Call Me Alastair

by Cory Leonardo

  “Tiger!” scolds Bertie. “You naughty cat! Bad kitty!” Tiger doesn’t bother to look over his shoulder as he saunters out of the room. Bertie kneels down heavily and begins scooping up the loose cards. “You know,” she says. “I was a prize-pie winner myself.”

  After a good deal of searching, Bertie unearths a weathered recipe card and holds it high overhead. “Here she is! My Chocolate Cherry Crumble!”

  Cherry? My ears perk up.

  “Now just look at this!” She plucks a faded piece of fabric off her recipe box and holds it out to me. “The blue ribbon – and look! There’s my name on it! First prize,” she says softly, and shakes her head. “I was a mean Bertie pie-baking machine.”

  Bowing grandly then, she turns her sights on me. “And you! Who are you?”

  I freeze. She’s caught me shredding a feather. I’ve been doing a little more, uh, preening lately.

  “Shall I repeat myself?” Bertie straightens, throws back her shoulders, and crows loudly, “I, Bertie Plopky, am a very fine pie baker and, an excellent dancer!” She coughs. “Just not at hip-hop – threw my back out.”

  She twirls awkwardly over to a book lying on the table. “I’ve been reading this Parrot Pop Psychology,” she says, tapping the cover. “I’d like to know just who you say you are, Alastair. Because I know you’re no feather picker—”

  At the sound of those words, I drop the feather I’m tearing to bits.

  I was aware Bertie had been bringing home parrot books from the local library and perusing them, but I had no idea they held such close-kept parrot secrets like feather picking.

  Someone’s been talking.

  Bertie continues. “No, I know a majestic bird such as yourself is no feather picker. But are you the intelligent, talkative bird they say you are?”

  I wonder who this they is and whether it’s the same they who’ve been trafficking parrot secrets.

  “Blue!” Bertie shouts. She thrusts the ribbon forward. “Blue! This is the colour blue!”

  I’m not sure her eyes are as good as she thinks they are.

  She picks up a pot holder near the stove. “Blue!” she says again. She points to her dress. “Blue colour.”

  She grabs a mug from the mug tree in the centre of the table. “Red!” she exclaims. “Red colour! We’re gonna start with your colours. Give you an education. Give you some purpose! And then I’m gonna start up my senior social again – you need some friends. That’ll stop all that feather-messing.”

  Bertie spends the afternoon assembling like-coloured objects into little altars of what she calls red, orange, yellow…

  I roll my eyes.

  Humans. They think they know so much.

  Ultraviolet

  That ribbon is not blue –

  It’s ghost-whale ocean-dust.

  That couch, it’s not pink –

  It’s pearl-berry petal-wisp.

  The chair is not brown –

  Rather, birch-bark brandy-light.

  The cat is not orange, nor the fish –

  They’re ginger-dawn brassy-blossom, tangerine penny-butter.

  No, the leaf isn’t green –

  Call it pine-puddle meadow-moss.

  Your hair isn’t white –

  It’s called gull-frost, sugar-gloss.

  And the sun?

  Moonflower-marmalade, or

  lemon-luster lightning rod, sometimes

  amber-autumn copper-spice.

  The mug, you say?

  My eyes see rose, and wine, and fire, and blood,

  And all you see is –

  red.

  CHAPTER 18

  The one perk of what Bertie’s calling her “School of Parrot Education and Elocution” isn’t the colour catechism. It isn’t the speech lessons either.

  It’s the distraction.

  March comes in like an untrained puppy and learns how to heel. Snow gives way to gentle showers and shocks of sun. I wake to the whistling of warblers again; orioles and buntings flute from the tall bush that crawls up the side of the building, and the thrushes and sparrows banter in the dust puddles. I didn’t notice when so many of their songs seemed to disappear last fall, but now that they’ve struck up a chord once again, I wonder where they went all this while…

  And then I wonder how many things you lose turn up again somewhere down the line. Like a walnut at the bottom of your cage you didn’t know was there. I mean, if all these birds can vanish into the snow and pop back up once the wind warms like a full coat of feathers, then maybe I can find a wind of my own…

  Maybe those winds take you right where you want to go, and I just need to hitch myself up to one…

  I wonder how many feathers you need for that.

