Because I don’t feel inspired to draw, I wander into the kitchen, where Sharon and Jerome are cooking together. Sharon is beating something in a bowl. Jerome is singing some song I don’t know about sitting on a dock of a bay and watching the tide roll away.
“Can I help?” I ask Sharon.
“Baked Alaska takes a lot of muscle.” I don’t know what baked Alaska is but it’s clear that besides muscle, it takes a lot of eggs.
“Singing takes muscles, too,” Jerome says. It’s also clear that Jerome really misses singing with Sharon. Jerome takes the whisk out of her hands and starts beating the eggs.
Because Sharon won’t let me help I drift into the living room, where Caitlin and Casey have patterns spread out all over the floor. Caitlin looks up at Casey, and Casey passes her a pincushion full of pins. A second later, Casey looks up at Caitlin and Caitlin passes her the scissors.
Because I can’t help them, I go looking for Maggie, who’s outside dumping old food scraps into a barrel.
“Is that compost?” I ask.
She nods and stirs it.
“Compost like Jake wanted to make.”
She nods again. “It’s great for the garden.”
Just because compost is great for a garden doesn’t mean it’s interesting.
Because Grace is sitting in the old play set typing away, I stand over her shoulder and try to read what she’s writing.
She doesn’t even look up or do anything, not even stomp on my foot.
That’s why I go up to my room. Jake is there. He’s set up his loom on my desk.
I plop down next him.
“Can I try weaving again?” I touch the strings but he pushes my hand away.
“Please,” I say. I reach over and grab the stick that he’s weaving with. “I won’t mess it up this time. I promise.” I start to bring it through. “In and out,” I say. “See, I got it.”
But Jake grabs it out of my hand. “Teddy! You messed it up again.”
He undoes what I just did.
“You want to come out to the aviary?”
“No thanks,” he says.
“How about the trash?” I ask, even though I am shocked that I am asking for his company. “Do we need to go through it?”
“No,” he says. “I’ve got work to do.”
I’m struck by how all my siblings are acting just like I’ve always wanted. But like the world record for the first person to vomit in space, nothing prepares you for it.
RULES ABOUT CHORES
1. Doing the same thing every day is boring. Unless it’s breaking a world record, feeding the pigeons, or drawing pictures. (So maybe it’s chores that are the problem.)
NAMING PIGEONS
Ms. Raffeli walks us over to the public library so we can research possible local history topics for the mural. Viva closes her books. “It’s all so depressing.”
Lonnie says, “I like history.”
Jake holds up a magazine. “Look!” He pushes it right into Lonnie’s face.
Lonnie takes it from Jake. “Whoa! Teddy, Viva, check this out.” The magazine is all about Star Wars and a new movie!
Now that is big news.
Lonnie reads. “It’s all very secretive, but old characters will be back, and new ones will be introduced.” We squeeze in closer to him, crowding around to see it better.
Lonnie flips through the magazine. Viva stops him. “Pictures.”
“New characters.” Lonnie gets a huge smile on his face. For Jake’s sake, he shows each character and says their name. “Rey, Finn—”
“Who’s that?” Jake asks, pointing to an orange-and-white-looking ball.
Viva reads. “A new droid—BB-8!”
“This is going to be great,” Lonnie says. “I can tell.”
“You know what this means?” I ask. Lonnie, Viva, and Jake shake their heads. “We can name more pigeons!”
THE DARK SIDE
Viva takes out her pad of paper and draws jet fighters. “We should do something about Star Wars.”
“How do jet fighters have anything to do with our city?” I ask.
“Star Wars has to do with everything.”
Lonnie opens his pad and shows me a picture of a bunch of dogs. “Did you know that our city was the first city in our state to have an animal shelter?”
“I didn’t know that,” I say.
Jake leans in. “I really like Peanut.”
“How about you, Teddy?” Viva asks. “Any ideas?”
I shake my head.
