Wild Bird

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  I’ve kept a small fire going all day so I don’t have to start one from scratch again. The bonus is I’ve got coals that are now perfect for cooking my potato.

  Boiling the potato is not an option. I’ve been good with my water, so I don’t have to search for any more, but boiling the potato would just waste it. The best way to cook a potato out in the wild is to bake it.

  We’ve done it a couple of times around the big campfire, and I’ve learned the hard way that good coals and patience are the way to make it edible. If you rush it or put the potato too close to the fire, you’ll end up with something disgusting that you only choke down because you’re starving and, hey, that’s what’s for dinner.

  If you do it right, though, it is uber-delicious.

  Doing it right means using a rock to dig out a divot near the fire, using a stick to rake in hot coals, putting the potato on top of the coals, and then covering the whole thing with more coals.

  This works if you put a raw potato in the ground, but it works better if you oil the potato first and wrap it tight in aluminum foil, which is how the jailers taught us. And inside the knapsack Michelle handed off to Mokov is a large folded square of foil and a little plastic squirt bottle of oil, plus mini zip bags of salt and pepper and Michelle’s favorite spice, cumin.

  Once I start prepping the potato, I realize I’m starving. It takes about an hour to bake, so after I get it buried in coals, I make a package of vegetable soup in my billypot. When I’m done eating the soup, I turn the potato over, put fresh coals all around it, then grab my club and wander out toward the cliff, just to get my mind off how much I want that potato.

  The sun’s dipping down toward the cliffs on the other side of the canyon, and the canyon is already starting to fill in with shadows. I’m guessing that there’s about an hour to sunset, which means it’s around seven o’clock.

  Seven o’clock.

  Already.

  Or finally. I’m not sure.

  I think about what I’ve done today. The letters. The wood, the food, the arsenal. It’s been a day full of surviving. Of trying to get through things.

  Thinking about the letters makes me think about home. What would I be doing right now if I was at home?

  The answer sweeps in clear and sure—I’d be on my phone.

  Wow.

  My phone.

  I haven’t thought about my phone in…weeks. I’ve thought about the texts and the mess they put me in, but I haven’t reached for my phone, wished for my phone, even missed my phone in…weeks.

  The wind comes up the canyon, strong and warm, lifting wisps of hair that are not anchored by my braid or bandanna. I stare down at the river, slipping slowly through the earth like a muddy snake, wearing down the sides of the canyon bit by bit, finding the low ground, looking for a way out.

  For the first time, I see the changes. Inside the earth, inside me.

  When did that happen?

  How can I not even miss my phone?

  But where does the river go after it turns that corner and disappears from view? To a lake? Underground? Does it join another river? Does it hit a plain of endless desert and just die out?

  Fear swells up inside me. Am I like that? A muddy river, sinking slowly into the earth, finding the low ground, dying on the plains of an endless desert?

  I turn away from the canyon, walk toward the fire.

  No.

  That’s not who I want to be.

  I’ve never even thought about who I want to be. The question has always been What do you want to be? You know…when you grow up?

  I’ve never had an answer for that one either. Unlike Anabella, who wants to “join the legislature and make a difference”—whatever that means. And Mo, who’s wanted to play baseball for the Giants since he was about three, even though we live in Angels country now.

  Me? I have no idea.

  But who do you want to be? Nobody ever asks that. The who just is. I’m Wren Clemmens, daughter of Morris and Lydia Clemmens. Middle kid, with a brother on one end and a sister on the other.

  But…that’s not me.

  That’s me as part of the mix of my family.

  I thought I wanted to be mini-Anabella. That didn’t work out so well. So I became a new me. An angry me. Only…I don’t want to be her, either. I can barely stand the thought of her, carving the swastika, delivering heroin.

  So…who, then?

  Who do I want to be?

  I dig up my potato, thinking this question. I unwrap the foil, cut the potato, inhale the steam, thinking this question. I drizzle some oil, sprinkle salt and pepper and cumin, thinking this question. And I eat the whole potato right down to the crispy skin, watch the sun go down and the sky turn dark, thinking this question.

