Flip the Bird

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Flip the Bird Page 2

by Kym Brunner


  “Don’t encourage him to lie, Lincoln.” Dad shook his head. “Build a relationship based on honesty, Mercer. That’s more important than going out with as many girls as you can.”

  Lincoln laughed again. “Going out with as many girls as you can might not be as important as honesty, but it’s way more fun. Right, Mercer?”

  “You know it.” I didn’t actually know it, but I bumped knuckles with my brother anyway. Though he picked on me, I couldn’t deny this: Lincoln was the master at snagging girlfriends. As soon as he’d break up with one girl, he’d have a new one on his arm the following weekend. Well, until he met Lauren, that is. He’d been with her four or five months now. At least he knew a good one when he saw one. Lauren was gorgeous, smart, and super sweet. Why she was with my brother was the mysterious part.

  “Being a man is doing what you want, when you want,” Lincoln assured me.

  “Not true,” Dad said, using his Joe Falconer voice. “Being a man is doing what is right even when you don’t want to.”

  I coughed out “Buzzkill,” earning me an exasperated look from Dad but another round of knucks from Lincoln. Dad suddenly grinned. “Will you look at that?” He pointed out the front windshield. “Today’s your lucky day, Mercer.”

  If it had been my lucky day, I would’ve had the courage to ask Dream Girl for her phone number. Still, I knew what he was really referring to, making my excitement ratchet up to high. I scanned the telephone poles, hoping this hawk was a lot like me—​content to lounge in one place for hours. Holding my breath, I gasped when I spotted my future hunting partner still perched there, grooming himself, as if he’d been waiting for me the whole time. “Yes! Thank God!”

  If everything went correctly, that juvenile red-tailed hawk would become my hunting partner for the season, and then I’d release him back into the wild in four months. Human and hawk working together in perfect harmony. At least that’s what Dad always says.

  “Get the trap ready,” Lincoln urged, referring to the bal-chatri on the floor by my feet, the humane contraption where neither hawk nor bait is injured in the process. I slid the tightly meshed wire trap with the zillions of monofilament loops onto my lap as Dad spun the truck around.

  I pried open the holding pen in the center of the trap and shook the mouse inside. “Go get ’em, Cinnamon.” I checked to make sure the hatch was securely locked and that the brick used to weigh the trap down was firmly in place. Since both things passed my inspection, I got on my knees and leaned my body halfway out the window, turning my head so my hair wouldn’t obscure my vision.

  If Mom had been in the truck right then, which was a pretty hilarious idea, since she’s never anywhere but at work, she would have used this opportunity to tell me I needed a haircut. But after today’s pet shop incident, I had even more proof that girls liked how I looked, so it was staying just the way it was—​on the longish side and kind of messy.

  Dad cruised along the shoulder, waiting for my signal. I spied a narrow patch of low grass ahead and timed my throw accordingly, hurling my shoebox-size contraption off to the side of the road. I watched the trap, along with the mouse, somersault a few times before coming to rest ten feet to the left of my intended spot—​in a huge mass of overgrown weeds.

  Lincoln chuckled. “Nice shot, dingwad.”

  I kept my cool and patted my headrest twice, unlike my first attempt two days ago when I’d stupidly shouted, “Pull over!” at the top of my lungs, making the red-shouldered hawk I was after bolt all the way to the next county. Dad got ticked off, but, hey, he should have told me about that headrest-tapping thing ahead of time. It was yet another case of Mercer’s Law: if anything in the universe went wrong, blame me.

  Dad stopped the truck thirty yards farther ahead. I kept my eyes on the hawk, willing him to swoop down and attempt to munch my mouse. “C’mon, big guy, free food,” I urged quietly.

  The hawk fluffed his feathers and repositioned his feet.

  It wasn’t the killer response I’d hoped for, but at least he hadn’t flown away. And thank God I didn’t have a cold. Lincoln still hadn’t let up on me for sneezing and scaring his red-tail away while he was attempting to trap his apprentice hawk a few years ago.

  Dad leaned over and checked my trap’s position. “Not sure this will work. Only a foolish hawk would expend energy trying to land prey among that much cover.” He grabbed his metallic green thermos and unscrewed the lid.

