by Kaela Noel
Tully sat down on the floor and scooted up to Coo’s nest. “Can I have one of those cinnamon buns?” she asked.
Coo handed Tully the sack.
“Thanks,” said Tully. She rummaged around and took out a slightly squished bun. “I know it’s scary. I promise I’ll do everything I can to protect you. I’m going to figure out a plan for talking to the authorities. Maybe Lucia can help me. I don’t want you to worry, okay?”
Coo nodded.
“Good. For now, let’s eat and enjoy the holidays.”
Chapter Fourteen
A Christmas Card
Most mornings Coo woke up when it was still dark, just like a bird, long before Tully. Usually she lay quietly in her nest with a lamp on, looking at books. But on Christmas morning she crept to the shelf where Tully kept her box of art supplies and carefully took it down.
“Doing what, you?”
Burr came over and pecked at the marker in her hand.
“Drawing a card, me.” She thought again about how to explain Christmas in pigeon. “Remember? Sharing day today, for humans. Show love with a paper. And gift.”
Coo didn’t have a gift for Tully. She had spent all week thinking of what she could possibly get or make for her without Tully knowing, and finally gave up. A card would have to do.
Burr wandered off while Coo continued drawing hearts and stars all over the paper, dozens and dozens of hearts and stars, until she had filled every inch. Then she carefully placed the card on the table and waited for Tully to wake up.
“For me? Really?” Tully stood by the table in her bathrobe, as fluffy and pink as a dawn cloud, staring at Coo’s card. “Thank you.”
Coo watched Tully’s face. Tully’s lips pressed together. Then they trembled. Her eyes got wet.
Why was Tully crying?
“You don’t like it, Tully?”
“Oh, Coo.” Tully put down the card and wiped her eyes. Then she smiled. “No, I love it.”
“Crying?”
“Because—well, because I am thinking of Ben and how much he would have loved to know you. We always wanted a child. I just wish he could be here now. Merry Christmas, dear.”
Coo looked at the photo of Ben. It hung on the wall above the Christmas tree. His happy eyes seemed to meet hers.
Burr, with the knack he always had for moods, even when he didn’t have the words to explain them, hobbled up onto Tully’s shoulder.
Tully looked at the card again and then back at Coo. “I was supposed to get up first, you know!” she said. “I was going to put some presents under the tree. Technically Santa Claus should have come with them, but we didn’t get a chance to send him a letter.”
Coo knew who Santa Claus was. There was a heavily bearded man dressed in a red suit who sat outside Food Bazaar and posed for pictures with people. Tully had explained about Santa and presents, and that the Food Bazaar Santa wasn’t the real one. The real one lived at the North Pole and flew—flew!—around the world with his team of reindeer, visiting houses by climbing down the chimneys. “Or through windows and fire escapes, here in the city,” Tully had added.
Coo wasn’t sure how she felt about a strange man in a red suit appearing through the window, but she liked the idea of presents. And flying.
From a high cabinet shelf in the kitchen Tully pulled down three bundles wrapped in gold and green paper.
“Here,” said Tully. “These are for you.”
Coo stared at them for a while. They were very beautiful. Then she began tearing them open. Burr helped—he loved ripping paper with his beak.
The first gift was a book. On the front cover was a picture of a girl flying with a goose. Inside was all words, no pictures.
“The Fledgling,” Tully said. “I thought it looked good, right? We’ll read it together.”
The second package was a mysterious bundle of small knitted sweaters, dresses, and pants. There was even a tiny pair of felted shoes. The clothes were too small for Coo, but too big for Burr. Coo stared at them, puzzled.
“Open the third package,” said Tully, beaming.
The last package was bigger and bulkier than the other two. Coo tore away the paper. Her eyes widened. Staring up at her was a small human. She had blond hair, just like Coo, but her hair was yarn. The clothes were exactly the right size for her.
“A doll,” said Tully. “I made her, too, like the clothes, very quietly at night. I was so afraid you’d wake up!”
Coo stared down at the doll in wonder. The doll stared back. She was smiling.
“Mine?”
“All yours. You need to give her a name.”
