by Sally J. Pla
“Yes,” I tell her. “I like owls.”
Helen brings me to a wall of long, wide drawers, and slides the first one open. It’s filled with dead screech owls, their little heads laid out in careful order, row by row. I gulp. I’m afraid I will breathe in what they smell like. I don’t want to get close, yet I do. It’s sort of like they’re zombie birds—dead, yet also, alive. Sleeping in drawers, biding their time.
There are many, many drawers in this room.
“I know it does seem very strange at first, doesn’t it?” says Helen. “To see them preserved like this. Everyone feels weird, the first time they open a specimen drawer.”
“Yes.”
“But scientists need access to specimens like this for study. For instance, we’ve had amazing advances in our DNA lab—they’ve been able to sequence the genome of bird samples that are over a hundred years old. They’ve been able to compare that bird DNA with the genetic makeup of modern birds. Someday, we hope to strengthen the genetic code of modern birds that are in danger by using bits of extinct code to reinforce the health of the species. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
I nod.
“And we need these samples in order to do that kind of research. Who knows how these specimens could be of use, even in the very near future? Things may be possible that we can’t even imagine today.”
“Like bringing birds back to life?” I ask.
“You mean like they do in the dinosaur movies?” Helen smiles. “Maybe.” Helen walks farther down, to a different set of drawers. “Look here,” she says.
She opens the drawer, and I take a deep breath. There, lying head to toe, are the inert, almost fake-looking bodies of dovelike gray birds.
I know them. I know what they are.
“Passenger pigeons,” Helen says. “It’s been over one hundred years now since the passenger pigeon went extinct. Once it was the most abundant bird in all of North America. Flocks of passenger pigeons would darken the sky for miles as flocks flew past. Can you imagine what that sight must have been like?
“And they performed an important ecological function, spreading seeds and fruits along a wild path across the country. But now they are all gone. The last passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Her name was Martha.”
I stare at the puppet-like gray birds, so carefully laid out head to toe, each with a little tag tied to it.
“So do you think scientists could bring them back?” I ask. “Do you think that someday we could ever see them flying in the sky again? Would that be the right thing to do? Bring them back to life?”
Helen raises her eyebrows and smiles and shrugs, all at the same time. It’s hard to read that visual cue.
We walk together back through the lab, past the old people with their tweezers and piles of feathers. She hands me a brochure about DNA research. “This will tell you more, if you’re interested. It’s amazing what we can do, genetically, these days, to help birds and other endangered species.”
This time I let her shake my hand. And I say thank you very, very much.
I go back to the hall and wander around in a daze. Ludmila said to stay there till they come back for me. Well, I don’t think I ever want to leave. There is so much to think about, my head is spinning.
I open my Bird Book, and find the page for Dad’s Someday Birds List.
Bald Eagle (CHECK!)
Great Horned Owl (CHECK!)
Trumpeter Swan (HALF CHECK!)
Sandhill Crane (still looking)
Turkey Vulture (still looking)
Emu (maybe in Australia)
Passenger Pigeon (CHECK!)
Carolina Parakeet
Screech Owl (bonus bird from Yellowstone)
Prairie Chicken (bonus bird from Montana)
Starling Murmuration (bonus from Wisconsin)
Oh! I should have asked Helen if she had a drawer back there that was full of Carolina parakeets! I probably could have crossed them off the list, too! But I was so caught up in her talk about genetics and birds, I forgot about everything else in my head.
I am really mad at myself for being too shy and scattered to ask her.
Still. There’s been progress. I touch the names on the list, touch the checkmarks with the tip of my finger, and a feeling of satisfaction washes over me. Definitely: progress.
It suddenly occurs to me that there might be an emu in the Hall of Birds. I run from case to case, through a maze of bird cases in alcoves and halls, until there, in a tall display, is a kind of fluffy brown-and-gray bird that’s almost as big as an ostrich.
CHECK!
I sit down and start sketching him so I can show Dad. I’ve got the emu!