  I felt the need to defend myself. “What do you mean, ‘that much cover’? Bella caught a rabbit in thigh-high alfalfa last year!” I said, reminding him of Lincoln’s northern goshawk.

  Lincoln tapped his chest over his tight-fitting Gold’s Gym T-shirt. “That’s because Bella learned from a master.”

  “Master-bator maybe,” I quipped.

  “Hey, watch your mouth,” Dad chided me as he poured coffee into the thermos’s lid. “And you’re not a master falconer yet, Lincoln.” Dad glanced at him over his shoulder. “But you’re close, I’ll give you that. One day you might even turn out to be as good as your old man.”

  “Maybe even better,” Lincoln teased, but I doubted he was joking.

  Part of me wished I could do a Dorothy and splash coffee on Lincoln’s conceited face and watch him melt.

  Dad smiled as he raised his cup. “You just might if you keep at it.” Swirls of steam rose into the air, filling my nostrils with an awesome aroma. Weird how something that smelled so good tasted like sewer runoff.

  “Come on, hawk. Be hungry.” I stared at the bird up on the telephone pole, begging the falconer gods to toss some luck my way for once. That’s when I noticed that the mouse was motionless in the bottom of the trap. Had I killed Cinnamon on the throw? Would a hawk even go for a dead mouse? There was no way I was asking, or I’d get Falconry Lecture 234. I assumed mouse tasted the same, dead or alive, but couldn’t be sure. The thought of doing a taste test both disgusted and intrigued me, but with eight waxy doughnuts sitting in my gut, I abandoned the mind movie before I upchucked.

  To my relief, Cinnamon began running around, frantically trying to find a way out of her prison. “Whew! I thought I killed my bait for a second there.”

  Lincoln cleared his throat. “If you toss the trap sidearm, it’ll spin rather than flip. Unless maybe you’re not strong enough to do that.” He reached out and squeezed my bicep—​hard. “Geez, Mercer. Your arms are like spaghetti noodles. You’d better start lifting weights. A bird gets heavy after a couple of hours on the fist.”

  “I do lift weights!” I protested. It was true. Every time one of those weightlifter commercials came on, I did ten biceps curls with each arm.

  “The TV remote doesn’t count,” Lincoln said, laughing. “You’ve got a long way to go to get these guns.” He showed off his bulging muscles.

  “Big deal,” I scoffed, but I secretly flexed my arm muscle by my side, making a mental note to do more weightlifting starting tomorrow. My biceps couldn’t handle another one of Lincoln’s death grips.

  I wanted to tell my brother to cram it, that having strong muscles wasn’t important to be a good falconer, but I didn’t want to listen to Dad go on about how Lincoln had a point, blah, blah, blah, so I shut my trap and sat there silently. Ha! Shut my trap. Wasn’t that a metaphor or something? And then, out of nowhere . . . whoosh! That red-tail swooped toward the tan and white fur ball with the same energy I devour all my meals. Sidearm, my butt!

  The hawk pounced on my trap, attempting to extract the mouse with his talons, but Cinnamon remained safely inside her holding cell. Seconds later, the hawk became hopelessly snagged in the slipknots we’d rigged all around the outside of the bal-chatri. The red-tail flapped his wings, trying to untangle his feet, but lucky for me, the harder he pulled, the tighter the slipknots gripped his industrial-strength yellow legs.

  “It worked!” I screamed, my voice two octaves higher than normal.

  “Way to go, Apprentice Boy.” Lincoln patted my shoulder hard, but I didn’t care.r />
  Dad set his coffee into the holder. “Let’s go take a look and see what you got.”

  I prayed that what I got was one badass hawk who’d help me win the Best Apprentice award at the falconry meet next month, proving to Dad and Lincoln once and for all that I wasn’t as incompetent as they seemed to think I was. And I’d finally gain their respect.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure which prize I wanted more.

  THREE

  I NEARLY KILLED MYSELF WHEN I DASHED OUT OF THE TRUCK, missing the step. I landed like a felled redwood, but leaped back up to check out my new hunting buddy. I prayed he had a striped tail, the sign that he was a juvenile rather than the rusty red of an adult, or I wouldn’t be able to keep him. Young, inexperienced hawks for young, inexperienced falconers—​a perfect match.

