Birds of Summer

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  On Tuesday, Meg, who was beginning to get around quite well on crutches, went into Fort Bragg with Alan. While he taught, she would spend the day at the library and visiting friends. Summer was to have a half day off. In the morning she would do a little cleaning and keep an eye on Linda and Patrick Boyles who were coming to practice on Meg’s piano, since eight-year-old Patrick was the type one did not leave alone with a defenseless piano. After that, she was free to go. Since arriving home early was out of the question, she had promised Sparrow an afternoon at the beach.

  At noon, after the practice had been supervised and Patrick bandaged following an ill-advised attempt to tease Odious, Summer was making sandwiches for herself and Sparrow when the doorbell rang. Sparrow, who got out of summer school at twelve o’clock, had apparently made it across town in record time. Summer called for her to come in and went on spreading mustard. When she looked up a moment later, Nicky was standing in the kitchen door.

  When she first saw him, standing there looking uncertain, an entirely unexpected feeling made her begin to smile, before her well-trained sense of self-preservation sounded the alarm. How did he find out she was going to be alone in the house? She turned the smile into a threatening scowl.

  Nicky looked at the knife in her hand and began to grin. “Don’t,” he said, “I’d die of mustard poisoning.”

  The scowl and smile collided and produced something that wasn’t either one. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Nicky’s grin suddenly disappeared, and he looked around cautiously. “I just wanted to talk to you.” With the smile gone, his face looked suddenly tense and drawn and strangely older. “I’ve got to talk to somebody,” he said. His shrug was somehow a gesture of despair. “It’s such a hopeless mess, and I can’t decide what to do. But if I don’t do something, I think something terrible is about to happen.”

  Alarmed, Summer said quickly “Why? What are you thinking about doing?”

  “Shh,” Nicky said looking towards the living room. “Where are they? The Pardells?”

  So he hadn’t known she was alone! She told him then about the Pardells being away and what her plans were for the afternoon. And by the time Sparrow arrived, she’d finished making a third salami and cheese sandwich. Then she put Odious out, locked up the house, and the three of them started out for the beach.

  Sparrow did most of the talking on the way to the beach. She had seemed to accept Summer’s explanations, that night at the Fishers’, but now with a new source of information it became obvious that her curiosity hadn’t been completely satisfied. Hanging on to Nicky’s hand—Nicky had always been a favorite of Sparrow’s—she skipped and trotted and asked questions.

  “How come Jerry lets that man with the mean dog stay at your house?” she asked.

  “I told you,” Summer interrupted before Nicky could contradict her story, “I told you, Jerry is on another bummer and he doesn’t want people visiting, so he got Bart and the dog to scare them off.” Even though Jerry Fisher certainly had had occasional attacks of social deficiency, it wasn’t the greatest explanation, but she’d thought it might wash with someone as naturally gullible as Sparrow. Apparently, though, it was too much for even Sparrow to swallow. She looked at Summer, not so much suspiciously as doubtfully, as if she thought Summer didn’t know what she was talking about. Then she looked up at Nicky and repeated the question.

  Nicky gave Summer a microscopic twitch of a grin. “Well,” he said, “have you heard about the raspberry mob?” Sparrow shook her head, her eyes wide. “You probably heard Galya talking about how expensive raspberries are lately? Well, that’s the whole problem. There’s this rip-off gang who fence hot raspberries, and they’ve already tried to steal ours. So we just had to take precautions, that’s all. Only Adolph, that’s the new dog’s name, isn’t smart enough to tell our friends from raspberry pushers, so we just have to keep everybody away until the raspberry season is over.”

  The rest of Nicky’s explanation was even more ridiculous, but Sparrow obviously liked it. Summer wasn’t sure whether she actually found it believable or just entertaining; but whichever it was, she seemed to be satisfied.

  They ate their lunch in the same hollow behind the sand dune where they’d sat before, while a familiar-looking sea gull watched expectantly from the top of a neighboring dune. Waiting, no doubt, for another flying sandwich. And after they’d finished eating, Sparrow fell for another of Nicky’s tall tales. This one went that he had a friend who was in the market for seashells—any seashells—five cents apiece.

