by Jef Aerts
Dr. Mbasa took me in her strong arms and lifted me into the car. Even with the passenger seat all the way back, my plastered leg only just fit in. She slid the folded-up wheelchair into the trunk and gave Murad the prescription for my medication. He had to promise her that he’d be really careful with me.
A HANG GLIDER FLEW LOW OVER the lake. It had three wheels, a motor with a huge propeller at the back, and triangular wings made of sailcloth. The sun gleamed on the pilot’s white helmet.
But the most interesting thing was the young cranes. In a wide letter V, they flew after the hang glider, like it was the leader of the group. They didn’t seem afraid of the motor’s noise and, without hesitation, they followed every move that the aircraft made.
“There you are! Finally!” shouted Jadran as I rolled the wheelchair at full speed toward the TV screen he’d been watching all that time.
I hugged him.
I cuddled him.
I thumped his chest and told him he was a jerk for leaving me behind in the hospital like that.
He put his finger to his lips and pointed at the screen. “Now you can see it for yourself, Josh. That’s how they do it!”
The hang glider flew higher above a bare, grassy landscape. Pictures filmed from the ground alternated with close-ups of young cranes in the air. Now you could really see how big their wings were. The sun glistened on their silver-brown backs as they slowly glided after the aircraft.
Jadran looked pretty rough, and drool was dripping from the corner of his mouth. But his eyes were gleaming.
“Do you get it, Josh?” he asked. “You get it now, huh?”
I did my best to follow him.
“Those young cranes don’t have any parents. They’re just like Sprig,” I said. “Is that what you mean?”
Jadran nodded eagerly. “They can’t leave without a dad or a mom. They don’t know the way to Spain.”
“And so that man’s teaching them which direction to fly in?”
The pilot put the hang glider back on the ground. The cranes landed next to him on the grass. Their first flying lesson had gone well. In a few weeks’ time, they’d begin their trek south together.
Jadran nudged me. “He’s feeding them. Look!”
“That’s their reward,” I said.
The pilot had put an imitation crane’s head over his arm. It had beady eyes, a plastic beak, and a patch of red, just like the adult birds. He pecked at the food with the head, as if he really was one of the cranes. It looked a bit creepy—a guy in a weird white helmet with a bird arm—but the young birds seemed used to it. They made the same trilling little squeaks as Sprig.
“They think he’s their daddy,” said Jadran.
The nature guide turned off the TV set.
“He must have watched that video thirty times already,” she said to Mom. “No idea why.”
“We visited here in spring,” said Mika behind me. I recognized her sweet but kind of raspy voice immediately. “We watched that video then too. He must have remembered it.”
Of course he did, I thought. Jadran remembers everything. He even remembers the last mile count he saw on the dashboard of Dad’s car.
Now he looked at my leg and poked the plaster with his finger. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Giant. The doctor says I’ll make a complete recovery.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“Come on,” I said. “We have to go home. Sprig’s waiting for you.”
“It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”
“Yes, you’re right,” I said to shut him up. “This time it really is all your fault.”
And then Jadran finally stood up.
“You see!” he said. His pants were torn and there was a dark stain on his butt. “Can I push the wheelchair?”
The way home seemed endless. Jadran was silent, but his brain was sparking away. For once I was glad that I couldn’t look inside his head.
It was too cramped on the back seat for my plaster cast, but Jadran still insisted that I should sit beside him. Mom and Murad had pushed their own seats as far forward as possible. Mom’s knees were almost touching the steering wheel, and Murad was squeezed up against the glove compartment.
“It was smart of you, going into that hut, Giant,” he said.
It sounded strange to hear Murad calling my brother that. Some words don’t fit right in other people’s mouths. “Giant” had always been a word for just Mom and me.
“You could have starved to death. Out in the woods in this cold.”
“I got soup,” said Jadran. “I never eat soup in the morning!”
Mom laughed. “And even Mika was there.”
