“Loah!” Her cheeks were pink, her hair windblown. Seeing them sitting there, she froze. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh.”
Loah jumped up and led her to the table.
“This is my friend Ellis Smith. Ellis, this is Miss Rinker and this is Dr. Whitaker.”
Miss Rinker gave the barest nod. Dr. Whitaker carefully hooked his glasses over his ears. He folded his hands on the table, cleared his throat, and continued.
The conditions Dr. Londonderry had described earlier had only gotten worse. Travel had been treacherous at best. She was down to her last bit of food and relying on marsh water she purified. Turning back was the only sensible decision. Dr. Whitaker paused. A muscle in his cheek twitched.
“She pressed on.”
Miss Rinker inched her chair closer to Loah’s.
Dr. Londonderry’s Jeep must have hit a collapsed pingo or a crater. The permafrost was badly heaved in every direction. The Jeep rolled over, skidded on its side, and came to a stop against some boulders. The rescue team who found her reported that it had a broken axle.
Dr. Whitaker pulled a sigh from his very depths.
“She was dehydrated and in shock with a badly broken arm. The first thing she said to the crew was, Where is Loah? When they said they hadn’t seen the bird, she said, No! My girl. Where is my girl? She was convinced you were there with her.”
Miss Rinker slid an arm around Loah.
So did Ellis.
In its bowl, the fish hid behind its plant.
They helicoptered her out. By the time they reached the hospital, they had her hydrated. Doctors pieced her arm back together with pins and screws, a process Loah didn’t want to think about. Never, ever would she be a doctor, but she would be eternally grateful to anyone who was.
“So?” whispered Ellis. “She…”
“She was astonishingly lucky,” Dr. Whitaker said. “Her injuries could have been much worse. And if they hadn’t found her when they did…” He looked at the ceiling, then back at Loah. “You and the rescue team saved her life.”
Ellis flung herself out of her chair. “You did it!” she cried, hugging Loah.
“She did,” said Dr. Whitaker. “You’re a hero, Loah Londonderry.”
No. Being a hero meant you were courageous, even fearless, two things Loah hoped never to need to be again. She’d had more than enough of adventure and peril.
She opened her mouth to say so, but Miss Rinker summoned all her old, indomitable force to command, “Do not argue.”
“Ana was only able to talk for a few minutes,” Dr. Whitaker said. “She listened to my tirade about how foolish, pigheaded, and completely irresponsible she’d been, and she completely agreed. Then immediately tried to convince me to mount a return expedition.”
“She wouldn’t!” Miss Rinker bared her dentures.
“I don’t see it happening,” said Dr. Whitaker. “Ana never got a photo. No recording, no concrete evidence. Reactions will range from skeptical to dismissive.” He reached for a MERRY CHRISTMAS napkin and dabbed his eyes. “She’ll call you later today, Loah. It’ll be a while before she’s stable enough to travel, though if it were up to her, she’d be on a plane to you right now.”
He pushed back his chair and stood up. He looked tired, tired to the bone. He’d kept his promise to find her mother, no matter what it took, and Loah would have hugged him if she dared. He was so solid, so reasonable, so trustworthy, and she thought how nice it would be to have a parent like that. A parent right out of One and Only Family.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Thank you. If anything had happened to her… well.” He put a hand on her shoulder, crinkling the poncho she still wore. “You might not believe me, but I wish she’d gotten proof your bird was still out there.”
“Dr. Whitaker, you told me yourself, she’s one of the best scientists you’ve ever known. Do you really think she made a mistake?”
He gave a small, weary smile.
“Let’s just get her home safe,” he said. “Then she and I can talk.”
Loah walked him down the corridor, across the entry hall and under the stag-head chandelier. At the door he stopped.
“I’m not sure about the bird,” he said, “but you, Loah Londonderry. You are a rare find.” He shook her hand, then stepped outside, where a goldfinch did a lovely loop-de-loop in the green summer air.
“Mama.” Loah sat in Theo’s lounger, phone clasped tight.
“Sweetie.”