  Not to mention that it’s also the law. And there was no way I was going to lose my hunting license after it had taken me so long to earn it. I’d finally checked off all the boxes the Department of Natural Resources required to legally trap a hawk: minimum age (I’d turned fourteen last March), passage of the falconry exam (I’d gotten a sterling 98 percent), inspection of my future hawk’s living quarters (you could lick ice cream off the floor), possession of a hunting license (paid the fee myself), and sponsorship by an experienced falconer (Dad). Check, check, checkity-friggin’-check.

  Lincoln stood alongside me, watching as the bird tried to free himself from the fishing line nooses that entangled his legs, his wings flapping wildly. “It’s kind of small. Must be a male.”

  “Who cares?” I knew females were bigger and stronger hunters, but with my track record with human females, maybe a male was a better choice for me. We’d be two guys hunting in the wild—​on the prowl and doing whatever we wanted. Perfect partners, if you asked me.

  “He’s small but healthy.” Dad rubbed his chin. “He’ll grow.”

  “Yeah, he’ll grow.” I shot Lincoln a smug look. “He’s just a baby.”

  Slowly, so as not to freak the bird out more than he already was, I crouched down to get a better peek at the red-tail, my red-tail, and was awestruck by how cool he was. His toes were the shade of yellow kindergarten paint, and the feathers across his back had at least seventeen shades of brown. His fluffy leg feathers fluttered in the breeze, and his curved gray beak looked ideal for nabbing enormous amounts of prey. When I checked out his eyes, my jaw dropped for the second time that day.

  This hawk had sage green eyes with yellow flecks—​same as Dream Girl.

  I wasn’t the type of guy who read his horoscope or tossed salt over his shoulder when he dropped a fork, but I knew this was more than a silly coincidence. No way. This was one huge premonition: Dream Girl, dream hawk, same day. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. My mind drifted for a second, wondering if this was a sign that I’d eventually catch up with Dream Girl again.

  Gazing back at my new hunting buddy, I observed the chubby face and the downy chest feathers of a juvenile. Didn’t fool me. I knew deep down he was one fierce hawk with a thirst for blood. With this guy by my side when hunting season opened, I’d finally get my turn to be large and in charge instead of merely a bush beater for all the other falconers.

  I knew it was probably a little childish to want the Best Apprentice pin so badly. I should have been content with manning my own hawk—​getting him to trust me so we could be teammates—​but I couldn’t help myself. I’d been dreaming about becoming a falconer for as long as I could remember. And I’d been to more falconry meets and hunting trips in my fourteen and a half years than most people had been to church in their entire lives. That should count for something, right?

  Dad squeezed my shoulder. “All right then. Work on getting him hooded while I get the other supplies.”

  I glanced at Dad to make sure he wasn’t kidding. Though it was common to place a leather hood over our raptors’ eyes to keep them calm, I figured a wild hawk wasn’t about to accept one without some training first. “Who, me? By myself?”

  Lincoln laughed. “No, he’s talking to the red-tail. Of course, you.”

  For ten minutes, the two of them stood there ordering me around without lifting a finger to help. After I got the hawk hooded, I suffered only one mishap when attempting to disentangle his feet from the fishing line nooses, earning me a nasty talon gouge on the back of my hand. It hurt like hell, but I was so happy to have trapped this bird, he could have bitten off my pinky and I’d still think he was cool. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that sporting a missing digit would help prove we’re a couple of tough dudes and people should back off.

  No one could say I didn’t have goals.

  Dad said, “Good job. Now carefully place him in the carrier and let’s get him home.” He unlatched the inside chamber of the trap and shook Cinnamon to the ground. She took off, disappearing under a shriveled cornstalk. So much for saving a memento of my true love.

  As Dad set the trap into the back of the truck, Lincoln helped me get the red-tail’s wings folded so he wouldn’t break any of his beautiful feathers on the ride home before I placed him in the darkened carrier. “Don’t worry,” I reassured my new hunting partner as I closed and locked the door. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  As I reached for the truck’s front door handle, Lincoln elbowed me in the chest. “Get in the back, Apprentice Boy.”

  “Whatever you say, General Falconer.” I saluted him with my middle finger and a wide grin, scuttling into the back seat before he could punch me.

  “Did you just flip the bird at your brother?” Dad asked the second I got in the truck.