“Yes, Mika!”
She had been Jadran’s personal counselor for two years now. And in those two years she had gotten him to do more than anyone else ever had. Jadran even put his own dirty work clothes in the washing machine at the Space. He could iron his shirts and pants perfectly by himself. And Mika had even taught him to drive the tractor, which he loved. He wanted to mow the lawn and plow the potato field all day long.
“You can imagine how worried she was when she heard you’d run away,” said Mom. “You gave us a real fright, Jadran!”
Murad parked the car close to the front door of the apartment block. The roses brushed against the bumper. Mika had stopped by too. She had some things to discuss with Mom. And Jadran was insisting on showing her our bedroom, with the two mattresses on the floor.
Murad took the wheelchair out of the trunk, and Mika helped me out of the back seat. You could tell she’d done this loads of times before. Although she was slender, she easily lifted me out of the car and into the wheelchair. On her wrist there was a tattoo of a wolf.
“Wow! Well, I am stoked,” she said. “So pumped this all turned out okay. And it’s thanks to you, Josh. If you hadn’t come so quickly, we’d still be there now. We can nag as much as we like, but when it comes down to it, Jadran only listens to you.” She pretended to look jealous and gave me a high five.
I could understand why my brother was so crazy about her.
Jadran ran into the hallway and pressed our bell three times.
“Is that you, Jadran?” Yasmin’s voice crackled through the intercom’s little speaker. “Turn around!”
Jadran did a half pirouette and pressed his face up to the camera.
“Open up!” he shouted. “Josh is here with his broken leg. And Mika wants to see my room!”
“Then get yourselves up here quickly,” said Yasmin, as sweet as pie, and the glass door clicked open. “I missed you guys so much!”
I waved at the camera. For just a second, I believed she meant it.
MOM OPENED UP A PACKET of waffle cookies and put some on a plate. Jadran instantly grabbed two and stuffed them into his mouth. Sprig stood at the balcony door, pecking on the glass.
“How cute!” Mika squeaked. “He’s talking to you, Jadran.”
Mom shook her head. “We should never have brought that creature home.”
Jadran opened the balcony door a bit. Sprig instantly stuck his head through.
Mika jumped back. “Whoa, I didn’t know he was so big!”
“He won’t hurt you.” Jadran dug a dead dung beetle out of his pocket. “Look, Sprig, this is for you. From the woods.” Then he took Mika’s hand. “You coming? You promised!” He pulled her along the hallway to the bedrooms.
“Wow,” I heard her shout, and then: “Hey, cool poster! The Seven Dwarfs!”
Mom went into the kitchen to fetch some tea. I nibbled at my waffle cookie, square by square. I could hear Jadran chattering away in the hallway. Now that she was finally here, Mika had to see everything: our room, his old room, the bathroom, the storage closet.
“It’s so cozy here,” she said, her laughter filling the apartment. “Like little sparrows, all snuggled up together.”
The teacups rattled on Mom’s tray. She put it down on the coffee table, but she didn’t pour the water yet.
Aft
er the tour, Mom helped Jadran take a shower. Wearing his favorite sweatpants, he flopped onto the sofa and dug around in the packet of waffle cookies. Mika picked the crumbs off his sweater and gave him a picture book from her bag, so he’d have something to read while we talked.
She said, “I have a proposal for you.”
Mom stood behind the sofa, waiting expectantly and drawing lines in the corduroy with her nails.
“Tomorrow I’ll have a long talk about it with Jadran,” Mika continued. “But first I want to hear what you guys think.”
Murad stood up and poured everyone a cup. The tea bags floated for a moment on the steaming water before sinking.
“Jadran is sweet, and he tries to do things well,” said Mika. “But he’s also very unpredictable, and his body’s getting big and strong. Too strong for you to handle him on your own. And after what’s happened the past few days …”
Mika smiled sweetly at Jadran, who was completely wrapped up in the book, but her eyes were sad. I hardly dared to look at her.
