Wild Bird

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  It’s also not because it’s Nico and Meadow in the story—although that is pretty incredible. What happened? Nico was always so careful, so cagey. It feels like things have really spun out of control in the time I’ve been away, and I can’t help wondering…if I hadn’t been abducted to this place, would I be in police custody, too?

  So all that is shocking and upsetting, but the reason I’m sick and shaking is because of the note that’s gouged in ink across the bottom of the article.

  A note that says, We have accessed your text history.

  I don’t know whose handwriting it is. That’s how angry the writing looks. And I don’t know why it feels like I’ve come stomach to fist with Tex Cauldwell again, but it does. I was totally stressed about my parents getting into my phone on kidnap day, but as the days went by and none of their letters said a word about it, I figured they’d just put my phone aside and forgotten about it. But no. Anabella was probably up all night every night trying to guess my password. It must have been her. It’s always her. The narc.

  Hannah swoops in with a smooth, scissors-twist move that puts her cross-legged beside me. “I know that look,” she says. She pulls the pages out of my hands. “May I?”

  I don’t have the strength to tell her no.

  I don’t even want to tell her no.

  She speed-reads through the first three pages, then stops to say, “Who’s this ‘minor female’ they keep talking about?”

  “It’s Meadow.”

  “Seriously?” She turns back to the paper, and after reading for another bit comes up for air. “Possession of heroin? Does she use?”

  The pages are quivering and I remember too late about Hannah’s addiction. “She dabbled,” I mumble.

  Hannah dives back into the article. “You don’t ‘dabble’ in H.”

  I feel weirdly guilty. It’s not like I lived anywhere near Hannah, and it’s not like I ever looked at what I was delivering for Nico or knew the people I was giving it to. I didn’t even know what it was at first! But I still feel bad.

  I try to take back the pages. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

  She yanks away, still reading. “This was your friend? She sounds psycho! Who attacks an old man? Even strung out, I would never do that.”

  I want to say that the report must be wrong. I want to say that Nico would never in a million years let Meadow into his group. The night before I got kidnapped, he told Biggy that she was a carnival ride. They’d both laughed that way I hate. Like they knew something I didn’t. I wanted to ask what they were talking about, but I kept quiet, kept cool, while I imagined the worst and swigged down Fireball.

  I also want to tell Hannah that Meadow would never attack an old man. But I don’t say any of those things to her, because the last few months I saw Meadow turn from manipulative to mean, and Nico…well, he does like the carnival.

  Instead, what stumbles out of my mouth is something I haven’t told anyone, ever. “She tried to suffocate me.”

  “What?” Hannah’s focus whips my way. “Meadow did? When?”

  “On Groundhog Day. She tried to make a joke about it afterward. Said it was going to be a short winter because I kept popping up.”

  “So, like, with a pillow, or what?”

  I nod. “I was spending the night. She came at me in my sleep.”

  “For real, or…maybe she was just playing around?”

  “For real. We’d both been drinking. She was drunk and angry.”

  “Why angry?”

  “She wanted in with Nico.”

  “This guy?” Hannah says, flipping back to the front page, and when I nod, she does too. “Well, he is hot. But…‘in’ how?”

  My mind flashes back to February. To the night at Meadow’s house when she spewed hatred about me being a gatekeeper. The night she said I was a pathetic pull toy and a loser who had no idea what to do with a guy. The night I realized she was jealous.

  Jealous of me.

  Seeing that—really seeing it—gave me a power surge. I tore out of Meadow’s house barefoot, and by the time I got home, I was fully charged and ready to fire back. The very next day, I started yanking Meadow’s chain like she’d been yanking mine for years. I acted like nothing had happened. I acted like she was my best friend. Someone I could totally trust. And then I started telling her stories that were mostly lies. Stories about Nico and me, about getting high, about using heroin, about sneaking out at night to break into houses and steal stuff. I made it all sound exciting and risky and cool.

  And I did it mostly by text.

