Prairie Ostrich

by Tamai Kobayashi

  The red wrapping falls away to a book with lined pages. “It’s a journal, like Anne Frank’s,” Kathy explains. “And here,” she pulls out a small rectangular box.

  Egg opens the hinged lid. “A fountain pen! Thanks Kathy.”

  Egg remembers her present for Kathy, sitting under her bed. She runs up to her bedroom and grabs the big square box, as big as her head, wrapped in foolscap that she borrowed from Mrs. Syms’s desk after she slapped the blackboard brushes. Egg ordered the present from Gustafsson’s General Store, no treats and candies for three whole months, she had saved all her allowance for this one gift. She runs down the stairs and she places the box in Kathy’s hands. Breathless, she feels the flutter in her chest rising.

  Kathy delicately peels away the wrapping and lifts the ball out of the box: an official Spalding NBA basketball, with a squiggly signature, and the logo of the player running down the court. Egg watches as her sister rolls the ball from hand to hand, how she measures its weight. Kathy bounces the ball, feels it true, grips the pebbled surface of the leather, traces the rubber seam with her thumb.

  Egg can feel her sister’s stillness. The surface that seems almost to crack. Egg says, “It’s for when the scout comes . . .” She doesn’t add, “for when you go away.”

  Kathy hugs her. Egg feels the tremor in Kathy’s chest, the ragged breath that she draws in. She thinks of Albert, crowing at the top of the stairs, his voice booming through the house, his present, the pickup truck that will smash into the train by the railway trestle. Merry Christmas, Egg whispers silently, to her big sister Kathy who is always taking care of her. Egg bites her lip. She wants so much to tell her that she loves her but they are not that kind of family. So she wishes for her sister’s happiness. Big sister Kathy, who has made so many sacrifices. Merry Christmas.

  …

  All day Happy Days, Gilligan’s Island, even a rerun of The Buck Shot Show. Kathy makes Jiffy Pop on the stove. Egg watches the aluminum rise, the flat pan growing into a glittering ball, all in a clatter of popping kernels, impossibly, right before her eyes.

  Jiffy Pop, the real miracle, right before The Brady Bunch, and Canada Dry, straight from the bottle. The champion of ginger ales. It says so, right on the bottle.

  Egg thinks that The Brady Bunch is the best family ever. There is a dead mama and a dead papa but that doesn’t matter anymore because now the live mama and live papa have found each other. There are three boys and three girls and a maid called Alice, on a staircase that holds them all together. Everything is perfect, perfect, and it’s not like anyone died after all.

  When Kathy takes out Papa’s dinner tin, The CBS Evening News comes on with Walter Cronkite. There is something comforting about the sameness of Walter, his drooping mustache, the dull anchor desk. But a report comes through on Cyclone Tracy. Christmas Day Cyclone Tracy rips through Darwin, Australia, killing over seventy people and destroying much of the city. Egg sits, surrounded by the scattered bits of brightly coloured bows and wrapping paper, watches the newsreel. Merry Christmas, she thinks, Merry Christmas. On the newsreel, the smashed buildings and flipped cars look like Lego and dinky cars. Egg holds Big Jim on her lap. Big Jim has a button on the back that flexes his arm into a karate chop. Slap slap, slap slap. A toy that plays at being a superhero.

  Smash, smote, smash.

  On the news they call it an Act of God. Most of Darwin destroyed. But they should have known, shouldn’t they? Like some kind of test, like Job in the Bible. The survival of the fittest. Or a punishment like the Flood and the plagues of Egypt. Job had it tough though, boils and everything. His family smoted — just like that.

  Later, in the crawl space, above the ostrich pens, Egg takes the forbidden matches and melts Big Jim’s karate chop. She watches the transformation, the drip drip of plastic. That harsh burnt smell curls in her nostrils. She wraps the arm in a fold of tissue, for Kathy must never know, she would never understand. A sacrifice. For the souls of Darwin, Australia.

  January 1975

  engine engine number nine

  going down chicago line

  if the train goes off the tracks

  do you want your money back?

  yes or no

  Egg balances on the rail and walks the track, her arms stretched out, as if in flight. The railway tracks, running side by side, look as if they’re going to meet in the distance but Egg knows this is an optical illusion. That’s when something looks like something but it’s not. The world is full of optical illusions. Like the colour of the sky and the colour of the ocean. Water and air don’t have a colour. Blue is an illusion and an illusion is fake.

