“Do you think we really could?” Ellis said. “Up in the turret. No, not there, right? But somewhere. Are you sure it’s okay?” She was already climbing on her bike. “Loah! Come on, we better hurry!”
She was helping someone run away from home. If you think Loah had ever, in her entire eleven and one half years of life, expected to do that, you just have not been paying attention.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
One of Dr. Londonderry’s bedtime stories was about two birds you’d never expect to be teammates.
“Peregrine falcons and red-breasted geese nest on the ground, the way most tundra birds do,” she’d begin. “The falcon makes its nest and the geese build theirs all around it, like a village around a castle. When the falcon goes off hunting, the geese guard the eggs. If they spy a predator, they set up an enormous racket.”
Here Loah’s mother would do a deafening imitation of the red-breasted goose, complete with honking, hissing, and fiercely flapping wings. Loah would laugh, but her heart would quake, thinking of the eggs.
“The falcon hears the alarm and rushes back. Falcons can reach speeds of up to two hundred miles per hour, so it doesn’t take long. She swoops down, vicious beak and talons at the ready, and attacks the predator. It flees for its life, and the eggs of all the birds are saved!”
Loah would hug her pillow in relief.
“People think nature’s all about competition and survival of the fittest. But it’s just as much about cooperation. The falcon and the goose are only one wonderful example.” Mama would lean back with a radiant smile. “The real ‘world wide web’ is how interdependent we all are, right down to the microorganisms in the soil and the bacteria in our guts. We humans could learn everything we need to know from the natural world, if we’d only pay attention.”
Riding home with Ellis now, Loah had time to contemplate what she’d gotten herself into. If Zeke snitched… (And of course he would.) If PopPop came looking for Ellis… (And he would, wouldn’t he?) She remembered Zeke asking, Do you know what buckshot is? Loah tried to formulate a plan, but it had been a long, hard day, and her brain was unused to planning anything beyond which knitting project to do next.
Home—there it was at last! Its heavy, mud-brown stone, its three chimneys, its crooked turret hanging on for dear life. Its noble trees and long gravel driveway… where Inspector Wayne J. Kipper stood with his neck craned so far back his cap had fallen off.
Following the inspector’s gaze, Loah saw that the vulture had returned. It shifted from foot to foot, like a gravedigger impatient for the hearse to deliver the corpse. (Which, thank goodness, she’d only seen in movies, not real life.)
“Stay back! You got a bird of prey on your roof!” Inspector Kipper waved his arms as they got off their bikes. Did he mean to protect them, or for them to protect him?
A scraping sound on the roof made the vulture dance sideways, then spread its wings and take off. In what was a perfect example of bad timing, another slate came loose from the roof. It shot off the edge, hung in the air, then knifed down, slicing the branch of a tender young sapling clean off.
“Guillotine,” said the inspector.
He picked up his cap and fanned his face. His bald spot shone. His so-called beard looked more pathetic than ever. Also, two buttons on his shirt were undone, revealing a Superman T-shirt underneath. There is something sad about grown-ups wearing superhero stuff.
With Ellis by her side, Loah almost felt sorry for him.
“Let me guess,” he said. “Dr. Londonberry isn’t home. What’s the excuse this time?”
So much for feeling sorry for him.
“Exactly who wants to know?” Ellis stepped forward.
The inspector widened his eyes. “And who might you be, young lady?”
“I asked you first.” Ellis scowled the way she had when she heard Miss Rinker had left Loah home alone. It was a scowl of outrage and defiance, the scowl of someone who knows the rest of the world is wrong and she’s right and she’ll happily bite your head off to settle things once and for all. In other words, a completely un-Ellis look. Where had she learned to make a face like that?
“I’m Wayne J. Kipper, here in my official capacity as senior housing inspector for this city.” He hooked a thumb into his utility belt, where, Loah saw, he had a new can of The Terminator. Turning to her, he said, “In point of fact, I made a personal sacrifice to come here after normal working hours. I was hoping to finally catch your mother. But I see you’ve been left alone again.”