“How do you feel?”
“Foolish. And very, very sorry. Sweetheart! Whit told me what you did. What you had to go through! I never should have stayed, but I had to. Oh, sweetie, that’s not much of an apology, is it? It was a chance I had to take, but I wish I never… I’m sorry—I’m still not making sense.”
“Mama? Do you think the loah will be all right? Do you think her eggs will survive?” When her mother didn’t answer, Loah said, “She managed all this time on her own. She’s smart and strong. I don’t know if birds can be brave, but if they can, she is.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Her mother began to cry. “So are you! All those things.”
“I think she’s out there. And if she has chicks… I think they’re all going to be fine.”
Usually it was Theo who made sure Loah went to bed on time, who smuggled her gummy worms or whistled her a good-night tune, then sat for a while, listening to the screech owl’s spooky lullaby.
Things were different tonight. Tonight it was Miss Rinker, and instead of the owl, another bird called outside the window. The northern mockingbird knows hundreds of songs, most borrowed from other birds, and it can sing for hours, mixing whistles and trills, caws and chirps and coos, without ever repeating itself. Tonight the mockingbird serenaded them as Miss Rinker supervised Loah doing her ocular exercises, taking her shower, and combing every last tangle from her curls. It was Miss Rinker who neatened the bedcovers, straightened the picture of the Loah bird, wiped smudges from the side of the fishbowl, all the while muttering darkly about whether that bird outside would ever stop its racket.
When at last Loah was in bed, Miss Rinker folded her pipe-cleaner arms. By now she’d mostly recovered from the shock of the day, and looked like her old self. Loah was sure she’d find something to lecture about. It might sound peculiar to you, if you dislike being scolded and lectured—and who doesn’t?—but the fact was that Loah almost looked forward to it. Remember how much she loved the familiar and predictable. A Miss Rinker scolding would be immensely comforting.
The old woman’s eyes shone in a way that made Loah think she looked forward to the lecture, too. But Miss Rinker, it turned out, was not the same person she’d been. She bared her dentures. Her bushy eyebrows drew together.
“You’ve been on an expedition,” she announced.
Poor Miss Rinker! The day must have truly addled her.
“No,” said Loah gently. “That would be my mother.”
“Expeditions come in every size and shape. You can be an explorer without ever leaving home.”
“But—”
“Do not argue. You will never win.”
Miss Rinker dropped a papery kiss on Loah’s forehead, switched off the light, and marched away.
What could Miss Rinker mean? The deep blue feather the birds had given her lay on the bedside table, and Loah took it in her fingers. Maybe, maybe if you looked at things a certain way, every life was a kind of expedition. Going forward, one step after another. Even when you thought you knew where you were headed, there’d be a surprise, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. You might discover something wonderful, something that had been there all along, just waiting for you to find it. Something like a friend. Or how good you were at being a friend. Or how hard you’d fight to save the places and people you loved.
She touched the feather to her cheek. But sometimes, many times, the expedition would be hard. You’d discover things you’d rather not. Maybe you’d di
scover that, though your mother loved you, she loved the natural world just as much. Maybe, sometimes, she loved it even more than she loved you. To fight for it, to protect it, she’d leave you. Again and again, her work would pull her away from you.
The mockingbird sang. Loah closed her eyes.
Mama had to be Mama, and Loah had to be Loah. Only not exactly the Loah she used to be. Mama would go away, and she would stay home, and that would never be easy, but it would be different now. Loah drew a breath and felt it fill her. She stretched her legs and knew they’d grown. Always, always, she would want Mama to come home, but it would be a different kind of wanting. Not the helpless kind. Because Loah wasn’t helpless, not anymore.
Opening her eyes for a moment, she saw a single moonbeam, white as a snow goose feather, tumble over the lovely dark wall of trees. The world was big and the world was small and that was the mystery of it. The mystery and the wonder and…
The mockingbird sang Loah off to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Along the hallway with its peeling wallpaper, down the staircase with its faded carpet of cabbage roses, across the entry hall with its stag-head chandelier, along another dim corridor, and into the kitchen with its checkered black-and-white tile floor…
On the table sat a big cake whose icing spelled out HAPPY 33RD ANNIVERSARY MARY AND… The rest of the letters were smooshed into oblivion. The cake had been on discount at the bakery, and Miss Rinker, even today, could not resist a bargain.