  On the one hand, it seems like a ridiculous question—one that would be fascinating if I was stoned, and then seem really stupid the next day.

  But I’m not stoned.

  And it doesn’t seem stupid.

  Actually, it seems like…everything.

  Who do I want to be?

  The question loops through my mind as I wipe down the used aluminum foil with a bandanna, then carefully fold it into a neat metal square, saving it for morning. There’s pancake mix in the knapsack, and I know how to use sticks wrapped in foil to make a griddle. I’m excited, planning it out, smelling the pancakes in my mind, knowing I can do this.

  And then suddenly, unexpectedly, tickling me from inside, I recognize a long-lost feeling. The one I looked for whenever I got stoned or drunk. The one I tried to corner by outsmarting Anabella, my parents, Meadow. The one that kept drifting past me, promising me I would find it right…over…there.

  And here, now, tickling the pit of my stomach, pinging to life in my heart, the feeling has found me? I’m filthy, alone in the desert, making food in the dirt, and somehow, against everything I’ve said and thought and expected, it’s found me?

  I laugh out loud. It’s so ironic.

  But there it is.

  Happiness.

  Happiness from inside.

  How is this even possible?

  I rewind my thoughts and pause at the moment the feeling triggered inside me. It was knowing I could make a griddle out of nothing but sticks and trash. And right beside that thought is knowing I can build a fire with friction, I can cook pancakes over coals, bake potatoes in the ground. I can string up a tent, make my own shelter, outsmart the rain.

  I can do stuff.

  And knowing that—owning that—makes me feel…unstoppable.

  Like I can do anything.

  The ping gets louder inside me. It pushes me to my feet, makes me grab my club and hold it high above my head. Makes me shout, “Yo! Coyotes! If you wanna mess with me, I’m ready to take you on!”

  I toss some more wood on the fire, sending sparks flying into the darkness.

  This is who I want to be.

  I start a list by the light of the fire. I title it Who I Want to Be.

  It seems like a dumb list, but I don’t care. No one’s going to see it but me. I start each sentence with “I want to be someone who…” and then write down something that’s important to me.

  It takes a while, this list. I think about every single sentence. I think about them hard. Really try them on in my head and in my heart.

  A lot of what I write down surprises me. I try to block out my sister’s voice going, Are you serious? Could have fooled me! I try to block out my own voice going, Who is this fabricated person?

  But this isn’t a list of who I am or was.

  It’s a list of who I want to be.

  I don’t know how late it is when I stop adding to my list, because I don’t know how to tell time by the moon. It’s been up there, hanging with the stars, a little slice of crescent moving across the sky, but it’s not like the sun. It shows up at different times. Or not at all. So I don’t know how to track it or predict it.

  I lean back a little and really look at it. The moon’s just a crescent, and
the sky is clear, black, and shot full of stars. And taking it in now, I realize it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. My breath catches.

  Wow. Look at that sky.

  I know that stars are suns, billions of miles away, but I’ve never been able to wrap my head around that. Besides, I want them to be stars. Things to wish upon. Things that make dreams come true. Things with magical powers on the ends of fairy wands.

  I think of all the Disney stories I’ve read to my brother, and it brings me back to my list.

  Who do I want to be?

  I pick up my notebook.

  I want to be someone my brother’s not afraid of.

  It hurts to write that down. It hurts to know he probably is. He’s heard me yell and cuss and storm around the house. My raging made him hide in his closet. But I don’t want to be those memories to him. I want him to remember the way we used to be. The way I used to hang out with him, read to him, play Jungle Book with him.

  I want to be his friend when he gets older.

  Someone he trusts with his secrets.

  Someone he likes.

  I used to think he was too young to understand, to see the things that were happening. But he’s in fourth grade now. I remember fourth grade.

  I could see.

