and eat basically everything in the forest that isn’t a moose, so no, maybe not bad, but certainly not something to be liked.”

  I bob my head, considering. “You do have a point,” I hoot.

  “Of course I have a point. I don’t bother screeching if I don’t have a point.”

  This hawk is the oddest combination of desperate and standoffish. Not that I have much experience with hawks. This is the first one I’ve ever squawked with who was not also trying to kill and eat me.

  “Why are you here?” I dare to ask. “What are these enclosed nests and what do the furless creatures want with us?”

  The hawk rouses her feathers. “Furless creatures? You mean my partner? We hunt food together. She chases rabbits and squirrels from the bushes and I swoop down
from the trees and kill and eat them. It’s quite fun.”

  Hunt together? That was my idea! “Are you saying that the furless creatures hunt in packs with hawks? Do you think they’d teach me to hunt with them?”

  “Teach you?” The hawk practically wakes the forest with that screech. “First of all, no self-respecting hawk hunts in packs like a fur-brained coyote. My partner is a useful assistant on the hunt.

  “But more importantly, are you hooting that you don’t know how to hunt?”

  Now I’m fluffed again, and just when I had my face feathers in perfect hearing order. Pellets. I must calm down. Breathe in through the beak, let the cool air calm my gizzard . . .

  Once my feathers are back in their places and my ear tufts are straight, I chirp back at her, “I have caught a vole. Once.”

  “Once?”

  “Yes,” I say. “And it was quite a wonderful kill, if I do say so myself.”

  “You’ve caught one vole?”

  “Yes,” I repeat, a little louder. I’m beginning to wonder if the hawk is deaf.

  “Only one vole and you’re, what, nearly six moons old?”

  I tap out the moons with my talons. Great Beak, it has been nearly a full six moons. Six moons . . . “My mother,” I begin, but can’t finish. The hoots catch in my beak like ants in sap.

  “Oh, you poor thing.” The hawk’s tone has changed like a summer’s evening: the storm has passed and now it’s warm and wet and starry and the crickets are chirruping. “Was it another bird?” she tweets.

  She understands . . . “It was a monster. One of the monsters the furless creatures use to roll around the forest.”

  “Oh, you poor little fledgling!” the hawk screeches. “You didn’t see it, did you?”

  “I saw everything,” I peep.

  “Did she hoot at you afterward?” Her tweet is flat.

  “She told me to fly away. I didn’t. I tried to follow the monster.”

  “The human took her?” Now her chirp is brighter, her heartbeat faster.

  “The furless creature—you call them humans? The human took her. It threw a skin over her and picked her up like a piece of prey and put her inside the monster.”