Birdspell Read online

  “The poor man.”

  “What, him?” I could hardly believe the biggest sourpuss of a neighbor we’ve ever had — and we’ve lived in a lot of places — was being described so sympathetically. In the few short weeks we’ve been here, Zinbendal’s long face has already gotten under Mom’s skin more than once.

  “Yes, of course,” Izelle said. “He looks so terribly unhappy.”

  “Yeah well —” I shrugged and shut up. Some thoughts are better left unfinished.

  “You were going to tell me why you have no furniture,” Izelle reminded me.

  “Sure,” I said. I closed the door so there’d be no further interruptions from Mr. Zinbendal and ushered her into the living room area. “These cushions are really comfortable — go ahead and try one.”

  Izelle positioned herself doubtfully over the larger of the two — an ugly orange and green pillow I scored for a quarter at a yard sale last summer. It had been marked two bucks but it hadn’t sold by late morning. That’s the best time to get bargains, because no one wants to lug a bunch of unsold stuff back inside.

  It’s not easy the first time you try to lower yourself onto a cushion when there’s nothing to hold onto. I tried to help by demonstrating a deep squat and a gentle backward flop, but ended up banging my head on the wall. That happens regularly.

  “Are you okay?” Izelle asked. She knelt on the floor and easily maneuvered herself onto her cushion. Without a head injury.

  “Fine,” I said. “So, anyway, about the decor. I need you to promise you won’t tell this to anyone else.”

  “I promise,” she said solemnly.

  “You’ve heard about people who were raised by wolves, right?” I said.

  Izelle blinked slowly. “I think those are just stories,” she said.

  “Oh, no. It’s rare, but it really happens.”

  Izelle said nothing.

  “See, my mother grew up in circumstances a bit like that. Years ago, there was a terrible family tragedy — she still can’t talk about it — and the only survivors were Mom and her grandmother. Because her grandma was old and blind, the children’s agency wanted to take my mom away from her. To keep that from happening, her grandma took her to live in the wild. They only survived because some of the animals in the area helped them. My mom lived there, far from civilization, up until the old woman died and was buried deep in the forest. But even after she made her way back to the city, Mom could never get used to all the trappings of everyday life. Like furniture.”

  Izelle’s eyes had grown rounder and rounder as I spoke. “Wow!” she said.

  I nodded gravely.

  Then she laughed.

  “Okay, so what’s the real reason?” she said.

  “Ha ha,” I said. “Thought I had you there for a minute. Okay, so the truth is we really are minimalists, only kind of in the extreme. My mom is an environmental fanatic. She’s always going on about reducing our carbon footprint and stuff like that. That’s the truth about why we live this way.”

  Three

  YEAH, OKAY, SO THAT second story was also a lie.

  I wasn’t about to tell Izelle how Mom gave up on furniture two years and three moves ago. That was when we moved from Green Lake Boulevard to Charles Street.

  We’d spent an hour or so lugging our personal and household stuff, most of which had been tossed into boxes. They were in pretty bad shape, our boxes. Sides beaten down, bent, and gouged from previous moves.

  Once everything had been shoved into the beat-up old van Mom had back then, I was anxious to get out of there. When you’ve been encouraged to leave a place and you’re reasonably sure the other tenants know it, standing around on the sidewalk doesn’t fill you with pride.

  “Where’s Mike anyway?” I asked.

  Mike has been around, off and on, for as long as I can remember. Besides my mom, he’s been the one fairly constant person in my life, no matter what part of the city we’ve been living in at any given time.

  Mike shows up for supper now and then, and sometimes hangs around for the evening. He and Mom have known each other pretty much all their lives because they grew up just a few houses apart, but that isn’t why they’re friends.

  Originally, Mike was best friends with Mom’s older brother George, an uncle I never met. George died in a bizarre factory accident when he was only twenty-seven and I think Mike is honoring their friendship by watching out for his buddy’s kid sister. That’s just a guess; I’ve never asked him.

  Compared to some of the other friends Mom has had over the years, Mike is pretty close to normal. Except maybe when he’s showing off some of the wooden figures he whittles. The last ones were supposed to be chess pieces, but I could barely tell them apart.

  Anyway, on that particular day, Mike was supposed to bring his truck to help us move the furniture.

  “He can’t make it,” Mom said.

  The way she said it, kind of defensive, told me they’d had an argument. That happens often enough and they always patch up the friendship, eventually. None of which was helpful at that moment.

  “Then how are we going to move the rest of our stuff?” I asked.

  “You know what, Corbin, I’ve been thinking. We’ve been prisoners without even realizing it, dragging all that stuff around from place to place. And what did it ever do for us?”

  What did our furniture ever do for us? Now that was an opening for backtalk if ever there was one, but it wasn’t the time for sass. I said nothing.

  “You want open concept? I’ll give you open concept,” Mom added. She tucked her red-at-the-time hair behind her ears and squared her shoulders.

  “I don’t want open concept,” I muttered, not too loud, but apparently loud enough.

  “I guess you like being a prisoner to things, then, do you?”