  I look back up at the sky, take in the stars again, the deep endless universe. With all the nights I’ve been out in the desert, why haven’t I ever really looked up like this? There is nothing more beautiful than this sky.

  Tears leak out the corners of my eyes, trickle back across my temples. I feel so bad about Mo. He must know. No one had to tell him. It was all there. Right where I laid it out for him to see.

  “Star light, star bright,” I whisper, wishing I could change things. But before the words have a chance to come out, a star shoots across the sky.

  I gasp and wipe my eyes and sniff and laugh. And after I watch the universe twinkle at me a little more, I pick up my notebook and add to my list.

  I want to be someone who remembers the stars, even in daylight.

  I want to be someone who looks up.

  I decide I need to say some things to Mo, so I add some more wood to the fire and write him a note telling him I know things have been nuts and that I’m sorry. I tell him he’s the best brother ever and that I miss him. And then, because that all seems so heavy and serious and being nine years old shouldn’t be heavy and serious, I write, But I know what you really want to hear about is…Then in big, block letters I write DESERT QUEST and beneath that I put A Cross-My-Heart, Hope-to-NOT-Die True Story.

  Then I tell him about Mokov and the hike, turning it into a tale of looming danger. I tell him about the plateau and the canyon, the rain and the cave, the coyote scat and the fire and the stars and the moon. I draw pictures with bits of charcoal, illustrating as I go, and when the story is done, I sign off, Good night, little brother. See you in another moon. Love, Cave Dweller

  It makes me feel good to tell him a story. It makes me want to build a bunk-bed fort and read The Jungle Book to him, beginning to end. It makes me wish he was here.

  I’m glad he’s not, though. The truth is, I’ve been putting off going to bed because I’m worried about getting eaten alive. The moon has moved across the sky, but there’s still a lot of night left. I have no idea how much. I think about trying to stay up all night, but I’m really, really tired. I think about dragging my pad and sleeping bag into the cave, where the coyotes would have more trouble getting to me, but it’s not near the fire and fire is my best defense.

  So I add a lot of wood to the fire, spreading it out in a way that seems like it will take longer to burn. Then I tell myself that everything is going to be fine, and I crawl into bed.

  My head spins as I put it down on my stuff-sack pillow, and I finally give in to how tired I am. If someone made me predict what I’ll dream about, I’d say, “Nothing.” You don’t dream when you’re this tired. You just sleep.

  But I do dream. And it’s not about my brother or my family or flying through space or even coyotes coming to get me.

  I dream about Nico.

  Nico and Biggy.

  The three of us are in Nico’s car—I’m in the back, alone. It’s smoky and they’re drinking, passing a bottle of Fireball back and forth. They’re ignoring me, acting like I’m not even there.

  I try to go out the back door, but it won’t open. There’s no unlock button. There’s no handle. The window won’t go down.

  I look around frantically. I’m having trouble breathing. “Hey!” I shout. “Let me out!” but it’s like there’s cotton in my mouth and the words get choked off, trapped in my throat.

  I grab the front headrests and shake the seats. I get no reaction. I shake harder, and Nico and Biggy finally look back at me.

  Their eyes are strange. Frightening. Golden rings around big, black pupils. Nico laughs that laugh I hate, then starts to snicker. It’s a soft, sinister snicker, through his nose.

  Snick, snick, snick. Snick, snick, snick.

  The joke’s on me, but I don’t know why. What have I done? Why have they trapped me?

  I search again for a door handle, for a way out. I’m frantic, suffocating on cries for help.

  Snick, snick, snick. Snick, snick, snick.

  I see someone through the window. A woman walking by. I pound on the glass, scream “HELP!” but it never leaves my throat. The window’s tinted, blacked out. The woman walks by without hearing, without seeing.

  Sniff, sniff, sniff. Sniff, sniff, sniff.

  Golden eyes narrow, move toward me between the seats.

  I gasp awake, relieved to break out of the dream, then almost immediately choke back a real scream.

  Sniff, sniff, sniff. Sniff, sniff, sniff.

