The Someday Birds

by Sally J. Pla

  In addition to the outdoor waterpark, the Coyote Holler Lodge also has an indoor waterpark attached to it. I limp on my cut leg through a lobby lined with big fake cactuses sporting cowboy hats, and crack open the door just to take a look. Then I close it fast. It’s a chaos of shrieking kids and steamy chlorine.

  Joel says, “This place has a three-story spiral slide! You go into it through a giant toilet seat! It’s awesome! You climb in and get flushed down.”

  Davis says, “I think I already have that ‘flushed-down-the-toilet’ kind of feeling.”

  After we check into our super-air-conditioned room, we head to the hotel restaurant, which is called the Roadrunner Roadhouse. We scramble into a big deep booth with red leathery seats, and order right away, because we’re starving. And I make the amazing discovery that the Roadrunner Roadhouse in the Wisconsin Dells makes the best chicken nuggets in the universe.

  Tender, totally-white-meat chicken with perfectly crispy coating, not too spicy, not too bland, and a side of golden fries that are the perfect combination of crispy outside, soft, golden, buttery almost-mashed-consistency potato inside. It all comes in a giant red plastic basket lined with a red-and-white-checked paper napkin. I eat every last crumb and wish there were more, more, more.

  The twins gobble down theirs, too. Although they ruin it with disgusting ketchup and dipping sauces.

  As we munch, Davis shifts around in her seat. She clears her throat a few times. Finally, she asks Ludmila, “So, um. I was just wondering. When your brother was in the army, what did he do there, anyway?”

  Ludmila frowns. But then her face kind of recovers its normal straight-staring look, and she sighs.

  “He was an attaché, like, sort of a community reaching-out person for his unit. He was very friendly, very open, my brother. Not like me. Amar talked to everybody, loved everybody, so it was a good fit.”

  Ludmila is playing with the saltshaker. She cups her hand and spills a little salt out into it. She stares at the salt as she talks. “He loved everybody, but especially your father. They were friends, you know. It was part of Amar’s job to drive the visitors around, so. He was your father’s driver.”

  We are all quiet as this sinks in.

  “In the jeep?” Davis whispers, her face pale.

  Ludmila flings the salt from her hand over her left shoulder. “Amar was the driver. He was the one who drove your father around. Until that day. And now I drive you around. Funny world.”

  All four of us, our eyes just go big. It suddenly seems unbelievable that we didn’t know this all along.

  That Amar and Dad were friends.

  That they were in the same jeep.

  How could we not have known this?

  Davis and the twins all reach out at the same time to put their hands on top of Ludmila’s, on top of the pile of salt she’s made on the table.

  I hate the feeling of gritty salt, so I don’t put out my hand. But: “I’m sorry to hear that, Ludmila,” I say.

  “I know, Charlie,” she says. She is both teary, and smiling.

  At just about sunset, Davis and I take Tiberius out to pee behind the hotel. The front of this place is superfancy, with columns and a waterfall and everything, but the back is just plain gray cement block. It’s kind of funny.

  “Yeah, it is,” says Davis. “Some things in this world are just not what they seem.”

  We’re not talking much. We are thinking through what Ludmila told us about Amar and Dad.

  “If Amar died in the jeep accident, then shouldn’t that make Ludmila feel mad at Dad—and us?” says Davis.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “God, I feel so stupid,” Davis says. “Here I thought she was some kind of spy, or after some information of Dad’s. But she probably just wants to feel close to Dad because he was with her brother when he died. Right? That’s it, right? And that’s only natural.” Davis sighs.

  I shrug, and we keep walking. Or rather Davis walks; Tiberius and I both limp. The cut on my leg is stiff and sore.

  We cross the lot and head into a field of tall grass. Tiberius skitters this way and that, zigzagging like crazy after mice. There’s probably a whole little mouse universe out of our sight here. There is so much in the world that you can’t see.

  Suddenly Davis stops walking. She points toward the pale purple horizon. “What’s that?”

  At first I think they are bats, but then I know. Tiny pinpricks of black, thousands of them, dot the sky over the distant fields, flying in close formation. The black dots swoop one way, then another, swirling and changing shapes, from a big oval, to a fast-twisting figure eight, to a great sail, floating over the fields.

