“What?” asks Birdy.
Father hands her the package.
Birdy unwraps it. She looks at a photograph of a smiling woman. Her smile is bright like Birdy’s smile.
Birdy stares at it. Then smiles.
Birdy knows.
“Linnea,” she whispers.
She looks at us. She smiles.
“Linnea!”
It’s dusk. We’re all in Birdy’s room.
Mother leans against a pillow, Charles the horse on her lap. Ben and I crowd next to her, Ben holding the wood child.
I point to more sea stones on the bedside table, waiting for paint.
“She has a basket full under the bed,” Ben whispers to me.
Tillie comes into the room with her blurp! sound of surprise to see us all there. She jumps up on the bed and sits next to Mother.
Birdy stands at the window, looking for Nico.
“Kick the can later?” Mother asks her.
“Yes!” says Birdy. “It’s my everyday life!”
I smile at Ben. “Everyday life” is an expression of his.
“‘Everyday life’ sounds like ‘beautiful sense,’” says Father.
He holds up the framed photograph of Linnea. He points to a place next to his painting of Mother.
“Yes,” says Birdy. She watches him hang the picture.
“There it is,” he says to Birdy.
Birdy looks at the two pictures next to each other.
“My two mothers watching over me when I sleep,” recites Birdy in her quiet voice.
She smiles.
“The perfect ending to my poem.”
She looks at all of us.
“‘My Joy,’” she says.
There are no more words to say.
I look at Ben, close to me on the bed.
He smiles and nods at me as if he hears my thought. And, in the way of twins, I know that Ben and I are thinking the very same thing—
The perfect ending to the story of Birdy.
Start reading Patricia MacLachlan’s
My Life Begins!
1.
“The Trips”
I am nine years old when my life begins. Before then, I was the only child. The son of Maeve and Daniel Black.
My baby picture hangs on the large living room wall all by itself. My name, “Jacob,” is printed in the margin below my face.
“I look lonely,” I say.
“I think ‘serious’ is the word, Jacob,” says my father. “Or ‘solemn.’”
I don’t like either word.
“We need more happy pictures,” I say.
“My friend Bella’s dog has a litter of puppies. Maybe we can get puppies.”
“Soon we’ll have babies,” says Mother. “Remember?”
“Not puppies,” I say.
“Not now,” says Father. “Soon we’ll have happy faces.”
“Very soon,” says Mother, looking tired and big.
“But the babies will be yours,” I say. “Maybe one puppy?”
No one answers me.
Then on a late winter day it happens. The “Trips” are born. That’s my name for the triplets who are born—Charlotte, Katherine, and Elizabeth.
They will soon become—
“Char,”
“Kath,”
“Liz.”
It’s a little like a litter of puppies.
I write in my notebook:
“A Litter of Trips”
The Trips are here.
They’re not pretty.
They look like birds without feathers.
Puppies are cuter.
—Jacob
I am only nine, remember. But I can tell right away that it will be my job to study and train the Trips. My mother and father are too tired for that.
Their first months, days and nights, are full of sleep and waking to feed the Trips with sterilized bottles of formula and mother’s milk. And constant diaper changing—the diapers are the size of party napkins.
“Puppies would be easier,” I say to Father.
“True,” he says, yawning.
The kitchen is full of bottles. Sometimes I have to search for apples, oranges, bread, or milk for my cereal.
Father puts a small refrigerator for me in the pantry. I can find my milk, juice, snacks, and ice cream. The pantry is mine. I don’t mind. It’s out of the way.
More than once I find Father in there, just leaning against the counter in the quiet.
I lean against the counter, too.
“I’d like a puppy,” I say.
“Yes,” says Father.
“Yes, I can have one?”
“Yes, I know you want one,” he says wearily.
The Trips are identical, so Mother dresses them in separate colors to tell them apart:
blue for Char,
red for Kath,
yellow for Liz.
They wear tiny bracelets with the same colors and their names. That seems strangely sad to me. After all, they’ve been curled up together inside my mother for months.
When my friends Allie and Thomas come to my house they are startled.
“What are those, Jacob?” Thomas asks, pointing to the beds. Thomas always asks questions when he knows the answers. He once explained to me that it gives him time to think.
“My litter of puppies,” I say.
Thomas ignores my joke.
“Three,” Thomas says, staring at them.
“Triplets,” I say.
“They are all the same,” says Allie.
She means “identical.”
“They look the same,” I say. “Mother says they’ll change.”
About the Author
Photo credit John MacLachlan
PATRICIA MACLACHLAN is the celebrated author of many timeless books for young readers, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal. Her novels for young readers include Skylark, Caleb’s Story, More Perfect than the Moon, Grandfather’s Dance, Word After Word After Word, Kindred Souls, The Truth of Me, The Poet’s Dog, My Father’s Words, and Wondrous Rex. She is also the author of many beloved picture books, a number of which she cowrote with her daughter, Emily. She lives in Williamsburg, Massachusetts.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Patricia MacLachlan
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Skylark
Caleb’s Story
More Perfect than the Moon
Grandfather’s Dance
Arthur, For the Very First Time
Through Grandpa’s Eyes
Cassie Binegar
Seven Kisses in a Row
Unclaimed Treasures
The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
Word After Word After Word
Kindred Souls
The Truth of Me
The Poet’s Dog
My Father’s Words
Wondrous Rex
Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
A SECRET SHARED. Copyright © 2021 by Patricia MacLachlan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2021 by Kenard Pak
Cover design and lettering by Molly Fehr
* * *
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-288586-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-288585-2
* * *
2122232425PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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A Secret Shared Page 5