Blue Wings

by Jef Aerts

  The little room, the apartment block, the murmur of the city—they were all gone. There was nothing but my brother and me, in that wonderful big bed.

  JADRAN GOT UP TWICE IN the night to go see if Sprig was still there. He put his face right up to the balcony door and blew clouds on the glass. Getting him back to bed wasn’t easy.

  In the morning, he ate his cornflakes on the balcony. It was a disaster area. The newspapers had been shredded, Sprig had kicked over his water bowl, and there was bird poop all the way up the wall. But Jadran didn’t care. He knelt by the door, with his breakfast bowl and spoon on the ground in front of him. The crane was trembling against the railing.

  “Leave him,” I said. “He’s scared.”

  “He has to eat or he’ll die.” Jadran flicked a cornflake toward the bird with his spoon.

  Sprig didn’t catch it. But he did look up. And that was a start.

  Jadran stayed on the balcony all morning. Mom didn’t even try to convince him that we should take Sprig back. This way at least Jadran wasn’t getting under her feet.

  “Okay, then,” she said, putting on her coat. “The crane can stay tonight.” She linked arms with Murad, and they went out to buy new bed linen.

  I looked it up on the internet for Jadran: Cranes are omnivores. They eat everything. During the breeding season, they mainly eat insects, worms, and frogs, but rarely fish. And when they’re migrating, they scratch around empty fields for bits of leftover wheat and corn.

  “You see? Cornflakes!” grinned Jadran. “Now we just need some worms.”

  We put on our shoes. Jadran grabbed a ladle and I took an empty jam jar from the kitchen cabinet.

  I raced downstairs and outside. Jadran took the elevator. Mom didn’t actually allow him to do it on his own. And certainly not as a race. But when she wasn’t home, we did it anyway. I jumped up onto the handrail and slid down the rest of the staircase on my butt.

  He was already waiting down in the entrance hall, looking very proud of himself.

  In front of the apartment block there was a flower bed full of roses. Jadran began digging among the plants with the ladle. Lumps of soil flew all around. We collected some wood lice, centipedes, and earthworms from among the dry leaves. Jadran found a load of little bugs under a loose paving stone. Soon the jar was crawling with critters.

  But when we wanted to go back upstairs, the door was shut—and we hadn’t brought a key.

  Jadran pressed the doorbell way too long.

  “Yes?” crackled the intercom. Above the row of buttons, there was a speaker and a camera. Yasmin, upstairs in the apartment, could see on a screen who was ringing the doorbell.

  “We can’t get in!” I shouted.

  Jadran pressed his nose to the lens.

  “Step back so that I can see you better,” said Yasmin.

  “Sprig’s hungry.”

  “You two are filthy.” It didn’t sound very friendly—and it wasn’t.

  “Open the door!” I hid my black fingers behind my back.

  Jadran proudly lifted up the jar of wriggling critters.

  Yasmin was not impressed. “You’ve done your jacket up wrong, Jadran.”

  He lowered the jar again and looked down.

  “Leave him alone,” I hissed. “Does it really matter?”

  “And your hair’s a complete mess.”

  I undid Jadran’s buttons and put them in the right holes. Then I ran my fingers through my hair. “Better?”

  Yasmin burst out laughing, as if it had all been a joke. The big door clicked open.

  Feeding Sprig live worms was really gross. They struggled in his beak. He bit a centipede into two pieces before gobbling it down. Jadran put a shiny beetle on the palm of his hand and let it tumble to the ground in front of Sprig. There was no escape for them.

  After twenty creepy-crawlies, Sprig looked a lot more comfortable. He fluffed up his feathers, scratched at the blanket with his feet, and settled down for a little nap.

  Jadran copied him. He stood on one leg and pulled his neck in.

  “Wake me up when Mom’s back,” he said.

  “Want me to bring you some worms too?” I asked.

  But Jadran had already started his crane nap.

  I tiptoed back inside.

  MURAD AND I WERE PLAYING Flying Zombies. I banged away on the keyboard and had already bagged ten zombies before Murad could even click the mouse once.