  They are starlings. A murmuration of starlings, to be precise. We watch them dive and flip, crossing over each other in all kinds of twisting, tugging, stretching shapes. There must be thousands. Or are they just one thing? The shape of something bigger?

  Davis holds up her phone to take a video. “We can show Dad. Hey. How do they keep from smacking into each other? It’s a miracle!”

  She’s never been interested in birds before. I’m excited to tell her. “They get strategic information from seven points around them. From seven birds flying nearest them. It tells them how far or how close they can get.”

  “Huh. That’s wild. Wow. I mean, imagine if people had that,” says Davis to herself. She thinks a minute. “Are the seven touching-distance birds all members of the same family?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. They could be. Because you’d really have to trust those birds.”

  Davis asks, “What if you were a starling? Who would your seven touching-distance birds be?”

  “That’s a pretty weird question, Davis. But I guess they would be Dad, Gram, Joel, Jake, you. That’s five. And maybe Ludmila . . .”

  “Okay. And?”

  “Tiberius Shaw.”

  Davis laughs. “Charlie, you talk about Tiberius Shaw even more than you talk about Dad, these days.”

  I think about this. Tiberius Shaw is my bird guru idol. I need him to help me learn more about birds, because facts about birds help me calm down. Facts about birds turn mysteries—like murmurations—into something knowable and real. And finding birds in the wild, to cross off Dad’s list, well, that’s like a calm blanket settling down on me, soothing all my nerves. It’s better than a hundred hand-washings.

  I wonder what it will be like when I finally meet Tiberius Shaw. I have so many questions. What is he working on now? How much time does he spend out in the wild? How did he lose the little green book? Or did he give it away? I know I would feel terrible if I lost my Bird Book. Does he miss it, or was it so long ago that he’s forgotten about it? Does he want it back? And does he remember putting in all those hints, about where to find him in the Sanctuary Marsh, in the place on the island with the best view? Has anybody else ever tried to find him there?

  That’s what I think about while Davis and I watch the starling flock dive and swoop, doubling back on itself, changing and morphing into one eerie shape after another. They become smaller and smaller, high and far away in the dusky Wisconsin air, until they finally disappear.

  The next morning, we have a quick breakfast in the Roadrunner Roadhouse, which smells like coffee and bacon and warm cinnamon rolls. And Ludmila makes our daily call to Gram. She puts the phone on speaker and sets it faceup on the table.

  It’s always hard at first, to hear Gram’s tough gruff voice. But then we get over it.

  “So, tell me what you did yesterday.”

  Ludmila says, “Charlie went down a waterslide!”

  “You gotta be joshin’ me. Charlie? Went on a ride? Well, what a little daredevil! Hey, Charlie, I’m proud of you! And I bet it was fun, right? I bet you loved it. Right?”

  “I cut my leg and I probably need a tetanus shot,” I inform her.

  Ludmila says, “Unfortunately, yes, he got this big long scratch from a loose screw.”

  Joel jumps in. “Charlie is a loose scr
ew.” He and Jake laugh.

  “But they didn’t want Charlie to sue them, so we got a free night at a hotel,” says Joel.

  “Come again?” says Gram over the crackly connection. “What’s that?”

  “How’s Dad?” Davis asks.

  “Oh honey, they’re still testing and scanning. Just in case he needs to go into more surgery, they want to make sure they know every single little thing they could possibly want to know.”

  “Surgery?” Davis’s eyes pop. We all freeze and hold our breath.

  “Oh, don’t you worry,” Gram says. “Don’t you worry one bit. He won’t need more surgery; Dr. Spielman’s just taking precautions. Everything’s fine! Your job right now is to have some fun. You haven’t had much of a summer, so I want you to live it up.”

  Live it up. Ha.

  We go back to the chilly room and pack up. No one speaks. I think we are all still imagining Dad, in that new hospital. Why did Gram have to say the words “more surgery”?

  I don’t want to think about it.

  I imagine what it’ll be like to tell Dad: “Remember how I hate the outdoors? Well, I’ve come all the way across the country to you, and I’ve seen all the birds on our Someday list, Dad.”