  Texts my parents had now read.

  Texts my parents would totally believe after the things I’d actually done.

  Hannah’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts. “Wren?”

  My reply escapes on a gust of air. “I’m in so much trouble.”

  “What?”

  I hold my head remembering things I did in the weeks before I was kidnapped. “I took scissors to my sister’s clothes.”

  “You what?”

  “I slashed my Dad’s tires.”

  “Why are you—?”

  “I carved a swastika into my mother’s piano.”

  “A swastika? Why a swastika?”

  I can barely breathe, thinking about it. There’s no way I can explain about the Tale of the Piano. About how Nazis had lived in my great-grandmother’s house and played it, laughing and drinking, while my great-grandmother’s family fumed upstairs.

  I can hear my grandmother’s voice telling the story. But the piano stood strong and defiant, and in the end, it survived to play a happy tune.

  “Wren?” Hannah’s studying me. “Why?”

  There’s a lump closing off my throat. “Because…because I was drunk and mad and I knew it would hurt her more than anything else.”

  “Who? Your mom?”

  “Yes! She loves that piano way more than she’s ever loved me.”

  My eyes fill up. I try to hold back the tears, but they’re swelling, teetering, ready to spill over. Even to me my excuses sound lame. Even to me I seem horrible. But where before, I felt like my mother totally deserved it, what lets the flood loose is the sudden, terrifying reality of what I did.

  I hole up in my tent, my nerves fried, twitching, shaking. If there was Fireball or weed out here, I’d be all over it, but there’s not, and I don’t know how to deal with this panic, this dread, this confusion.

  Why do I care what my parents think?

  Don’t I hate them?

  I try to block out what happened when they found the swastika, but the scene is like a wrecking ball, swinging through my mind:

  My mother screams. It cuts through the house like a siren. My dad comes running. My mother breaks down, sobbing, wailing.

  Banned to my room for “attitude” during dinner, I’m deep into my secret bottle of Dr Pepper Fireball, feeling no pain. What are they going to do? Have me arrested?

  “Wren!” my dad bellows. He’s a thundercloud rolling my way. I hide the Dr Pepper bottle. Not that they’ve ever questioned what I’m drinking, but why take chances?

  “What’s up?” I ask when he blasts into my room. “Why’s Mom crying?” It comes out a little slurred, with a giggle I try to mask.

  He yanks me up by my arm and hauls me over to the piano, where Mom is draped across the lid like it’s a coffin with her firstborn inside.

  She sees me and wails, “Why?”

  “Why what?” I pretend not to see the swastika. “What’s wrong?”

  My mom sobs, “How could you?

  “How could I what?”

  My dad shoves me forward, shoves my face at the gouged wood. His grip on my arm is a tourniquet. “ANSWER HER!” he yells, loud enough to blow tiles off the roof.

  “Let go!” I shout at him. “Why are you blaming me?”

  My sister’s at my mother’s side, comforting her. “Because you’re the only person in this family who would have done it!” Anabella cries.

  I sneer at her. “Oh, r
eally?” Dad’s still holding my arm, so I wrench free. “Did you ever think,” I snarl at my mom, “that maybe she did it because she knows you hate me and would automatically assume it was me?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Anabella huffs.

  “Well, then why did you do it?” I ask her.

  “NO AMOUNT OF DENYING OR REDIRECTING IS GOING TO GET YOU OUT OF THIS,” my dad roars, sending more roof tiles into orbit.

  “So that’s it?” I ask, backing away. “Anabella couldn’t possibly have done it? One of Mo’s friend’s couldn’t possibly have done it? I’m the only one?”

  “Anabella would never do such a thing!” my mom wails. “And neither would your brother or his friends!”