“Excuse me?” said Ellis. “Alone? What does that make me?”
“In point of fact,” the inspector repeated, ignoring her, “I’ve never once seen a single adult on these premises.”
He frowned at Loah. She couldn’t tell if it was a frown of anger or concern, not that it made any difference. A frowning inspector was not a good thing.
“I’m beginning to think,” he said, “that you are an unsupervised minor.”
The vulture, its wings a flattened V, circled the roof several times before it landed in the precise spot where it had been. It grunted as if surprised they were still there.
“I’m fine,” Loah said. “I’ve got Ellis, as you can see. And I’ve got the Rinkers. They live here and take excellent care of me.”
“May I speak to them?”
“They’re not home. At the moment.”
This was not going well. Loah’s weak eye tugged toward the roof, where the vulture hunched its shoulders and paced back and forth, issuing more repulsive grunts. The inspector was still studying Loah. He bit his lower lip. Did he actually look a little sorry for her?
“What’s up with those ponchos?” he asked, and when she didn’t answer, his frown deepened. “Since my last inspection, things have further deteriorated. A significant chunk of masonry is missing from that tower.”
“Turret,” said Ellis. “It’s a turret. You’d think an official housing inspector would know the difference. Not to mention, it’s derry not berry.” By now her scowl was man-eating. Loah knew Ellis meant well, but it was possible she wasn’t helping.
“I know my house needs work,” Loah said. “My mother will fix things as soon as she can.”
“My office has sent numerous notices over the past six months. She’s never answered a single one.”
Loah suddenly remembered that official-looking envelope she’d laid on top of all the others on her mother’s desk.
“Loah’s mother is very busy doing things that really matter,” said Ellis. “Not like some other people.”
The inspector, continuing to ignore her, produced a folder.
“The city gives people ample opportunity to comply. But there comes a time when time runs out.” He shuffled through the papers in the folder, pulled one out, and began to read.
“ ‘All dwelling structures and all parts thereof, both exterior and interior, shall be maintained in good repair and safe order, and shall be capable of performing the function for which such structure or part of any feature thereof was designed or intended to be used. One that is so damaged, decayed, dilapidated, unsanitary, unsafe or vermin-infested that it creates a hazard to the health, welfare, or safety of the occupants or of the public shall be deemed uninhabitable.’ ” He looked up. “In point of fact, that is our official city housing code.”
“But—my house isn’t uninhabitable. I inhabit it.”
“I’m here off the clock to try to personally ensure the property owner receives her final notice.”
Final? That had a highly unpleasant sound. When the inspector held out an envelope, Loah didn’t take it. Instead, Ellis did.
And ripped it in half.
“Destroying official documents is punishable by fine!”
“You think you can scare me?” Ellis dropped the pieces on the ground. “Ha!”
A downy woodpecker landed on the trunk of a nearby sycamore tree. It began to drum, rat a tat tat. Downy woodpeckers are specially adapted to repeatedly smacking their bea
ks against hard surfaces. Their skulls contain next to no fluid, so their brains don’t slosh around, and they can drill into trees with a force a thousand times the force of gravity. (Also, they have barbed and sticky tongues, but that’s another matter.)
Inspector Kipper eyed the bird yet stood his ground. Turning his back on Ellis, he addressed Loah.
“You seem like a nice, well-behaved child. Why are you hanging around with a troublemaker like her?”
“Please don’t insult my friend.”
“I’m trying to help you. Considering your mother doesn’t seem big in the mothering department.”
“And definitely don’t insult my mother!”
Inspector Kipper picked up the torn envelope and handed the pieces to Loah. Fed up was how he looked. He had had it.
“I don’t know where the heck Dr. Londonberry-derry is, or if she even exists, to tell you the truth. What I do know is she’s got five working days to reply to this notice or suffer the consequences.” He puffed his chest, straining the buttons on his shirt so the sorry Superman symbol peeked out. “You shouldn’t be in the middle of this. It’s your mother’s responsibility, not yours. She has neglected her duties as a homeowner. Unfortunately, it looks like she neglects her duties as a parent as well.”
