At first I think Eleanor is going to put her arm around me, but she rests it on the back of my seat and leans forward. “You were a crow today,” she says, “and you should take that as the greatest of compliments.”
On the way home, Eleanor sings, of course, mumbling or humming when she doesn’t know the words to a song. It’s a nice sound.
“Tomorrow’s Halloween.” Eleanor sings these words, too. “You haven’t said anything about it, but would you like to go get a costume?”
“No, I don’t want one. I don’t like going trick-or-treating.” I don’t see the point of spending more time walking up to strangers’ houses because I’ve done it pretty much all my life. “Is that okay?”
“That you don’t like going trick-or-treating? Of course it is.”
I wait for Eleanor to ask why I don’t like trick-or-treating, and then try to give me reasons why I should go, like “But you’ll miss out on all the fun” or “You’re only a kid once.”
“If you change your mind, let me know. I’d dress up with you.”
“You’d dress up? What would we be?”
“Crows?” Eleanor smiles.
The image of us dressed as crows makes me smile, too.
“But I’m happy with staying home. Either way is fine.”
“You’d dress up with me, right?”
“I would.”
“Well, I’d go trick-or-treating just to see you dress up.”
“Okay, then, let’s go find some costumes.”
Halloween night, before leaving to go trick-or-treating, Eleanor and I set up our jack-o’-lanterns on the front porch. We place tea lights inside, and from the end of the driveway the pumpkins glow orange.
Eleanor drives into town and parks the car at the edge of a subdivision. There are silhouettes of skeletons, princesses, zombies, and superheroes. But Eleanor is a witch, and I am a ghost. I didn’t like any costumes left at the store, so Eleanor used an old bedsheet to make me one.
Kids pass, their feet shuffling across cement, or scampering across grass. Mine don’t want to move.
I have no problem climbing to the highest branch of a tree, so walking up to a stranger’s house and asking for candy should be easy. Eleven-year-olds don’t need their mom, or dad, or foster parent to hold their hand to go trick-or-treating. A normal eleven-year-old should be able to go up to a house, say, “Trick or treat,” and not worry whether a grown-up will have disappeared by the time she returns, leaving the eleven-year-old by herself.
My trick-or-treat bag is a pillowcase with red and brown leaves on it that Eleanor gave me. “Will you walk up to the door with me?” I ask.
“Of course,” Eleanor whispers in her Bird Whisperer voice. I realize I’m starting to kind of like it.
I almost grab her hand, wondering if the feeling of holding it would be warm like a nest.
Our feet shuffle up the sidewalk, together.
17
Thanksgiving morning, Eleanor and I are in the field with Henrietta. She’s calmer today, which is a good sign.
“I know you’re nervous,” Eleanor says to me. “Just remember, if Henrietta isn’t cooperating, we keep trying.”
I’m more scared than nervous. I’m scared that Henrietta won’t ever fly. I’m scared that I won’t ever fly, either.
I raise my arm, and she hops onto the perch. “After we’re finished out here,” I tell Henrietta, “we have a special Thanksgiving treat for you.”
Henrietta’s deep brown eyes stare at me like she understands what I’m telling her.
“Let’s try about ten yards,” Eleanor says.
I place pieces of raw meat on my glove and move my arm up and down, ringing the bell. Henrietta doesn’t push off right away. She flutters her wings, still not sure.
“Come on, Henrietta, you can do this.” I wave my arm up and down again. “Please, just fly,” I whisper.
Henrietta spreads her wings, pushes off the perch, and swoops downward. At first, it looks like she’s going to land on the ground, but she swoops upward and lands on my glove.
My heart soars. “Good job,” I whisper.
Eleanor keeps having me move a little farther away, until Henrietta’s last flight is about twenty yards from perch to perch. But it doesn’t matter how far she flew this morning, it just matters that she flew.
As we’re walking toward the refuge, Eleanor says, “She still has a ways to go, but today feels like we’re back on track.”
Henrietta screeches like she agrees.