  But Egg wonders, how can a colour be fake?

  Fake is not true even if it is real. It’s like doing a magic trick but you know the quarter just falls into your lap. It’s there but it’s a lie.

  And lies are bad.

  The wind blows harsh, a clipper that could blow you into the ass-end of Saskatchewan, and clouds roll across the sky like tumbleweeds. Egg lifts her head high. Ostriches stargaze, their heads bent back. They twirl and make the whole earth spin.

  “Cumulus nimbus!” Egg shouts because in fact, they are.

  Anne Frank is in New York City working as a telephone operator but now Kathy tells her that she’s on Broadway, sure to be a star. Egg thinks “Over the Rainbow,” even if the flying monkeys scared the bejesus out of her and who’d want to leave all those colours for washed-out Kansas anyway?

  Egg thinks of the draw of the well, that strangely comforting darkness. She thinks of the whispers from the television after Mama has fallen asleep in the big chair. Sins and salvation, the world so clear, Heaven and Hell parted like the Red Sea, the exodus from the Pharaoh’s Army to the milk and honey of the Promised Land.

  That story. There’s no place like home.

  She breaks out into a full run. Twice around the barn, all the way to the haystack. She pants, her lungs filling with the frigid air. The ground is frost-hard, ungiving, but Egg will not stop. She is in training. She has a plan. Mutual of Omaha says that every animal has a niche, a place in the cycle of life. There is an ecosystem, a balance to it all. A place for everyone and everyone in their place. That’s God’s great plan and she can be a part of it too.

  Popular is the best. There is Cool Pop, Pretty Pop, but best of all is Jock Pop. There is no Smart Pop because Brainer is something else altogether. This spring she will try out for the baseball team, just like Albert. That will be her niche. A niche is so you can fit in.

  Egg sees that Jack Henry has pulled up to the barn with his silver gooseneck trailer. He towers over Papa at the gate. Jack Henry is their neighbour on the west side, tall and thin, with a grizzled beard that keeps on growing. A veteran of the Second World War, his left arm ends in a stump below the elbow. Egg is fascinated by that stump. You would think that Papa and Jack Henry would hate each other as Mr. Henry lost his hand in the Pacific but there they stand, Mr. Henry with his chewing tobacco and Papa with his tea. There used to be Saturday hooch in the barn but since Albert’s death, Papa just nods a good night and Jack Henry twirls the corner of his beard and shifts from foot to foot.

  Egg ducks behind the house as they hitch the ramp to the end of the last pen. She watches as the chicks — no, they are juveniles and yearlings now — are corralled into the corner of the outer pen, their heads covered by socks with the ends cut off. They stand sturdy, eyes sheathed and mollified by these tubes, easily led up the trailer ramp. Egg can see their feathers, their bobbing heads through the slats but she can’t see Esmeralda. She watches Papa recheck the count and sign off on Jack Henry’s sheet.

  Jack Henry’s voice is low and slurring but Egg catches, “You gotta live for something,” as his one good hand clutches the door. Jack Henry is a solid man. He adds, “At least, that’s what they say.” With a grunt, he climbs into his truck and pulls away.

  When the trailer turns onto the road, Egg runs to the barn. The hatch box and the chick crate are gone, the third pe
n is empty. The six breeders are still in their coops. Egg sits on the stool by the wooden stove and swings her legs. Her toes do not even graze the floor.

  Esmeralda is gone. There is no Charlotte to save her.

  Papa opens the gate and with two deliberate stomps, he kicks off the dirt, the clinging snow. As he reaches for the broom, Egg knows that he has seen her.

  She clears her throat. “I thought, maybe, she was too small to send away.”

  Her father makes short even strokes with the broom. He picks out words like stones from the feed. “You know, I grew up by the zoo in my town, saw all kinds of animals — tigers, lions, bears. It was like all the world was in that place. The elephants were the best. The smartest. But big. They’d eat out of your hand and one of them, he’d snatch your cap, if you weren’t careful. Him, I called Tetsuro.”

  Egg looks up. “He was your favourite?”

