Blue Wings

by Jef Aerts

  Mika put her hand on my shoulder. Her fingers were warm but firm.

  She said, “What Jadran just did back there, swinging you around in that shopping cart, I really can’t let anything like that happen. He needs help. Professional help.”

  I leaned my head toward her arm. The tattoo of the wolf touched my ear. I could hear it growling and howling at the same time.

  “You’re doing fantastically well with your big brother, Josh. But let me help you now—please.”

  At the far end of the parking lot, Jadran was taking a running start. He jumped onto the cart again and rattled off down the road.

  I tried to look back at Mika behind the wheelchair, but the sun blasted me in the face.

  All I could see was patches of blue.

  Two big, flapping patches of blue.

  SPRIG FLAPPED HIS WINGS. HE was perched like a weathercock on the top of the radio tower next to the supermarket. As soon as he saw my brother, he stretched his neck, but he still did not make a sound.

  Jadran stopped the shopping cart from rolling and ran into the parking lot, right up to the foot of the radio tower.

  “Sprig! Sprig!” He straightened his back, flapped his arms, and stuck out his butt. “Come down, Sprig! We need to get going! We’re taking you to your family!”

  Mika cursed under her breath when she heard Jadran shouting. She crouched next to the wheelchair. “Will you tell him, Josh?”

  “Huh? What do you mean?” I said, even though I understood perfectly well.

  “I can lure your brother into the car with some kind of trick and drive off with him, but that’s not how I want to do it. It’s important that he understands why we’re doing this. You have the best chance of persuading him, Josh. He stopped listening to your mother ages ago, and I …”

  “But …” My face must have looked pathetic.

  “Do it, Josh. Please. Think of your mom, and Murad and Yasmin.”

  “I don’t care about Yasmin!”

  Mika’s wolf bared its teeth. “Or about what really is best for all of you.”

  We both looked at Jadran, who was yelling at Sprig now. He was stamping, flapping his wings, bowing his head as deep as he could. He was dancing like a happy crane, high on his toes and sticking his head forward.

  “I don’t know if I can …”

  “Tell him we’re leaving in five minutes. I’ll go fetch the car. And don’t you dare run off again. I trust you, Josh.”

  Mika turned to go to the place where she’d left the Volvo. She stopped and looked back one last time.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It was a crazy trip. But it stops here.” Then she took her phone and tapped in a number.

  I rolled the wheelchair to the foot of the radio tower, to where my brother was. This was our last chance to escape. Mika was going to fetch the car. If we were quick enough, then …

  “Mika’s taking us with her, isn’t she?” said Jadran even before I could say anything. “She wants us to go back. That’s why she’s here.”

  I shook my head and nodded at the same time. “We have to go home, Giant. Enough is enough. Come on.”

  Jadran kicked the metal of the tower. “I’m not allowed to go home! I have to go live in a different room. The room next to Guillaume’s.”

  If we wanted to escape, then we had to do it now. But I couldn’t.

  “We tried, Giant, but it didn’t work. We’re out of food, and the tractor’s broken. We have to go back.”

  I spoke Mika’s words as though I’d come up with them myself.

  Jadran put one foot on the narrow ladder that ran up the side of the tower. His whole body was shaking.

  “I’m staying with you,” he said.

  “And I’m staying with you, Giant, even if you’re sleeping somewhere else. And Mika will take such good care of you. She promised.”

  The red Volvo drove into the parking lot.

  “Mika’s splitting us up!” Jadran shook his head and climbed onto the first rung.

  “No, Giant, she’s not. She says it’s better for everyone if …”

  Jadran sniffed. With every gulp of air, he climbed a rung higher. Sprig twitched his beak nervously as if he was trying to lure him to the top.

  I slid to the edge of the wheelchair and pushed myself to my feet. Grabbing the ladder, I put the foot of my good leg on the bottom rung. A knife jabbed into my ankle, but I pulled myself up. I couldn’t bend the plaster cast, so my arms had to do all the work. I kept it up for three rungs. Then it felt like my muscles were about to snap.