At the back of the rehabilitation center is a big cage with wooden, branch-like perches and more space for Henrietta to move. I set Henrietta on one of the perches inside the cage. She puffs out her chest and spreads both wings.
“Let’s go get Henrietta’s surprise.” Eleanor leads me to an area where there’s a small refrigerator, a sink, and some cupboards. On top of the counter is a small cardboard box. Eleanor brings the box to the cage. There are mice inside. Even the way she handles the mice is gentle, and I wonder if she’s gentle because she knows what’s going to happen to them, or because they’re animals, too. Like, is Eleanor being kind to me because she’s read my file and knows about my past, or would she treat any kid, no matter what happened to her, the same?
“Happy Thanksgiving, Henrietta.” Eleanor lets me set the mice on the floor of the cage. They scurry to any hiding place they can find. “Henrietta shouldn’t miss an evolutionary beat. Her instinct to hunt is, well, instinctual. But we need to see if she’s strong enough to catch food. She might not be hungry right now, so the next time we come to check on her, we’ll have to search to find whether the mice are still here or not.”
It’s hard to imagine myself perched on a tree limb, or electrical wire, or fence, focused on the movement of prey, and being as still as Henrietta is now. The only time I remember being that still is the night my mom left. I remember lying on the floor. I remember watching my mom’s feet walk back and forth from the living room to her bedroom. She threw clothes in a suitcase. They fell through the air like snowflakes. The air was cold. The door was open, and it was still open after her feet walked out into the night.
“You ready to go?” Eleanor sets her hand on my shoulder, and I step back. I don’t want to be touched. My heart beats fast, faster than Henrietta’s will when she sees the movement of mice and by instinct knows it’s the right time to swoop down and clutch prey with her talons. It’s not my mom’s touch. Eleanor’s doesn’t hurt at all.
I lean into Eleanor’s stomach. Her shirt smells like lavender and the air outside, her clothes and skin carrying the smell of leaves, trees, and rain. Her stomach is like a hummingbird’s nest, and I can’t burrow far enough into the warmth and softness.
Eleanor is like a hundred-year-old live oak tree. She stays until my heartbeat is back to normal, until the only thing I see is her brown sweatshirt and her blue-green veins rising from her skin, not the image of my mom’s clothes falling through the air, or her feet walking out the door.
Eleanor gives me a gentle squeeze. She doesn’t make a big deal out of my moment of weakness, and on the drive home she doesn’t ask if I want to talk about what I was feeling. Instead, we listen to music. When we get home, she goes to the kitchen to start making soup for our Thanksgiving dinner, and she lets me wander out to the backyard. I like that she just lets me be, and trusts that I’ll come to her if I need to. And I like that I trust her to be there when I do.
I check the feeders to see if they need to be filled with more seeds. There are three sparrows perched in a small, delicate tree, waiting for me to leave so they can eat.
I open the back gate. The scarecrow I made from leaves and twigs is still standing. It doesn’t matter if it really does scare away birds. It’s not needed now. The Bird Whisperer is not a threat.
I pull the scarecrow out of the dirt and lean it against the fence. Behind me, I feel Teresa staring down at me from the highest branch of my flight tree. She doesn’t need to be there anymore, either.
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Climbing to the branch just below where Teresa’s perched, I hold up Bird Girl. “I have it back!” I tell her. I open my story.
December sat on the floor for a long time before she moved, watching the leaves swirl in a mini-tornado, blowing through the open door. She pulled herself across the floor to the leaves, picking them up, making a bouquet. They were mostly brown, but a few still had yellow and red color left in them. If she could’ve, December would’ve found a cup. She would’ve set the bouquet inside for her mom to see when she came back.
I close the book. Looking down makes my stomach nauseous. There are a lot of branches between the ground and me. There is a lot of space, too. Space to fall.
It’s not something I was ever afraid of, until now. Holding on to a branch, I shove the book into my back pocket and reach up to get Teresa. From here, I pull myself over the branch, my eyes even with hers. I reach around the trunk and pull the socks loose. Teresa drops forward, and before I can catch her, she falls, hitting branches on her way down. One of her talons flies through the air, and other parts, too—her beak, one of her glass eyes.
