by Kaela Noel
Coo raised her eyebrows. She knew what it felt like to want to fly.
“Show me ballet, Aggie?”
“Right now?”
“Please?”
“It won’t look right in pajamas.” Aggie scrunched up her mouth and nose. “And it’s really crowded in here. Also, I’m not good.”
Coo didn’t care about any of that, and with a reluctant sigh, Aggie stood up.
“See, this is first position, and second,” Aggie said, quickly moving her feet into shapes Coo never thought about feet making. “And here’s fifth.”
Coo was puzzled. She thought dance meant moving, not standing still in funny ways. Maybe ballet was different than she’d imagined.
“And this is a plié, and a pirouette—”
Aggie stopped speaking. She was just moving. Her arms arced up and her legs leaped and her body twirled. Coo watched, mesmerized. No wonder Aggie was so sad. Ballet was magical!
“Can you teach me?”
Aggie froze mid-plié and looked at Coo.
“Me? Teach you?”
Coo blushed.
“Yes! Stand up! We’ll start with the first position.”
Aggie’s dad poked his head around the door. “Time to go, Coo. Your aunt is here. Aggie, it’s getting close to bedtime,” he said.
Coo didn’t want to leave, but she knew she had to. She brushed the brownie crumbs off Queenie and onto the plate and stood up.
“You can have my drawing,” Coo said to Aggie as they left the room.
“Thanks,” said Aggie. She was walking very slowly down the hallway.
Coo followed, clutching Queenie and keeping one eye peeled for Sugarplum.
“You’re so lucky to have Milton,” Aggie continued. She stopped to pick up a book from the floor and shove it into a gap on the shelves. She looked back at Coo. “Pigeons are cool, cooler than parakeets or parrots or even owls, at least in my opinion. They’re so smart, but nobody really notices.” Aggie got a dreamy look. “Did you know pigeons can read letters? Like, they know the alphabet, if people show them. They even can tell when words have a typo. Scientists did an experiment and proved it. I saw it on TV.”
“Yeah. Milton Burr knows my name,” Coo said. “He reads words.”
“Really?” Aggie raised her eyebrows. She leaned against the bookshelves. “How do you know?”
“I . . . know.” Coo bit her lip. She wasn’t sure how much it was okay to tell Aggie. Somehow Coo knew Tully would be upset if Aggie learned that Coo could speak to birds, and understand them, and had lived with them for so long. “Teach me more dance?” Coo said, hoping Aggie wouldn’t ask more questions.
“Yeah, let’s do it! This weekend?”
Coo nodded.
Aggie beamed.
“They made Aggie stop ballet,” Coo said that evening as she and Tully ate a dinner of tofu scramble. “But she loves doing ballet.”
Burr sat at Coo’s elbow, pecking at a dish of oyster crackers. Queenie was propped up against a glass of water, smiling happily at the ceiling.
“Her parents? Really?” asked Tully. “I would think her mother would want her to do ballet.”
“No. Teachers.”
“Oh dear. I know the school she was in was very competitive.”
“They said she was bad.”
“I hope they weren’t that blunt. Poor Aggie.” Tully sighed. “I thought she was just sad because her grandmother died, but she has other things going on. I’m sure she misses her friend Julia and her friends from ballet, too.”
“Aggie showed me ballet. She loves dancing. Why would they make her stop?”
Coo thought of the flock. Some pigeons were faster and more graceful in the air, but nobody ever made the slower ones stop flying.
“Ballet gets very serious as you get older,” said Tully. “And competitive. Competitive means everyone fighting for a spot.”
Coo remembered the way Aggie twirled and leaped and swooped around her small room. It didn’t seem like it should be serious or competitive.
“You didn’t tell her about your—well, where you lived before, right?” Tully asked. A look of worry passed over her face. “About the pigeons and how you came to live here.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to ask you to keep secrets, but it’s safer that way. I don’t want to think what would happen if Aggie’s father starts asking questions. He’s a newspaper reporter.” Tully closed her eyes and winced. “I should have said you were from Estonia or something, not a fake country like Dovecotia. I wasn’t thinking. You understand, right, Coo?”
