Firebirds Soaring (38 page)

“Leave him alone.”

She starts turning red. Looks at me with that wild-eyed look. She’s never hit me but she often looks as if she will.

“No, no, just for a little while. He’ll be back with us soon as we settle in.”

Bill got discovered. By that man in the house. All because of a stray dog. How could he? One more mouth to feed. One more thing to keep secret besides himself. Only he didn’t. I suppose he wanted . . . needed . . . company. He’s never been alone before. But it sounds like it came out all right. At least so far.

 

Bill and I weren’t going to meet until four o’clock. I got myself a job right away. Five to seven, three weekdays and helping out on Saturdays and Sundays if I want to. An after-school kind of job. They said I had to be sixteen, and I said I was and got away with it even though I don’t have breasts. It’s in the arts-and-crafts gallery, doing everything: cleaning, keeping records, hanging pictures for when the shows change, putting up posters, running for coffee. . . .

I went first to the place where I’d like to work best of all and I got the job. (Second was going to be the library.) They’re going to let me sit in on their evening classes for nothing. They have everything, from knitting to Tai Chi to painting. I wonder if they’d let Mother teach French there. I wonder if she would. Except I’m not sure I want anybody here to get to know Mother.

 

So then I pretend I have to go off to school. I wander around town, kind of looking for a job for Mother and trying to watch out for where she is.

At four I go meet Bill (he already went back and got the dog so I could meet him) and he tells me about getting discovered. He actually sounds happy about it. I guess I don’t because he says, “Hey, don’t you get all crazy, too. If you want to meet him and talk to him, his office is upstairs over the barbershop. He made me a big breakfast. He fed my dog, too. Matt . . . Mathew. Not the dog. I named the dog Spider.”

It’s a funny little dog. Kind of looks like his name. Skinny, mostly white—dirty white—with black and brown spots. Bill is dirtier than ever, too. I suppose from sleeping with the dog. I should have brought him the T-shirt Mother washed.

“Did you go to school looking like this? What did you do with the dog?”

“The man . . . Matt . . . said it was okay to leave him in the house. Matt has a big jar of water and left some for the dog. I guess I should have washed but I didn’t want to ask Matt for some more. He doesn’t have much. I told him we were hiking with our father.”

Father again.

Suddenly I start to cry. For no reason. Everything is working out fine. I don’t ever let Bill see me crying. I think somebody in his life should at least
seem
competent. It scares him. He turns away and starts to pet the dog, but the dog comes over to me and licks my arm. I guess it is kind of nice to have a dog.

I say, “Sorry, I must be tired.”

“’K.”

I was afraid one of these days I’d start to cry and never stop, but I do stop. It only takes a few minutes.

“What’s Matt’s last name?”

“I forget. It’s hard.”

“I’ll bring you some clean clothes. Don’t come down to the pond to wash. Mother might be there. Wash at school next time. Did you eat?”

He says yes, but I give him some of Mother’s cheese and chicken anyway.

He says, “Tomorrow we could meet earlier, maybe back on the trail behind the house.”

“Aren’t you going to school?”

“You silly, it’s Saturday.”

I forgot there would be Saturday and Sunday. I forgot it even though I have a Saturday and Sunday job.

“Tell you what, meet me where I work, but try to get cleaned up first. They might even let you do some work, too.”

Then I go to find the man. If he was nice to Bill he may really be a good person, but I want to check.

Upstairs over the barbershop, it’s full of offices. Like at the school, you can look in the little windows in the doors and see who’s there.

There’s only one man who looks like the right one: thin, dark suit, glasses, long nose. . . . It says KARPINSKY on the door. He’s younger than I thought he’d be. Even though he’s balding.

I watch him at his computer for a couple of minutes, but then he looks up and sees me staring at him. He looks right into my eyes. Right inside me. Suddenly I don’t know what to do. I wouldn’t know what to say. I run down the stairs and then all the way down the block. Two blocks. I wasn’t ready. Besides, I don’t want to lie about our father being with us. I wish Bill wouldn’t keep saying that.

 

When I come back, Mother has built a campfire behind the shed and . . . my God . . . she’s cooking a duck. Right out in the open. The head and the feathers are in a pile just inside the shed door.

“Mother! This has got to be against the law.”

“Pooh. This is for Guillaume.”

It smells so good I hope she gets away with it.

“He’s not even here.”

“Well, then, you’ll take some to him.”

“Mother!”

I squat down beside her. “Did you at least look for a job? The grocery store would be a good place to work. You could get food for less or maybe nothing.”

“I don’t do that kind of work.”

There’s no use talking. It would just be the same conversation over again.

We have a good supper. She also roasted potatoes in the coals.

She wraps up the leftovers in a plastic bag and hangs them over the edge of the pond to keep cool.

Saturday, just as I figured, Bill and I both get to work at the gallery. They don’t even mind having the dog there. One good thing, though—they sent Bill to the back alley and had him give the dog a bath. And Matt Karpinsky has given Bill another nice breakfast. Bill says, “Pancakes. Because it’s Saturday. Matt asked a lot of questions about you.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you’re really a princess and really a dummy. That you forgot there was such a thing as Saturday.”

I give him a fake punch. Actually a little harder than I meant it, and he gives me one back just like it.

“Did he say why he’s camping out in that house?”

“Same as me. To have a nice place to be.”

“I hope you didn’t tell him a long story about your father.”

He shrugs. Should a prince shrug so much?

He has homework. He says he’s even doing stuff for extra credit. How nice to see him sitting in the back office of the gallery doing his schoolwork, his leg twisted around the chair leg, and the dog at his feet. I bring him a glass of cider and he smiles up at me. I think, what long eyelashes, and how like a prince he looks, even with that bad haircut, even with his torn and too-small jeans. Maybe things really will work out.