  “The last one’s yours,” I said.

  Murad blew up the entire zombie town.

  “We should do this more often,” he said.

  Jadran didn’t like the new sheets that Mom had bought. Just the smell was making him uneasy. He kept sneezing and kicking off the comforter.

  “Come here,” I whispered, patting the mattress beside me.

  Jadran pushed his pillow next to mine and rolled up close to me. I didn’t sleep a wink, but he snored away happily all night.

  The next day, we taught Sprig his own name.

  “Sprig,” called Jadran. He was the daddy crane now, and he threw some grain onto the ground for his baby bird.

  Pretty soon the bird came to us whenever we said his name. He was still too young to call like an adult bird, and just answered with a plaintive cry.

  Spri-ri-ri-ree sprirrrreee.

  “Sprig! Sprig!”

  Taming the bird with Jadran was fun. My brother hadn’t been in such a good mood for ages. He beamed when Sprig pecked the first bit of bread from his hand. And so Mom said Sprig could stay a little longer. His wound was healing quickly. Another few days and we’d take him back to the lake.

  It wasn’t long before Sprig started hopping around after us. When Mom wasn’t looking, Jadran opened the balcony door, and he and Sprig strutted around the apartment. I gave Jadran instructions on how to do the best imitation of Sprig. He held his neck nice and straight, pulled in his tummy, and pattered about on his toes.

  Sprig still couldn’t fly yet, though. Or at least he didn’t show any signs of wanting to. He didn’t even try to open his wings.

  “We have to teach him,” said Jadran.

  “We can’t fly,” I said. “And how can you teach someone something when you can’t do it yourself?”

  “If you really want to do it, you can do anything.”

  That, of course, was what they’d drummed into him at his special school. They gave Jadran an overdose of tips and compliments at the Space. And he was really, really good at endlessly repeating other people’s sentences.

  “We’re way too heavy,” I said.

  Jadran zapped me with a glare. “We need wings!”

  And Jadran didn’t mean homemade paper or cardboard wings. He wanted big wings with real feathers.

  He wanted Mom’s blue wings.

  She used to wear them when she was still performing in musicals with Dad. They were specially made to measure. But since Dad had left, she had wanted nothing more to do with them.

  Jadran was already running into the hallway to fetch the key that hung above the shoe cabinet. But I stopped him. Mom kept her musical costumes in the basement. And even I wouldn’t let him go down there on his own.

  Mom didn’t like going down into the basement. She said it was a kind of time-travel machine. Before she realized what she was doing, she’d open the wrong box and find herself in a previous life. One she thought she’d almost forgotten.

  I slipped the key into my pocket and walked ahead of Jadran all the way downstairs. The basement stank of mold and mothballs. There was a long line of metal doors, but I knew exactly which one was ours.

  The small storage room was packed to the ceiling with crates, boxes of yellowing paper, and stuff that looked like it had come straight from a thrift store. At the far end was a rack with a bunch of long, black garment bags.

  “We should have asked Mom first,” I said.

  But Jadran was heading straight for the rack, beaming all over. He’d always been fascinated by Mom’s musicals. Before Mom and Dad split up,
he often used to go to their performances. He’d sit at the back of the theater and sing along to all the songs. He even knew all their lines by heart, Mom said, even though he only half understood them.

  Jadran ran his fingers over the hangers.

  “Do you know which one they’re in?” I asked.

  Jadran hesitated for a moment and then took a bumpy-looking bag off the rack. I opened the zipper for him. The tips of the wings burst through the opening, as if they’d been waiting all those years to get out. Jadran slid the wings out of the bag and walked with them down the hallway and up to the basement door. He held them under the light.

  They were dyed the most beautiful blue I had ever seen. Hundreds of real feathers were sewn to a wire frame. There were really long flight feathers, gleaming smaller ones, and a whole bunch of silky-soft down on the underside.

  Jadran blew off the dust. He pushed his fingers into the thick layers of feathers and stroked them flat. Then he lifted the wings onto his back and put his arms through the leather straps.