A name. Coo thought and thought. She didn’t know many human names.
“Queens,” she said finally, thinking of a word she’d seen written out on many signs around where Tully lived, and which Tully had helped her sound out.
“Hmm. Lovely!” said Tully. “How about Queenie as a nickname?”
Queenie. That felt nice to say.
Coo hugged Queenie and then carefully dressed her.
Christmas was magical indeed.
They were returning from a special Christmas lunch at Jade Moon Kitchen when Coo noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under Tully’s door. She reached down and grabbed it.
“What’s that?” said Tully, her voice sharp.
Tully glanced over her shoulder. Coo did, too. The hallway was empty.
“Can I see it? Oh, it’s for you, Coo.” Tully relaxed and unlocked the door. “I think I know who it’s from.”
Coo ripped the sealed envelope. More paper—green and red and covered in gold glitter that flaked onto her hands.
“A Christmas card!” Coo whispered. She opened it. Inside was writing. Her reading lessons with Tully were just beginning to get less frustrating—but suddenly it was all too overwhelming. She clutched Queenie to her chest, unable to make out a single letter. “Read it, Tully!”
“Of course, sweetie.”
Dear Coo,
Merry Christmas! I liked drawing with you. It is fun you get to live with a pigeon. They are the coolest birds.
Have a good Christmas.
Sincerely,
Aggie
Coo sat in stunned silence. She picked up the card and studied every inch of it. Then she asked Tully to read it twice more.
“See how nice it is to get a Christmas card?” Tully asked, smiling.
Coo carefully placed the card on the table. Burr came over and pecked up a piece of glitter. “I need to make one for Aggie,” she said. “Right now.”
Coo’s card was not as neat as Aggie’s, and Tully had no glitter in her box of supplies. Tully offered to write a message inside the card, but Coo didn’t like that idea, so instead Tully spelled out the letters, slowly, as Coo shaped them with her marker:
TO AGGIE
FROM COO
“Coo!” Burr said happily, when she finished the last O. He was quite good at recognizing some words.
Drawing and writing had taken a long time. It was dark outside when Coo gingerly stuffed the card into an envelope Tully dug out of the junk drawer. Burr hopped into his cage to go to sleep. Coo grabbed Queenie and tucked her under her arm.
It was odd to leave the apartment without a coat or hat or scarf. It was even stranger to walk up the stairs Coo had seen every day for months but never climbed. They were dark brown and chilly and had cobwebs in their corners. Coo gave Queenie a squeeze.
Tully led them up three whole floors and stopped outside a gray door labeled 4C. On either side of the door was a jumble of shoes, umbrellas, and scooters. The hallway smelled like chocolate and peppermint.
“Let’s just slip the card under the door,” Tully said. “It’s suppertime and we shouldn’t bother them.”
Coo wedged the card underneath and stepped back.
They were already starting down the first flight of stairs when 4C’s door popped open behind them.
“Wait!” a voice called.
Aggie stood in the
buttery yellow light spilling out into the hall from her home. She wore neon-pink pajamas and a pair of fuzzy green socks and nudged her glasses up her nose as she peered down the stairs.
“Coo, wait!” she said.
Hesitantly, noticing the uncomfortable look on Tully’s face, Coo went back up the steps.
“Thank you for the card,” said Aggie. The warm chocolate scent wafted around her. “Do you want to come hang out for a bit? My sister just made peppermint brownies.”
A plump, sleepy-looking man with large glasses appeared behind her.
“Is that okay, Dad?” Aggie asked, turning to him. “Can Coo come over and have a brownie?”
“Sure. Are you a new neighbor, Coo?”
“Coo is my niece,” Tully said, stepping up from the stairway. “Hi, Phil. Merry Christmas.”
“Oh, Merry Christmas to you, too, Tully. Sorry I didn’t see you there,” said Phil, blinking. Coo noticed he was wearing pajamas printed all over with small cartoon dogs reading newspapers. “Long day. I was up at four this morning covering that giant steam explosion in Midtown.”
“Oh my goodness.” Tully’s eyes widened. “That sounds terrible.”