Instead of jumping, I climb down, and search for the broken parts. Broken parts are what can happen if something falls from way up high. I know that. I pick up the beak, and the glass eye, cradling them in my hand, and stare at the pieces.
Inside the house, Eleanor is getting the table ready, setting red plates and bowls at our places.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken her without asking.”
I lay Teresa on the table and hold out my hand so Eleanor can see the broken pieces. “I thought she needed to be set free. She looked sad, all dusty sitting in your shed. I’ll fix her, if you show me how, and I’ll put her back where you had her.”
When she frowns, Eleanor has the same line between her eyebrows as Karen, except Eleanor’s isn’t as deep and doesn’t look like a claw. Hers is more a thinking line than an angry one, but I still wait for her voice to be filled with disappointment. Me breaking Teresa could be a reason to call Adrian, to send me away. But I’m ready, I’m always ready.
“Well, I’m not happy you took it without asking, but I’ll show you how to fix it.” Eleanor shakes Teresa’s broken parts in her hand like she’s about to roll dice. “It doesn’t have to go back to the shed, either. You can keep it in your room, if you want?”
Eleanor leaves the bird in the middle of the table. “Why did you name her Teresa?”
“Well, one of my foster parents talked about saints a lot. There were two saints I really liked. I liked Saint Francis of Assisi because he’s the patron saint of animals, but I loved St. Teresa because there are stories about her being able to levitate, and levitating is like flying.”
Eleanor sets the glass eye and the other pieces on the counter. “Some things can’t be put back together, but Teresa can. We’ll do it after dinner.”
I wonder what Eleanor believes she can’t put back together.
She grabs both our bowls, filling hers all the way up and mine only three-quarters of the way. “In case you want to try it,” she says. She places a basket of bread and some butter on the table, too.
“Should we say what we’re thankful for?” Eleanor waves her hand over the bowl of soup and takes a deep breath. “There’s nothing better than the smell of leeks. Guess leeks are one thing I’m thankful for. But I’m most thankful for you coming into my life, December.”
“You’re not just saying that because it’s Thanksgiving, are you?”
“No, I mean it. I hope you can stay with me for a long time.”
“What’s ‘a long time’?”
“Guess forever would be a long time, right?”
“Yeah, it would be.” I reach for the butter. “Eleanor, what did you mean by ‘some things can’t be put back together’?”
Eleanor sets her fork down and reaches into her back pocket. She takes a deep breath before holding up a picture.
The picture has white lines in a few places where it’s been folded, and the color is faded, just like the one I carry of my mom. The girl in the photograph is younger than me, maybe the same age I was when I got the scar on my back. She’s sitting on a bike, one hand gripping a handlebar, the other giving a thumbs-up sign.
She looks like Eleanor, her smile, the way she’s squinting her eyes.
“That was my daughter.” Eleanor places the picture in the middle of the table, leaning it against Teresa.
“It was a long time after she was gone that I could look at that picture.” Eleanor’s voice is almost a whisper. “It brought back too much sadness. But now, I look at it and I’m reminded of Sarah’s smile, and how much she loved that bike. The past is tricky; you want to hold on to it, but you have to hold it at a distance, too, so you can see it clearly.”
“What happened to her?”
“She got very sick.” Eleanor holds a spoon and stares at her soup. Her eyes are watery.
She’s lost someone, too. Someone she loved.
“Well,” I say, changing the subject because I don’t want Eleanor to cry, “I’m thankful we’re not eating a turkey for Thanksgiving, because turkeys are incredible birds. Do you know turkeys have great geography skills? I read they can remember details of a piece of land as big as a thousand acres. That’s a pretty big space for a turkey.”
Eleanor closes her eyes as she takes her first sip of soup. It must taste good. I look down into my bowl. Even though staying here would make me happy, I know it won’t be forever. I can’t get used to warm soup. It’ll just be something good that I’ll have to leave behind.