  “Yes.” Papa holds the broom close, pressing down with his palms. “See, they had this gap in the fence, behind, where they dumped all the manure and I’d go every day after school. Well, when they had school. When the war came, I didn’t have much use for school. I was as old as you are now. It was nasty, that. They had to kill all the animals, you know, in case a bomb, in case they escaped. That was a real shame. They poisoned all of them and they died. But the elephants, it’s as if they knew that the food was poisoned. So they didn’t eat it.”

  Egg blinks. “What happened to them?”

  Papa clears his throat, the broom very still. “They starved. It took a long time for them to starve.” Papa places the broom by the tool box. “I always wanted to raise elephants but there’s no money in it. You know ostriches — there’s feathers, and meat, and oil, and raising chicks for breeders. It brings the money in. Sometimes you got to do hard things and make sacrifices. It’s the way of life. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  “Yes, Papa. I know.”

  Egg scoots off the chair and into the house. In her room, she huddles beneath her sky-blue blanket, as if under a field of stars. She will look up elephants in her Young Reader’s Guide to Science. Elephants never forgive, that’s what Egg remembers.

  …

  Egg watches Kathy hold court, the basketball in her hands. On her game, Kathy is all fluid motion, as if attached to the ball by an invisible thread. Coach Wagner shouts from the sidelines as Kathy weaves and bobs, cutting down the stretch, feint and pass, and the shot against the backboard, sailing through the hoops no questions asked. The Bittercreek Eagles look a fine sight in their dark blue uniforms. Kathy’s number, thirty-four, is stitched in gold. Last week, after basketball practice, Kathy had taken Egg onto the court, explaining the geometry of the perfect shot, the jump and the setup.

  Kathy knows these kinds of things; her head is full of basketball. The next Olympics, the Montreal Olympics, will feature the first women’s basketball competition. On her shelf, Kathy has a picture of Noel MacDonald of the Edmonton Grads — clipped from the Edmonton Herald — her winning streak that no one has ever broken. Beside her, Wataru “Wat” Misaka, the first Japanese ever in the NBA.

  Egg tries very hard to follow the line of the throw. Kathy says Euclid, all angles, all focus. Ever since the garbage can incident, Kathy drives her to school and back, so Egg watches her sister’s practice. Egg likes watching Kathy run down the court, the ball a natural extension of her body, how she wills the trajectory of the bumpy rubber ball, the dash and scatter of her teammates.

  There are granny shots and banana cuts, you can drop a dime, or shoot from downtown. Egg, hidden beneath the bleachers, thinks about the basketball scholarship, the scout from the east.

  There, by the team bench, Stacey cheers after Kathy sinks a layup. Egg sees Kathy blush. Not everyone has their own private cheerleader.

  The whistle blows as Coach Wagner calls for a huddle at the bench. Egg ducks under the back seats. She scans the court and sees Pet Stinton in her bright pink Pilgrim pumps with silver buckles that sparkle like town.

  Petunia Stinton walks over to Stacey, who draws her arms up in front of her chest. Pet Stinton, who is the queen bee of the senior year, Pet Stinton, whose father owns half the town. Even Egg can see that Pet Stinton is fake in the most dangerous way.

  Stacey nods her head and smiles at Petunia’s words but her arms seem stiff, her shoulders rigid. Stacey’s smile wanes, as Pet chatters and waves to the court. Egg watches as Stacey tries to turn away but Pet seems to hold her, leaning in at an angle, pushing away with a mocking laugh. Egg thinks of the Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, the hooded cobra who weaves and rises before the fatal attack.

  The bell rings and Coach Wagner dismisses the team. They come together in one cheer, hands clasped, then scatter, arms raised. When Egg looks back to Stacey, Pet Stinton is gone.

  Egg taps her feet together.

  Ostriches don’t hide their heads in the sand. That is a myth. They lay their heads down on the ground, using their camouflage and hope for the best. They are born runners, with long, agile legs and they can deliver a mean kick. Kathy is strong and smart, good at sports and science, but Pet Stinton still lords over them all. Egg can’t wrap her head around the schoolyard jungle. Still, Egg thinks, you don’t want to corner an ostrich. Even lions will think twice with that claw.

  In the parking lot, Egg climbs into the truck and slides between the front seats to the rear bench. She stretches out. Kathy and Stacey take the front seats; Stacey always rides shotgun when Kathy drives.

  “What the hell?” Kathy swears, jumping up from her seat. A plastic Jesus flies by Egg’s ear but she only ducks beneath the collar of her puffy coat. As they pull out of the lot, Egg feels the bump of the curb. The road rolls beneath her as the cab rocks, gently, the back fishtailing onto the main road. The dusk has fallen, winter gloom. Egg closes her eyes.