“Yeah, it blasted a huge crater in the street,” said Aggie’s dad.
“No injuries!” Aggie said brightly. “Just some parked cars that fell in the hole. The best kind of exciting disaster, right, Dad?”
“Right, except for the part where I hauled myself to midtown before dawn on Christmas Day,” said her dad, frowning. “That was truly tragic.”
“Well, Coo and I definitely don’t want to bother you—”
“No, Tully, it’s completely fine,” Aggie’s dad said, yawning. “Come in, Coo. If it’s okay with you, Tully.”
“Yes!” said Aggie, pumping her fists into the air. “Tully, is it okay?”
Coo looked from Aggie to Phil to Tully. Aggie’s face was eager and shy. Her dad’s was tired. Tully’s was nervous—her lips were set in a tight line and her eyes looked small. But when Coo met her gaze, she sighed and nodded.
“I’ll be back up to fetch you in thirty minutes, Coo. Just come down if you need me. And be polite and take your shoes off, Coo; Aggie’s family doesn’t wear shoes in the house.”
Coo balanced Queenie on her knee while she ripped the Velcro off her sneakers. Tully turned and went down the stairs. When Coo looked up, Tully was gone. Clutching Queenie, Coo walked into Aggie’s apartment alone.
Chapter Fifteen
Aggie’s Apartment
Aggie’s apartment was so different from Tully’s!
Pictures crowded the cream-colored walls—paintings, drawings, posters, and photographs of buildings, animals, birds, and people. Coo looked closely at one photo of a woman in a poofy skirt and strange shoes holding her arms up in the air in an arc and, startled, recognized Aggie’s mother.
“My mom was a principal in a big ballet company,” said Aggie. “Now she teaches and does choreography and stuff.”
Coo nodded, even though she didn’t know what principal, choreography, or ballet were.
They went to a kitchen crowded with dishes and tangled potted plants, and Aggie carefully cut two brownies from a fragrant tray balanced on pans atop the stove. She plunked them on a pair of small plates.
“Are you into playing with dolls?” said Aggie, looking at Queenie.
Coo hesitated, not quite understanding, then nodded. “Her name is Queenie. Tully made her.”
“Tully made that doll? Like, sewed it and everything?” Aggie raised her eyebrows. “That’s so cool.”
Plates of brownies in hand, Aggie led Coo out of the kitchen and through a room cozily packed with sofas and chairs and tables. She turned down a hallway lined with bookshelves, almost as many as at the library where Tully had taken Coo a few times. Through a slightly opened door, Coo saw an older girl laying on a bed piled with pillows, reading a book. From underneath another door came the sound of a guitar.
“My older brother and sister,” Aggie said. “They don’t really play with me much anymore. Teenagers, you know.”
“Oh,” said Coo. She didn’t know, but she also didn’t want to tell Aggie that.
They were halfway down the hallway when Coo froze. Stalking its way toward them, white, fluffy, and ferocious, was something she never expected to see indoors. She gasped, hugged Queenie, and pressed herself against the wall.
“Don’t be scared, Coo! It’s just Sugarplum. He’s a sweetie.”
While Coo watched in horror, Aggie put the brownie plates down on some books and swooped the cat into her arms. She nuzzled its neck. The cat went limp and swished its tail.
“Want to pet him?” Aggie asked. “Seriously, he won’t bite or scratch.”
Hesitantly Coo touched the cat’s back. His fur was as soft as Tully’s thickest alpaca yarn. To Coo’s shock, he made a low growl and his whole body seemed to vibrate. She snatched her hand back.
“See, he’s purring,” said Aggie. “He likes you. He’s a good cat. Popo always said he was ‘less trouble than a cushion’! He was really my grandma’s cat.”
Aggie gave Sugarplum a squeeze then let him down. Coo thought she saw something sad ripple across Aggie’s face.
Sugarplum scampered down the hallway and disappeared.
“Here’s my room.” Aggie handed one brownie plate to Coo. She picked up her plate and then the brownie, and took a bite. Then she opened the last door in the hall. “My parents turned the dining room into their room so we could each have our own.”
