by Jef Aerts
“Quiet, Giant,” I whispered before he could say anything.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel. Jadran pressed himself even deeper into the grass.
All I could see was the top of a black hat. And an army jacket with a fake-fur collar. I tried to breathe as calmly as possible. Maybe the driver had just gotten out to make a call. To smoke a cigarette. To pee.
Jadran’s fingers reached for my hand.
“Follow my breath, Giant,” I whispered. “In and out. We’re not here right now.”
Sprig was there though. He stuck his beak in the air and sounded his alarm.
Ee eeoo! With two big flaps of his wings, he took off.
The driver stood still and pushed up his hat, as if he wanted to make sure that it really was a crane. Then he turned around, wiped the dirt off his shoes onto the grass, and walked back to the car.
Why didn’t he come any closer? There was an empty wheelchair at the side of the road. With stickers of flames on the side! So you’d go see if someone was in trouble, wouldn’t you?
Footsteps crunched on the stones. The car door slammed shut. The engine started.
Jadran’s fingers rasped over my skin.
WE WAITED UNTIL THE VOLVO had disappeared around the bend. Sprig hung high above us. As soon as the tractor started moving, he flapped away. This time we had to follow him—that was how it seemed. And he was in a real hurry. Jadran set off in pursuit. The tractor left a trail of mud on the asphalt.
“Wait for us, Sprig,” shouted Jadran. “You’re flying more than fifteen miles an hour!”
Sprig wasn’t just flying too fast. I didn’t think he had any clue which direction to fly in either. We blasted our way through blackberry bushes. He flew across a freshly plowed field. We almost got stuck in the deep tracks of a much bigger tractor.
And when we finally caught up with him, Sprig calmly flew off in the opposite direction.
Ahead of us was a residential neighborhood with pretty flower beds and a sports field.
“Can’t we go around it?” I asked. There were people walking everywhere and children playing. “A bit of a detour won’t hurt.”
But Jadran didn’t want to hear about detours. For him, everything was always straight ahead.
Yasmin had written that they were looking for us. Maybe they’d put up posters in the meantime and were handing out leaflets.
“Don’t stare at people like that, Giant,” I said. “And wipe that spit off your chin. We don’t want anyone to recognize us. Got it?”
A bunch of kids in scouting uniforms were already shouting: “Did you see that? It’s a stork!”
I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Jadran twisted his mouth into a weird grimace and grinned at the people walking by. He actually seemed to be enjoying all the attention.
“They think we’re cool,” he said. “The supercool crane brothers. That’s us, huh?”
Jadran ignored a traffic sign and almost ended up in a strip of fresh concrete. I just managed to get him to turn in time. A little farther on, a police car was parked by a roundabout. A policewoman was talking sternly to a motorcyclist. If she looked around right now …
“Go right!” I shouted.
Jadran tugged the wheel left, then corrected his mistake and swerved into the street I was pointing at. “What now?”
On the sidewalk, a lady stood chatting away to her dachshund. Two men with a baby stroller were coming from the other direction.
We had to get out of there as quickly as possible.
One neighborhood turned into the next. Some of them had apartment blocks just like ours. You didn’t see any solar panels here, just satellite dishes like grey foghorns on the balconies. I directed Jadran past a park where some teenagers were skateboarding. They’d made a ramp out of a broken billboard and were jumping over it as high as they could.
For a moment, I wanted to join in. To do ordinary things with ordinary boys like me. And not to have to look after my brother all the time. But I couldn’t skateboard. My leg was broken in three places. I could barely go to the bathroom on my own.
We were only just past the park when the engine cut out. The tractor sputtered and stopped. Jadran turned the key and put his foot on the gas. The tractor lurched forward a bit but it was still rattling away.
“Get off the road,” I said.
My brother turned the steering wheel and slowly maneuvered the tractor to the side. The muffler blew a grey cloud into the air, and that was it.
“It’s not working. It’s broken!” Jadran bashed the steering wheel.
“When did you last fill it up?” I asked.
Jadran frowned. “I’ve never filled it up!”
“Then the tank’s probably empty.”
Jadran pointed at the fuel gauge on the dashboard: “Half full.”
“Maybe the meter’s broken?”
Jadran clapped his hands together. “Everything’s broken at the Space!”
“Everything? What do you mean?”
“Sarah-with-an-h says even the people there are broken. But that’s not true, is it? I’m still all in one piece!”
We’d run out of gas. And we had no money to refuel. We needed our last few coins to buy food.
“We’ll leave the tractor here then,” I said.
“But …”
“Get me down. And quickly.”
Jadran’s back was even more hunched than usual. He was trembling.
“Mika’s going to be so mad,” he said. “She’ll never let me plow the potato patch again.”
The boys with the skateboards had spotted us now too. They came our way, curiously.
“Grab the wheelchair and the gym bag,” I said. “Before someone starts asking awkward questions.”
Jadran’s arms were shaking, but he did as I asked. He opened up the wheelchair and helped me into it. Sprig wanted to escape into the park. I only just managed to block his path and lift him back up onto my lap.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked one of the boys.