Coo nodded. She did understand. Mostly. But not completely. It was hard to find the words to ask more questions.
“Confusing, being human,” she said to Burr, refilling his dish of oyster crackers.
“Good food, humans have,” said Burr. “Confusing, how?”
Coo sighed. It was getting harder to explain things in pigeon, too.
Chapter Sixteen
Feeding Pigeons Is Not Illegal, Sir!
After Christmas, Aggie came over as often as she could. As often as she could turned out to be every day. School was on break for the holiday.
“Octavia and Henry are supposed to be keeping an eye on me,” she explained to Tully and Coo. “But they’d much rather I stayed out of their hair.”
While Tully knit and cooked or did paperwork and ran errands, Aggie and Coo took over the living room. But it wasn’t a living room anymore: it was a theater. They were performing ballets, though Aggie insisted they weren’t real ballets, because the steps weren’t right.
Coo insisted it didn’t matter.
“Dance like this,” Coo said on the third day Aggie came over, jumping in the air and touching both her toes. “Real ballet? Don’t care.”
Aggie had been trying to teach her about a ballet called Swan Lake, but Coo wasn’t very interested. She had another idea for a ballet.
“Pigeon Roof,” Coo said. Human words were coming faster and faster to her. “About a girl who lives with a flock of pigeons on a roof. Then a pigeon gets hurt by a hawk, and she has to save him and goes to live with humans.”
Tully’s clacking knitting needles went silent.
“Oops,” Coo whispered.
Aggie didn’t seem to notice anything weird. “I know Balanchine made up a lot of new ballets. I guess we could, too. But honestly it sounds more like modern dance, not ballet.”
“Hawk, me,” said Coo. “You dance, and I catch you.”
“Okay. But let me show you a chassé step first. It’s like a hop. You can swoop like a hawk doing that. Like this . . .”
A few days after Christmas, Coo managed to convince Tully to go back to the alley with more food for the hungry flock.
“All right, all right, I don’t want to be responsible for a pigeon famine.” Tully sighed as they ate oatmeal with honey and pecans. “But you’re going to stay here with Aggie, got it? Her sister and brother can watch you for a bit.”
“No,” said Coo. “I will come with you. Aggie, too.”
“Absolutely not. Can you imagine what her parents would say?”
Coo couldn’t. Aggie’s parents were mysterious figures, rarely home and barely aware, it seemed, of what Aggie did most days.
“You can’t go without me!” Aggie exclaimed later that morning after Coo explained to her about the hungry pigeons who needed to be fed. “I want to meet the flock Burr came from.”
Coo longed to say it was the flock she came from, too, but she was careful not to break Tully’s rule. Especially with Tully cleaning up from breakfast just a few feet away.
“Aggie, I don’t think your parents would be okay with that,” Tully said, clearing her throat. “It’s beyond Food Bazaar, near the rail yard.”
“No problem. I’ll ask!” Aggie leaped up. “My mom is home today, actually.”
Five minutes later Aggie was back. She was holding a clear bag of sliced bread and beaming.
“Not only did my mom say y
es, she gave me this old bread for the birds. She says hi, Tully.”
“Hooray!” shouted Coo. “Let’s go.”
Tully put down her dish towel and sighed.
“I wish winter break was a month long. Two months!” Aggie said as they waited to cross the busy road between Tully’s neighborhood and the rail yard.
It was a warm winter day and most of the snow had melted. Everything was wet, and the cars and signs and even the sidewalks were dazzling in the bright sun. Coo wished Queenie and Burr were with her so she could show them how clean and brilliant everything was, but Tully had made her leave both at home.
“What school are you going to, Coo?” asked Aggie.
“Our turn!” Tully said brightly, grabbing both their hands. “Must look both ways, girls.”
But Aggie’s question lingered.
“I’m at P.S. 278. You know, the big one near Food Bazaar,” said Aggie. “Are you going there, too?”
Coo knew which school that was. She’d asked Tully about it one day when they’d passed by during recess. Tons of kids played in the yard, more kids than she’d ever seen anywhere at once.