  “But I would? I’m automatically guilty?” I stumble into my brother’s stuff, which is where he dumped it before racing off to spend the night with some friends. His baseball bat jumps into my hand like it’s magnetized. “Okay, well, since you hate me so much, let me give you an actual reason to!” Then I go on a rampage, smashing stuff. Framed pictures, the coffee table, vases…anything I can hit. Dad comes at me like a linebacker, but I manage to ditch him and head for the kitchen as mom shrieks and Anabella calls 911.

  In the kitchen I smash whatever I can—the counter, the canisters, the faucet—and I’m just swinging for the blender when my dad tackles me.

  My face skids along the tile floor, my arms get wrestled behind me. My dad’s breathing is heavy, his knee sharp in the middle of my back. I can hear my mother freaking out, but the cool tile against my cheek overrides it. It feels so good. Ice against fever. I wish all of me could feel that way.

  And then the world goes black.

  Later, I saw that night as a victory. My parents were afraid of me. So was my sister. Their solution seemed to be to lay down even stricter rules and cage me. In the days that followed, I played along until they went to bed, then escaped through the window. I didn’t know they were plotting a kidnapping.

  But now, thinking back to the night of the rampage, what keeps playing in my mind is the real wrecking ball. I woke up from my blackout, on my side on my bedroom floor with my head pounding and my hands tied behind my back. Everything hurt. Outside, lights were flashing blue and red. I staggered over to the window and saw my parents talking to two cops on our porch. When the cops finally left, my parents sat down on the steps, wrapped their arms around each other, and cried.

  At the time, what I saw was them crying over the piano and the things I’d smashed.

  At the time it was easy to turn away.

  And now?

  Now I can’t seem to block out the way they were sobbing, heaving, collapsing into each other. Over and over the scene smashes through my mind, and what I see now is them grieving.

  Like someone had died.

  I can’t write the letter. I just can’t.

  Tara sits with me, tries to get me to open up, tells me it takes courage to face our darkest selves. I know Hannah’s spilled what I told her. I’m not mad. I know she’s worried. I know she cares.

  But I can’t write the letter. I just can’t.

  Tara holds my hands, pleads with me to let it go, let it out. I cry and shake my head, terrified by the panic, the confusion, the memories ravaging my mind.

  “You can do this,” she tells me. “You can face this and get through it. Let the burden go.”

  But I can’t write the letter. I just can’t.

  Maybe if I had some weed. Or whiskey.

  “Is there something you can give me?” I finally ask. “Something to calm me down?” I break down and beg. “I’ve seen them give meds to the other girls. Please?”

  “Those are prescribed by their doctors back home.” She squeezes my hands. “Wren, you’re clean. This is the time to figure things out. Numbing the pain won’t help you do that.” She looks at me intently and whispers, “Let it out. Let it go. Stop poisoning yourself with hatred.”

  I look down and hold still for the longest time. And when I finally look up, I beg her, “Please? I think I could do it if I wasn’t so…raw.”

  She studies me a moment, then leaves without a word. I see her gather the jailers—John, Dvorka, Michelle—and they all stand in a circle talking quietly, heads bowed, hands shoved in pockets.

  When they’re done, Michelle’s the one to come to my tent. She squats in front of it and says, “We need you to pack your things.”

  Panic swallows me whole. “You’re sending me home? Why? What did I do?”

  “No!” she says quickly, because now I’m hyperventilating. “We’re sending you on a quest.”

  “A quest?” I’m panting, not understanding.

  “Remember how Mia was gone for three days? And then Shalayne?”

  I nod. It was against the rules to talk about where they’d gone, but they’d both come back…different.

  “They were on a quest.”

  “What does that mean? What am I looking for?”

  She smiles and stands. “You’re looking for you.”

  “What?”

  “Pack. We need you ready to go in twenty minutes.”

  The second she’s gone, Hannah pokes her head in the back side of my tent. “Did I hear right?” she whispers. “You’re doing a quest?”

  I still can’t breathe right. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you disappear for three days.” She looks past me, through the tent to Dvorka, who’s heading our way. “You better still be my friend when you’re done!”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, but she’s already gone.