I was just about to say that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Jadran, that he was very, very good at being himself. Until I realized that it wasn’t me he’d asked the question to, but my brother. As if, because I was in a wheelchair, I could no longer answer for myself.
“Is he, like, paralyzed or something?”
Jadran looked a bit embarrassed and hung the gym bag on one of the handles.
“He fell,” he said.
“What about that bird?”
“He didn’t fall.”
The boys laughed as if Jadran had meant to make a joke.
“Sprig lost his family,” he said. “We’re taking him home.”
I thumped Jadran’s back and said quickly, “He’s taking me home, he means. Bye!”
I rolled around the corner. Jadran trudged after me.
“You heard that too, didn’t you?” he said.
I looked over my shoulder. “Heard what?”
“They think I’m your counselor. I’m your Mika!” Jadran said with a wink. With his skinny little moustache and his big body, he looked like he was twenty. And a wolf tattoo on his wrist would look pretty good on him too.
“Keep up the good work, Giant,” I said. “And I’ll act all sorry for myself.”
Jadran proudly pushed the wheelchair.
“I’m going to pamper you, little guy!” he said in Mika’s raspy voice. “I’m super stoked with you!”
Jadran politely said hello to the passersby, and stopped now and then to check that I was sitting comfortably. He adjusted the height of the footrests and rolled the leg of my pants down over my plaster cast.
For just a little while, I really was his little brother.
You’re on the news.
The screen of the telephone flashed.
A man claims he saw you. He called Jadran a “dangerous madman.” Can you imagine? And he lives almost a hundred miles from here! What are you two up to?
Behind me, my brother tireless
ly pushed the wheelchair, even though it was still such an impossibly long way to the place where the cranes spent the winter. He was determined to continue our journey at all costs, even without the tractor.
My fingers were freezing. I had trouble spelling the words right.
Tell mom they need to stop looking. This is something between me and Giant.
I put my hand over the screen and tried to type as discreetly as possible. Jadran didn’t need to know everything that Yasmin was writing to me.
Sorry.
Sorry?
For being annoying sometimes.
But Jadran wanted to know everything. He leaned over my shoulder so that he could read along. “Who wrote that?”
“Yasmin.”
Her words were vibrating in my hand.
It’s quiet here without you guys.
Jadran clicked his tongue. “She misses us.”
I looked up. “Do you think so?”
“Yaz is making us better than we are, huh?” he said. “When you miss someone, you make them better than they are. Inside your head.”
“You didn’t come up with that yourself!”
“Mika said it. When she showed me that room.”
I quickly typed an X and turned off the phone.
“I don’t want to be inside Yasmin’s head,” I said.
We bought some fries and soda at a stall. Sheltered by a bus stop, we warmed ourselves on the hot bag of fries. Sprig pattered about the square, looking for something edible. The mayonnaise dripped off Jadran’s fingers. I gave him my paper napkin too.
“It’s about time,” he murmured.
“High time,” I said.
Jadran tipped half a can of soda into his mouth. I took a swig too and lifted up my chin. Then we gargled as hard as we could. Jadran sprayed soda all over his jacket.
We stayed sitting there for quite a while. It had started to drizzle, and the rain was blowing against the glass of the bus stop. Sprig pecked at the last bit of mayonnaise. A bus came trundling slowly toward us.
“Don’t stand up,” I whispered. “Look like you’re getting the dirt out from under your fingernails.”
The bus pulled up at the stop. The doors opened. A couple got out at the back. Luckily, they only had eyes for each other.
“Want me to help you in?” the driver shouted down at me, already standing up to get off the bus.
I shook my head without really looking at him.
“We’re, um, staying nearby,” I said.
A car was waiting on the other side of the street. It was too dark to see the driver, but it was definitely exactly the same kind of Volvo as that afternoon at the sunken road. The windshield wipers were swishing back and forth. I hardly dared to move. The car didn’t drive on until just after the bus left.
“We need to find somewhere to sleep,” I said quickly when the car had disappeared around the corner.
“I’m not tired yet,” said Jadran.
“It’s raining.”
“A bit of rain’s not a problem.”
“Come on, Jadran. My leg hurts. I only just got out of the hospital, or did you forget again?”
“I’m your Mika, aren’t I? I have to take care of you, Josh.”
I peered around to see if the Volvo had stopped and was lurking somewhere, but there was no sign of it. By the light of the streetlamps, two jackdaws fought over a French fry.
That night we slept on a boat.
We’d walked for a long time, looking for a good place. My trousers were sticking to my legs because of the rain, and I thought my plaster cast might be getting soft. Sprig looked like a drowned puppy dog. Jadran had also started to moan that he wanted a real hotel this time, with a shower and a double bed.
“And soap,” he said. “You have to wash your hands three times a day, Mom says.”
For the first time since we’d run away, I longed to go home. To my own little hollow in the mattress.