Now it’s just the turkey vultures—and the sandhill cranes. Well, and that poor old Carolina parakeet, who’s probably in one of Helen’s drawers. I am so close. But I’m not going knocking on that private lab door again by myself. Too scared.
I think about the pretty green and yellow parakeet. I sketched it once, from Audubon’s book. I think about how Dad used to like local stories about them, when he was a kid. How he liked to imagine them flocking by the thousands. And, just like the passenger pigeons, how they got hunted into oblivion. How they went from being everywhere, to being nowhere.
It makes me shiver, to think how quickly life can stop. Like putting out a light.
The twins come to find me. I slam my notebook shut so they don’t see my emu sketch. It turned out pretty good.
“Guess what, Charlie?” they say. “We found something else in this museum you’re gonna love. Come with us!”
Joel pulls and Jake pushes. I think it’s going to be a mummy or dinosaur or something.
“Where are we going?” I’m getting grouchy.
“Just wait—you’ll love it.”
We go down a flight of stairs, and suddenly I am standing in front of a restroom door.
“Check it out!” Joel shouts. “Charlie’s dream come true!”
There is a big sign by the door that reads: America’s Best Restroom Award, 2011.
I laugh, and so do the twins. They usually make fun of my public-bathroom rating system. But it looks like I’m not the only one who does it.
All three of us go in, and I gasp in amazement. The sinks are sparkling. The soap dispensers are all nicely filled. Everything is blue and white. The ceiling is painted like a blue sky with fluffy clouds, and the whole place is lit up like heaven itself.
“Five stars,” I tell Joel and Jake. “Definitely. Top of the list.”
That night, we stay with Mariana at her house. She lives downtown underneath an L train—which is what they call an elevated train track—in a tiny old house with a dirty carpet covered in Lego pieces. As always, they hurt like crazy when you step on them. Joel and Jake are cross-legged on the floor with two of Mariana’s kids, building robots. Well, Joel and Jake are building robots; the little boys, who are maybe five and three, are just throwing the pieces around.
“Why you wearing that?” the older kid asks Joel, who still has on Ludmila’s blue wig.
Joel just shrugs. The little boys pulls it off and puts it on his own head.
Mariana comes into the room with a baby on her hip. “Niko, Luka, pick up those Legos right now; dinner’s in ten minutes!”
“Joel, Jake, help,” says Ludmila, from behind Mariana. “Charlie, you too.”
Why me? I didn’t make this mess. The Legos are grimy, and there are crumbs in the carpet. I see tumbleweeds of dust under the couch. And two of the kids have green gunk running out of their nose. We could get infected with some dangerous microbes in this place.
My head starts to hurt and my hands itch and crawl. I ask Mariana where to wash, and she shows me the bathroom.
In less than an hour, I’ve gone from the best bathroom in America to the worst. There’s smeared toothpaste and a few long black hairs stuck to the rim of the old white sink. The faucet is covered with something chalky and white, and around the handles, there’s green mold an
d reddish brown rust. The mirror is smeared with dots and spots.
One star. Half a star.
I try not to panic, but my heart is pumping. I tiptoe out to the kitchen, which is cleaner, flapping my hands the whole time. “I need to use this sink right now,” I say to Ludmila, louder than I meant to.
Mariana stops stirring the steaming pot on her stove and looks up. “Okay.”
I wash.
“Yeah, so we forgot to mention my brother is a clean freak. And he’s got some OCD action going on,” Davis says from her chair at the little kitchen table. She’s sitting with the grown-up women so she feels like a big shot.
“But we love him anyway.”
I ignore them.
Soap-rinse-one-soap-rinse-two-soap-rinse-three-soap-rinse-four . . . I mumble to myself, grumpy. This is the first time I have ever done my routine directly in front of anyone else, but here in this tiny house where we are all on top of each other, there’s no choice. So to heck with it. I turn off the faucet with a piece of paper towel to protect my fingers.