“What?” Lonnie pulls out my pad. “You must have something.” But when he flips through it he sees I don’t.
“Careful of the Dark Side,” Lonnie warns.
“How is not having an idea going to lead me to the Dark Side?”
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it happens,” Lonnie explains. “So come on, let’s get drawing!”
He hands me a pencil and starts sketching out a mural of our city. I add pigeons, he adds some dogs, Jake adds some strange brightly colored lines that look a lot like a rainbow but not curved, and Viva reaches in to draw Chewbacca walking through it.
“Now this,” I say, “is a good idea. It has nothing to do with local history, but it’s still a really good idea.”
RULES ABOUT SUGGESTING A MURAL
1. Surprise people by suggesting something no one thought you would, like Viva, who thought of an airplane theme based on the history of our local airport. (Instead of Star Wars.)
2. Suggest a piece of local history, like Lonnie, who imagined a whole mural dedicated to women who have changed our city. (Instead of the first animal shelter.)
3. Offer something brightly colored, like Jake, who proposes a mural of multicolored stripes. (Instead of anything to do with anything.)
4. Brainstorm more ideas, because Aunt Ursula says there are rules about what can go on a city mural and she’s pretty sure “world records broken by ten-year-olds” falls on the side of no. (Even if it is local history.)
MS. RAFFELI’S RULES
The next day it’s raining, so we’re all inside. Ms. Raffeli announces the theme for the mural. “This was not an easy decision. There were so many ideas, and I’m sure we’ll be able to work a lot of them into the final mural. But I finally chose Ny’s.” Everyone claps, probably because Ny is so nice that it’s easy to be happy for her. Ms. Raffeli turns to Ny. “Would you like to tell everyone about it?”
Ny smiles. “My idea is about jobs that people do in our city.”
Without being asked we all start shouting out jobs. Waitress, sales clerk, artist, teacher, bus driver, police officer, mayor; the list goes on and on, and honestly I think we could go on for a lot longer, but Ms. Raffeli stops us. “For the next hour, we will break into small groups and sketch people in City Hall doing their jobs. I’ve prepared the adults about this.”
Then she explains that the rules are:
1. We have to stay in groups no bigger than three. (Buddies not included.)
2. We can’t disrupt any work going on.
3. We must be drawing.
4. Please don’t let her down or the mayor will never forgive her.
I hope she’s joking about this last rule. The mayor really should not blame her for anything we do!
THE PIGEON SITUATION
Lewis and Ny and Serena and their buddies go to the mayor’s office, some other kids go into the city planner’s office, Angus and the two Jasmines head off to the retirement offices, and some other kids go into the parking ticket office.
Lonnie, Viva, Jake, and I go to Mom’s office. The office is basically one big room, and in the middle is a counter and Mom and her boss sit on the other side of the counter, except he’s not here right now.
“Hey, Mom,” Jake says as we walk in. Mom waves, but stays at her desk.
“Jake,” I say, “remember Ms. Raffeli’s rule. No bothering them.” I hand him his pad of paper and pencil. Mom smiles.
Mom is doing a really bad job pretending
we’re not here. For instance, she picks up her phone and makes a funny face into it.
We all have to muffle our giggles.
Mom stops when her boss walks in, and we draw them sitting at their desks, which is good for drawing but not very interesting.
Lonnie leans over. “Let’s go somewhere else,” he whispers.
Viva nods.
Just as we’re standing up, Mom’s boss turns to her. “Have you handled that pigeon situation yet?”
She freezes, looks at me, and then clears her throat. “I’m investigating it.”
“Well, speed it up. We don’t want—”
“Ahhh-chooo!” Mom sneezes, then sneezes a bunch more. “Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo!” I’ve never seen her sneeze so much. By the time she’s done sneezing her boss is on the phone.
“Come on,” Viva nudges. “Let’s go down to the basement and look for the janitor.”
“Do you think there are zombies down there?” Jake asks.
“Hopefully,” Viva says, and leads us out the door.