  “You should have seen her face!” Stacey’s voice breaks through the bubble in Egg’s brain. Clear, with a wonderful lilt, Stacey’s laughter fills the space like a burst of wildflowers, like confetti. Egg feels a shift, as her body slides on the back bench from the pull of the turn. They must be on the flats near Stacey’s place. Egg is almost dozing, but perks up as Stacey quietly asks, “Have you thought about it?”

  Egg thinks her words sound like a wish thrown into a well.

  “Hm?” Kathy’s eyes are on the road.

  “Graduation. Life after Bittercreek.” An edge of impatience rides Stacey’s voice.

  Egg opens her eyes just a smidgen.

  “Not really. Things have been kind of crazy. Dad wants a new pen for the next season and Mama’s —”

  “Things will always be crazy,” Stacey blurts. The falling snow has turned to ice — Egg can hear the crackle of the pellets against the cab’s roof, above the rumble of the engine.

  “You’re going to stay.” Stacey sighs, her shoulders slumping.

  Through the glow of dashboard, Kathy’s hand reaches for Stacey.

  But Stacey shakes her head, her voice rising. “I don’t want to die here. I don’t want to scrub the same floor for the rest of my life or talk about how hard the meatloaf is, or bitch about ring-around-the-collar. I want to meet people — people who don’t know who my parents are, who haven’t known me since I was ten. Do you know what I mean? Kathy. I want to be new.”

  The ice pellets. Egg’s hand on the vinyl seat. She feels the gentle hum of the drive.

  They drive in silence. At Stacey’s driveway, Kathy stops the truck, her hand wrestling awkwardly with the clutch. The engine spins down with a thud. Egg feels it in her chest.

  They sit.

  “You can’t stay and I can’t leave,” Kathy says. “I can’t leave Egg.”

  “The town’s dying,” Stacey’s voice is full of tears, “you stay and it’ll bury you.”

  In the space between them, Egg can see the windshield, the stars, glittering cold and hard. Orion, she thinks, the Hunter.

  Stacey leans, kisses Kathy’s cheek, and Egg closes her eyes tight. Aar
dvark, bat, cougar, dingo. D is danger. Dark. Death. Doom.

  The door slams, shudders through the cab of the truck.

  Stacey is gone.

  Kathy sits. Behind her, Egg is frozen, her ears burning. She can see the rigid set of her sister’s shoulders, how she grips the steering wheel. Egg cannot reach out for her, she cannot say a word.

  Kathy starts the engine and pulls off the drive. Egg can feel the gravel, thrown up by the tires. She looks out the window.

  The moon is following them.

  …

  Winter rain is the worst. The cold, the wind, and the stinky wet boots.

  Egg stands in the lunchroom, studying the droplets as they hit the window. She stares at the meandering beads, how they slowly gather into reluctant streaks, abruptly merging into rivulets, faster and faster — then the final plummet to the ground. She tries to think of the water cycle: evaporation, precipitation…but her brain feels stuck. She feels thick and soggy. She rubs her forehead against the cool glass. Even her blinks are slow.

  Grey day, grey day.

  Egg yawns. Cloudy head.

  Martin Fisken is sick today, so Egg will take the stormy weather. Like the song. Mama loves that song.

  In her Young Reader’s Guide to Science there are stories of Archimedes in his bathtub, Newton with his apple. In her book Egg has read about the honeybees, their dance to tell you where the nectar is. That’s their language. They have a queen and something called Hive Mentality. Kathy tells her to always be careful of Hive Mentality.

  A sudden gust lashes rain against the glass and Egg almost jumps back from the window.

  Outside the sky darkens. Egg can see the reflection of the lunchroom in the window: Stacey, in a splash of vibrant red, sitting by Jonathan Heap’s side in the Fisken/Stinton circle at one table. Her hand so casually loops his elbow. Jonathan Heap, a thin, quiet boy, cousin to the vile Petunia Stinton, son to Heap’s Hardware on Main Street.

  Kathy, alone, at her own table, in a bubble of shock.

  Oh no.

  Later that night Kathy is on the telephone, her voice urgent, at times breaking, looping the phone cord through her fingers, over and over, the restless twirl and drop.