  “We’ll wait right here,” he said, “until you get back. Hope you find a lot of them.” So Sparrow rushed off to hunt for seashells, and Summer found to her surprise that she wasn’t sorry to see her go. It was partly, of course, that she needed to know what was on Nicky’s mind and what he might be thinking of doing about Angelo and company; but there was something more to it than that. There were some other things that she needed to know. After years of thinking she knew all she ever wanted to know about Nicky Fisher, she had recently begun to think that there might be some aspects of his personality she might possibly have overlooked.

  On the other hand, maybe she hadn’t. As soon as Sparrow was out of sight, he leaned over and tried to kiss her. She leaned away, glaring at him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Just checking. I thought maybe we were friends.” His grin was rueful, plaintive.

  She smiled back, only slightly sarcastically. “Friend is one thing,” she said. “Sexual therapist is something else.”

  He chuckled. “McIntyre ninety-nine, Fisher zero. End of competition, okay?” He looked at her intently, without smiling. “On the level—I do need to talk to you.”

  He talked fast then, in between the times that Sparrow showed up to dump sandy fistfuls of shells in their laps and at their feet. The situation, it seemed, was becoming more and more tense and dangerous. Marina had gotten out and gone off to play in the forest a few times, and Angelo had found out about it and gotten very nervous. Now she was no longer being allowed out of the house, not even to play in the yard.

  “One of them, either Angelo or the ape man or Jude, is always in the house,” he said.

  “Jude, too? I thought Jude was your friend, or at least Galya’s friend. He’d probably be dead by now if it weren’t for her.”

  “I know. Jude knows it too, the chicken-hearted scum. But he’s so terrified of Angelo that his knees knock together if he even looks at him. Besides he’s hooked again, and Angelo keeps the stuff and won’t let him have any if he doesn’t play ball. When he needs a fix, he’d strangle his own grandmother if Angelo told him to.”

  “Do they all sleep in your house?” Summer asked.

  “Bart and Jude do, on the living room couches. Angelo sleeps in Dyedushka’s cabin. But he’s in the house a lot, too. Barges in whenever he wants to, night or day.”

  Summer turned away, trying to hide what was going through her mind, burning behind her eyes. Oriole had been on her way to the old cabin that night, when Summer saw her from the gate. On her way to the cabin and Angelo. If the narcs came at night, that’s where she would be, with Angelo and his guns. As if he were reading her mind, Nicky reached out and took her hand. They were both quiet. Sparrow came, and they both made appropriate comments while she deposited shells; and when she was gone again, they were still silent.

  At last Nicky said. “I’m worried about Adam.” Nicky had always had a thing about Adam, admiration and envy and jealousy, all mixed up together—a typical little brother-big brother thing, aggravated by the fact that Adam was good at everything that was important to adults.

  “What about Adam?” she asked.

  “He blames himself for what’s happening, and he’s determined to be the one to get us out of it. He was all for the pot thing at first, because of the money. You know how Adam is about money. So now he’s got this idea that it’s up to him to get rid of those creeps. And I’m afraid he’s going to get us all killed.”
r />   “He’s not going to tell the police, is he?” Summer asked.

  “No, I don’t think he’s planning to do that. But he might lose his temper and do something dumb. He’s been on the verge several times already. And he wouldn’t stand a chance. Angelo almost always has a gun on him, and that other nerd could crush Adam like a fly. He’d do it too, and love it. I think he’s just hoping Adam will start something.”

  Nicky’s face, usually so eager and open, looked tight and drawn. Summer found herself wanting to pat him, the way she did Sparrow when she hurt herself, or at least to say something comforting, only there was nothing to say.

  “I’m going to do something, soon,” Nicky went on, “even if it is dangerous.”

  “Like what?” Summer asked quickly.

  “Like calling the sheriff’s office. It couldn’t be much more dangerous than it is already, the way things are going.”