  It was a strange sight: my big, tall brother with those graceful wings. But somehow, I thought, they kind of suited him. I buckled them up around his wrists. That meant Jadran could really flap them by moving his arms up and down. And that’s exactly what he did. The wings swished all around.

  He flew upstairs ahead of me. He whooshed along the hallway and into the living room. I ran after him, quickly trying to move all the breakable objects out of his way.

  “Hey, boys, what’s all this?” Mom jumped up from her chair when she saw the wings. The knife she was using to chop vegetables clattered onto the floor.

  “I’ll put them back in a bit,” I said quickly.

  But Mom didn’t hear me. She was staring wide-eyed at Jadran, who was standing by the balcony window and flapping his wings.

  “Up and down!” he shouted.

  Every time he flapped the wings, Mom’s head went back and forth, as if she was trying to shake off a bad memory. Then she bent down to pick up the knife and went on chopping broccoli.

  The young bird stared at Jadran through the glass.

  “Give him some food,” I said. “Then he’ll learn that it’s fun.”

  And that was how we started the first flying lesson. Jadran showed him how, and I gave Sprig a beetle whenever he lifted his wings a bit. The injured wing was slower, but it still moved along with the other one.

  “Up!” shouted Jadran.

  And down went the beetles.

  Yasmin stood in the doorway. Her bangs hung over the top of her glasses.

  “Do you want to try?” asked Jadran. “You’re a pretty mommy bird, Yaz.” He ran around Yasmin, pushing out his butt like a big, feathery tail.

  “Have you gone crazy?” She quickly stepped back and slammed the balcony door. “You guys are such morons!”

  “Yasmin, we don’t say that kind of thing!” Murad called from the ironing board, with his pants in his hand. “Say sorry to them!”

  But Yasmin didn’t say anything at all.

  Jadran lowered the wings. “Aren’t they pretty, then?”

  “They’re beautiful, Giant,” I said.

  Inside the apartment, Murad ran after Yasmin to give her a roasting. She’d said we were morons. Both of us. It sounded so mean. It was completely untrue. But in a strange way I was relieved.

  At least Yasmin hadn’t treated my brother and me any differently.

  THERE WAS A PATCH OF grass behind the apartment block. We wanted to take Sprig out there. The flapping was going better and better, so I thought he was ready to practice outside. Jadran had the blue wings on his back. He rattled a can of food, and the crane followed us to the elevator.

  Sprig got one worm for each floor. He couldn’t stop staring at the flickering lights.

  On the fourth floor the elevator stopped. I pushed Sprig into a corner, and Jadran and I stood in front of him like a wall, as we’d agreed. We didn’t want anyone to know we had a crane in the apartment.

  Rafaela and her twins stepped in. She had one little kid on each hand.

  “Good morning,” said Jadran, overdoing the friendliness, as he tried to hide the bird behind his baggy pants. “And how are you today?”

  Rafaela smiled, while her daughters looked in terror at the winged giant who was blocking half the elevator.

  “We’re fine, Jadran. How about you guys?”

  Rafaela loved my brother. She worked at the drugstore and sometimes she brought samples of toothpaste home for him, those mini-tubes with the new flavors.

  “Great, thanks!” Jadran grinned and showed his teeth, so she could see that the toothpaste was working.

  Sprig gave himself a scratch on the back of my jeans. I nearly had a heart attack.

  “I bet you guys are really busy now, huh? I saw the moving truck. That Murad seems like a friendly man. And he has a nice daughter. Isn’t she about your age, Josh?”

  Ping! went the elevator.

  The twins started arguing about who got to leave the elevator first.

  “Those wings really suit you,” Rafaela said to Jadran. She acted like she hadn’t seen Sprig.

  We waited until they were gone. Sprig hopped into the entrance hall after Jadran like a puppy dog. He slid about on the marble tiles and then scrambled outside onto the sidewalk.

  “Good, Sprig, that’s right. Come on!”

  I walked ahead to make sure there was no one out on the grass.

  “The coast’s clear, Giant!” I shouted back around the corner.