“I said, do not insult my mother!” Loah cried.
Rat a tat, went the bird-jackhammer. Screech! A pair of jays did a synchronized swoop. The inspector fingered his can of The Terminator, but when Loah cried, “Don’t you dare!” he instead shielded his head with his clipboard and stalked to his car.
“The law is the law,” he called over his shoulder. “Anyone who thinks they’re above it is in for a big surprise.” He jumped into his car and reversed out the drive.
When Loah turned around, the vulture was gone. She hadn’t heard it flap its wings or felt its shadow pass overhead. It had just vanished, like a ghost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Every nestling loves its nest, whether it’s tidy or slapdash, perched on the edge of a perilous cliff or tucked in a potted plant on a backyard deck. Some hatch in nests stolen from other birds, yet what do they care? Every baby bird loves the place its mother lays it.
But then, it doesn’t know any better, does it?
Loah, it hardly bears repeating, loved her home. Up till now, though, she’d rarely shared it with anyone except her mother and the Rinkers. As she led Ellis inside, she suddenly felt shy. What if Ellis thought it was spooky? What if it gave her goose bumps?
She didn’t need to worry. Ellis loved the house. She loved the stag-head chandelier. She loved the faded carpet with the roses like chubby pink faces. She loved the kitchen with its black-and-white-checkered floor tiles and big, comfy E-Z Boys. She opened and closed the doors of all the dusty, unused rooms, whistling under her breath. In the library, she gaped at all the books and admired the ones Mama had written. She stood Loah’s school photos, which Loah had laid facedown, upright on the desk and examined them like artifacts from another civilization. She saved her highest compliments for Loah’s fish. Of all the animals the Smiths owned, they had no fish. She couldn’t believe Loah hadn’t named it yet.
I agree! The fish did a quick lap around its bowl.
Loah was about to call Miss Rinker and say she’d made it home when she noticed that the phone’s message light was blinking. She pressed the button.
“Sweetie? Are you there?” Her mother’s voice always squeaked when she was excited, but Loah had never heard it pitch so high and breathless as now. “I want to—” Click.
“Was that her?” Ellis asked. “Was that your mom? Why’d she hang up?”
“She got cut off. That happens a lot. She’ll call back when she can.”
Loah should have been happy. She was happy, wasn’t she? Her mother hadn’t fallen down a crevasse, been mauled by a polar bear, or gotten deathly sick from drinking bad water! All this time, as Loah had wondered and worried about her, Mama had been just fine. She’d been better than fine. Only one thing in this world, Loah knew, could make her mother sound as happy as she did.
The loah bird. Mama must have found it at last.
Loah the girl sank into Mama’s chair.
Ellis chose a book and took it to the window seat. Loah called Miss Rinker to say she was home, that she’d heard from her mother, and that, yes, everything was fine. To Loah’s relief, Miss Rinker sounded too tired to ask many questions.
After she hung up, Loah began to sift through the papers on the desk. Besides the envelope she’d set there, she found two other notices from the Department of Housing. The most recent one was, of course, unopened, but the other two had been taken from their envelopes, then stuffed back in. Mama had read them before her trip and ignored them.
Loah read the list of violations. It was long. Long. Some were serious—the turret, for example, and the roof, and the trees with dead limbs—but others not so much. Cracked windows, the rotten back step, chipped paint. It wouldn’t have been too hard or expensive to fix them, if Dr. Londonderry had paid attention. If she’d taken more care. If she’d thought about the house as a place to live, instead of a place to fly away from.
Loah opened the envelope Ellis had torn in two. Fitting the pieces of the letter together, she tried to make sense of it. Though it contained numerous confusing words and phrases like “noncompliance” and “pursuant to Code 762, Section 17,” she was able to zero in on one sentence, the one containing the words “will thereby be summoned to appear in municipal court.”