“A lot of people think turkeys are flightless birds, and the ones that are raised to eat are, because they’re too heavy. But wild turkeys can fly. Many domesticated birds, like the chicken and the duck, can’t, but their ancestors were able to fly for long periods of time. Humans turned them into flightless birds. I think we should start a program where we take any flightless birds to the rehabilitation center and teach them to fly again.”
Eleanor smiles. “Teaching them to levitate might be easier.”
“True.” I laugh, and the force of my breath makes ripples on the soup’s surface. Laughing doesn’t feel as strange anymore.
Eleanor pulls apart a piece of bread, dipping it in her soup. “And if you were a turkey, where in the world would you want to know in such detail?”
“I’d have to think about that.” I copy Eleanor and dip a piece of bread in my soup. I stick out my tongue and touch the tip of it to the soggy part of the bread. I taste salt, just like when I eat sunflower seeds.
“You don’t have to try it.” Eleanor takes her bowl back to the stove and refills it. “I’d like you to like it enough to have some, but if you don’t, you don’t have to eat it.”
I set the bread on a napkin. “Happy Thanksgiving, Eleanor.”
“You, too, December.”
After dinner, Eleanor comes back from her shed with a tube of superglue. “This is all we need to fix … What’s her name?”
“Teresa.” I lean over the counter, ready to watch Eleanor glue the eye, beak, and talon back on the stuffed great horned owl.
Giving the superglue to me, Eleanor says, “Well, you broke it, so you have to fix it,” but not in a mean way.
I squeeze a dab of glue onto the back of Teresa’s eye. “I think the place would be Antarctica. That’s the place I’d choose to know in detail, a place I’d know so well I wouldn’t have to think about where I am.”
“Antarctica?” Eleanor presses the eye in place. “Too cold for me.”
“Cold is the point.” I pick up Teresa’s beak. “If I can learn to navigate my way around a place like Antarctica, anywhere else would be easy.”
“Hmm … Maybe.”
“What about you? Where would you pick?” I hold Teresa’s beak against her face. “This house?”
Eleanor shakes her head and gives me the talon, the last broken piece. “It probably wouldn’t be a country, a town or city. It wouldn’t be
a house, either. I prefer getting to know people. It’s a lot like getting to know a place, except instead of streets, or buildings, or different landmarks, you get to know expressions, their tone of voice when they’re feeling happy, whether they like to sing or like to just listen.”
I lay Teresa on her side so the glue can dry on her talon. “I already know a piece of geography about Eleanor Thomas.”
“Okay.” Eleanor raises her eyebrows, curious. “Let me hear it.”
“Well, I know you snore, but it’s soft, and as far as I know never gets loud enough to be annoying. You always seem to have dirt under your fingernails.” I point to Eleanor’s hands. “And because it’s always there, I’m guessing you don’t care. And, you sing. A lot. But, for the most part, you sing the same song. So, even though you probably like singing, it’s the song you like more.”
Tears fill Eleanor’s eyes again, but not one drops. She wipes them away before they have a chance. “Now it’s my turn. Let’s see. When you eat sunflower seeds, you crack the shell open, then put the whole seed in your mouth, then spit out the shell. You stick your thumbs under the straps of your backpack when you walk to your classroom. The time you told me you never get cold, the tip of your nose and your cheeks were red.”
Eleanor wraps her hands around mine. “And, you smile a lot more than you think you do.”
“Do you believe Saint Teresa of Ávila really was able to levitate?”
“I have no idea. Here’s what I do know—I don’t think it matters all that much.”
I pull my hands out from Eleanor’s. “It matters a little, though.”
“Why?”
“Because it means the impossible is possible.”
Eleanor just nods, and caresses my cheek. “Guess it does,” she says.
18
The first rain of December fills the birdbaths. The water is frozen this morning. I press my finger against the ice, draw zigzags, circles, write my name.
Extraordinary Birds Page 10