  It will be like a hundred hand-washings of calm.

  31

  The Hall of Birds at the Field Museum is a Hall for the Ages. Every human should visit it at least once, to garner a sense of the diversity in the natural world, of live and let live. And of what we’ve let die.

  —Tiberius Shaw, PhD

  I am trying to find images of the Hall of Birds on Ludmila’s phone as she circles the Field Museum parking lot. It is pounding rain, but I don’t even mind. I am so excited I can’t stop scrolling, even though the motion sickness makes me want to puke.

  “Charlie’s gonna make us spend the whole time in the stupid bird place. I want to see the mummies,” says Joel.

  He has on Ludmila’s electric-blue wig. Ludmila is just letting him wear it. He reaches up to adjust it.

  Sometimes Joel likes to make himself look different from Jake. Once, when they were about five, he went into the bathroom and cut off most of his hair. Another time he wore one of Dad’s ties like a headband around his head for a week. Now, I guess, it’s Ludmila’s electric-blue wig. He says he does it because he gets tired of everyone thinking he’s not him.

  “You can go see the mummies, Joel,” says Ludmila, craning her neck to look for parking spots. Rain is sloshing down hard on the windshield. Old Bessie smells even mustier when it rains. “Mummies, birds, yes. But first we find Mariana.”

  That’s the name of her friend from Sarajevo. She works in the offices here.

  We park so far away we’re soaked when we finally make it up the big, wide, stone steps. This place is like an enormous palace, with columns and giant colorful pennants above the entry, flapping in the rain. I hear echoing voices of crowds of people and footsteps and talking and laughter and people putting umbrellas away and buying tickets.

  “Hall of Birds,” I say. “Hall of Birds Hall of Birds Hall of Birds.” My heart is pumping with joy.

  “We get it, Charlie.” Davis pokes me in the ribs.

  Just then, Ludmila shrieks. A slim, dark-haired lady, waiting by the ticket booth, also shrieks and runs over to her. They hug, smiling, and blabber in what I guess is Bosnian. Everyone filing through the entry stares at them a little bit.

  Ludmila introduces us to Mariana, who nods at each of us and pats Joel gently on his electric-blue head.

  Ludmila and Mariana keep hugging each other in sudden bursts. Their eyes look glassy. They blabber some more. Then Mariana digs in her wallet and pulls out a photo of three little kids. “My boys,” she says, handing it to Ludmila.

  “My God,” says Ludmila. “And I only ever met Luka. Two more boys, you’ve had! What is Luka, like five, six, now? You’ve been busy.”

  “It is insanity, yes. Going to college at night. Working here days. And the boys. The good thing is Karim got promoted at the hotel—he is really working his way up.”

  “So, you two have known each other a long time?” Davis asks.

  “We went to the same school, lived on the same street,” Mariana says. Then she turns and puts a hand on Ludmila’s arm. “I’m so sorry about Amar, Mila. I’m so sorry.” That strange, glassy look in both their eyes gets worse. Ludmila’s eyes get red, and she looks down.

  “Why did he keep going back there, over and over, all those tours?” Mariana asks Ludmila. She sounds almost mad about it.

  Ludmila’s mouth goes into a straight line. She shakes her head, but doesn’t answer.

  We are still standing in the entrance, dripping. I can see Sue, the world’s largest and most complete T. rex skeleton, rising up above everything, back along the main floor. A pterodactyl hovers over her, wings outspread, hanging by some invisible wire. Joel and Jake are jumping up and down. We are all impatient to get going.

  While Mariana and Ludmila are jabbering and talking, Davis hands me a brochure with the picture of a big pelican on the cover:

  The bird collection of the Field Museum is one of the largest in the world, with more than 500,000 specimens representing almost all bird families in the world. We have 90% of the world’s genera and species here, and specimens include study skins, eggs, nests, and skeletons. We also have a tremendous database, and we stand at the forefront of research, both in the field and in the lab . . .

  I have my backpack with my Bird Book and colored pencils. I hope they will let me set up shop somewhere and do some sketching.