  Are there layovers?

  Got to get to Pete’s to find Fritz to get to Aggie.

  Then there’s the Key West palm…

  And then Bertie will say something like, “Want an apple? Alastair! Say ‘apple’!”

  And I’ll think, Eh, sure. Haven’t had a bite to eat in six minutes. Why not? “Apple.” At which point Bertie melts into a puddle, crooning and praising, and slides over the apple goods.

  I know, I know. I’ve had issues with distraction. But let’s face it. I’m not getting anywhere with a search-and-rescue plan for my sister. I’ll take Bertie’s talking lessons if it means I don’t have to think about how much I miss Aggie.

  Remembering how many cashews I didn’t save for her, even though she gave me every cherry she ever got.

  Regretting all the games I didn’t play with her, because I kept under Fritz’s desk, alone.

  I’d do anything not to count the hours, the minutes, the seconds I’ve been without her. (Ninety-eight days, six hours, thirty-five minutes, nineteen seconds, by the way.)

  We begin with simple words. Easy things to wrap my beak around. Bertie’s not a bad teacher, even if the material is a little bland. But there are benefits to small talk. Instead of grappling with something gourmet like My, what a brilliant winged being of high moral character, I can focus on Good bird.

  Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.

  I’m picking up other things too. Sounds mostly. I do a mean fire alarm, garbage truck and oven timer. (In other news, Bertie has ruined seven Bundt cakes, two coffee cakes, and a tuna noodle casserole.)

  I can make Bertie come running to the phone every time I do that sound, which can be pretty entertaining, and I can laugh just like Letizia Tortelloni, whose television show Bertie never misses. Welcome to my kitchen! Take a seat. I feed you. Ha! Ha! Ha! Perfetto!

  But, like a scrap of sunshine through this mess of clouds, is my newest ability.

  I can meow.

  It has given me inspiration.

  Ways to Mess with a Cat’s Mind:

  •Bark and/or growl (useful noises picked up from the dogs next door). This scares the hairballs out of cats.

  •Wait for catnaps to squawk loudest. Just when he’s fallen asleep is good, but when he’s barely balancing on the back of the couch – even better. Laugh gaily after the inevitable screech and fall.

  •In best Bertie voice say one of the following when the cat’s not looking:

  a.Tiger COULD use a bath.

  b.Tiger! Time to see Dr Campbell!

  •Drop well-chewed food on cat’s head when he slinks past (extra points if you can unload a water dish or two). Shout:

  a.Pee-yew! Tiger stinky! or,

  b.Tiger looks sick!

  (See previous example for Bertie’s responses.)

  It’s also inspired some new poetry:

  Keep a Little Claw from Me

  I have found that

  cages

  that hem one in

  can also

  keep things

  out.

  “I know I’ve got a whole box here somewhere,” Bertie says one evening, her voice muffled and distant.

  She’s in the closet.

  I’m currently sulking in my cage.

  (So
I ate the flyers she’d just picked up from the printer’s! Shouldn’t have been a big deal.)

  A winter parka lands on the footstool, a sleeping bag on the lamp. A bowling ball rolls under the bureau and thunks against the wall.

  “Here it is!” Bertie drags out a rumpled box and flips open the top. “Everett likes keeping two of everything, just in case.”

  She dusts off a stack of books she’s hauled out and sneezes. “I asked him once. I said, ‘Everett, why on God’s green earth do you need two of the same book?’” Bertie deepens her voice. “‘One to underline, one a clean copy.’ That’s what he said! That man.”

  The rungs of my cage sing out as, one by one, Bertie plops Everett’s books on the bottom. I get a whiff of dust, a faint smell of mildew, the unmistakable scent of paper.

  “I don’t think Everett would mind donating his books to a good cause,” she says as she leaves the room.