I stop at the door. Mom smiles at me and I smile back. I hope the pigeon situation is nothing, but for some reason it gives me more shivers than Viva talking about zombies.
SAME AND DIFFERENT
Two weeks go by and not much has changed. It’s still July and it’s still hot. My family is still weird in a normal way. Mom still has her job, I still do chores, and Lonnie, Viva, and I are still not allowed to try and break records.
So it’s really exciting when Ms. Raffeli finally says, “Today, we will start painting.”
We all let out a cheer!
Ms. Raffeli took our drawings and combined them. “I’ve drawn out a plan.” She shows us the small version. “It’s like a map of where we will paint on the walls. First we’ll need to draw the map, and then we start putting in colors.”
“Like color by number?” Jake asks.
“Exactly,” Ms. Raffeli says.
She gives each small group a section to paint. Jake and I paint side by side. He doesn’t drip or even get paint on me.
Painting is good for thinking, so as I paint I think about Jake and how he used to make me feel like I was swallowing eighteen swords while juggling three objects at the same time. And now, even though he is well behaved I still feel like I’m swallowing swords and juggling.
It’s weird how different someone can be but still feel the same.
DANGER
That afternoon, I go out to feed the birds. I’m on 599 when Grumpy Pigeon Man charges in. The pigeons fly up as he waves a piece of paper in the air. “Do you know about this?”
“About what?”
Grumpy Pigeon Man paces back and forth. “That aunt of yours. She’s crossed the line this time.”
“Crossed which line?”
“She won’t get away with this.”
“Won’t get away with what?” I wish he’d just answer one of my questions.
“If she thinks she can get rid of my pigeons and that dog can stay, she’s got another think coming.”
“Get rid of what pigeons?” I ask. My heart starts beating faster than the clogs worn by Andre Ortolf when he broke the record for running the fastest 100 meters in clogs (16.27 seconds).
“My pigeons. These pigeons. Our pigeons.” He gasps. “It’s all here. In this letter.”
I grab the letter. It’s written on fancy stationery from the animal control officer with Mom’s name on the bottom. I don’t understand anything it says except “not legal to have pigeons within the city limits.”
My brain races. The law about birds. Mom being so upset. Mom’s boss talking about a pigeon situation. It was these pigeons. But Mom would never tell on Grumpy Pigeon Man.
“It’s Ursula’s fault.” He paces back and forth; the pigeons fly up all around, and then land on him like they know that something is terribly wrong. “It has to be Ursula’s fault.”
DANGER PART 2
Peanut tears out of the house, running straight for the aviary, barking all the way. When he gets to the fence, he screeches to a stop and sits. His tail wags back and forth.
Aunt Ursula follows him into the yard, looking as fancy as the lettering on that horrible letter. “Peanut,” she calls. “Come back this instant.”
The pigeons gather closer to Peanut, cooing madly at him, only the wire mesh separating them.
“How could you?” Grumpy Pigeon Man grumps at Aunt Ursula. “It’s one thing to fight with me, but this is going too far.”
Aunt Ursula looks confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ohhh,” Grumpy Pigeon Man growls, “don’t pretend you aren’t the one who told them about me.”
“Told who about what?”
“My pigeons! You told animal control about my pigeons, and now they’re going to take them away from me.”
Aunt Ursula’s face turns beet red and she walks closer to the aviary. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I don’t like your tone of voice. I had nothing to do with this.”
Peanut raises a paw and whimpers at the fence. He pokes his nose through, trying to find a way to the other side. “You only have yourself to blame. You knew it was against the rules to keep them as pets.”
“You planned this all along!”
“I have nothing to say.” She scoops Peanut up. As she strides away, Peanut turns back to the pigeons and whines.
“I know that woman is to blame,” Grumpy Pigeon Man says. “She’s the only one who hates the pigeons.”
I try to move, but my legs are stuck as my brain wraps around what’s going on. I still don’t understand exactly what’s happening. “They’re going to take the pigeons away?”