“We’re still figuring that out, Aggie,” Tully said. “I wasn’t expecting Coo to be here this long, and enrolling in school takes a while.”
Coo looked at Tully, startled. She’d never mentioned going to school like it would really happen.
“I hope you go to my school,” said Aggie. “Maybe we could even be in the same class! School would be a lot better if we were together.”
“I’m sure it would be,” said Tully.
Coo felt Tully’s grip tighten on her hand. Tully stared down the street like she was searching for something faraway. She did not look like she was sure of anything at all.
When they reached the street the alley branched off from, Coo grabbed Aggie’s hand and dashed ahead.
“Wait!” Tully shouted after them, but Coo and Aggie ignored her.
Coo showed Aggie how to pull the gate open on its chain and duck in.
The alley was chilly and shadowed. Most of the snow was gone, leaving patches of slush and wet gravel, but there were still some piles in the places the sun never warmed. A soft ringing came from beyond the solid fence at the end of the alley. The trains in the rail yard were on the move, their wheels singing on the tracks. The familiar sound made Coo feel joyful.
“Flock! Flock!” Coo cried in pigeon. “Here, me! With food, me!”
The flock came streaming down from the roof into the alley.
“Wow.” Aggie’s mouth dropped open. “Where did you learn that?”
“From the birds,” said Coo. “Throw the bread. They will come.”
They ripped open the sack and began tearing the bread into tiny pieces. Pigeons crowded around, jostling one another on the gravel to reach the food.
“That’s New Tiktik,” Coo said, pointing. “There is Hoop, the old brownish one. That is Ka . . .”
“New human?” Ignoring the bread, Roohoo landed on Coo’s shoulder and stared suspiciously at Aggie. “Face windows?”
“Face windows?” Coo laughed. “Oh. Glasses, those are. My new friend, her,” she said, or tried to. Friend wasn’t really a word in pigeon. What she really called Aggie was her new flock mate.
“Hmph,” said Roohoo, and flew back up to the roof.
“He is a really grumpy pigeon,” Coo said to Aggie. “His name is Roohoo.”
Aggie was staring at her strangely.
“Are you talking to them?”
“I . . .”
“How?” Aggie’s mouth dropped open. “That’s amazing!”
“It’s . . . secret.”
“Don’t run ahead, girls!” huffed Tully, finally catching up to them. “And don’t shout for the birds, please, Coo! I thought you knew better than that. Remember how we’re not really allowed back here? If you can’t stay calm and quiet, we’ll have to leave.”
Coo stared at the jumble of birds and squeezed the bread bag in her hands. She felt heat rising up her cheeks. She glanced up at Tully and was relieved to see she looked more nervous than angry.
“Tell me more of the bird names, Coo,” said Aggie.
Coo pointed out Pook and Old Tiktik and several others. She was glad they had so much bread, and the seed from Tully’s paper sack, too. Not only because the pigeons were clearly hungry, but also because eating kept them from trying to talk to her. She wasn’t sure how she would explain her ability to Aggie, especially in front of Tully.
“It’s so creepy back here.” Aggie peered at the boarded-up hut and the empty factory building. “I didn’t know there was stuff like this in our neighborhood. I wonder how long ago people abandoned this place.”
“It’s a little bleak, isn’t it?” said Tully. “But it’s also peaceful. I never felt in danger here. The rail yard is right over beyond that fence,” she said, pointing behind the hut. “And there are always pigeons for company.”
They were down to the last slice of bread when they heard the sound of a car. There were rattles and thunks, then a big metallic creak.
“Someone is opening the gate.” Tully’s eyes went wide and she looked around the alley. “That never happens. Girls, quick. Back here.” Tully pulled Coo and Aggie behind the hut.
A white van with black lettering on the side came bouncing down the alley in a crunch of gravel and parked about twenty feet up from the hut. The pigeons rose in panic and retreated to the roof.
Aggie had stooped down and was peering through an evergreen bush. “The city health department?” she whispered. “That’s what the van says.”