  Jadran wasn’t walking with a hunched back now, but parading proudly along the strip of concrete beside the building, with his chin held high. I felt even smaller than usual.

  Jadran gave me the can of food and sat down on a bench.

  “Kroo kroo kroo!” he yelled, spreading his wings.

  Sprig greedily pecked at a blob of mayonnaise beside the garbage can.

  “Stop it! It’ll make you sick!” I tried to drive the bird toward the bench, but he spotted a soggy bread crust on the ground.

  That didn’t put Jadran off. “Watch how I do it!” He bounced across the grass with the wings open.

  Sprig dashed as quickly as he could in the opposite direction. Jadran swooped and flew after him.

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  But the daddy crane didn’t understand that word. He raced to the bike shed on his long legs, chasing his chick into a corner.

  “Come on, you can do it! You can do it!” he shouted, just like his counselors at the Space spoke to him.

  I had to do something. Sprig was shivering and shaking. Any minute now he’d escape, and he wouldn’t last long in the city. I went and stood behind Jadran and tried to press his arms down. He tensed his muscles.

  “You’re going to frighten him,” I said.

  “He has to fly! After his family.”

  “You’re going too fast.” I snuggled against his back and stroked his shoulders until he finally stopped flapping. “It’s like the breathing, Giant. You have to do it at his speed.”

  We used the can of food to lure Sprig away from the bike shed. It took ages to get him to jump up onto the bench. And once he was there, he didn’t want to leave.

  Jadran just went on flapping his wings. He darted across the grass and then skimmed over the ground like a fighter jet. But Sprig was not in the mood. Even when he tumbled off the back of the bench, he kept his wings closed.

  “It’s not high enough,” said Jadran firmly.

  It didn’t work off the dumpster either. Jadran lifted Sprig onto it, but the lid was too slippery and Sprig almost went head over heels. Then Jadran wanted to clamber up onto the roof of the bike shed. I only just managed to stop him.

  Then I saw him eyeing the side of the building. Flapping and fluttering, he kept steering Sprig closer to that direction. I knew what he was trying to do. But that was not an option. No one was allowed on the fire escape. It was only there for emergencies.

  “There!” Jadran pointed one wing at a m
etal platform halfway up the building, between the fourth and the fifth floors.

  I shook my head. “Cranes always take off from the ground.”

  Jadran flapped his wings until the sweat was pouring down his forehead. Clouds of dust billowed up. He jumped as high as he could with his chunky calves. Sprig hopped about a bit, but he didn’t fly.

  Jadran’s mouth became a tight line. “It’s not working from the ground!”

  “You need to have a bit more patience, Giant,” I said. “Come on, let’s go back inside. And we’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Jadran didn’t believe in tomorrow. For him, everything was now. He made a face and walked toward the fire escape. I ran after him and tugged on his sleeve.

  “Stop it! Mom will be so mad if she sees you there!” And I didn’t mean just mad at him. Mainly at me. If I couldn’t stop it, then I was a lousy guardian angel.

  Jadran didn’t care about Mom getting mad. He pushed me away. And so I had to come up with something else.

  My only options now were all bad ones.

  I STOOD BETWEEN JADRAN AND the fire escape, the blades of grass nailing me to the spot. He waved his giant hands threateningly. But I didn’t falter.

  “Let me do it,” I said. “I’m not as heavy as you and …”

  “I’m not too heavy!” Jadran stuck his nose in the air like a beak. He pulled in his stomach until he was all ribcage.

  “Give me the wings.”

  Jadran peeped at me out of the corner of his eye. “You gonna take Sprig with you?” His hands dropped back beside his body.

  I nodded and undid the buckles around his wrists. Jadran slid the wings off his back and ran off to grab the crane. Mom’s wings were way too big for me. The biggest feathers came down to my knees.

  But there was no way back.

  We agreed that Jadran would wait at the bottom while I climbed up the fire escape, wearing the blue wings. I clasped one hand around the cold metal and hugged Sprig to me with the other hand. His long neck got in the way and he kicked out viciously, but I didn’t let go.