  “It’s too dangerous, Giant!” I shouted, as I sank back into the wheelchair.

  Jadran paid no attention to me and just kept climbing higher and higher. Sprig let go and flew in big circles around the tower.

  “Jadran, come down here right now!” screamed Mika.

  I’d never seen her like that before. The wolf was in her throat now too. It growled threateningly. She grabbed onto the ladder. If the mast was a tree, she’d have shaken Jadran right out of it.

  Jadran looked down and grinned a challenge. He dared to do anything. Up that narrow ladder, all the way to the top. Not once did his feet miss a rung. Not once did he loosen his grip. Sprig wheeled around him.

  “I’m staying here!” he whooped. “I don’t want a room with a bathroom. Come get me if you can!”

  For the first time in all those days I realized Mika was right. I didn’t know how to help him anymore. I couldn’t keep him safe. But maybe the people at the Space could.

  “I messed up,” I said to Mika. “Mom says I’m Jadran’s guardian angel. But I get everything wrong.”

  Mika looked at Jadran, who was yelling away at the top of the radio tower, and then she looked at me. The wolf was hiding under her sleeve again.

  “If anything is messed up, we all did it together,” she said. “Whether we like it or not, we’re one another’s guardian angels. All of us.”

  IT WASN’T A WEATHERCOCK UP there at the top of the tower. And it wasn’t a crane. It was my brother. My sweet, unrelentingly irritating brother. He’d been up there for almost three long hours.

  And this time it was all my fault. Mika could try to calm me down as much as she liked, but I was the one who’d driven him up there by stupidly asking him to stop. I’d said to him that it was actually better if he moved. For him. For us. That meant I’d abandoned my brother, I knew that. I screamed myself hoarse and made the highest breathing bridge in the world, but Jadran didn’t budge.

  A big group of people stood by the supermarket, watching to see what would happen. There were police cars, an ambulance, and, at the back of the parking lot, the blue lights of the ladder truck were flashing. Sprig flew silently above the radio tower. The commotion was probably scaring him.

  Mom, Murad, and Yasmin had just arrived. We were more than 180 miles from home, Murad told me. It wasn’t as far as Jadran and I had hoped, but it was still a long way toward the south. Mom had sped like crazy to get here.

  Now she was standing next to me, clasping the arm of the wheelchair with one hand. I could feel her shaking through the metal. If Jadran fell from the tower, then we’d need more than a miracle.

  “Come on, Giant! Let’s make friends again!”

  Her voice sounded tired and hoarse.

  Jadran pretended not to hear her.

  Yasmin was holding Murad’s hand. I couldn’t see her eyes clearly because of the reflection on her glasses, but I could feel that she was looking at me. I turned my head away. What did she want? Yasmin had betrayed us at the last moment. Sending messages with X’s in them. Claiming she missed us. And that she wanted to go snorkeling with me! And meanwhile she was blabbing to Mika about where exactly we were …

  Murad let go of Yasmin’s hand. He put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Mom’s.

  “We have to fetch something from the car,” he said. He squeezed both of our shoulders at the same time, as if he deliberately wanted to leave us alone for a bit. Then he and Yasmin disappear
ed among the cars in the parking lot.

  Mom forced a smile. Her flowery perfume made my nose sting.

  “You still mad at me, Little Giant?” I could tell she’d practiced that line with Murad in the car.

  I pulled myself away. I did not want to have this conversation. Of course I’d been really mad at Mom, because of what she wanted to do to Jadran. But at the same time I was also happy that she was here with me now. Stoked, even. But that wasn’t going to be easy for me to explain.

  Mom had once said to me that talking is like shedding a skin. But there wasn’t a new skin ready beneath my old one.

  The ladder truck drove up to the radio tower. Mika climbed into the bucket with a firefighter. The ladder extended with a buzzing sound. Everyone fell silent.

  The ladder reached up high, but not quite high enough to get to Jadran. Mika and the firefighter waved their arms. They tried to persuade him and signaled at him to come down a bit lower, down to the safety of the bucket.