  Finally, Ludmila and Mariana run out of Bosnian things to say. Ludmila turns to us. “Davis, you want to take the twins to the mummies?” Ludmila says. “Mariana has arranged something for Charlie.”

  We cut across the main floor where a big crowd mills around that famous T. rex dinosaur, Sue. Her skeleton tilts forward and her little arms dangle in front of her. She’s hovering like some sort of museum party hostess.

  Sue is smaller than I thought a T. rex would be. Those Jurassic Park movies made them look tall as skyscrapers. But in any case, with that set of teeth, it’s nice to know they’re extinct. Although dinosaurs do still exist in a way, because birds, starting with that little archaeopteryx I showed Ludmila back in Montana, are direct dinosaur descendants. Birds go way back. Further than us.

  Joel, Jake, and Davis have joined the big, buzzing, milling crowd, which is like a murmuration of people, slowly circling, shifting shapes, orbiting the skeleton. But Mariana, Ludmila, and I, we turn past the dino-murmuration, and find ourselves face-to-face with a glass case of puffins.

  I breathe in sharply. I stand still. The puffins are only the start. There are more cases. Other cases. Big, shining, glass cases everywhere, stretching across a whole Hall of Birds. There are cases with raptors, shorebirds, songbirds, ocean birds. They stand on perfect legs, or sit on nests, or hang from wire as if in flight, against backdrops of snow, of marsh, ocean, or forest. These stuffed birds are so lifelike, so lit up with beautiful light in their fake glass wildernesses.

  I don’t know where to go, what to look at first.

  “I’ll be right back, bird boy,” says Mariana, smiling. “I’m going to see if my friend Helen can let you into the lab.”

  Ludmila tousles my hair, which she should know I hate, and then goes to join the twins and Davis at the mummies.

  Who could possibly care about mummies?

  Perfectly still shorebirds stand on real sand with painted water behind them. There’s a white pelican, wings outspread, frozen in time. Caught in a moment, trapped in suspended animation, just so that people like me can get up close, put our noses against the glass, and imagine we’re right there with him, in flight.

  These birds are not quite alive, but they are also not quite dead. It’s a hard thing to explain. It gives me a funny feeling in my stomach.

  I take out my Bird Book. This is going to be way better than drawing even from Audubon’s bird plates in the
baby elephant book. I can see each individual feather. I start penciling the outlines of the pelican’s wings, his flattened head and his plunging, pointed beak that stretches back up and surrounds his tiny eye. All I concentrate on is that one pinprick pupil of eye.

  Mariana comes and taps me on the shoulder. I jump.

  “Hey!” she says. Then she bends over my sketchbook and peers at my pelican. “Did you draw all that just now? That’s amazing!”

  I slam the book shut. I never let anyone see my work.

  “Do you want to see what goes on in the back, and talk to a real ornithologist? I told Helen I had a budding pupil out here.”

  I think: budding trees. Pelican-eye pupil. Student. I am a growing student.

  We go through a door marked private to where a blond lady in a lab coat is waiting. “You must be our young scientist,” she says, putting out her hand.

  I am too shy to take it, so I tell the floor: “My name is Charlie.”

  “Nice to meet you, Charlie. I’m Helen. If you want to see our lab, I can show you how we prepare ‘study skins’ of the birds, for research purposes.”

  She leads us through a door to a room with a bunch of desks, cubicles, and sturdy tables, where a couple of wrinkly retired-age people in Field Museum T-shirts sit. They have special magnifying desk lamps, and little tweezers and tool-things. They are each working with what looks like lumps of feathers.

  “These birds were brought to us after they flew into buildings nearby. We have a program where we preserve them,” says Helen.

  An old lady looks up from her pile of feathers and smiles. “See?” she says to me. “I cut open the bird, remove the insides, restuff it with cotton, and sew it back up. That’s how we make a study skin.”

  My stomach feels quirky.

  Helen says, “Any bird you’re particularly interested in? For instance, do you like owls?”

  I think about the little screech owl in the tree at Yellowstone. I think about the rush of air on my cheek at the top of Jelm Mountain, that starry night when the GHO swept across the black sky. It was like he had announced with a cry, “Make way—I am the first Someday bird to be found! Now you must go forth, and find the rest!”