Dangerous Boy (3 page)

Logan won’t care, but I do. I shouldn’t be so irritated by something that stupid, but can’t things—for once—be simple and clean and perfect? Like they probably would be if Mom were still around and Dad noticed anything inside this house?

I guess Logan doesn’t notice or maybe he’s just too nice to say anything because the next thing out of his mouth is a compliment. “This is so good. It’s criminal that my uncle only buys decaf.”

I don’t tell him that my dad does, too. That I bought coffee especially for him. I wonder if he’d think it was silly or sweet, if he knew.

I decide on sweet. I slide back the stool and place my cereal bowl into the sink. It lands with a heavy clunk of ceramic on metal. “We should probably go. I don’t want to be late for politics and I need to run out to the barn to get lunch money from my dad.”

He follows me through to the back porch, which is littered with a dozen pairs of rubber boots. The screen door slaps shut
behind us as I walk across the gravel driveway, dodging mud puddles that never seem to dry up, except in August. Logan fires up the Jeep as I climb the cement stairs to the milking parlor.

I slide the wooden door sideways on its track, flecks of peeling gray paint sticking to my palm. The methodical pulsing noises of the equipment greet me as I step into the parlor. There aren’t any cows here yet, so the cement is washed clean, and I don’t have to dodge any cowpies.

My dad is in the pit, restocking the old, frayed washcloths that have already seen a hundred milkings. He smiles when he sees me, and I smile back without meaning to. It’s hard to be mad at him when he doesn’t disappear on purpose. He’s simply overwhelmed.

“Feed the calves?” he asks, meeting my eyes.

I look away, stare up at the chalkboard where a few cows’ three-digit identification numbers are listed. The cows on antibiotics, whose milk can’t go into the tank with the others’. “Yeah.” I get up before six in order to do a few chores before school. By the time Logan shows up, I’ve been up for an hour and a half. I’m always paranoid that by the time I climb into his Jeep, I smell like a cow. I mean, I take a shower and everything, but still. A guy like him can’t be used to farmyard smells. He’s too…perfect. Clean, crisp…

Amazing.

“I gave the wild-white on the end some sulfa. She didn’t look like she was doing too well,” I say, feeling awkward. My dad and I hardly talk these days.

He nods. “I’ll check on her when I’m done in here.”

“Cool. Can I get some lunch money?”

“Oh.” He blinks. “Yeah. Sorry. I meant to leave it on the counter.”

He digs into his pockets, producing a crumpled dollar bill and five quarters. Enough for a soda and the pizza pocket I get every day.

“Thanks, Dad.” I nod and turn on my heel. Years ago, just after my mom died, I might have tried to hug him, but not anymore. It only took a few wooden embraces for me to realize that he wasn’t going to try to fill my mom’s role as the resident family hugger. So for the last six years, we’ve kind of just kept to ourselves—him in the parlor or the barns or the fields, and me in the house, sticking his dinner in the fridge before I do my homework or go hang out with friends.

I climb the ladder at the end of the pit, and through the dingy window, I see Logan’s red Jeep rolling to a stop. It occurs to me that he really
gets
what it’s like to go without a parent. It’s one of those things he and I have in common. That we’re basically all alone family-wise. Only difference is that Logan lives with his uncle because
both
of his parents passed away. Then again, I live with a father who barely speaks to me about anything other than milking cows, so it’s almost the same thing.

I take another look at my dad’s bent form, sigh, and then shove the door shut behind me. The pulsating sound of the vacuum pump quickly dies out as I scurry to Logan’s Jeep. He’s waiting for me like the knight in shining armor that I
imagine him to be. I roll my shoulders, forcing all thoughts of my mottled family life from my mind, and climb into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind me.

We leave my driveway and head right, toward Enumclaw High School. Sitting alongside Logan immediately makes me feel more relaxed, calmer. He squeezes my hand.

Then suddenly he’s distracted.

“Look,” he says, pointing out the windshield. “What is that?”

I lean forward and look up, to where a lime-green aircraft is gliding above us. “It’s an ultralight.”

“A what?”

“They’re these super light airplanes. Up close it looks like a three-wheeled Go Kart attached to wings. There’s an airstrip down the street, so they fly over my house a lot.”

“That’s so cool,” Logan exclaims, the enthusiastic longing evident in his voice.

I snort. “If you have a death wish.”

Logan darts a glance at me, then stares back up at the airplane. “You think so? I’d love to fly in one of those someday.”

“No way,” I say, shaking my head quickly. “It’s on my list.”

“What is on what list?”

I feel my cheeks redden. “Uh, flying. It’s on my list of fears.”

Logan coasts to a halt at a stop sign and then turns to me. “You have a list of fears?”

I nod. “Um, yeah. I mean, sort of. Okay, yeah.” I cringe and turn away, watching the airplane high above us. Only I would
make a brand-new boyfriend think I was meant for the loony bin.

Oddly enough, though, Logan doesn’t seem fazed. He places his thumb against my cheek and gently shifts my gaze back to him. “How many things are on your list?” he asks tenderly.

“Ten.”

“And flying is?”

“Number ten.”

A car honks behind us, so Logan pulls away from the sign. “Are you going to tell me the rest?”

“No way,” I say. “I didn’t even mean to tell you that one. Allie and Adam know I’m a chicken, but they don’t know I have an actual
list.
You can’t tell anyone.”

“Hey,” Logan says, and I turn back to meet his eyes. “I won’t tell them. You can trust me.”

I swallow and nod, realizing I do. Trust him, that is.

“But you have to share the rest. How else am I supposed to be sure you confront all of your so-called fears?”

I shake my head. “It’s not a bucket list.”

