The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney

by Suzanne Harper

  This means of course that I constantly have to remember not to react to random ghosts walking down the street or floating up the stairs. For years I’ve been practicing my poker face, ignoring whispered pleas in my ear, and learning to look past pushy ghosts with a blank and uncomprehending stare.

  Sometimes I have slipped up, especially in the beginning, but there are distinct advantages to being the youngest in a large and disorganized family. People often don’t notice that you’re acting strangely because they simply don’t notice you at all. Even if your behavior does attract attention, well, before you’ve finished explaining just why you were talking to the wallpaper, there’s bound to be another, much more urgent crisis that conveniently takes the spotlight off you.

  Now, I cautiously crinkled my nose at Floyd in greeting. He examined the cake with professional interest, then heaved a disappointed sigh.

  The cake was lopsided and listed to one side, as if its grip on the plate were so precarious that it might slip off at any moment. It had been decorated in a slapdash manner with bright pink icing on the top and white icing on the sides. Candy sprinkles had been scattered randomly, so that they collected in multicolored clumps in some areas and were as sparse as diamonds in others. Happy Birthday Spa was spelled out in icing with so many flourishes and curlicues that it was clear that the person writing the greeting (I suspected Oriole, who has a decided preference for style over substance) had run out of room before finishing my name.

  “Too much baking powder,” he said. “And the cake didn’t cool enough before they took it out of the pan. Plus it looks as if someone ran out of frosting there at the end.” He shook his head sadly. “Why don’t people ever want to hire a professional?”

  “It’s going to be eaten in fifteen minutes,” I said without thinking (this is what happens when I let my guard down for one split second). “Who cares what it looks like?”

  Wren looked both hurt and uncertain. “I followed the recipe exactly,” she said. “Down to the last teaspoon. I don’t know what happened!”

  “No, no, it’s lovely!” I said quickly, shooting a venomous look at Floyd. He retreated to the far corner of the room, abashed.

  “It was supposed to look like a launchpad, with a little toy rocket ship on top,” Wren went on mournfully. “You know, kind of a metaphor for launching yourself into another year of life and going to a new school and everything? But Lark broke the rocket—”

  “That thing was ancient; it was about to fall apart anyway,” Lark grumbled under her breath.

  “—and then the middle of the cake fell in—”

  “Yeah, it looks more like a bomb crater than a launching pad,” Raven put in, her black eyes glittering with malice. “Hope that’s not a bad omen!”

  “—and now the entire concept is ruined!” Wren finished with a wail.

  “That’s okay,” I said soothingly. “I’m sure it will be quite tasty. In a metaphor-free kind of way.”

  “Time to light the candles and make a wish!” my mother trilled. The cake, I now noticed, had only eight mismatched candles.

  As if she could read my mind, Raven said, “Sorry we didn’t have fifteen candles.” As usual, she didn’t sound sorry at all. “That’s all we could find in the junk drawer.”

  My mother put a hand in her pocket. A worried look crossed her face. “I could have sworn . . .” she murmured, checking another pocket. “Now, where did I put those matches?”

  “You just had them!” Raven said, irritated. “I saw you pick them up off the kitchen counter!”

  “You’re right!” my mother said happily, seizing on this with relief. “I picked them up with this hand—” she stared at her right hand, her brow furrowed with thought—“and then I did . . . what?” She kept looking at her hand, as if it would offer another clue.

  The hand stayed stubbornly empty and clueless.

  “I’m sure they’ll show up,” Oriole said in a faraway voice. She was sitting at the end of the table, wearing an outfit pulled together from the cobwebby recesses of our basement: a tattered antique wedding dress, fake pearls, worn opera gloves, and an ancient pair of button-up boots. She should have looked like a mentally unstable refugee from a music video. Instead she looked like a gorgeous (albeit eccentric) fashion model.

  “Dr. Snell probably got at them again,” Grandma Bee said as she sneaked a finger in the icing. She popped it in her mouth and added fondly, “He’s such a rascal.”