  I hear her set the kettle on the stove, hear her switch on the small television in the kitchen. Letizia Tortelloni’s laugh fills the air.

  I look down at Bertie’s book offering. I count eight in varying sizes and pop my beak inside for a taste: several anthologies, a Whitman reader, and a hardcover collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems. At the bottom of the stack sit two Norton anthologies. They look new, never touched.

  Had they been anything else, I could’ve passed.

  But poetry. Haven’t had a bite since my days in the back room. How did she know?

  I sigh.

  I never was one for self-control.

  Ha! Ha! Ha! laughs Letizia Tortelloni on the television.

  Well, don’t mind if I do.

  It’s remarkable what a serving of Shakespeare can do for the mood. But later, after poems have gone stale and distractions have disappeared into the night – it all comes screaming back.

  Aggie’s face blurs in my mind. Did she have that one stubborn feather on the left side of her face or the right? Were there three feathers that stuck up in back, or was it four? What did her eyes look like when she smiled? I forget. How could I forget?

  It’s like Aggie’s face is in the clouds – but the clouds are a little too wispy, and the wind’s a little too strong…

  Excuse me, I have feathers to fluff.

  Medical Log, April 1

  •Age: 12 years and some days

  •Weight: ?

  •Height: ?

  •Current status: Vision problems? Memory loss/ dementia?

  An old man walked into the shop today while I was sorting the canned cat food. I saw him out of the corner of my eye—

  And dropped a whole case of Mr Kitty’s Kitty Kibble on the floor.

  He looked exactly like Grandpa! He had just a little bit of grey hair combed to the side, glasses, and slouchy brown pants like Grandpa used to wear.

  I left all the cans of cat food, and I followed him around the shop. He stopped at the fish tanks, then at the puppies, then he went over to the gerbils and shoved his hand inside and got bit, something that would totally happen to Grandpa. He sucked on his hurt finger as he looked through the leather chew toys and the scratching posts. I just kept hiding behind things and watching and filling my eyes up with Grandpa.

  But then I realized he didn’t walk like Grandpa. Grandpa didn’t shuffle, even with a cane.

  And his nose was too big.

  And he clipped his fingernails too short. Grandpa’s were always longer.

  And he was too thin, too tall, too creaky, and his earlobes were like quarters.

  Grandpa wasn’t any of those things. And then I couldn’t figure out why I’d thought he looked like Grandpa at all. After a minute I realized he was our old dentist who retired, and I thought it would be nice if I went over to tell him he’d done a really good job on my last filling.

  Well, you know that look people give you – like they’ve seen you and talked to you before, but they don’t even know who you are?

  Yeah.

  It wasn’t the only time I got that look today.

  The first time was on the bus. My friend James was sitting with someone else, and this older kid sat in the seat next to me, and he started picking at a crusty bump on his knee. Without even thinking, I started saying I thought it looked like actinic keratosis – a patch you can get from too much sun exposure.

  Well, that’s where the look came in.

  In the cafeteria, the lunch lady asked me if I wanted peas or carrots, and I asked if they were frozen or canned, because I was trying to watch my sodium intake – the look.

  In English, we were supposed to write a non-fiction essay on anything we wanted, and I picked warts because they’re really interesting and I’m reading a book called Feet and Their Ailments. It was all I could think of. I thought for sure I’d get a really good grade on it, but when my teacher gave it back, there was a big See me right at the top. When I asked about it after class, she said my essay sounded more like a romance novel than fact. Then she said, “For a second there, I thought you loved warts,” and I said, “I do!” And then … you guessed it.

  Mom and Aggie never give me that look. And Grandpa didn’t. Dad did a few times, I can remember. And Fiona, well, she’s always got all sorts of looks on her face, but it’s usually because she’s thinking about dances or sea life or mermaid costumes. I really don’t like when people give me weird looks – and I get a lot of them. Especially from kids at school. Even my one friend, James. But even a weird look is better than when they don’t look at me at all.

  I got thinking.