“I had a discussion with the management this afternoon. There’s a room for him at the Space. Jadran knows most of the other guys who live at the center. He’ll be in a friendly community where he’ll fit in well. We have specialist staff and all the care he needs.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said Mom.
The teaspoons tapped out of sync.
“If you agree, he can move in this weekend.”
It wasn’t plaster around my leg. It was lead. And it was getting heavier and heavier. Any heavier and I’d sink through the floor, down through all those stories and into the basement.
“Of course we don’t agree!” I blurted before I disappeared into the depths. “Jadran and I have never been apart for more than two nights. And now he’s supposed to move out?”
Mika calmly stood up and crouched beside the wheelchair. The wolf on her arm was close to me. It was tilting its head and pricking up its ears.
“I get it, Josh,” she whispered. “I really do. This seems really terrible now. Unbearable. But you’ll see …”
I turned my head away. Murad had gone to stand by Mom behind the sofa. That was kind of him, because she looked like she was about to collapse.
“This isn’t what I’d imagined,” mumbled Mom, as she brushed the marks out of the fabric. “I hoped Jadran would always be able to stay here. I did everything I could, and now this …”
“No one ever imagines something like this,” said Mika. “You’ve just got to make the best of it.”
She went and sat back down beside Jadran on the sofa. He wasn’t even listening to what was being said. He put down the book, grabbed the sugar bowl, and dumped three more spoonfuls into his cup.
Mom gulped, stretched her back, and forced a smile, as if she was suddenly ashamed of what she’d said before.
“You’ve already done so much to help us, Mika,” she said. “And Jadran admires you. If you really think this is the only solution … you know, to Jadran’s upset about the changes in our home and … the accident.”
Mika gave my brother a cuddle. “We’ll totally pamper him. As usual, huh, Jadran?”
That made him blush.
“And when is he allowed to come home?” asked Murad.
“Only on weekends at first. Later maybe a bit more often, and he can come stay with you during the vacations. But it has to be very clear to him, right from the start, that the Space is his new home.”
Jadran took a swig of tea, but he was too greedy and burned his lips. He sprayed it all over the table.
“Oh, Jadran. What a mess!” Mom quickly fetched a dish towel, dabbed his mouth, and wiped the table. She hung the towel over the radiator and came to stand by my wheelchair. That was when I knew it was serious.
“Mom? You’re not really going to send him away, are you?”
She shrugged. Her chest moved with her shoulders, but her heart stayed right where it was.
“We’ll do it this way for now,” she said.
Never, I thought. Never, never, never! I wanted to roll away, away from the living room, away from this terrible conversation.
But Mom put the brake on the wheelchair.
Jadran didn’t have a brake. And right then he didn’t really understand what was looming over him.
Mika was going to pamper him even more, yes!
He could go on the tractor with her more often, hooray!
He raced to the kitchen and took a bottle of soda from the cupboard.
“Soda fountain! The loudest one wins!” he yelled, pushing a full cup into my hand.
There we were, two brothers who always did everything together. Mom hid in Murad’s arms. Yasmin sneaked off to her room. Mika was the only one who dared to look me in the face.
“To us!” shouted Jadran, raising his cup in the air. “To all of us!”
We both took a big gulp at the same moment, looked up, and gargled until the soda sprayed from our mouths.
MOM GAVE ME A PAINKILLER and helped me use the bathroom, because that was the trickiest thing about my leg. The whole time, we didn’t say a word.
Jadran slid his mattress a little more firmly against mine and plumped up his pillow before he lay down. We’d be sleeping together another two nights. But as of Sunday, everything was going to change.
I was just about to begin a superstrong, indestructible breathing bridge when Yasmin pushed the door open a little.
“Are you asleep yet?” she asked.
Like that was possible within ten seconds. I flicked the nightlight back on.
“I just wanted to say that I think it’s bad too,” she said.