  Jadran stared in the opposite direction.

  Mom was hesitating. She smoothed the creases out of her coat.

  “Do you think you can persuade him?” she asked.

  I shook my head and looked at the fire truck. The ladder slid back down. Mika stepped out and walked over to Mom.

  “Sorry, Margot,” she said. “I don’t know what else to do. He’s being more stubborn than ever.”

  Murad came walking back toward us too. Yasmin trudged after him with a lumpy black package in her arms. I recognized the garment bag instantly.

  Without saying anything, Yasmin unzipped the bag.

  There was that beautiful blue again.

  The hundreds of feathers.

  Very carefully, she took out the wings.

  They looked just as impressive as they had before. They were just as soft and just as fluffy on the underside. All the flight feathers were back in place. There was no sign of the bare wire anywhere and the buckles had been polished. On one side, the worn-out shoulder strap had been replaced by a new bright-green leather belt. It was the belt from my wardrobe. And it fit perfectly.

  Murad folded the empty bag in two over his arm.

  “Yaz worked on it with the patience of a saint,” he said. “While we were looking all over for you and Jadran, she’s been sewing day and night.”

  Yasmin didn’t wait for Mom or Mika to tell her what to do. She walked over to the ladder truck with the wings and climbed confidently into the bucket. The firefighter looked questioningly in our direction. Murad nodded that it was okay. There was a rattling of cables and motors. The bucket went up—with Yasmin in it.

  I’d have so loved to see the look on Jadran’s face when he realized the wings had been repaired. But he was too far away.

  Yasmin lifted the wings above her head. The wind ruffled the feathers. In the bright daylight they looked even bluer than usual.

  And that was when Jadran finally started moving. He carefully went down a rung. Mom squeezed my arm.

  Slowly, he lowered himself to the bucket. And all the while Yasmin held out the wings in front of her. Sprig did a nose dive, as if he wanted to warn Jadran. But Jadran only had eyes for one thing.

  Gently, he put one foot on the edge of the bucket. He let go with one hand and grabbed the rail next to Yasmin. For a second, he hung halfway between the tower and the ladder truck.

  Mom held her breath. And I stopped breathing too.

  We blew out again, at exactly the same moment.

  Pffffff.

  Jadran jumped in next to Yasmin and pulled the wings out of her hands.

  He was an angel.

  A giant blue angel, high in the sky.

  Yasmin buckled the tips of the wings around his wrists. Jadran spread his wings triumphantly, almost knocking her over. Sprig circled above them.

  Next to me, Mom stared speechlessly at the magnificent creature that was slowly descending.

  MIKA HAD ARRANGED FOR US to stay at a nearby hotel. We were going there for a hot bath and a night’s rest. Meanwhile, Murad would take Jadran’s stuff to his new room at the Space. Then he could go straight there tomorrow morning.

  Mom was trying to calm Jadran down on a sofa in the hotel lobby. He jumped back to his feet and paced up and down past the reception desk. The blue wings were still attached to his back, but he was walking with more of a hunch than ever before.

  “Sprig needs us,” he raged. “He doesn’t know anything about the south! We saw that for ourselves, didn’t we, Josh? He flew completely the wrong way.”

  “That crane will be fine,” said Mika. “He’ll leave with the next group that flies over, don’t you worry. He’s still a wild animal, after all.”

  “I want to sleep on the roof!” roared Jadran.

  The girl behind the reception desk acted like nothing was going on.

  “Okay,” said Mika. “Jadran will sleep on the roof, and you two can take the nearest room.”

  She winked at me and Mom. The medication would start to work soon. Mika had already given it to Jadran in a cup of chocolate milk. Any minute now he’d have that thick tongue and zombie eyes again. Usually I hated seeing my brother like that. But this time, it would be good. I just wanted some food and a real bed.

  After Jadran had calmed down and Mika had reassured them that everything was under control, Murad and Yasmin got ready to leave for home.