  Something’s outside my tent.

  I sit up, grab the club, my heart pounding, my whole body shaking. It sounds like there’s water rushing through my ears.

  There’s not much light from the sky and only a little from the fire, which has burned down to coals. But I can see something moving along the side of my tent. Black on black. Shadow in darkness.

  I watch the shadow move forward slowly, silently. I back up inside my tent, keeping what distance I can. Then the shadow turns and a face appears in the triangle opening of my tent.

  A second face appears on the other side.

  They have pointed ears, glistening eyes.

  My heart stops.

  Coyotes.

  From somewhere inside me a voice shoots free. “HEY!” I shout, the sound exploding through the darkness. Suddenly I’m jabbing at the coyotes with my club, coming at them with a gust of power. “LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  They scamper off, but just past the fire ring they stop and stand by, watching me.

  “YOU THINK I’M GONNA LET YOU TAKE ME DOWN?” I yell at them.

  My voice doesn’t scare them, but the rocks do. I hurl them hard and fast and hear a yip when I connect. “GO!” I shout. “LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  They disappear into the darkness, but I’m not sure they’re really gone. So I lace up my boots, go out, look around, waiting, the club in my hand.

  “STAY GONE!” I finally shout into the darkness. Then I add wood to the fire and fan it back to life.

  I sit up the rest of the night, watching for coyotes, waiting for the darkness to lift. It’s cold out, so I keep the fire burning big and bright, and I make my sticks-and-foil frying pan to keep my mind off coyotes.

  My mind wanders. I think about the letters, my dream, what things will be like when I go back home, what it’ll be like to face my family, to be back at school, to see Nico and Biggy and Meadow again. I think about all of it and ask myself what I want to have happen. Ask myself how in the world I’m going to face all of that.

  Dawn sneaks up on me. It’s like the whole sky gets a slow, silent swipe of an eraser. Then another. And another. Suddenly I notice—it’s daylight.

  I’m so relieved to be able to see around me. So relieved to still be alive.
I’m also excited.

  I did it!

  Michelle had told me that I’d be “escorted out” sometime this morning, so I get busy making breakfast. I level my sticks-and-foil pan on a square of rocks lined up around coals, squirt on some oil, and cook breakfast, one delicious pancake at a time.

  At home I drowned my pancakes in syrup, but here I eat them right off the griddle and they taste amazing. Crispy around the edges, steamy warm in the middle. I wash them down with a cup of powdered milk. The milk isn’t the best, but it’s cold and wet, and that’s good enough.

  Then I clean up, and while I’m striking camp, I find a small gray-and-white feather on the ground. I pick it up and look around, wondering where the bird is that left it.

  I’ve never really studied a feather before, so I’m surprised by how soft and clean it is. How intricate. How beautiful. “Thank you,” I say to the phantom bird, because it feels like a gift. Then I go with the sudden urge to weave the feather into my braid. Maybe it’s time to own my name, too.

  I get back to striking camp, and I hustle because while I was waiting for daylight, I had an idea of something I want to do before I leave.

  So when my pack’s bundled, I take some charcoal from the fire—cooled chunks and sticks with blackened ends—and I head over to the cave where I escaped the rain my first night. I climb inside the cave, sit cross-legged facing a wall, and start drawing. From left to right I draw a cloud with rain, then fire, the moon and stars, a coyote, and a picture of me with my club.

  It takes a while. The surface is rough and the drawings are crude. Simple lines and smudges of black against salmon-colored rock. The picture of me winds up looking like a crazy stick girl with a club, but that’s okay. That’s what I was.

  I end my pictograph with the sun peeking up over a wall of rock. I look at the whole thing for a minute, then add the shape of a small bird inside a heart.

  I know the charcoal won’t last. I know it’s like writing with a stick in the sand—wind and water will wash it away. So no one else may ever see this, and if they do, they’ll interpret my pictures their own way, which may or may not come close to the story I’m telling. What they won’t know is what the bird means.