  Dvorka squats in front of my tarp opening. “Pack no food. We’ll provide rations and water. But you need to bring everything else for two nights. And just a heads-up—rain is expected.”

  “Is anyone going with me?”

  “No.”

  Her answer feels like a lock snapping closed. “But…where am I going? What am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re supposed to do what you need to do, and Tara says you know what that is.”

  I look down.

  “You’ll be guided to your quest site,” she says. “The rest is up to you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  She gives me a little smile. “Have I ever given you reason to think I’m not?” She pats my knee. “Come on. And pack wisely.”

  I’ve struck camp enough times now to be quick at it, and by the time Michelle approaches again, I’ve got my pack bundled tight. Anything I’m not bringing—mostly just my curriculum binder and random clothes—gets put in a Hefty sack.

  Michelle is wearing a worn leather knapsack. It’s decorated with juniper berries and is full up to the drawstrings. “Ready?” she asks.

  “Is that even possible?” I answer, but the packing did help—at least I can breathe again.

  She chuckles. “Well, ready or not…” She produces a bandanna, snaps it out, then turns it into a blindfold.

  I groan, “Seriously?” but I don’t put up a fight as she wraps it around my head, turns me a couple of times, and leads me in who-knows-what direction.

  We’ve walked less than ten minutes when Michelle stops and holds me by the shoulders. “You’ll be fine,” she says softly in my ear. “Let the sun rise inside you.”

  I’m thinking, We’re here? They’re exiling me this close to camp? Well, cool. I can find my way back, no problem. I’ll just follow campfire smoke and—

  And then the blindfold is off, Michelle has disappeared, the knapsack is at my feet, and I’m looking into the ancient eyes of Mokov.

  Mokov’s silver-snake braids sweep against his leather vest as he straps on the knapsack. “Wild Bird,” he says, giving me a soft smile. “Come.”

  Then he turns and heads into the sagebrush without even glancing back.

  I watch him go, and in my head I’m sputtering, Wild Bird? What makes you think you can call me that? But he’s already disappearing behind a grove of pinyons, so I hurry to catch up.

  He’s swift. Silent. Like smoke on a bre
eze. Me, I’m crunching on twigs and breathing hard, struggling to keep him in sight.

  There is no path. No destination I can see. He leads us past pinyons and junipers, down a section of huge boulders, and through a stretch of hard red dirt that funnels into a narrow canyon.

  The walls of the canyon have black streaks running down their faces like streams of inky tears. “Where are we going?” I call after him, but it echoes off the canyon walls unanswered.

  I follow him through the canyon, over endless brick-red dirt. Finally I shout, “How far are we going?”

  He stops. Turns. Waits. “On this journey? Or in life?” He gives me a small smile and begins walking again, this time a little slower. “We travel only as far and as high as our hearts will take us.”

  “Well, my heart has had enough,” I tell him, panting.

  He glances back at me. “I like to reflect on things as I walk.”

  “Reflect on what?”

  “Hmm,” he says, checking the sky as he hikes. “Today I’ve been considering how life’s journey is not about the distance we move our feet, but how we are moved in our heart.”

  Stupid me for asking. “Look,” I beg, “all I really want to know is where I’m going, and how long it’s going to take to get there.” Then I add, “And also, how it’s legal to stick me out in the middle of the desert by myself.”

  He stops again and studies me with those ancient eyes. But instead of giving me information or even a glimmer of hope that I won’t die in the middle of nowhere on this “quest,” he says, “There’s a wisdom passed through the ages that says that if we walk far but are angry as we journey, we travel nowhere. If we hold grudges as we scale mountains, our view remains the same.” He starts off again, saying, “So what I can tell you is that your journey will be long and difficult if you refuse to choose a new direction for your heart.”

  A new direction for my heart? I follow but let him gain ground on me and play around with the idea of ditching him. He was cool back when he just told stories, but telling me about the direction of my heart?

  Who needs that?