Friends of a Feather (5 page)

O
ne good thing about Lexie is that she taught me how to tiptoe while I'm wearing sneakers. The trick is to tiptoe
inside
my sneakers. Most people try to put their shoes down quietly, but the real way is to put your toes down quietly
inside your shoes
, and that makes your shoes go down quietly, too.

Joseph is also good at tiptoeing.

We approach the trash can from opposite directions. Animals know you're creeping up on them if you're obvious about it, so I gaze at the blue sky and think thoughts like,
Hello, blue sky. What a pretty color. And look! The sun's starting to set! Good job, sun.

I think these thoughts loudly. My footsteps are quiet, and my thoughts are loud, and this way the birds can go about their business without having the bird-thought of,
Yikes! Big thing coming! FLY!

We close in on the brown bird. We are so amazingly sneaky until a crow flaps its wings and caws, right in Joseph's face.

“Ahhhh!” Joseph cries.

The birds fly away in one big mass, and there goes our sneakiness. We burst out laughing, even though I'm sure we've scared every last bird away.

“Custard!” I say.

“Wait,” Joseph says. “Look. Over there.”

I scan the ground. The brown bird
isn't
gone. He's just hiding behind the trash can. We move slowly toward him, and he hops as fast as he can. He
tries
to fly, but his wings don't work right.

Still, he's quicker than I am, because when I lunge for him, my hands close on empty air.

“Almost!” Joseph says.

“Try again,” I say.

We circle the bird. He
definitely
can't fly, or he'd be gone already.

“We're not going to hurt you, bird,” I tell him, since our cover has already been blown. I bet he's scared with the two of us looming over him. I don't want him to be.

“Boys?” Mom calls. She has one hand on Baby Maggie's car seat and the other on her phone, which she's holding to her chest. “What are you two up to?”

Mothers are like birds. It's better, sometimes, if they don't know exactly what you're thinking.

“Just playing,” I say, which is true. We're having fun, and that counts as playing. There's no need to say, “And the game we are playing is called Let's Catch a Bird.”

“All right, well, I'm chatting with your aunt Lucy,” Mom tells us.

Her remark might seem random, but it's not. Mom has her own Mom-language, just like the birds have bird-language and Joseph and I have boy-language.

I'm pretty good at Mom-language, though. What she's really saying is,
So please let me
keep
chatting, because I don't get the chance to talk to Aunt Lucy nearly enough. Life is so busy! And plus, Baby Maggie! So stay out of trouble and let me have a few minutes to myself. Will you do that for me, boys?

I give her a thumbs-up. “Tell her ‘hi' for me!”

Mom smiles. She puts her phone back to her ear and I hear her say, “Luce? I'm back. Now about this Sam guy . . .”

The birds that flew away are beginning to return. They pick at the leftovers in the trash can, but they make sure to keep an eye on me and Joseph.

“Sure is a nice night,” I say casually. “Don't you think?”

“Huh?” Joseph says.

“And the sunset—isn't it beautiful?” From the side of my mouth, I say, “Play it cool. Don't let the crows make you go, ‘Ahhhhh!' again.”

“I didn't mean to the first time.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying.” I hook my thumbs through my belt loops and bounce lightly on the balls of my feet.
La la la, just out for a stroll
.

In my casual, talking-about-the-sunset tone, I say, “You walk toward me, and I'll walk toward you. If we keep Fernando between us, then he can't get away.”

“Fer
nan
do?”

“Don't. Laugh. Didn't we just cover this?”

“Fernando,” Joseph states.

“Yes. Fernando. Now come on.”

I step toward Fernando. His sugar eyes blink, and he hops toward Joseph. Joseph steps closer, and Fernando hops back toward me. He chirps, and Joseph and I look at each other. We grin.

Fernando hops back again and lands on my toe.
Eeek
! Fernando is on my toe! Joseph drops to his knees. His hands fly out and close around Fernando, and . . . omigosh! He has him! Joseph has Fernando!!!

“You did it!” I cry.

“I did!” Joseph says.

“You caught a bird, a real live bird! And Joseph, that is
way
cooler than burping!”

Joseph is so surprised by this news that his hands fall open and Fernando drops to the ground. He lands on the concrete with a
splumph
.

Joseph and I suck in our breath.

“
IS HE DEAD
?” Joseph asks in a too-loud whisper.

“
I DON'T KNOW
!” I loud-whisper back.

Joseph gulps. “Fernando?”

I squat and say, “Please be alive. Okay, Fernando? Please?”

Fernando twitches.

I hold perfectly still.

Fernando does a full-body quiver, and just like that he's back on his feet and hopping away in his extremely fast-hopping way.

“CATCH HIM!” Joseph and I yell.

It's a mad scramble. Joseph's elbow hits my eye, and my knee hits Joseph's shin. Then my knee lands on the asphalt—
ow
!—and it occurs to me in a far back part of my mind that I'll have another bruise, and possibly a nice bloody scrape.

Fernando hops and chirps—

And Joseph and I lunge and grab—

And this time
I
catch him. Fernando, not Joseph. His body is warm. His heart goes
drub-drub-drub-drub-drub
beneath my fingers.

My heart races, too, because . . . a bird! My very own bird! He flutters against my cupped hands, feathers and feet and a tiny sharp beak. It tickles. I'm suddenly afraid that
I
might drop him.

“Can I borrow your hat?” I ask Joseph.

“Why?”

“To put Fernando in, and also . . .” I glance at Mom, who's still on the phone. She's holding on to Baby Maggie's foot and laughing at whatever Aunt Lucy is saying. She's not paying attention to Joseph and me at all.

“Well, just in case,” I say. “Only until I get Fernando home. Then I'll find someplace better.”

“But you're dropping me off first.”

“So?”

“So if Fernando is in my hat, I won't have it for tomorrow.”

“So?”

Joseph looks away. He's either frustrated or embarrassed or both, and I'm pretty sure I know why. I want to tell him he doesn't need a hat, and that he can be bald or partway bald or not at all bald. Whatever he wants.

Instead, I say, “It's so soft and comfy-looking.”

Joseph fingers the edge of his hat. I stay quiet.

He tugs it off and hands it to me. “Oh, fine.”

I ease Fernando into Joseph's hat, and my heart swells. He's so tiny and cute in there.

“Thanks,” I say.

Joseph rubs the back of his head. “You're welcome, but he
better
not poop in there.”

W
innie thinks we should call Fernando “Sugar Daddy” instead of Fernando. I tell her that's not going to happen.

Mom says, for the fourth or tenth time that
keeping
Fernando isn't going to happen, either. She's so sorry, blah blah blah, but it just isn't feasible, sweetie.

I bow my head and don't listen. Plus,
feasible
. What's feasible? What I want is pleasable.

“Ty . . .” Mom says.

I can feel her looking at Dad, who is on her side because that's what they always do. They
always
have to be on each other's side.

We're in the den, having a family conference. I'm on the couch, and Fernando is in a shoebox in my lap. Joseph's hat is in the shoebox, too, like a fuzzy red blanket. Fernando hasn't pooped
or
peed on it.

Winnie is sitting next to me. Sandra is sitting next to Winnie. Mom and Dad are standing by the fireplace, and Baby Maggie is in Dad's arms.

“Ty, bud, he's sick,” Dad says.

“So? That means we should be nice to him, not say, ‘Okay, and good-bye now.'”

“It's not that easy,” Dad says.

“Why not?”

“Because he's a bird. An outdoor bird, and we don't know how to help him get better.”

“We could call a bird doctor,” I say.

“We could,” Dad says carefully. “But I don't know any bird doctors.”

“
You could find one on the Internet. Or Mom could call Doctor Petty again,” I say.

Dr. Petty's the vet who takes care of Sweetie-Pie. Her name really is Dr. Petty, with the “pet” part right in there, and Mom called her once already. It was right after we got home. We came in from the garage, and Mom plonked her purse on the island and shifted Baby Maggie from one arm to the other. Then she glanced at me and noticed Joseph's hat.

She said, “Ty, isn't that Joseph's hat? Why do you have Joseph's hat . . . and why are you holding it like that?”

So I told her, and I
showed
her, and she should have been a polite mommy and said, “Why, hello, Fernando. How nice to meet you.”

Instead, she made a pained expression and gave a speech that started with, “Oh, sweetie,” and ended with me going
la la la
in my head because I didn't like what she was saying.

Then she dug her phone out of her purse and called Dr. Petty, only she reached a recording and not a real person. I heard Dr. Petty's faraway voice saying when the clinic was open and stuff like that, and then, at the end, “If this is an emergency, please call two-three-one-something-something-something.”

And it
was
an emergency! It still is! But Mom didn't call that other number. She just pressed the hang-up button and set her phone by her purse with a sigh.

From her spot in the den, Mom sighs again. “This is my fault. I'm sorry, Ty. I never should have said yes to keeping a bird in the first place.”

“But you did,” I say.

“She didn't think you'd actually catch one,” Dad replies.

A quivery feeling spreads over me. I'm so mad at him, and I'm so mad at Mom, too. Fernando is being a very small shape in the very corner of the box, and it doesn't make any sense but I'm mad at him, too. Couldn't he . . . perk up? Fluff his wing feathers and look around at everybody with his bright eyes?

Winnie runs her finger down Fernando's back.

“He's such a cutie,” she says. She places her whole hand over his body, gently, and holds it there. Does she feel his heart beating? Does she feel him breathing? “He
is
sick, though.”

“That's why you were able to catch him,” Sandra adds. “Well, but you know that already.”

Maybe I do, maybe I don't.

“What would you do if you did keep him?” Sandra goes on. “Keep him in that box? Do you think he would like that?”

“I'm not even sure he'd be that fun as a pet,” Winnie says. She moves her hand from Fernando's body to my knee. “I'm not saying that to be mean.”

I twitch my leg to get rid of her. She's being nice, because she's Winnie, but right now I'm trying not to cry, and niceness makes it worse.

“And what about Sweetie-Pie?” she says.

“What about Sweetie-Pie?”

“She's a cat. Cats like birds.”

“Cats like to
eat
birds,” Sandra says, in case I was too dumb to understand.

I hold the shoebox tighter. “We would keep him safe.”

“None of us has ever taken care of an outside bird, or any bird,” Mom says. “In your heart, I think you know that.”

A stupid tear runs down my cheek. A lot of stupid tears. Winnie hugs me, and I bury my head against her side.

“I made a mistake, Ty,” Mom says. “Grown-ups mess up, just like kids do.”

“But you shouldn't,” I say, my voice muffled by Winnie's shirt.

“But I did, and now my job is to figure out how to fix it. I hope you'll help.”

I peek at her and see Dad pull her close. He kisses the top of her head.

I peek at Fernando. He's still in the corner of the box, just . . . sitting there.

I take a shuddery breath. I push myself up from Winnie and drag the back of my arm over my eyes.

“Okay, but we can't just put him back outside,” I say. “How would
that
be helping him?”

“I agree,” Winnie says.

“Me too,” Sandra says. “I think you should call the emergency vet number, Mom.”

Mom starts to protest. I bet she's going to say she doesn't want to bother Dr. Petty or something dumb like that. Then Mom's expression changes. She nods and says, “You're right. I can do that. I can, and so I will.”

“Will you do it now?” I ask.

“Absolutely. I left my phone in the kitchen—I'll be right back.” She slips out of the den, closing the door behind her.

“I'm sorry you're sad, Ty,” Dad says. “Things don't always work out the way we want them to, do they?”

You think?
I want to say, but I don't since that would be smart-mouthing. But I know more about things not working out then he ever will.

When Mom comes back, she tells us that Dr. Petty's assistant, Sam, is willing to come pick Fernando up, and Sam and Dr. Petty will do all they can to get Fernando well. Mom also tells me that even though birds from nature should be left in nature, Dr. Petty said I probably saved Fernando's life by bringing him home.

That's good, I guess. I hold Fernando's box in my lap until Sam arrives. Then I pet him one last time and say, “Get better.” I don't want to be the one to give him to Sam, so I hand the box to Winnie, who takes him to the front door.

After I see Sam's car pull away, I go to my room. I lie on my bed. I think about birds and promises and things not going how they're supposed to, and then I call Joseph. I tell him everything that's happened.

“Oh,” he says. He pauses. “Well, it's good that we saved him.”

“Yeah.”

“And it's good that your vet can help him.”

“Yeah.”

We breathe.

“Baby Maggie still doesn't have a pet,” I say.

“Maybe when she's older, you can get her something,” he says.

“I know,” I say heavily. He's being kind about it, even though he sat next to Baby Maggie in Mom's car and saw that she really
is
a baby. Babies don't need pets. Babies don't know what pets are. I pretended Maggie wanted a pet, but it was me all along.

I swallow, needing to make some part of the day be worth it. “But catching him, that was fun.”

Joseph tries to help out by laughing. “Remember when that crow flew into your face and you went, ‘Ahhhh!'”

“That was you!” I say. “And then you jammed your elbow into my eye and practically made me blind?”

“You have two eyes. I only hit one, so you wouldn't have been
blind
.”

“You never know about me.”

“Um, yes I do.”

“You know what, though?”

“What?”

I grip the phone, because this is the important thing. The thing I need to make sure Joseph understands. “The reason we had so much fun is because it was
us
. Just me and you.”

“Well, your mom was there, and Baby Maggie.”

“You know what I mean.” I gather my courage. “At school, I sometimes feel like you get stolen from me.”

“Stolen?”

I speak quickly. “It's better when it's just us, that's all. So we should keep it that way, including at school. Deal?”

He's supposed to say, “Deal.”

He's
not
supposed to go silent.

“Don't you want to be my best friend?” I say.

“Yes!”

“Then what's the matter?”

More silence.

“Joseph?”

“Nothing's the matter,” he says. But there is, because he sounds sad, just like at Chipotle when he couldn't burp. When he asked if everyone thought he was weird.

Oh
.

Puzzle pieces come together in my mind.

Burping, knuckle-cracking, fractions. Not knowing about Lester. Things change and life goes on and it's not always easy, that's what Mom said, and I guess that's especially true for Joseph. I guess I haven't thought about that as much as I should have.

And Mr. Marconi, he's a whole 'nother piece of the puzzle because of how he's always trying to escape from the nursing home. He keeps trying to go back to the way his life used to be, but it's never going to happen.

And then . . . me. I'm a puzzle piece, too. Ever since Joseph came back to school, all I've wanted is for us to be best friends again, in the plain old Joseph-and-Ty way and without so many other people butting in.
That's
what I wanted Joseph to understand.
That's
what I wanted Joseph to agree with.

All of that is true. All of that makes up part of the picture. I think there's a puzzle piece I've been missing, though.

When Joseph was absent from school for all those months, the rest of us kept going. Then Joseph came back, and I guess things felt really different to him. I guess he felt like he missed out on a lot of stuff, which he did. I guess he felt left behind, which he kind of was.

For me, things felt different, too, but I was Mr. Marconi. I wanted to go back in time when all Joseph wanted was to go forward.

The earth spins, and I fall back against my pillow. Of course Joseph wants to go forward. It makes sense to me now, but I feel pretty stupid.

“Can I call you back?” I ask Joseph.

“Um . . . sure?”

“Okay, great. Bye.”

I push the end call button and hold the phone on my chest. I stare at the ceiling. I haven't done a great job of being Joseph's friend this week. Like how I felt left out because he was the sun and I was space junk. Whatever! I bet he never
felt
like the sun. I bet
he
even felt like space junk, sometimes!

It takes a while to straighten out my feelings inside me. But once I do, I lift the phone and punch in Joseph's number.

“I have an idea,” I say after he answers.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Do you want to know what it is?”

“Um, sure.”

“Both,” I say. “We could do both.”

“Huh?”

“What we were talking about! Sometimes it could be just you and me, but other times we could do stuff with everyone. Well, maybe not Taylor. Or maybe Taylor. We could decide on the day of.” I take a breath. “What do you think?”

I'm nervous, but Joseph doesn't make me wait for long.

“I think yes!” he says.

“Yay!”

I can hear how happy he is, and I'm happy, too. I feel happier than I've felt all week. And who knows? Playing with John and Chase and the others might be fun. It probably will be, with Joseph as part of the group.

Now that I've figured things out, I'm ready to move on.

“Are we going to tell Lexie about catching Fernando?” I ask.

“She'll never believe us,” Joseph says.

“If we both tell her, she'll have to.” My chest feels looser. I feel more like
me
. “I agree that she'll be all
nuh-uh
about it, though.”

“We need to figure out how to catch her unawares,” Joseph says.

“A bird ambush!” I say. “Only without birds!”

“‘No birds were harmed in this ambush,'” Joseph says in a TV commercial voice.

I laugh. I settle into the fort of pillows and stuffed animals on my bed and wiggle around till I'm good and comfortable. “So. What, exactly, is our plan?”