It was a very small room, only slightly bigger than the dovecote. Aggie’s bed took up most of it. On the floor was a soft pink rug that hugged Coo’s feet like a pile of feathers. On the walls were posters of girls and women in the same outfits Aggie’s mother wore in the picture of her in the hallway. Perched on a high shelf above the bed was a row of dolls, much fancier ones than Queenie, looking still and sleepy. All around on the floor, and peeking out from underneath the dresser wedged in by the door, were piles and piles of books.
Coo took a nibble of her brownie. Then another and another. It tasted like a peppermint candy and a chocolate bar and a piece of cake, all rolled into one. It was delicious. She fed one large crumb to Queenie, then popped it into her own mouth when Queenie was done.
“We could draw if you want,” Aggie said, finishing the last bites of her own brownie. “I have a lot more art supplies than Tully.”
Aggie pulled a large, flat, plastic tub out from under her bed. Coo gasped at what was inside. Hundreds of crayons in every color. Dozens of markers, thick and thin. A rainbow of paper. Jars of glitter. Stacks of stickers. She stared at it all, speechless.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Aggie said. She quickly covered the tub again. “We could—”
“No! Draw, please.”
They drew in silence at first. Coo was making a pigeon using markers in three shades of gray. She glanced at Aggie’s drawing. It was a girl standing on one foot, with the other in the air.
“What’s that?” Coo asked.
“A dancer. A ballerina.”
“What’s a ballerina?”
“A ballerina is a ballet dancer. You don’t know what ballet is?” Aggie looked puzzled.
Coo focused on coloring a wing. She was trying hard not to blush.
“Where did you say you were from again? Duv . . . duv something?”
“Dovecotia.”
“Oh right,” said Aggie. “Never heard of it. What language do they speak there?”
“Bird.”
“Weird. Never heard of that, either. But I’m not good at paying attention in school, so there you have it.” She paused. “Not good at dance, either. They made me stop.”
“Stop dancing?”
“Yeah.”
Coo knew what dance was. She’d loved to twirl, leap, and move, especially when she heard music, and Tully had told her the word for it.
“I was in a really important ballet school since I was little. But they ma
ke you audition and last summer . . .” Aggie looked down. “I didn’t get asked back.”
Ballet, it seemed, had something to do with dance.
“Why?” said Coo. “Just go back.”
“That’s not how it works. They have to want you, and they didn’t want me.”
“Why?”
Aggie pressed her lips together so tightly they disappeared.
“Because I’m not good enough.”
“Not good?” Coo was baffled. Anyone could jump and spin.
“I can’t dance! I’m bad!”
Coo looked at Aggie carefully. She had pretty, glossy black hair, a round face, and blue plastic glasses. Coo peeked at Aggie’s feet. Were they injured in some way she hadn’t noticed before? No. They looked fine. “But you love dancing,” Coo said. “That makes you good.”
Aggie looked at her with eyes that were so full of hurt, Coo flinched. She knew she had said something wrong, but what?
“No, it doesn’t. Other girls were better. So the teachers didn’t let me come back. No more ballet.”
“Do ballet anyway!” Coo said. “Why stop?”
“It’s not the same without classes.” Aggie stretched out her legs and studied them, frowning. “You need lessons and other people to dance with, or it’s not ballet.”
“No sense, ballet.”
Aggie looked up. “You’ve never seen ballet, have you?”
Coo shook her head.
“Okay. Well, see the dancers on my posters there? They’re ballerinas.”
She pointed to a trio of women in tight pink tops, puffy skirts, and strange shoes. Their hair sat atop their heads in perfect, shiny buns, and they looked very serious.
“They dance with really beautiful costumes on a big stage,” said Aggie. “It’s the most amazing thing to watch.”
“You like doing ballet?” asked Coo. “Why?”
“You mean instead of just watching?” Aggie looked surprised. “Watching is good, I guess. But when you actually dance, it’s like—it feels like everything is magical, instead of normal. Like you go to another world.” She lifted up her arms. “Like I’m maybe flying, even though my feet are on the ground.”