We came to an alley with garages on both sides. One of the garage doors was slightly open. Jadran pushed it up, and we were able to slip inside.
An old sailboat was kept inside the garage. The mast had been taken off, and the garage stank of varnish and brushes. In the corner was a sink and a tub full of soft soap. And there was even an electric fan heater so that we could blow the worst of the cold out of our clothes. It was almost as good as a hotel, I thought.
Sprig snuggled down next to the heater. Jadran suggested that we should climb inside the boat. The folded sail lay on the bottom like a thin mattress.
“You can start,” he said when I was finally lying comfortably.
I played the breathing game as it was meant to be played. First I breathed really slowly, and then faster and faster. And Jadran had no difficulty at all keeping up with me.
We breathed like a breeze. We breathed like a hurricane.
We breathed with shivers. We breathed deep and hard.
But most of all: we breathed together.
In and out. Chest and belly.
And breathing out, like a gust of wind over each other’s faces.
Pssssshhhhhh.
IT WAS STILL PITCH DARK in the boat, but I was wide awake. I took out Yasmin’s smartphone from my jacket, which was hanging to dry over the edge of the boat. I saw that she’d sent me another message in the night.
Didn’t know you snorkel.
I felt a weird shiver. My diving stuff was at the bottom of my wardrobe. So Yasmin had been rummaging around in my underwear! I thought it was stupid answering at this time of day, but I did it anyway.
What were you doing in my wardrobe?
Yasmin answered almost immediately. Like she’d been waiting for my message all night.
Looking for a belt. But do you do it often?
What? Wear a belt?
Snorkeling!
What I really wanted to do was turn off the phone. It was better to conserve the battery anyway. But I couldn’t. Somehow it made me feel safe to know that at least one person was aware that we hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth.
I have a diving mask and flippers, but I hardly ever use them. Jadran gets mad when he can’t come to diving club with me. And they’re no use in the paddling pool with him.
I looked at my brother, who was tossing and turning in his sleep. His eyelids were twitching nervously.
What about me? Can I come with you? Snorkeling sounds like fun.
I thought about water. Glistening, open water. And the unknown world under the surface.
OK, but keep out of my stuff.
Then, for a short while, I put the telephone between me and my brother as a light, like a sort of candle.
A cold, blue candle.
Soon Jadran was awake too. He sat up straight and ran his hands through his messy hair, like there was something stuck inside his head that he wanted to scratch loose.
“Bad dream?” I asked.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he said.
“You mean the Space?”
“The wings. I smashed them, didn’t I? They’re completely broken.”
“Doesn’t matter, Giant. Mom had almost forgotten about them.”
That wasn’t what Jadran wanted to hear. He stamped his feet on the wooden floor of the boat.
“Now Dad will never come back!” he wailed.
“He won’t come back anyway,” I said. “I’m sorry. But even Mom’s hardly seen him since.”
Jadran pushed down the blanket. The astronaut on his new pajamas was made of luminous material. It glowed in the dark.
He said, “Dad was in love with Mom because she danced so beautifully with those blue wings on. And now I’ve broken them! It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”
I sighed. The light of the telephone had gone out.
“What stinks so bad?” I asked, changing the subject.
Luckily, Jadran could smell it too. He climbed out of the boat and switched on the fluorescent light.
It was Sprig. He was completely c
overed in diarrhea. The down on his belly and butt was stuck together.
“That’s what you get for eating all that mayonnaise,” I said.
Jadran grabbed a towel and walked toward Sprig.
“Don’t do that, Giant. He’s filthy!”
“I have two patients now.” He sounded almost proud. “I’ll look after both of you. I’m a great nurse, huh?”
Jadran stood at the sink and rinsed Sprig’s legs. He ran his fingers through the down and washed out the mess. Before long, his new pajamas were covered in bird poop too, but it was still wonderful to see my brother busily working away.
“And now you!” Jadran put a load of soft soap on his hand and climbed into the boat. “Pull down your pants.”
“Stop it!” I shrieked.
“Do as you’re told, Josh.”
“No way!”
“Off with your underpants. Then I can wash your butt too.”
Then Jadran aimed the blob of soap at my head. I ducked out of the way just in time. He screamed with laughter.
HALF AN HOUR LATER, WE were back on the road. Jadran pushed the wheelchair and set quite a pace. With every step, he blew a cloud of breath onto the back of my neck. I lay the blanket over Sprig’s damp feathers. He wasn’t squeaking like usual and the whistle in his throat seemed broken too.
From the alley with the garages, we followed a wide avenue that led to the outskirts of the town. It was still early. There were hardly any other people around.
We passed a big, empty building with a tall fence around it. There’d be hundreds of kids swarming together here again soon. They’d be playing soccer and telling one another all the stuff they’d done during the fall break.
“It’s Monday,” I said.
“On Monday we go swimming,” said Jadran.
“But not today.”
“First we’ll take Sprig home. And then we’ll go swimming together, right?”
Jadran beamed as if he wanted to assure me that we could walk to Spain and back, just in one day.