  Yasmin came toward me. I didn’t know whether to thank her or yell at her. Admittedly, she had gotten Jadran down from the radio tower, but then she was the one who …

  “You stopped answering me,” she said.

  “What did you expect? Do you think I didn’t know what you were up to with your fake messages?”

  “Fake? What do you mean? I meant everything I wrote.”

  “You betrayed us to Mika!”

  “I didn’t betray anything,” she snapped. “I was just trying to help. Mika was really upset, so I had to tell her something! We were scared, Josh. Scared something bad might happen to the two of you.”

  I understood that, but I didn’t reply. I thought about how far we would have gotten if Yasmin hadn’t given the game away at the last moment. Jadran would have pushed the wheelchair all the way to Spain.

  Or maybe not.

  “By the way, where’s my phone now?” asked Yasmin.

  I kept my cool, but all my muscles went limp. “You can just trace it yourself, can’t you? You were watching us the whole time!”

  “The signal’s dead.” Yasmin’s eyes flashed fire under her black bangs.

  “Lost it,” I said quickly, before she could burn me.

  “Lost it?”

  “In the creek.”

  She rolled her lips over each other. The fire went out.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “You wanted to get rid of me. You don’t want me snorkeling with you at all.”

  Murad waved her over. She shrugged and went after him. Her sneakers squeaked on the tiled floor.

  “Yaz?” I called when she already had one foot out the door. “I …”

  She instantly turned to look at me, as if she had been waiting for me to speak. “Yes?” She took a step back. The sliding doors closed behind her.

  “Err … Thanks for the wings.”

  Yasmin took off her glasses and breathed on the lenses.

  “Why did you actually repair them?” I asked. “I thought you hated us.”

  She rubbed the lenses on her sleeve, put the glasses back on, and looked to make sure that Murad couldn’t hear us.

  She said, “I was sick of the whole moving-in thing. My dad tries so hard, for you and Jadran, for Margot. He wants to make everyone happy. But do you think I chose this?”

  I looked at Yasmin. For the first time I noticed how soft and dark her eyelashes were, under those straight bangs.

  “Maybe I’d have liked to run away too,” she said. “To close the door behind me and then run away as far as possible, out of town, to someplace I didn’t know.”

&nbs
p; The sliding doors opened again. Murad was coming to see where she was. Yasmin gave me a quick wave and followed him outside.

  “I’d rather you stayed with us,” I whispered as she left.

  We had lasagna in the hotel bar. Jadran was too groggy to gobble it down. Mika didn’t sit at the same table as us, but instead went and read a magazine by the door. Even now she was still shadowing us.

  Mom still didn’t entirely understand why we wanted to escape on that tractor of all things.

  “It was a crazy plan, Josh. You should have stopped your brother.” Her voice was small and shaky, but her eyes were fuming.

  “Giant is sixteen!”

  “And tomorrow we’re going back to the hospital. Dr. Mbasa says you have to rest. To lie still. Three fractures, Josh! And then the two of you just go and run away on a tractor …”

  Jadran dropped his cutlery on the table with a clatter.

  “The airplane,” he said.

  “Just eat your dinner, Giant,” said Mom. “There’ll be no more flying today.”

  “I want to see it!”

  “Shh, not so loud.”

  “He was wearing a white helmet. And he had a beak on his arm.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  I mumbled with my mouth full, “The pilot.”

  “Which pilot?”

  “In that video we watched for hours at the visitor center, remember? This researcher guy flew a hang glider and the young cranes followed him. They didn’t have any parents to teach them the way.”

  Jadran banged his hands on the table. “I want to see it!”

  “Okay, fine. But keep your voice down.” Mom took her smartphone out of her bag. I helped her to type in the nature center’s website.

  There was the hang glider again. The pilot gave a thumbs-up before taking off. It wasn’t long before the first cranes were flying after him.

  “Is that it?” asked Mom. “Is that why you stole that tractor, Giant? To show Sprig the way, like that man with the hang glider?”

  “I didn’t steal it!”