  The dark fear began to seep out from its hiding places. “But what if they come when Oriole’s there?” she wanted to cry, but instead she forced the fear back and asked in a voice that sounded only a little strange, “If you told the sheriff, do you think they’d come when you told them to? So you could all hide somewhere just before they come?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at Summer intently, and then nodded as if in sudden understanding. “I wouldn’t dare tell Oriole ahead of time. She might—I’m afraid she’d tell him.”

  “No. No. She wouldn’t. I think she knows now, what he is. She didn’t at first, but I think she does now. I know Oriole, and I can tell. I think she’s afraid of him now. I think she’s afraid to tell him she doesn’t want to see him anymore.”

  Nicky shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter a lot if she told him because she’s crazy about him or because she’s afraid of him. We could all get just as dead, either way.”

  “Tell me then,” Summer said. “Tell me when the raid’s going to be.”

  Nicky put his hands on Summer’s shoulders. “I don’t know if I’m going to tell the narcs. I don’t know. I’ll just do what I have to; and if I can, I’ll tell you first.”

  Still tangled in her fear, she stared into his face without seeing it, until he bent forward and kissed her. The kiss felt warm and comforting and asked nothing. She didn’t pull away until she heard Sparrow scrambling up the other side of the dune.

  11

  THERE WAS ONE ADVANTAGE to knowing that Oriole probably wouldn’t be home. Somehow being almost certain she wouldn’t be, even though that included knowing she was with Angelo, seemed in some ways easier to handle. As if it had been the not knowing that had mattered, all those years. As if vague undefined uncertainties were harder to face than real dangers, as long as the dangers were understood and expected. It made no sense, but now, when it was pretty certain that Oriole was at the Fishers’ with the Creep and definitely in several kinds of danger, Summer didn’t run down the path to burst into the trailer, breathless and shaking. Instead she deliberately slowed her pace, letting Sparrow skip on ahead.

  Sparrow skipped across the clearing, stopped to pick up something and clattered up the steps to the trailer’s door. As Summer reached the bottom stair, she heard Sparrow say, “Hi, Oriole. Look at the pretty rock I found.” Oriole was at home after all. At home and alone.

  She was sewing. Sitting crosslegged on the foam rubber, she was embroidering the yoke of a dress she was making for Sparrow. She was wearing a peasant blouse and a long gathered skirt. Her red gold hair made a spun sugar cloud around her face. Straight backed and slender, with her bare feet peeking out from under the ruffled skirt, she looked not much bigger than Sparrow; and if it weren’t for the dark circles under her eyes, not a whole lot older. Putting the sewing aside, she held out her arms, and Sparrow threw herself into them. Summer went into the kitchen, ignoring the arm that Oriole held out to her as she passed. By the time she’d gotten herself a drink of water, they’d stopped cuddling and Sparrow had begun her usual long-playing account of the day’s events. Summer sipped her water and listened.

  As Sparrow babbled on about a quarrel she’d had with some kid named Conrad, and how her painting had been chosen for a place of honor on the bulletin board in the school office, Oriole listened intently, making comments like “Really?” and “Hurrah for Sparrow” and “That’s beautiful, baby. That’s really beautiful.”

  You could usually count on Oriole to be a good listener. What you couldn’t count on, had never been able to count on, was her doing anything about anything you told her, no matter how important—at least not if it took any organization or effort or courage. But there was no denying that she was a good listener. She was obviously taking in every word Sparrow said—right up to the time when she got to the part about going to the beach with Nicky. That was when Sparrow began to lose Oriole’s undivided attention.

  “And look—” Sparrow dug into her pocket and brought out a handful of sandy nickels and dimes. “I found a whole lot of seashells, and Nicky paid me all this money. How much money is that, Oriole? It’s lots, isn’t it? Is it enough to go to Disneyland?” Sparrow had been saving money for a trip to Disneyland for years, except that every time she got a few dollars saved up, she always spent it on something else.

  But Oriole was looking at Summer. Looking at Summer and letting her pale face tighten into a worried question that was almost as easy to interpret as if she’d asked it in one syllable words. “How much do you know?” it asked. “What did he tell you?”