  How many other kids get looks like that and don’t have anybody to look at them another way? What about kids who get even worse looks – mean ones – or who feel like nobody sees them? What would I do without Mom and Fiona and Aggie?

  I’ve been doing some reading. I’m going to talk to my principal tomorrow, and if she likes it, I’ll tell you my idea.

  It’s a good one.

  Signed: Francis Fitzpatrick Feldman ↙ (It’s obviously not dementia; I remembered my whole name.)

  PS. Dad had his secretary send me a real-live-physician-used stethoscope today! I cannot WAIT to try it out!

  PPS. And THIS is even better news: Mom got three days off work next month so we can go to …

  THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE IN MARYLAND!

  CHAPTER 19

  I broke a blood feather last night.

  Blood feather (also known as pin feather) – n. a developing feather. In active growth, a feather will need a copious amount of blood to grow properly. If broken or cut … take cover.

  (I ate that definition in the glossary of one of Fritz’s parrot pamphlets. I’ve eaten better.)

  It was late, and I was remembering the way Aggie would snore when she got stuffed up, how it sounded like the honeybees that have begun to visit the flower boxes just outside the window, dipping their tongues in the pansies and the few dandelions that found their way there and go unpicked because, as Bertie says, If that thing’s gonna fight so hard to be there, I’m not gonna get in its way…

  That’s all, I was just remembering and minding my own feathers’ business, and it snapped off. Just snapped right off. Let me describe the experience with haiku:

  Blood, oh so much blood

  Sprayed over wall, carpet, me –

  Gerbils’ dream come true.

  “That’s it!” cries Bertie when she sees me in the morning. “This calls for the professionals! I will not have a depressed bird on my hands!”

  Who said anything about being depressed?

  Bertie grabs a bucket and fills it with hot water and strong soap. She cracks a few windows before opening my cage to wipe it down.

  “Care to step out?” she asks, but I grip my perch harder and look away.

  “That’s what I thought – depressed.”

  I’m not depressed. I’m anti-social.

  Bertie drops to the carpet to scrub on hands and knees. Her stray pink curler, always overlooked and sort of sad, bounces at the b
ack of her head as she plunges her hands into the soapy water and scrub, scrub, scrubs.

  Plunk, splash, scrub, scrub. Plunk, splash, scrub.

  She says not one word this whole time.

  It must be some sort of record.

  Tiger appears in the parlour doorway, sees the mess, and smiles wickedly. He tiptoes around the wet spots in the carpet and over to my cage, a dark gleam in his eye. “Not bad,” he says. “Try a few more next time.”

  Outside, a horn bellows. I peer out the window next to my cage and look down. In the middle of the street, smoke billows out of the open hood of a taxi whose driver is standing above it, scratching his head. A large white box truck idles behind the taxi and blasts its horn. I recognize it instantly.

  Pete. His truck from the pet shop. The pet shop where Fritz works. Fritz who’s holding my sister hostage.

  Aggie.

  There’s a plan in there somewhere.

  I jump into action.

  I just happen to have a dish nearby, and I unload a large helping of kiwi on Tiger’s head. He screeches and begins pawing madly at his eyes.

  Bertie looks up from her scrubbing. “What’s that? What’s wrong?”

  Tiger’s squalling now and barrelling through the room like his tail’s on fire. “My eyes! My eyes!” he yowls.

  “Tiger!” Bertie scrambles to her feet and chases him, arms outstretched, over bed and bureau, chair and china cabinet. The two of them crash into every last stick of furniture in the place. “Tiger! What it is it, baby? Oh my word!”

  After an extended struggle, she traps him finally, and within a matter of seconds she’s thrown him in his carrier, grabbed her purse, and rushed to my cage to swing the door shut. I panic and make a valiant attempt to stop her, but she manages to trick me. Bertie races out the door, off to the vet, where Tiger will be poked and prodded.

  I should be ecstatic. Alastair: 1. Tiger: 0.

  But when Bertie shut my door, she shut out the possibility of escape.

  I look down at the street. Pete’s still laying on the horn as a tow truck moves into place in front of the smoking taxi.