She’d bought it on her way home from the rehab center, where Theo was making steady progress. He’d be home within the week. Loah had been to see him every day, bringing him gummy worms and reading to him from a new book the librarian with the sparkly purple glasses had given her, a biography of Nellie Bly (real name: Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman), who had traveled by steamship and train around the world in seventy-two days (much faster than Magellan) and lived to tell.
Loah and Theo agreed that coming home safe and sound was Nellie Bly’s greatest accomplishment.
And speaking of coming home…
At this very moment, Dr. Whitaker was at the airport picking up Loah’s mother.
“Just a little while, Crew,” she told her goldfish.
It was Zeke who’d finally named it. He kept following Ellis here, though she threatened to remove his head and spit down his neck. When Miss Rinker gave him a new poncho to replace the filthy yellow fringe his old one had become, he thanked her as if she’d given him a magic wand. When he’d said they should name the fish Crew, it blew a jubilant stream of bubbles. Yes.
Ellis brought Loah homemade cookies, bottles of homemade grape juice, and lumps of homemade goat cheese (these Loah carefully placed in the very back of the refrigerator). As soon as things calmed down enough, Loah was going to the hollow to choose a kitten from the newest litter in the barn. She couldn’t bring it home, of course, but it would be hers, Ellis promised. Loah had already chosen its name.
Nestle.
A few days ago, Mr. Smith had given Ellis a ride here. Pulling into the driveway, he’d watched Loah hop down the back steps, and scowled. Later, when he returned, the bed of the pickup held tools and fresh boards, and soon there was a new bottom step. PopPop, it turned out, knew how to make more than birdhouses. He’d built Ellis’s mother’s wheelchair ramp, the many sheds, the goats’ fence. Watching him wield sharp tools had made Loah’s heart quake a little, but it had also given her an idea.
Now as she hurried down the steps, all of them freshly painted, she hoped her mother would approve when she found out Loah had hired Mr. Smith. He’d be back soon to clean the gutters and replace the roof slates. Meanwhile, she’d called the number on Inspector Wayne J. Kipper’s card and told him that repairs on the house had begun and he could come meet her mother next week. She could tell he didn’t believe her. She could hardly wait till he saw for himself.
She strolled across the yard and sat on her swing. Overhead, the birds were fizzy with joy. The kind of joy that comes from knowing that the world will always brim with new wonder and surprise. Song stitched the air. Even the jay was trying to sing. Perched in the oak, black feather necklace gleaming on its brilliant white chest, it made soft clicks and clucks, instead of its usual awful screeches.
Bird brains are wired for joy. They know the world is a dangerous place, yet anytime they can forget it, they do.
A grunt. A hiss.
Loah looked up, and there was the vulture, hulking in its favorite spot next to the turret. It spread its raggedy wings and shifted its scaly feet. Loah almost laughed. There was no getting rid of it.
“You’re back! Why?”
The vulture fixed her with its stony eyes. I’ve been trying to tell you. If you weren’t so dense, you’d have figured it out by now.
So many strange, unpredictable things had happened lately, possibly more things than had happened in Loah’s entire life, yet what came next was one of a kind. No, two of a kind. Because before her very eyes, the bird doubled. A second vulture, indistinguishable from the first, slipped out from inside the turret.
“What?” She rubbed her eyes. Slowly, then all at once, the truth dawned. “Wait. It was you? Making those noises? Scaring me like that? The two of you?” She rubbed her eyes again. “What? Three?”
A creature covered in fuzzy white feathers squeezed out next. A small shake, a hoarse peep, and it began toddling around looking immensely pleased with itself. A baby! A chick.
Followed by its sibling.