Grumpy Pigeon Man crumples up on a bucket.
“When?” I ask. My eyes have started burning.
“Tomorrow,” he says.
Tomorrow is the worst thing in the world.
YELLING DOESN’T COUNT
I crash into the house. I stomp into the kitchen. I kick the wall because I can’t think of anything else to do. Aunt Ursula marches into the kitchen and I stop attacking the wall.
It’s clear she’s still upset, but not in a sad way, not like she actually feels sorry for Grumpy Pigeon Man and his pigeons, but upset in a way like he’s the one who did something wrong. “They should have taken those pigeons away years ago. And he knows it.”
The fastest time to burst 200 balloons with a nail is 33.74 seconds. At this exact second, I feel like I’m all those balloons being burst with a nail. “How could you do this?” I yell. I’ve never yelled at a grown-up who isn’t Mom or Dad before, but I can’t stop myself. And just because I don’t know what else to do I kick the refrigerator.
“Teddy,” she says. “I will talk about this, but not if you yell or kick. That’s the rule.”
I nod because if I open my mouth I’ll either yell or kick.
Aunt Ursula sits down. She points to a seat, but my body won’t let me sit. “There is a law in this city that pigeons cannot be kept as pets.”
“What kind of crazy law is that?” I blurt out.
She stops and looks at me. I collapse onto a chair because suddenly I’m so tired I can’t stand up anymore.
“The law was put into place years ago. I don’t know the history, but it’s there, and Tom—I mean, Grumpy Pigeon Man, has been breaking it all these years.”
I feel like I can’t breathe. Not even Darth Vader breathing. “How do you know that?”
“I was a judge. I retired this year.” That explains all her rules and why she came now. “Someone must have finally told the animal control offices about his pigeons. Your mother had no choice. It’s the law.”
My eyes get blurry. “Did you do it?”
She shakes her head.
“You hate his pigeons. You knew about the law.” I wipe my eyes.
“That’s true, and I did think about reporting him, but I didn’t.”
“You fight with him all the time.” A tear trickles dow
n my face.
“It doesn’t mean I would tell on him.” Aunt Ursula takes my hands.
I pull away and stand up. “The pigeons weren’t hurting anyone!” I yell, and I know I’m breaking a rule, but I don’t care.
“The rules of the law are strong. It’s not fair if one person follows them and another one doesn’t.”
And because she cares more about rules than anything else, and because I feel like I just broke the record for eating 99 fire torches in one minute, I don’t say another word, but run straight upstairs.
RULES FOR TRUSTING GROWN-UPS
1. Don’t do it. Ever.
STOMPING MAD
I’m so mad I stomp into the bathroom, slam the door, and take a shower. I let the water pound on my head. I’m so mad at myself for going along with Aunt Ursula’s rules. For thinking that they made our lives better, for stopping breaking records, and doing chores when all the time she was just keeping me busy so she could get rid of the pigeons.
And then I remember Mom’s signature on the bottom of the letter. My throat burns. How could she do that?
I’m never talking to her again. Maybe I’ll never leave this shower. They can feed me here, and I’ll sleep in the tub, because if the pigeons are gone, then what’s the point?
But after ten minutes of the water beating on my brain I start to feel different. My brain begins to click away. I’m not giving up. Those pigeons need me. I’m a world record breaker. Nothing can stop me. I climb out of the shower with one thing on my mind: saving the pigeons.
RULES ABOUT SAVING PIGEONS
1. Save them all.
2. Save them secretly.
3. Save them forever.
THINK FAST
As soon as I’m all dry, and in clean clothes, I call Lonnie from my parents’ bedroom and tell him all about the pigeons.
“What can I do?” he asks.
“Call Viva and let her know,” I say. “I don’t have a plan yet, and there isn’t much time, so we’ll have to think of something fast.”
Teddy Mars Book #3 Page 11