  Mom’s hands fluttered into the air, a sure sign she was winding up.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. I went around the van, got into the passenger seat, and shut the door. I stared straight ahead, even when Mom climbed in and pulled her door closed — harder than she needed to.

  “I’ll have you know that I have more than enough to deal with without you adding to my problems, Corbin.”

  Her problems.

  “Can we just go?” I said, still not looking at her even though I felt her eyes on me.

  I knew she was dropping it when I heard the sigh. Mom has a way of sighing that’s long and deep and full of disappointment with just about everything in her life, including me. Maybe especially me. I didn’t care. I just wanted out of there. She didn’t speak to me until a couple of days later. A victory, even that small, has its price.

  Charles Street, where we moved to that day, was one of the better places we’ve lived, even without the furniture. The emptiness of an unfurnished apartment was strange, but I got used to it eventually and when we had to leave there it made moving a whole lot easier.

  Most recently, we landed here, in a second-floor apartment on Westlester Street. And there I was, sitting next to Izelle, trying to put a reasonable-sounding spin on why the place looked like it was inhabited by squatters.

  She’d stopped staring at me and had moved her attention to the open spaces around us, trailing her eyes across barren floors and walls. When she stood up, staring me down with the set jaw of someone who’s made a decision, I was already saying goodbye to the bird.

  “This is not what I was expecting,” she said.

  Of course it wasn’t. I got to my feet so I could face her without feeling like a toddler.

  “It’s absolutely perfect,” Izelle said, lifting her hands and letting them drift apart like she was conducting an invisible choir.

  I turned into a stone. No reaction whatsoever. Because I wasn’t sure what was coming next. She could be sincere, or she could be checking to see how gullible I was.

  “Si
tta will love all this open space!” she said. It sounded like she meant it.

  The next thing I knew, she was right in my face. Her nose almost touched mine and for a second, I had the alarming thought that she was going to kiss me.

  “You’ll let him out to fly around sometimes, right?”

  “Uh —”

  “Mom never did. She always worried he’d you-know-what on the furniture, but you have none.”

  And just like that, I became an approved bird owner. It was an exciting few seconds, until she mentioned there were rules attached, which she called the Conditions of Adoption. As if they’d been drafted by a lawyer or something.

  As she recited them, Izelle counted these conditions off on her fingers.

  1.)Something I didn’t actually catch, although I think it was about Sitta’s diet

  2.)A stern warning to NEVER EVER NO MATTER WHAT, EVER, EVER let him out of the cage if there was a window or door open

  3.)Visitation rights for Izelle, at least once a week

  The list didn’t end there, but that’s where I stopped hearing her. Was she kidding? She expected me to let her come over to see Sitta every week?

  It was pure luck that it had been safe to bring her here today. But a regular arrangement? That would be way too risky. As unfortunate as it was, I knew the second she mentioned visitation, there was no way I could take the bird. Out of politeness, I let her finish talking. (I believe she wrapped up at number eight.) Then it was time to give her the bad news.

  Except, for the second time that day, something overrode my brain.

  “Sure,” I said. “No problem.”

  Four

  SITTA MOVED IN TWO days later. Izelle’s father, Mr. Renda, delivered her, along with the bird, cage, and various supplies, including enough toys to make a small child jealous. These were contained in a collapsible clothes hamper.

  I’d been waiting at the front entry, ready with half a dozen excuses to keep Mr. Renda from seeing our naked abode. But when he jumped out of the car and started to unload Sitta’s belongings onto the sidewalk, he said he had to make a quick phone call and then he’d give us a hand.

  “Great,” I said. Then I sped up the stairs with the first load and made it back to the car for the rest before he finished his call.

  He made an apologetic face as I began gathering up the remaining supplies. I gave him a “no problem” wave and he offered a half smile as Izelle and I started back toward the building.

  She carried the cage, which was covered, and a bag of leafy produce. I balanced a couple of heavy boxes that I later discovered were full of newspapers for lining the cage. Once everything was upstairs I finally got to meet my bird.

  My first thought was, Wow, is he ever green. It was like someone had made a bird from electric algae, and added a blood-red beak and orange circles to accent the tiny black beads of his eyes. There was bright yellow under his tail feathers and a darkly underlined pink ring around his neck. That made sense for a bird commonly known as a Rose-Ringed Parakeet.

  He was spectacular.

  I have to admit, Sitta seemed a whole lot less impressed with me than I was with him. He cast a haughty look my way and went back to preening. I found his attitude amusing, and besides, I was willing to give him time.

  Izelle insisted that she should be the one to show him around, which she did. It was kind of cute, although a bit sad. Then she apologized that she couldn’t stay to settle him in.

  “Dad’s waiting for me, so —”

  She broke off in mid-sentence and bit down on her lower lip. Tears were starting to fill her eyes.

  “I should give you some privacy,” I said quickly. “So you can say goodbye and whatever.”

  I stepped into my room, regretting immediately that I hadn’t chosen the bathroom. Not that I needed to go, but there’s a loud fan in there that would have drowned out some of the sobs and bits of conversation I’d rather not have heard.