Squinting hard at the crooked turret, Loah saw the spot where the hunk of masonry had broken loose, but now she also saw, for the first time, a barely visible chink in the other side. The thumping. The hissing. The flashes of raw-meat red. All this time, it had been a volt of vultures! The turret with its broken windowpane and crumbling stone—all this time, it had been a home, birthing and sheltering a new family.
The chicks’ faces were shaped like ebony hearts. Their pink feet were much too big for the rest of them. Puffing their chests, they hissed like fluffy teakettles. They flapped their useless, fledgling wings. Meanwhile, their parents hovered about, protective and proud.
No wonder the vulture had stood its ground and refused to leave. The vultures. This was their home.
Their home and hers. Never had Loah loved it more than at this moment.
The chicks toddled to the edge of the roof, peeked over, and scurried back in alarm. Loah burst out laughing. They weren’t ready to leave the nest. Oh no, no way! They’d done the first hard work of pecking their way out of their shells, and next they’d learn to fly. But not yet. Not for a while. How would they know when it was time? How would they know their wings were ready? Mama would have the answer to that.
Tires crunched the gravel, and Loah spun around to see Dr. Whitaker’s car. There was Mama, leaning out the passenger window, grinning and waving with her good arm. Loah had so much to ask Mama, and even more—so much more—to tell her.
Loah the homebody, Loah the explorer, flew to meet her.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The loah bird doesn’t actually exist, any more than Loah Londonderry does, though now that you’ve finished reading their story, I hope both will be as real and as dear to you as they are to me. (Note: In this book all Arctic places names are, likewise, fictional.)
While I made up the loah bird, the other facts in this book are all true. Birds are such astonishing creatures, I had no need to invent. Birds have owned the sky for over 150 million years. They inhabit every corner of our earth, from the most isolated wildernesses to the centers of the busiest cities. Travel to the coldest mountain peak or the hottest, driest desert, and birds will be there, laying their eggs, raising their young, lacing the air with their songs. It’s a fact that the Arctic tern migrates from its Arctic breeding grounds to the Antarctic and back again each year, approximately twenty thousand miles. Equally amazing, the common swift can stay in nonstop flight for up to ten months. (How does it sleep? Another bird mystery.) It�
�s true that the peregrine falcon, which has colonized many cities, can reach a speed of over two hundred miles an hour when diving for prey. (In a race, a cheetah would not stand a chance.) It’s also a true and endearing fact that turkey vultures are very social birds that love to hang out with friends, though during mating season parent birds stick close to each other and the nest.
The birds in our own backyards and neighborhood green spaces may not seem as amazing, but look again. Watch a noisy, nosy blue jay hold a seed between its feet and crack it open with its powerful beak, or that little acrobat the hairy woodpecker whack a tree trunk in search of its insect supper. Listen to a northern mockingbird with its hilarious medley of mimicked songs and sounds. In spring, keep an eye out for bits of the beautiful blue shell of the American robin. This egg has protected and nurtured a growing chick for weeks. Like all bird eggs, from the tiniest hummingbird’s to the colossal ostrich’s, it was the perfect size for its inhabitant. It was exactly the right shape for its nest. If you find pieces of it on the sidewalk or grass, you’ll know it has done its job: it has given way to new life.
Unfortunately, while I didn’t need to invent a single brilliant, lovable fact about birds, I also didn’t need to invent their current plight. If you go to the website of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (www.iucn.org), which Loah mentions, you’ll find its Red List of Endangered Species. You will not, of course, find the loah bird, but as of 2021 over thirty thousand species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and other creatures—about 27 percent of all assessed species—are listed as endangered. While it’s a fact that climate change is affecting the Arctic at twice the rate of the rest of the globe, creatures and plants everywhere are suffering from its impact. In addition, as developers exhaust Earth’s natural resources—for example, by mass deforestation—they often disrupt wildlife’s food sources and shelters. Loah and her mother never even mention the impact that drilling for oil in the Arctic could have on its Native peoples’ communities, as well as on animals like the polar bear, snow goose, and snowy owl.
The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe Page 14