  Complete silence greeted this remark. Grandma Bee has been nurturing a crush on Dr. Snell for decades. He was apparently a respected member of the medical community when he was alive, but now that he’s Crossed Over, he’s become a poltergeist, one of those annoying ghosts that get a kick out of playing pranks throughout eternity. He’s always dumping flour on the floor or ringing the doorbell at three in the morning or hiding certain items (like matches) just when they’re most needed.

  I used to think it strange that ghosts could move objects so easily. You’d think that not having a body would pose a problem. But Prajeet explained that it just requires a bit of mental effort, although most ghosts don’t care to take the trouble. Unfortunately, Dr. Snell is very motivated in this regard.

  The last time he dropped by, for example, he found a box in the attic that contained a scattering of dried-up flies, roaches, and silverfish. He proceeded to dump them on the heads of the visitors at that night’s reading. Grandma Bee tried to pass this off as his way of telling people that there is Another World That They Know Not Of, but even she had to admit that business dropped off sharply for months afterward. Dr. Snell is beyond annoying, but if any of us complain, Grandma Bee just gets a moony look in her eyes and says something like “If you girls could only see the man! Handsome doesn’t begin to describe him!”

  Now she called out sweetly, “Oh, Dr. Snell! Are you here, dear?”

  “Don’t encourage him,” Raven muttered.

  We all glanced nervously around the room. I’ve only seen him a few times—he’s a natural-born lurker—but I knew I’d recognize him. He looks like a human cockroach, with his shiny brown suit, beady bright eyes, slicked-back hair, and nasty smile. I surreptitiously sniffed the air—he always brings a whiff of stink bomb with him—but smelled only pot roast and, through the open window, the faint scent of fresh-cut grass.

  “We’d love a visit if you feel like manifesting,” Grandma Bee cooed.

  My mother looked worried at this. “Mmm, well, perhaps he doesn’t want to intrude,” she murmured tactfully. “A family gathering, you know . . .”

  “Nonsense!” Grandma Bee got up and began wandering around the room, peering nearsightedly into dark corners, as if hoping to find him hiding in the shadows. “Dr. Snell is always the life of the party!”

  The rest of us rolled our eyes at one another behind her back as we remembered, vividly, other parties with Dr. Snell (curtains catching on fire, salt poured on ice cream sundaes, shoelaces knotted together under the table so that we all fell into a heap when we stood up).

  “Could we please stay on task for once?” Wren suggested with barely concealed impatience. “We were looking for the matches, remember?”

  Lark and Linnet began conducting an antic and utterly useless search of the dining room, which involved such comic gestures as turning soup tureens upside down, scrabbling around under the table and tickling people’s legs, and energetically lifting the carpet, raising clouds of dust and making everyone cough.

  Grandma Bee wandered back to the table and plopped down in her chair with a sigh. “Who needs matches?” she said, disgruntled. “Let’s just turn on the stove and light the candles there.”

  “We tried that six months ago for Wren’s birthday,” Raven snapped.

  “At least now we know the average response time of the fire department,” Dove said philosophically.

  My mother kept murmuring, “They were right here in my hand, and now they’re gone! Gone!”

  After five minutes of this Wren stalked off to
the kitchen, where the last known sighting of the matches took place, muttering phrases like “madhouse,” “disorganized beyond belief,” and “pigpen is an under-statement” as she went.

  She returned almost immediately, saying, “They were still on the counter. You must have put them down when you brought in the pot roast.” Then she coolly lit the candles as everyone else collapsed in their chairs in exaggerated relief.

  “Make a wish, Sparrow,” Dove said.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended to think hard. There was really only one wish that I desperately wanted to come true.

  I wish I were normal.

  I opened my eyes to see Professor Trimble, Prajeet, and Floyd standing in the shadows behind my family. Their outlines were wavery and the light was dim, but I could still make out their expressions. Professor Trimble looked disapproving, Floyd looked thoughtful, and Prajeet just smiled his white, white smile and shook his head, as if to say, “You may make that wish, but it is mere tomfoolery, you shall see.”