  “Did I what?” I looked at Lincoln, who shrugged, and then at Dad.

  “You know, flip the bird. With your middle finger?” Dad started the truck.

  Lincoln and I immediately cracked up. Flipping the bird was the dumbest expression I’d ever heard. Why would anyone call it that? I looked at my finger and smiled. An idea began to form in my mind, but I kept quiet.

  “Everyone says ‘flick him off’ these days, Dad.” Lincoln slid his seat belt across his chest, clicking it into place.

  “Fine. Mercer shouldn’t be flicking his fingers at people,” Dad said, maneuvering back onto the road. “It’s what people do when they don’t have a large vocabulary.”

  Dad obviously still thought of me as a ten-year-old. When I’m married with kids, he’ll probably still be bugging me to use my napkin. “Me dumb. Don’t know words,” I joked from the back seat. “Bird hurt me.” I showed Dad and Lincoln the back of my hand, fresh blood oozing out of a red smeary mess.

  “Whoa. That’s nasty.” Lincoln popped open the glove box and handed me some napkins.

  Dad shook his head. “You shouldn’t have moved so fast around him, Mercer.”

  Was it my imagination, or did it seem that Dad cared more about the hawk than the buckets of blood pouring from my wound? It’d be nice if he didn’t treat every conversation as another opportunity to school me. “Yeah, I guess not.”

  As Dad drove through town on our way home, he and Lincoln gave me tips on all that I’d need to do before putting my bird into the mews. A mews is a falconer’s always-plural word for “cage,” but also the term for the entire barn. One mews, two mews, everywhere a mews, mews. All this secret language was unnecessary, in my opinion; I would’ve been fine keeping my hawk in a cage in the barn, but whatever.

  Dad hung a right at Nelson’s Gas, so I joked, “Hey, look. We’re passing gas. Boy, does that stink.”

  “Shut up, you dork.” Lincoln grinned. “Did you think of a name for your bird yet?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” My idea from a few minutes earlier rushed back to mind. “I decided to call him Flip. As in, Flip the Bird. Get it?” I eyed Lincoln, gratified when I heard him laugh. That made the name even better.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Dad barked. He opened his window a bit more, making me wonder if he took my gas joke seriously. “Name him something dignified—​a name
he can be proud of.”

  “A name he can be proud of?” I repeated. “He’s a bird, Dad. And because you’re requiring me to release him at the end of the hunting season so I can start fresh with a new hawk next year, I’ll only have him a few months. Then off he’ll go, back into the wild. He’d be as happy being called Flip as he would Butt Nugget.”

  “Butt Nugget. Love it.” Lincoln chuckled under his breath, making that name a serious contender too. The whole reason I wanted a funny name was to show Dad and all his falconer buddies that they didn’t have to take falconry so seriously all the time. They all acted as if the falconry codes had been handed down to Moses along with the Ten Commandments. Every falconer except Dad’s best friend, Weasel, of course. That guy didn’t take anything seriously, which was probably why I liked him so much.

  Dad smoothed his mustache. “How about Arthur? As in King Arthur? Falconry’s been around since 2000 BC, you know.”

  I grimaced. “Probably why Arthur sounds like an old man’s name.”

  “If you think this is so humorous, maybe I should pull over and let the hawk go.” Dad braked then—​I guess to show me he was actually thinking about it.

  Lincoln turned toward me and discreetly rolled his eyes. We both knew Dad was exaggerating only to teach me a lesson. Still, I needed to calm him down. “C’mon, Dad. Just because Flip’s a cool name doesn’t mean I’m not serious about becoming a falconer.”

  “Doesn’t seem like you’re serious.” Dad frowned, apparently still not convinced.

  Time to reason with him man-to-man. “You named your kids Mercer, Lincoln, and Madison after the towns you conceived us in, but that didn’t mean you weren’t serious about becoming a father, did it?” Truthfully, though, after I’d found out about the disgusting way in which I was named, I was thankful I wasn’t called Room 241 at the Holiday Inn.

  “Don’t disappoint me, Mercer. That’s all I ask.” He stepped on the gas, and that was that.

  Now if I could just find the guts to remove Flip from the carrier when we got back home, I’d be taking the first step toward that seemingly insurmountable request.

 

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