Mariana raises one eyebrow, but keeps stirring her pot of rice. “Do you always count when you wash, Charlie? To twelve, like that?”
I don’t say anything.
“Yes, he does,” says Davis. “He thinks he’s doing it secretly, but we all know. He used to count to eleven. Now it’s twelve.”
I shrug and look down.
Mariana seems interested in all this. “Why twelve, Charlie?”
“I’m twelve,” I say to the floor.
“Ah,” says Mariana. “Is that so? Well, tell me this. Do you plan to still be washing like this all your life? So, have you thought about how much time it will take to wash up when you are twenty? When you’re forty?”
My cheeks suddenly feel burning hot. I am confused. I don’t know what to say.
“Don’t worry; it’s okay. I know how you feel,” she says. “I used to count in the shower, too, Charlie. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And it took me forever to learn to drive, because I used to get panic attacks in cars. I couldn’t drive for years. So I understand what you are feeling about all this. I was just telling Ludmila how I am going to college to learn to be a therapist, now, to help other people deal with these things.”
Ludmila nods. “I remember when you were afraid to drive.”
“I had to counteract it, little by little.” Mariana keeps stirring her pot. “That’s the trick. Fight it, bit by bit. Next time, Charlie, you should try washing only eleven times. Force yourself. Then ten times, then nine, eight, you know? That’s how you can do it—little bit by little bit.”
I say, “But that’s like counting back in time to when I was little. That’s not progressing.”
Mariana and Ludmila and Davis look at each other in a funny way.
“But it is progressing,” says Ludmila. “Counting backward, but moving forward, growing out of something that’s holding you back.”
For dinner, Mariana serves a spicy-sauced sort of lamb stew over rice. I can’t try it, even though everyone is urging me to. I just stare at the bowl. The whole table of people is saying, “Come on, come on, Charlie, you can do it!” They are rooting like it’s a sports match or something.
But I can’t. I can barely stand the sharp nostril-panging smell of it. So Mariana finally breaks down and gives me plain rice, and microwaves some old chicken nuggets from the freezer she says she feeds the baby now and then. They are shaped liked alphabet letters. I eat a D, a U, and an M, and realize my dinner almost spells DUMB. Which is how I feel, because even the baby is eating the spicy lamb stew.
After bedtime, I lie in a pile of blankets on Mariana’s floor together with Joel. Jake and Davis are on the couch; everyone is softly snoring. I can’t sleep. There are too many dust bunnies tumbleweeding around under that couch.
I can hear Mariana and Ludmila talking softly in the kitchen. The light over the kitchen table is spilling across the doorway and casting a soft glow across my backpack, right here by my arm.
Mariana’s kids are asleep in their room. Karim, Mariana’s husband, works the night shift, so we might not meet him. I’m kind of relieved. There are enough people stuffed in this tiny house already.
I think about the Field Museum, Helen the ornithologist, and the drawers full of birds. The museum is closed now, the rooms dark. The lights in the beautiful glass displays of birds are turned off. I think about all the birds in the cases, always in flight, or standing in sand, or eating fake fish. In the middle of a motion, posed like that, forever and ever, night and day. And I think about the research lab.
I haven’t looked at the brochure Helen gave me yet. I slip it softly out of my pack and hold it up to the slant of yellow light coming in from the kitchen.
It says “DNA Research.” There are all kinds of photos and explanations about the genome, the code of life, the arrangement of genes based on combinations of four different molecular building blocks named A, C, G, and T that determine everything about you, sort of like People-Legos. Like whether you’ll have blue eyes or brown, blond hair or red. Whether you’re prone to cavities, or to baldness. Whether you’re anxious or easygoing. Whether you have a disposition for certain diseases or conditions. It’s this last one that interests the biologists. They want to help wild species be more resilient in fighting disease and endangerment.