  “So, Nicky was in town today?” Oriole asked Summer.

  “Yes,” Summer said.

  Sparrow looked at Oriole in surprise. “I told you,” she said. “We took sandwiches and went to the beach, and Nicky went with us.”

  “Yes, I know, baby,” Oriole said to Sparrow; and then definitely to Summer, she said, “Did you have a nice long rap?”

  “Yeah. We had a nice long talk.” She stared back, flat-eyed and unblinking, into Oriole’s worried face. Oriole’s eyes fell. “Where’s your angelic friend today?” Summer asked. She’d meant to keep her voice neutral, but she knew she hadn’t succeeded when Sparrow looked up quickly, her eyes anxious.

  “Angelo went into Fort Bragg,” Oriole said.

  “Oh,” Summer said. “Did any of the Fishers go with him? Just to be friendly, or anything. I guess they’re all pretty good friends up there, spending so much time together and everything. I guess Angelo and the Fishers are pretty close friends by now?”

  “I—I suppose so,” Oriole said uneasily. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to Galya very much lately. Like, everyone’s so busy up there lately.”

  “You haven’t talked to Galya?” Summer did an exaggeratedly amazed expression. “All that time at the Fishers’, and you haven’t talked to Galya?”

  “Don’t! Don’t talk like that, Summer.” Sparrow, who had been turning her worried face from one of them to the other as if she were watching a frightening tennis match, suddenly ran to Summer and grabbed her arm. Looking up pleadingly, her artesian eyes already beginning to overflow, she begged, “Stop talking like that. Please.”

  Summer stopped. She hadn’t meant to start an argument. In fact, what she’d intended to do was to be particularly friendly and chatty, to get Oriole off her guard. There was a lot of information she needed to get and that would require the best possible rapport between Oriole and herself; but somehow the sarcasm had just slipped out. For once she was glad for Sparrow’s interruption. “Stop talking like what?” she said, smiling at Sparrow. “Nobody’s arguing. Relax.”

  “Right on, baby.” Oriole put down her sewing and jumped up. “War’s over, so you can call off the protest march, little Peacenik.” She rumpled Sparrow’s head on her way to the kitchen. “Let’s see what we can find for dinner. Okay?”

  Summer cooled it after that; and all the time she was helping Oriole get dinner ready, warmed-up chicken stew and homemade bread, she made a special effort to be cheerful and friendly. At the table she even started a game that she and Orio
le used to play with Sparrow, in which one person pretended to be a character from a fairy tale and the other two had to guess who they were. Sparrow was delighted, and Oriole threw herself into the game with all her usual enthusiasm for pretending—for pretending, not only that she was a fairy princess or a fire-breathing dragon, but also that everything was wonderful and beautiful when it was just the opposite. But the game served its purpose. Oriole forgot all about trying to find out if Nicky had ratted, and it wasn’t until Sparrow had gone to bed that Summer started her own investigation.

  Oriole had gone back to her sewing, and Summer was pretending to read a book as she figured out a plan of attack—an approach that might induce Oriole to reveal how much she knew about Angelo’s relationship to the Fishers, as well as how she really felt about him. Summer had promised Nicky that she wouldn’t tell Oriole about Angelo’s threats and about Marina actually being a hostage. Nicky was sure that Oriole would tell Angelo—and then he would force her to go on talking until he knew exactly how she had found out. But Nicky might be wrong. Surely Oriole must be beginning to see Angelo for what he was, and a warning might be all it would take to get her to stay away from him. Planning her first careful question, Summer glanced up at Oriole, to find Oriole looking at her. As she opened her mouth to begin, Oriole said, “I suppose Nicky told you about the pot?”

  It took a moment before Summer could manage to answer coolly. “No. Not really. That is, I already had it figured out.”

  Oriole nodded eagerly. “I was sure you had. I knew they were dumb, I mean, really out of it, to think my smart little Summer Baby wouldn’t catch on.” Her smile suddenly faded. “You won’t say anything to anyone, will you. Like, it wouldn’t be a good idea to let Angelo know that you’re hip to what’s happening up there.”