Coo crawled down beside her. The snow was ankle deep and very cold on her hands and knees, even with her mittens and heavy corduroy pants.
“The health department? Is that what you said, Aggie?” whispered Tully. She stood behind the hut, shaking her head. “How strange. Don’t move, girls. Maybe they won’t mind we’re here, but I don’t want to risk it. Let’s just see if the van leaves quickly.”
“What’s the health department?” Coo asked.
Tully put a finger to her lips and shook her head. Aggie started to say something, and Tully hissed, “Shh!”
The van did not leave quickly. Two men jumped out, slamming the doors. One man was like a telephone pole, tall and thin. The other was like a fire hydrant, short and squat. They wore dark blue pants and matching jackets with round logos and lettering on the back.
The evergreen bush had a very strong pine odor. Coo felt her nose tickle. She just barely managed to hold back a sneeze, snorting into her mitten.
As Coo watched, pinching her nose, the short man barked directions to the tall one, who shuffled around the back of the van with a grim look.
“Hurry up, Frank. We’re due over at the scrap yard in Willets Point in an hour for the next count. You gotta move faster.”
“I’m hurrying, Stan, I’m hurrying.”
“If that’s hurrying I don’t want to know what slow looks like.” Stan’s voice was hard and loud, like a honking car horn.
Frank hauled two bags out of the back of the van.
“You’ve looked miserable ever since we started this project,” Stan continued. “What gives?”
“Don’t you kind of feel bad for them?” asked Frank.
“For the pigeons? They’re rats with wings.”
Aggie shot Coo an anxious look. Coo looked back at her, confused. These men didn’t seem very nice, but she wasn’t sure why they would make Aggie worried, either. Coo glanced the other way. Tully was standing pressed against the hut with her eyes shut. Her hands were clasped together and it looked like she was whispering something under her breath. Coo turned back to look at the men in the alley.
“They aren’t hurting anyone,” said Frank. “Especially not out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“The rail yard was one of the places picked because it’s out in the middle of nowhere. People won’t notice and get upset while the mayor works out the details, before it g
oes citywide.” Stan scowled and jabbed a finger at Frank’s chest. “Mayor Doherty is doing a good thing. We’re lucky to help him launch this project.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? What’s wrong with you, Frank?”
Sighing, Frank looked down at the ground. Then he squinted. “Looks like there’s already birdseed and bread here. Weird.”
“What?” Stan stared down, too. “Who put it there? We’re the only guys assigned to this site.”
“I don’t know. I don’t like this place,” said Frank. “It’s spooky. This whole project gives me a bad feeling.”
“Oh, whatever. We’re wasting time!” said Stan. “Mayor Doherty’s plan for the pigeons is going to make the whole city better, no ifs, buts, or maybes. Now where’s your click counter? We need to quit yakking so the pigeons will come back. Hand me the bread.”
Their words tumbled through Coo’s head. She only understood some of what they said. The short one was mad about something, and the tall one sad. Something that involved pigeons. It didn’t occur to her that it could be anything bad for the flock until she glanced at Tully and then Aggie again, and saw their faces. Both looked wide-eyed and stricken. Coo’s stomach flipped like a pancake.
Stan tossed chunks of bread to the gravel. The pigeons were slowly returning to eat. Frank held a small silver ball in one hand and was making it click over and over while he stared at the feasting birds.
Suddenly the itch in Coo’s nose came back. She couldn’t stop it this time. She sneezed.
“What was that?” said Stan.
At Stan’s holler, the pigeons abandoned the food for the roof.
“My count’s ruined.” Frank sighed.
“Someone’s back here,” said Stan. “No one’s supposed to be back here.”
A moment later Tully, Aggie, and Coo were face-to-face with a scowling Stan.
“Good morning, ladies. You’re trespassing on city property. Is that birdseed? And bread?” The short man scowled at the paper sack in Tully’s hand and the plastic bag with a single bread slice in it in Coo’s. “Are you feeding pigeons?”
Tully had turned paler than new snow.
“Feeding pigeons is not illegal, sir,” she said in a trembling voice.