There might also have been something about “failure to appear resulting in warrant for arrest.” In fact, there definitely was. But there was only so much scary news her brain could process at one time.
The inspector was a horrible man. He didn’t know a tower from a turret. He didn’t like trees. Who didn’t like trees? He’d terminate innocent creatures who got in his way, which was unforgivable. He had even insulted Ellis, when all she was doing was sticking up for Loah.
Sticking up for her, like family.
Unfortunately, it looks like she neglects her duties as a parent as well.
The final notice trembled in Loah’s hands. Glancing at Ellis, who’d tossed the book aside and was gazing out the window, she walked over to the bookshelves and ran a finger down the spine of The Egg: Nature’s Greatest Feat of Engineering. Once she’d asked Mama how a baby bird knew when it was time to hatch.
“Her baby tooth—her little egg tooth—touches the inside of her shell,” Dr. Londonderry said. “Her instincts tell her she’s outgrown it.”
Hatching was strenuous work, she explained. The hatchling used her tooth to tap at the shell, again and again—pipping, this was called—till at last, after a long time, it made a tiny crack. This took so much energy and strength, afterward the poor chick collapsed from the effort. She had to rest and recuperate. Not for long, though. Soon enough, she was back on the job, chipping her way toward the light.
Loah spun away from the shelf. She told herself Mama didn’t know how wrong things here had gone. How could she? Mama was too busy. Her work was too important. It was impossible to think of work more important than hers.
Loah told herself that Mama didn’t know Theo had heart trouble—though why didn’t she, considering how old and frail he was? Her mother didn’t know about the housing department closing in—though why didn’t she, since she’d ignored all the warnings they’d sent? She didn’t know about the evil-omen vulture—though if she did, she’d sing its praises for sure.
Loah told herself all this.
She told herself that Mama didn’t know how much she’d been alone, except for her faithful, nameless fish. Which, come to think of it, her mother also didn’t know about.
Her mother didn’t even know about Ellis. Didn’t know that Loah had helped someone run away from home and was glad about it.
When you came down to it, her mother knew nothing about Loah’s life right now.
Why didn’t she?
Because.
>
Face the truth, Loah told herself. Even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.
Mama loves the birds as much as she loves you.
Maybe… more.
It hurt. Loah felt cracks running through her every which way. Her world was breaking into pieces and could never be whole again. It hurt.
Ellis had her nose pressed to the window screen. Beyond her, out among the trees, dusk was sweeping all the shadows together. The birds were quiet, their evening songs sung. As if she felt Loah looking at her, Ellis turned her head.
“I’m really glad I’m here,” she said softly. “But I’m worried about Zeke. I shouldn’t have left him to face PopPop alone. And my mother… I know I said how upset she gets me, but it’s not her fault she had that accident. She can’t help it that she’s not strong and happy, the way she used to be, before. It’s not really her I’m angry at. It’s…” She looked out the window. “It’s all the stuff I can’t change. The things I wish were different but can’t be.”
Sometimes, when you’re hurt yourself, helping someone else is the only way to feel better. Sharing the hurt thins it out and takes away its power.
Loah sat next to Ellis on the window seat.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know what you mean.”
Outside, the spaces between the trees shrank till they disappeared in the velvety dark. Inside, Loah began to feel different. When she drew a breath, her lungs had more room for air. Her arms and legs felt looser and easier, as if her bones and muscles belonged to her in a new way. The world somehow had more space and light, even though by now it was full dark outside. Beside her, Ellis’s stomach suddenly growled so ferociously they both jumped, then looked at each other and laughed.
“Do you like frozen pizza?” Loah asked.
Miss Rinker wouldn’t mind her using the stove alone, she told herself, which probably wasn’t true, but oh well. They ate the pizza while sitting on Loah’s bed and watching One and Only Family on her laptop.
“This is so dumb,” Ellis said, then immediately looked apologetic.
The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe Page 10