. . . and they do. For a while.

And even though Mother keeps killing ducks. Each time she does, she invites Bill for dinner. I say he won’t come, but she says, Ask him anyway.

“Will you call him Bill?”

But she won’t. She never will.

I don’t know what Mother is doing during the day. I know she’s seldom at the shed. I keep imagining ridiculous things, like that she’s busy making handcuffs and chains for Bill.

Actually, I don’t think anybody will give Mother a job looking like this. Lately she’s messier than ever. Not having Bill around upsets her. If she tried to comb her hair I’ll bet the comb would get stuck, or even lost forever. I’d cut it for her, but I don’t dare suggest it. I wonder if she’s doing it on purpose so as not to get hired.

There’s a secondhand store here, and I get Bill a pair of jeans for fifty cents. Unlike other boys might, he doesn’t mind that they’re much too big. I get him a red T-shirt with black ants crawling all over the front. It’s hardly worn at all. I knew he’d like it.

Since we’re not heading south, we’ll need some blankets pretty soon. Our sleeping bags won’t be enough. It sometimes gets pretty cold in these hills.

I’m still not going to school. I’m worried that if I try to go, it might get Bill kicked out. It’s one thing for a ten-year-old to suddenly appear in school and another for somebody my age. Besides, that teacher is doing something not every teacher would. I’m sure she’s breaking rules. I don’t want to get her in trouble, too.

These days I sleep late, wander around, gather firewood for Mother, gather bugs for Bill, study at the library, then go to work at five and take classes at the gallery in the evening. I get the cheese and crackers and wine and cider for the openings of the art shows and programs. I eat a lot of that myself. I’m having fun . . . sort of . . . but I wish I was going to school.

Bill is the only one getting everything he wants. He meets me at the gallery, does a little work, and then does his homework. He’s also found the bug books in the library. Matt makes him breakfast every morning, and he gets lunch at school. I’m sure the lunch is because of that teacher.

The offices over the barber shop are practically across the street from the gallery. I see Matt lots of times. When I do, I go around the corner fast or hurry into a shop. I don’t know what Bill has been telling him—especially about having a father. I wouldn’t know what to say. Besides, there’s that time he looked right inside me.

And it’s as if I want somebody to take care of us (instead of me) and I’ve picked him to be the one. He’s a little young for that. Looks to be—even though his forehead is almost all the way up to the top of his head—hardly even thirty.

But one afternoon he comes to the gallery when I’m doing the photography class . . . without a camera, of course. (I’ll take any class that’s handy.)

He insists on taking me out to the backyard of the gallery for a talk.

First thing he says: “You’re avoiding me, aren’t you.”

I’m completely tongue-tied. How can I say anything when I’ve no idea what Bill has been saying? Except that it’s all lies.

“Where’s this father of yours? Really? Why isn’t he looking after you?”

I’m staring right into the eyes of the man I want to turn everything over to—our whole lives—and I don’t even know him. My heart is beating so hard I wonder if I’m going to faint. I feel myself blushing because of my crazy thoughts.

And here he is, showing concern. That scares me even more. I have to sit down.

But he sees that. He takes my arm and pulls me down to the big stones that are supposed to keep cars from coming through the alleyway behind the gallery. He makes me sit on one.

“Should I get you some water?”

“We don’t have a father.”

 

But we hear fire engines and police cars rushing past just beyond the alley—heading toward the school. We stare up at each other. I say, “It’s Mother.”

Then I say, “Or it’s Bill.”

He grabs my hand and we follow the sirens.

It
is
Bill—and Mother, too. I had a feeling she couldn’t put up with settling down, and who would give such a person a job anyway? And then there were all these days she had to try and get along without Bill.

There’s a three-story building across the street from the school and there’s my brother, walking up to the peak of the slanted roof, fearless as he always is. Is that like a prince or more like a roofer? On the sidewalk below him, Mother is yelling, but it’s hard to make out what the words are. Her knapsack is lying beyond her, all packed up and ready to go. Mine isn’t there this time. It looks like she came to the school to pick him up and leave without me. Half the students are outside watching, and the other half are watching out the classroom windows. Firemen are setting up their ladder to go and get Bill. Cops are milling around and keeping the kids out of the way but mostly joking. Everybody seems to be having a good time except Mother.

She looks crazier than ever. Her clothes look slept in, but that’s no surprise. Except she used to try to look neat. Not lately, though. Bill’s dog is barking and snarling up at her until she kicks him away. He squeals and trots over to Matt and me. Two cops are trying to keep Mother from climbing up the side of the building, which she can’t do, anyway. They’re yelling, too: “Calm down! Calm down!”

She does—sort of. Enough so you can understand what she’s saying. “My son. Guillaume. I want him back. He’s not like other children. He has to be with me.”

Usually she doesn’t get into one of her talking jags in front of strangers, but now she does.

“He’s special. He’s different. This school is just an ordinary school.
Ordinary!
For
ordinary
people.” She looks straight at one of the cops. “Like you,” she says.

The cops are good at this. They know better than to contradict her. “Okay, okay. We know. We’ll get him back.”

She seems a little calmer so they let go of her, but she lunges at them and scratches their faces and then tries to climb up the brick wall of the house again.

Finally they bring Bill down. He keeps saying, “I won’t not go to school.”

“It’s the law, son. You’ll get to go.”

I guess it’s a good thing Mother won’t stop fighting the cops. That makes it so they haul her off before she can cause any more problems. She yells the whole time and uses bad language, too. She’s never done that before that I know of. She’s always into keeping her dignity in front of other people no matter what—that “noblesse oblige” she always talks about. It’s always, “
Gens comme nous
. . . We”—emphasis on the
We
—“don’t say things like that.”