  I scowled at them, took a deep breath, and blew. The flames guttered, flared, and disappeared; thin columns of smoke wafted to the ceiling; my family cheered and applauded and broke into a raucously off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

  As I looked around at their smiling faces, I felt the strangest sense of warmth and well-being, as if this year my wish really would come true.

  Chapter 4

  The signs for my first day of high school were, as my mother would say, most auspicious. The sun rose right on time. A few clouds drifted picturesquely across a clear blue sky. Birds chirped merrily, as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  Of course they didn’t; they were just birds. I was the one with a knotted stomach, sweaty palms, a dry mouth, and a clear, sure sense of impending doom.

  I had spent most of the previous day obsessing over my clothes and creating dozens of different combinations, hoping to discover that the perfect outfit had been languishing in my closet, unnoticed until now. As I looked in the mirror, however, I realized that no amount of mixing and matching could make my clothes look hip. Or cool. Or trendy. Even bohemian/funky was a stretch.

  I sighed and gave myself a smile in the mirror, just to practice. A small smile, not too desperate, not too toothy.

  Mmm, not great. I looked smirky and insincere.

  I tried a bigger smile. Agghh, I looked like a manic flight attendant.

  “Sparrow, honey, why don’t you try being yourself?”

  I smelled sugar and butter and turned to see Floyd settled in the comfortable old rocking chair I had rescued from a dark corner of the basement. He smiled fondly at me, his white hair standing up around his head like a spiky halo. “You’re such a pretty girl. You don’t have to work so hard!”

  “Who’s working hard?” I asked defensively. I hate it when my spirits pop in at embarrassing moments (perfect example: when I’m trying out facial expressions in the mirror).

  Floyd just smiled sunnily and continued to rock— nothing put him in a bad mood—so I turned to scowl at the mirror.

  My hair looked like a bird’s nest. Built by a bird that was very disorganized and quite possibly insane.

  I swiped my brush through it and rooted through my top drawer to find a stray hair accessory among the mismatched socks. “Anyway, I am being true to who I am.” I glanced into the mirror and saw Floyd looking at me skeptically. “I’m being true to the person I was meant to be,” I clarified. “I’m being true to the person I could be, except that everyone in my life already has a picture in mind of who I am, so they can’t see the real me. That’s who I’m being true to.”

  “Oh, I see.” He folded his hands on his round stomach. “Well, that’s all right then. We all deserve a chance to transform ourselves into who we really are.”

  “Exactly.” Aha! I pulled my favorite tortoiseshell headband from the bottom of the drawer and put it on. Now I looked more like the person I secretly knew I was. Fun. Friendly. And even better than that: Absolutely Ordinary. “Perfect.”

  “Mmm.” Floyd didn’t seem impressed. “Well, good luck, sweetheart. I’m sure you’ll have a great first day.”

  An hour later I stared up at my new school, trying not to feel intimidated. It was six stories high and seemed to stretch for acres. A broad flight of stairs led up, up, up to enormous double doors; it looked like the entrance to Mount Olympus.

  I stood absolutely still, frozen with sudden fear, complete with shaking knees and the awful feeling that I might throw up at any moment. I watched the other students stream through the double doors, laughing and talking with their friends, until I was standing by myself, stranded on the sidewalk. But maybe it was all right that I was alone. Maybe it was a sign that I didn’t really belong here. Maybe I should go home right now and give up the idea of a fresh start—

  “What utter nonsense!” A voice behind me snapped the words with the authority of a marine drill sergeant. “Get a grip on yourself this instant, and walk up those steps!”

  I closed my eyes briefly, willing her to go away.

  It didn’t work. I opened my eyes to find Professor Trimble standing in front of me. Well, perhaps if I played to her softer side . . .

  “My knees are shaking,” I said, trying to sound pathetic and doing an embarrassingly good job.

  “Of course they are,” she snapped. “It would be a miracle if they weren’t.”

  “Thanks for the sympathy,” I snapped back, now feeling more pissed off than pathetic. “That helps a lot.”

  “You don’t need sympathy; you need bucking up,” she declared. “If you want to feel scared, try defending your doctoral dissertation! All of my students thought they were going to die.” She smiled grimly. “I never lost one.”