“Well it should be. Any person who cares enough to keep track of the things that they’re afraid of obviously thinks about said things. Right?”

I give him a blank stare.

Logan takes this as his cue to continue. “Come on, Harper. Conquer your fears. Seize the moment. Carpe diem or whatever.”

I laugh. “You swear you won’t tell Adam or Allie? Or Bick? Adam already thinks I’m a wet blanket. And I don’t know
what Allie thinks. Probably the same thing.”

“She does not,” he says.

“I don’t know. She’s way more adventurous than me and doesn’t understand why I’m not into riding horses and stuff.”

Logan adjusts his rearview mirror. “It’s a deal, on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to tell me the rest of your list.”

I smile and, feeling more adventurous than I do ordinarily, decide there’s little harm in playing his game. I trace my finger down along his arm, letting my fingers tangle with his just long enough to give his hand a squeeze. Then I let go so he can shift gears. “Ask me tomorrow, and maybe I’ll tell you another one.”

He bursts into an ear-to-ear grin, excitement and satisfaction swirling in his eyes. Then he flicks a blinker on and turns on Cole Street, the main drag through town. “Fair enough.”

The base of my neck grows hot and tingles creep up my spine as I turn back toward the window in an attempt to maintain a calm and collected exterior, at least temporarily. I watch as we glide past our little town newspaper, the post office, antique shops, and a few modest mom-and-pop restaurants.

I’m still staring out the window, my mind wandering, when Logan abruptly hits the brakes. The tires screech on the concrete. I sit up straighter, peering out the windshield, to the view that has Logan dumbstruck.

Birds. Hundreds of them.

And they’re all dead.

L
ogan stares for a moment longer, then turns the Jeep and pulls into one of the last available parking stalls in the jam-packed gravel lot. We climb out, but we don’t step much farther than the front bumper of his car.

In the next lot—the cement one where all the seniors normally park—two janitors in coveralls drag a heavy, overflowing garbage can to the Dumpster. It takes both of them to lift it and tip it over. The bird corpses flow out in a river of feathers.

I gulp, swallowing the nausea welling at the gruesome sight. Logan places his arm around me, and I force myself to breathe as we stand there, side by side, staring and silent.

The janitors slide the empty garbage can back across the lot, pick up their shovels, and resume scooping up dead birds.

Suddenly, Logan finds his voice. “It’s not even one kind. It’s crows, pigeons, swallows. Everything.”

I shiver, and Logan reaches over, rubbing my arm as I stare
out at the carnage. The bodies litter the whole parking lot, dot the front lawn, sprawl across the cement pathways. Everywhere I look, another bird. The scraping sound of shovel-on-cement punctuates the silence.

I shield my eyes from the early morning sun and watch as one of the janitors scoops up another shovelful of birds, tossing them into the garbage can. Over and over, he scoops and tosses, but it’s hardly made a dent. Barely a third of the parking lot is cleared.

“There must be a thousand of them,” Logan says. I could be wrong, but I swear his voice wavers, just a bit.

I decide to ignore it. If he wants to put on a brave face for me, who am I to stop him?

“It’s too much….” He continues, trailing off. The birds have clearly upset him more than he wants to let on.

“I wonder what happened,” I say, my voice low. I clear my throat, feeling strangely shaky. They’re birds.
Just birds.

Logan steadies himself, then looks me in the eye. “It’s almost like what happened in Arkansas.”

“Huh?”

“Thirty minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve, a thousand birds dropped from the sky. Dead.”

A chill winds down my spine. “What was wrong with them?”

Logan glances at the grisly sight, then turns back to me just as quickly.

“They never figured it out.”

•   •   •

“Meet up with you in politics?” Logan asks as we step through the double doors of the school building. “I need to go to my locker.”

“Sure. See you in a few.” I duck into the girls’ bathroom, wanting a moment to blink away the vision of all those dead birds. I check beneath the stalls and am grateful to discover that they’re empty. I breathe a sigh of relief, then turn on the faucet and wash my hands, splashing the cold water over my face, happy I don’t wear mascara. I rub my eyes, then look at myself in the mirror. I really need to leave for class.

Suddenly, I imagine the sink filling up with feathers and dead birds dropping from the ceiling.
Not real, they’re not real
, I tell myself. I wouldn’t be this freaked out if it weren’t for the cow bones and the Peeping Tom and all the other horror-movie stuff that’s been happening.

Still, though, the memory of all those lifeless bodies taunts me. There wasn’t any blood or scattered feathers or anything. They just…landed there. Dead. Like their hearts all gave out at the same moment, spontaneously.

My own heart beats rapidly, feeling as if it’s going to explode out of my chest. I take deep breaths, in and out, and another image pops into my mind: Logan, silencing his own fears to be there for me, to be the boyfriend, the person, I needed. I force myself to focus on him, only him. My heart stills. Then my heavy breathing evens out.

I turn off the water.

After a quiet moment in the bathroom, I finally feel as if I’m ready to face the rest of the world. I go to my locker to
dump my math book. Balancing the book in one hand, I twist the lock with the other and, when I swing it open, a red rose tumbles out, landing on my feet.

It’s gorgeous, the crimson petals just beginning to bloom. I scoop it up and, taking a big breath of it, I feel all warm and fluttery. Logan didn’t need to go to his locker at all. He needed to go to
mine.

A black ribbon is looped around the stem at least a dozen times, and a small scrap of paper is tucked into it. I slide the paper out and unroll it.

Watch out for thorns.

Aw. That’s sort of sweet. Kind of weird, I guess, but sweet.

I take another sniff of it and then slide it back into my locker for safe keeping, slamming the door before walking to first period.

I plunk down next to Logan in my usual spot in the back row, turning toward him. “Thank you,” I say.