Jadran was lying on his back. He blinked in the bright light.
“It’s not bad,” I snapped. “It’s terrible!”
I hoped Yasmin would slam the door now and leave us alone. But she didn’t move. Jadran pushed the comforter off. The sleeves of his pajamas were too short. But Mom wasn’t allowed to throw them out because they had Mickey Mouse on them.
“What’s terrible?” he asked.
“That you’re moving,” said Yasmin.
I propped myself up on one elbow so that I could see her better. Without her glasses, her eyes didn’t look as dark.
“You guys just moved.” Jadran licked his cracked lips. “Not me.”
“That’s what Mika said, isn’t it?” The corners of Yasmin’s mouth were quivering. “Didn’t you hear her?”
“Shh,” I went. “Leave him alone. He needs to sleep. We’ll talk to him about it tomorrow.”
Jadran grabbed my wrist. “Mika’s nice. She likes our room. Like sparrows, she said. We live like sparrows, all snuggled up together.”
“I bet they have a nice room for you at the Space,” said Yasmin.
I could have strangled her. This was not the moment to explain to Jadran what exactly was going on. He started to tremble.
“Guillaume sleeps at the Space,” he said. “And Dewi and Sarah-with-an-h.”
Yasmin took a step forward but I glared her back to the doorway. If she and Murad hadn’t moved in, Jadran wouldn’t have gotten so upset, and then this would never have to happen. Mom would calm my brother down, tell him it wasn’t going to come to that. She could turn even the very worst of things into soft little words when she talked with her whipped-cream voice.
“Another two nights,” I said to Jadran, because now I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “You’ll be sleeping here another two nights. And then you’ll get your own room at the Space.”
Jadran pressed his forehead to mine. “Are you coming with me?”
His brain was boiling. And I had to boil with it.
“I’m staying here,” I said.
The trembling became shaking. Our heads banged together.
“Me too,” he said. “I’m staying here too.”
We held our breath at the same moment. Yasmin mumbled something and shut the door. Jadran sank down onto the mattress.
“Come on, let’s go to sleep
now, Giant,” I whispered, trying to turn onto my side toward him. “Mika will explain everything to you tomorrow.”
I blew out over his face.
Then he exploded.
Mom’s blue wings were hanging over the chair behind my mattress. Jadran leaped up and grabbed them. He lifted them over his head. They cast a shadow on the bed. He put his arms through the leather straps and opened the wings up wide. The flight feathers swished against the wallpaper. The light swung frantically back and forth. My schoolbooks tumbled off the shelves.
“Don’t do that, Jadran!” Because of my dumb leg I couldn’t even stand up to stop him.
Jadran couldn’t hear me anymore. He was jumping around and smashing into the walls like a wild bird in a cardboard box.
“Giant, put those wings back!” I breathed as calmly as possible. Maybe he’d join in.
Jadran looked at me. For one heartrending moment. Then he pulled the wings apart. Hundreds of feathers swirled around the room. It was one gigantic blue cloud. And in that cloud Jadran stood tugging at the wire frame. He tugged off the down and tossed it up high. He tore off the feathers and threw them all around. One by one, all the long flight feathers went into the air.
“Stop!” I screamed. “You’re ruining them!”
But Jadran still hadn’t had enough. He wheeled the bare wings around. He bashed the ceiling and flailed at the walls. He chased after the feathers and batted them back up high before they touched the floor.
It was like a kind of fight. A fight against something that was lighter than nothing. Something that no one could grasp. The feathers whirled around Jadran’s head like a flock of blue birds.
If he opened his mouth right now, he’d choke on them.
THE BEDROOM WAS FULL OF feathers. But Mom didn’t ask any questions. She shook out the comforters and picked the down from my hair. She swept everything into a heap. Then she lifted me into the wheelchair and pushed me into the living room.
Yasmin put the breakfast bowls on the table. She looked kind of messy with her hair down. But nicely messy, I thought.