I look at the back of the brochure. It’s hard to read in the flickering shadow of the kitchen light. But it’s a list of contributing research scientists. And there, at the bottom of the middle row, slightly set off from the rest, one name jumps out at me and makes my stomach flip:
Tiberius Shaw, PhD
In the early morning, while we’re still laid out on the floor and mostly asleep, I start to smell coffee. Davis is still there on the couch, her eyes open. We hear the clinking of spoons, whispers, voices: Mariana and Ludmila are in the kitchen. Davis puts her fingers to her lips to tell me to shush. We both stay silent and listen to them talk.
“. . . So you still were not on speaking terms?”
“I hadn’t talked to Amar in two years. I was so angry at him, Mariana! Why did he want the army? Why? After all we had been through? Hadn’t he seen enough fighting, enough war?”
“Maybe he felt like that is what he knew,” says Mariana’s low voice. “All he knew how to do, in life.”
“But he could have gone to university! He had a scholarship! And instead, he chose to fight. To put himself back into harm’s way, into violence. I was so furious at him. I am still so furious at him.”
There’s a pause. I think Ludmila is crying, and Mariana is murmuring things to her. Then Ludmila’s voice comes softer, in lurches, and we have to strain to hear her words. “One of the last things Amar said was about Robert, their father . . . Amar thought of him like a father, an uncle . . . was driving him when the IED went off.”
Mariana makes a shocked, murmuring noise.
“. . . When I learned they’d brought Robert back here alive, I started visiting him. I wanted to help, yes. But I guess I was really hoping Robert would wake up and tell me something about Amar. Did he miss me? Did he ever talk about me, about our old life? Was he happy being a soldier? What was he thinking, feeling? Only this, this poor Robert, these children’s father, only he knew.”
Mariana says something I can’t understand.
Ludmila says something about surgery.
Davis and I are straining our ears so hard, we jump when the front door suddenly rattles open, disturbing everything. It’s Mariana’s husband, Karim. He is wearing a suit and tie, with a plastic name tag pinned on to his chest. He has to step over our sleeping bags one at a time to get through to the tiny kitchen. “Hell of a night,” he says, kissing Mariana. “Double bookings, no one to take graveyard shift, half the staff missed the new training.” He is carrying a notebook and laptop.
Davis sits up and looks at me. She and I have heard almost every word Ludmila and Mariana just said. We just look at each other, trying to fully understan
d.
The twins start to wake up. Davis and I don’t say anything. We all struggle and stumble into the kitchen.
Mariana is bouncing the dirty-cheeked baby on her lap now. “Karim, this is Charlie, Davis, Joel, and Jake,” she says.
I don’t look at him. Davis and the twins shake hands, though. Then Davis, staring at the laptop, asks an odd question. One that makes my heart thump.
“Karim, would it be okay if I showed you guys something important on your computer?”
Davis goes over and paws through her purse, then holds up the little flash drive. She stands in front of Ludmila and says, like she’s been rehearsing a speech: “That night when you first came to our house, I hated you. I didn’t know why you insisted on hanging around our dad. And when I saw you snooping through his stuff, in his office? I felt invaded.”
Ludmila’s mouth makes a round O. She says, “I am sorry, Davis. That is not what I intended.”
Davis shrugs. “I’m over it. But now, there’s something I think I should show you.” She opens the laptop. “I’m sorry I didn’t show you before.” She plugs in the flash drive. “I saved some of Dad’s files onto this, trying to safeguard his stuff, because I thought you were kind of a snoop. He recorded a bunch of things at the military camp before he went. And I think that somewhere in it all, there’s an interview with your brother, Amar.”
32
Ludmila peers over Davis’s shoulder, and everyone else crowds around. Davis scrolls down through files that Dad had marked, “Soldier Interviews,” hesitating here and there, like she’s not sure what to look for. Finally Ludmila reaches out her tattooed hand and takes the mouse. She scrolls down, down through what looks like a whole bunch of video clips until she finds one that makes her stop.
She takes a deep breath and clicks.
We lean over her shoulder to read some text:
