Orwell's Luck (7 page)

For the first time in recent days, Orwell seemed interested in what I had to say, so I continued.

"You know what I wish? I wish there were a month that had only regular days in it. No holidays. No anniversaries. Nothing requiring the purchase of a card or a gift or the singing of memorized songs. Just plain days where all anybody is expected to do is appreciate the day simply for itself. A month filled with perfectly ordinary days!"

Orwell switched his ears back and forth.

"That would be special!" I said.

Orwell resumed publishing with these words:

BETWEEN RABBIT AND GIRL
LITTLE DIFFERENCE EXISTS.

As I got dressed for church, I "hmmmed" my customary quizzical response and bounced the thought to the back of my brain like a basketball ricocheting off a backboard.

My church is mostly shades of brown. Even so, the parts and pieces do not match. The walls are made of painted concrete blocks whose chestnut color subtly clashes with the cream brown tiles on the floor. All the woods are different, too. The beams and trusses come from evergreens, I think, while the cross is made of walnut. A member of the congregation who's a cabinetmaker crafted the pulpit and the lectern out of birch. The four long rows of wood-stained pews, purchased from another church, were once oak trees in a distant forest.

As churches go, this one is new, founded in that rabbity year when I was born, but the music that we sing goes back three or four hundred years and the words that we call Scripture go back thousands.

Many times when I sit in church I wish that I were someplace else. Playing basketball. Taking a walk. Working on a project at home. This Sunday, however, I found it restful to sit and think while the words and the music from the front of the room washed over me like waves making their offering to the beach.

What I was thinking about was the mystery of Orwell.
Why had he come? What was the source of his magic? What did he want me to do?
The answers seemed far beyond the reach of my detective skills.

And with his operation just around the corner, I was worried, too, about Orwell making it.

This Sunday the minister didn't talk about sports. Instead, his subject was healing.

"For most of what ails us," he announced with great authority in his clear, deep voice, "the best medicine is a dose of love. And if that doesn't work, double the dose!"

I didn't know what else I could do to show my love for Orwell. Already, he had more food than he could eat. His hideout was as nice a place as any rabbit could reasonably expect. Taking him outside again didn't seem like such a good idea. With my grandmother's help, he was going to have a chance at walking, although that chance could turn out to be like your chances for winning the lottery. What could I do that I wasn't already doing?

Somehow Orwell knew of my concerns, for in my horoscope the next day, I deciphered these words:

LOVING ACTIONS MUST START
WITH LOVING THOUGHTS.

When I did my homework in his room that night, I told Orwell that even though I hadn't figured out exactly what was going on, I was glad that I was the one who'd found him and not someone else.

Orwell replied in the morning with this:

THE GREATEST GIFT WE GIVE IS OURSELVES.

This news made me feel closer to Orwell than ever. That's when I came up with an idea for what to do for him before his operation.

Announcing myself that night with our secret
tap-tap-tap-ta-tap,
I entered Orwell's room carrying a hard black case that when stood on its end came all the way up to my chin. The instrument inside, made of polished brass and shiny chrome, was in three pieces, each nestled in a fitted velvet valley.

I removed the short mouthpiece, the long slide section, and the bell section, whose flashy end was as big as a dinner plate. As the rabbit watched me from the tub, I put the pieces together and stood before him bearing the grand and unmistakable shape of the most-prized instrument of every band.

"
Ta-da!
" I said to Orwell, presenting my trombone.

He responded,
Tap-tap-tap-ta-tap!

Carefully, lest the strange new sound disturb his sensitive rabbit ears, I put my lips together and pushed out a single note, a brief musical belch, to introduce the trombone's throaty tone. As I had hoped, his eyes expressed not fear, but interest.

The only piece I knew by heart was "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." It seemed appropriate since I considered naming him Star so many weeks before. At any rate, it would have to do.

Without further delay, I began the concert for Orwell.

Some people think that you just blow on a trombone and music comes out the other end. Not so.

The music must first be created by your lips. The trombone amplifies and modifies the sound, just as a hammer amplifies and directs the blows your arm delivers. It is truly all in the lips.

When I press my lips tightly together and blow with a sort of buzzing sound as hard as I can, the sound that I produce is high in pitch. When I relax my lips just slightly, and reduce the effort with which I blow, the sound is lower. I use the slide on the trombone to form each sound into just the note I want.

There are seven slide positions on the trombone. My arms are only able to reach numbers one through six, with the sixth position, where my arm is stretched as far as it can go, producing the lowest notes I can command.

There are a couple of places in "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" requiring the sixth position, so I had to slow down when I came to those notes, but except for this understandable and, I think, minor flaw, I played the tune quite well—so well, in fact, that I performed it that night for Orwell many times.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
The slide-controlled sound of fine-tuned brass plumbing bounced against the hard ceramic backboard of Orwell's tub and tile.

How I wonder what you are.

A false spring had accidentally summoned the crocuses. The eager little showoffs popped up weeks ahead of schedule. In the distance, above the rumble of cars and trucks thundering down the expressway, rose the twittering of hundreds of birds foolishly celebrating what they thought was the passing of winter.

From the elevation of the porch I surveyed the lawn, looking for that familiar white bundle that holds the news. This was the day of Orwell's operation. If ever a horoscope mattered, it was now.

I saw a paper in my next-door neighbor's driveway, and another in the driveway after that, and still more farther down the street. I saw one lying in the yard across the street and another at the house next door to it. But I did not see a paper in my yard.

I searched behind the tree and underneath the car. I looked in the bushes and even on the roof.

There was no paper. It had not been delivered to my house.

"Rats!" I said. "
C'est dommage!
"

With my father working on the house and my grandmother attending the sale at the department store at the mall, it was my mother who drove Orwell and me to the new veterinarian's office. She provided the alarming explanation en route.

"Your father has canceled the newspaper," she said, waiting for the light to change at an intersection as wide as a river. "He's trying to save us money."

"But I depend on the paper!" I cried.

"There's always the TV," she suggested. "Or the radio."

"They're not the same," I said.

"Well, we're all having to make sacrifices right now."

I did not wish to argue with my mother, but my father's frugal decision didn't make sense. The savings from canceling the paper couldn't be more than a few dollars. The information it had been bringing me was priceless.

At the corner of the vast and crowded intersection was an apartment complex whose big brick buildings stood in rows like brass bands in a parade. As my eyes automatically searched for something interesting to help them pass the time, they landed on what appeared to be an inverted mop in motion, a vaguely familiar object that I was startled to realize was the tousle-headed boy himself, leaving an apartment!

He was dressed in blue jeans, white tennis shoes, and a pale yellow shirt that reminded me of spring flowers. His light brown hair flew wildly as he walked toward the minivan I'd seen him get into once before.

"So that's where he lives!" I said softly.

"Where who lives?" my mother asked.

"Oh, just somebody from school," I sighed, remembering how badly I'd monkeyed up my French.

"I lived in a place like that nearly my whole life," my mother said.

"You did?"

"Uh-huh. In fact, until your father and I got married, I had never lived in a real house at all," she confided.

"Oh," I said.

"My house means a lot to me," she continued. "I don't take it for granted."

"And now you've got a rabbit living in it," I said apologetically.

"Well," she smiled, "as rabbits go, he's a pretty nice one."

It's a funny thing about parents. You think you know them pretty well and then one day they let something slip and you see them in a brand-new light.

Because of school, I couldn't stay with Orwell during his operation. The new veterinarian advised against it anyway.

"We'll call you as soon as we're sure of his condition," he promised.

There was nothing left to do but hurry to school, put my brain on "worry," and offer up a prayer.

"Please, God," I said, entering the familiar broccoli-smelling building as the last bell of the morning echoed down the hall. "Please look after your rabbit. Thank you."

That day was the longest day of my life. Math class went on into infinity. In history, the teacher tediously traced the entire Lewis and Clark expedition to the edge of the American continent and back again. Even P.E., normally a welcome break for me, ran in slow motion. Basketballs thrown into the air took forever to fall into the net, like pancake crumbs drifting down through syrup.

By afternoon the false spring had faded. The wind rose. The temperature fell. And still the day crawled on.

Never have I felt so helpless.

Never have I felt so trapped.

When I finally did get home, there was still no news about Orwell. I fixed a snack and turned on the TV, but even the world's greatest mind-numbing machine failed to work on my worried brain. I couldn't stand to wait any longer. I reached for the phone, and just as I did, it rang.

"Your rabbit is a lot tougher than he looks," the new veterinarian said, although I had trouble hearing him over the pounding of my heart. "He's been through a lot these past few weeks. It took a little longer to piece him back together than I'd originally thought."

"Is he alive?" I gasped, my first exhale since picking up the phone.

"Oh, yes, but he's sleeping, of course. He did pretty well, I think, but it will take some time to know if he'll recover all his motor functions."

"You fixed his motor?"

The new veterinarian laughed. "Actually, I wish it were that simple. Your rabbit sustained a moderately severe spinal injury and that's sometimes worse than it sounds, but he's survived being reassembled, minus a faulty part or two, so that's a good sign. From here on out, it's up to him and Mother Nature."

The new veterinarian said that if Orwell didn't take a turn for the worse, he might be able to come home in a few days.

After I hung up the phone, I just stood there breathing.

"
Merci,
" I said to my grandmother and all of her connections. "
Merci
" I said to God.

Mother Nature, it seems, has trouble making up her mind. That night it snowed. Fat, fluffy flakes drifted down from salt-shaker clouds.

My grandmother, remembering my earlier request, brought me a pillow she'd picked up on sale at the department store at the mall. It was something of a snowflake itself, big, round, and soft—almost too fat for its pillowcase. When I lay my head down on it, it wrapped itself around my ears, softening the sounds from other rooms.

Because of it, I dreamed a brand-new dream that night. One that was rich, colorful, and strange. I dreamed that I was an explorer leading an expedition into a vast and rugged land where no English-speaking person had dared set foot before. With me were two companions, Orwell, my faithful rabbit, and the tousle-haired boy from school.

The boy served as my interpreter, since the native people we encountered spoke nothing but French and I found spoken French to be as foreign as Chinese. What we were searching for was never clear to me. Dreams have a way of keeping secrets from the dreamer. But I remember well the feelings that I felt. One of these was that I'd known the tousle-haired boy all my life.

"How can you understand what these people are saying?" I asked him.

"It helps if you let them keep talking," he replied. "Most people just interrupt."

"And what are they saying now?" I asked him.

"They say we should follow the river."

"But which way?" I asked. "This is where the river divides!"

"They say you should follow the one that lies closest to your heart," he answered.

"That's easy," I said, remembering what I'd learned in science class about the placement of the major organs. "We will take the fork on the left," I announced.

It was then that I dreamed that Orwell spoke, even though his mouth never moved beyond an isolated twitch, and he never uttered a sound before or since. Somehow, though, I'm pretty sure, it was Orwell who pronounced these seven dream words to me that night:

"Not
so fast. See it another way.
"

Habit rules when the brain does not. The next morning, I was outside in the snow searching in vain for a snow-colored newspaper when I suddenly remembered that it wasn't coming anymore. I stretched my arms, breathed in the cold, crisp, diesel-scented air and looked around again, just in case.