  Finally, there was a patch of silence, followed by footsteps that stopped at my bedroom door. Izelle’s sad voice floated in.

  “I’m going now, Corbin. See you tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I said. That sounded too cheerful so I added, “Don’t forget you’ll see Sitta every week.”

  If she answered, I didn’t hear it. A moment later the apartment door clunked shut and I went out and escorted Sitta and his belongings into my room.

  Mom arrived home about an hour later, just as I was getting out the bowls for our supper — KD with chopped tomato. Her favorite comfort food, which I hoped would put her in a good frame of mind when I broke the news that we’d acquired a pet bird.

  I passed her a bowl of food before hoisting myself up on the counter and digging into my own.

  “How was work?” I said.

  “Same old, same old.”

  I turned a few phrases in my head. After a moment I settled on, “Something interesting happened at school today.”

  “Yeah?”

  “A girl in my class was giving away her pet parakeet. And no one else wanted it so we got it!”

  Mom stopped chewing. She gave me a look that I can only describe as a dead-eye stare. I sat my bowl down and slid off the counter, just in case.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Corbin, seriously I don’t,” she said at last. “Why would we want a bird no one else would take?”

  “He’s a really nice bird,” I insisted. “His name is Sitta. You want to see him?”

  “You mean this creature is here now?” She glanced around. “Where is it?”

  “In my bedroom.”

  “Well, that’s where it can stay.”

  Not a great outcome, but I was good with that until about an hour later when Mom barged into my room with an envelope labeled, “Eviction Notice.” (For the bird. The law says she has to feed and house meuntil I’m sixteen.) She gave me a pointed look and taped it to the cage.

  Mom apparently hadn’t registered Sitta’s name, since the paper inside the envelope simply said: Bird, You have thirty days to get out of my apartment.

  Most parents, on finding an unwanted bird in their house, would insist on its immediate removal. Not Mom. She’s pretty much an expert on tenants’ rights and luckily, she was applying some of those to Sitta.

  That gave me time to figure out my next move if Mom didn’t change her mind in the meantime — something that was not only possible, but likely. Mom is kind of the queen of about-faces. One thing still worried me, though. I took the note to her.

  “There’s no date on this,” I pointed out. I knew I needed the thirty days locked in solid.

  “Let me see that!” She grabbed it from my hand and looked it over. “Well, it’s from today, obviously.”

  “Yeah, but what if, uh, Sitta forgets when he got it?”

  “The bird can’t read, Corbin.” Mom shook her head heavily and looked at me with sorrowful eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know who’s going to think for you when you’re grown.”

  I passed her a pen. “Right. So maybe you should add the date in case I get mixed up.”

  “Where’s the calendar?”

  “Today is January twenty-sixth.”

  She wrote that at the top of Sitta’s eviction notice. “Okay, so the bird has until February —”

  She paused, counting off the days on her fingers. “February twenty-fifth. And then it’s out. Got it?”

  “Got it.” I folded Sitta’s eviction notice and stuck it in my jeans.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him later. “Mom changes her mind a lot. She’s just in a bad mood right now.”

  I didn’t tell him not to bet his birdseed on what Mom might do next.

  Five

  THREE WEEKS BEFORE I was born my mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She was twenty-three at the time and had been living on her own for a couple
of years, basically since her parents moved to a little town on the east coast. One Thursday evening, sporting an enormous baby bump, she tottered into a busy intersection and started directing traffic.

  I heard about this from my father during one of his brief visits, which happen once or twice a year at the most. He admitted he was horrified when it happened, but by the time he was describing the scene to me years later, it had become hilarious in memory. My very pregnant mother, waddling around, waving her arms and shouting, first at motorists and then at the police.

  Apparently, she was convinced she’d come up with a superior way to guide traffic and when she couldn’t get anyone to listen to her idea, she thought a demonstration would do the trick.

  Her doctor signed her into a psych ward, where she stayed until a couple of days before my arrival. The first, but not the last time she’s been hospitalized for her illness.

  Don’t get me wrong. It’s not common for Mom to do things as bizarre as the traffic fiasco. She’s just kind of all over the place sometimes. If there’s one thing I’ve learned to expect from her, it’s change. Her most determined plans can be overturned, sometimes within hours or even minutes.

  So, I wasn’t seriously worried she’d follow through on her threat to evict Sitta. The bigger problem of the moment was getting him food. I’d done some research at school and discovered this wasn’t going to be a simple matter of picking up a bag of birdseed now and then. Sitta needed a lot more than that. About eighty percent of his diet had to be sprouts and vegetables, with a bit of fruit now and then. And that wasn’t even the end of it. There were herbs and eggs and other things.

  Izelle had brought along a couple of big bags of food for him. One was loaded with different kinds of seeds and pellets and the other one was stuffed with a mixture of green leafy stuff. I didn’t even know what half of it was, but figured there was enough of it to buy me time to get a plan in place. As in, a way to make some cash.