  “There’s always a first time,” I muttered just as a bell clanged inside the school. I jumped, not sure whether that meant I was already late.

  Professor Trimble grandly ignored it as she continued. “First, stand up straight. No, straight, Sparrow! Has your spine turned into a cooked noodle overnight? Now, plant your feet. Feel the ground beneath you, and own your space.”

  Hmm. This sounded a little New Agey for Professor Trimble, but I didn’t have time to argue. I planted my feet, felt the ground, and owned my space.

  She nodded in satisfaction. “There. Doesn’t that feel better?”

  “Yeah,” I said, surprised. “It does.”

  “Good. Remember: You are not a cream puff. I expect more from you, the universe expects more from you, and, most important, you should expect more from you. Now move.”

  And without making a conscious decision to do so, I moved. Up the steps, through the doors, and into a wide hallway, jammed with people. It sounded like every single person was yelling hello and “How was your summer?” to someone else. I looked at the sheaf of orientation papers I was clutching. My locker was number 261. I glanced at the nearest locker. Number 1429. That seemed an awfully long way from 261, and I had only four minutes to get to class.

  My heart began beating faster. I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs didn’t seem to be working very well. I focused on the paper in my hand, but now the words and numbers were swimming in front of my eyes, there was a faint buzzing in my ears, and my head felt as if it were floating a few inches above my body. I was wondering if this was what happened right before you fell over in a dead faint—

  “No need to get in a kerfuffle, Sparrow,” said a voice close to my ear. “I shall be glad to lend you my assistance.”

  I turned to see that Prajeet had materialized next to me.

  “Follow me,” he said with a reassuring smile. Then he turned and walked rapidly away. I trotted after him, staying as close as I could as we wove through the crowded hallway. We made a left turn, then a right, then another left, and finally stopped in front of a locker. Prajeet pointed to it with a flourish.

  Number 261.

  I let out my breath. Until that moment I hadn’t realized I was holding it. “Thanks,”
I whispered.

  “No problem whatsoever,” he answered airily. He leaned forward and added, “Here’s a trick that I used in university when I suffered from nerves. Breathe in slowly, to a count of three. Hold the breath for a count of five. Breathe out to a count of seven. You have that firmly in mind? Three, five, seven. It will calm your mind and body and bring you peace, guaranteed. Try it today, all right?”

  I smiled and gave a tiny nod.

  “Good.” Prajeet’s gaze floated over my right shoulder, and his smile broadened. “I bid you farewell then. Until we meet again.”

  He was gone, and behind me a laughing voice said, “This is crazy, isn’t it?” I turned to see a girl about my age with bright red hair, freckles, and blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “I’m Fiona Jones. Tenth grade. I’m new here!”

  “Me, too.” Brilliant. Eloquent. A sterling display of witty repartee. “Um, my name is Sparrow.”

  “Sparrow?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Right. Like the bird.”

  Her face lit up. “Oh! How totally cool! What’s your first class? History with Mr. Grimes—awesome! Me too! Come on, let’s see if we can find room twelve-B.” She kept talking, throwing comments over her shoulder to me as people jostled us from every side. “I have no idea where anything is. I’m sure I’ll be completely lost for weeks. This is utter madness, isn’t it?”

  I trailed in her wake, breathing deeply. In for three, hold for five, out for seven . . . A feeling of peace and calm spread through my body. Prajeet was right! I thought. Mindful breathing does work!

  So feeling relaxed and confident, I followed Fiona into room 12B.

  I grabbed a seat, stowed my backpack under my chair, and scanned the classroom. In the back row a few extremely large guys were crammed into seats that had clearly been designed for wispier people. A cluster of four fashionably dressed girls stood in the far corner, staring raptly into their pocket mirrors. My gaze slipped past other faces—a boy with red hair and a goofy grin, a girl with braces and thick glasses, a shy boy staring down at his desk, a girl who kept twirling her curls through her fingers—until it landed on the boy sitting one row over and one seat back.