Sparrow

by Sarah Moon

  “Sparrow?”

  “Um. The best part of my week was that my cousin gave me an iTunes gift card. The worst is that I hate creamed corn.” Monique slivers her eyes at me. When Mr. Phillips turns his full, earnest attention to Brie, who is talking about her love for tempeh and how excited she is to work her parents’ shift at the food co-op, Monique makes the she’s-so-crazy sign, twirling her finger in a circle by her head, looking at Sasha and pointing at me. I don’t care. It’s not like she’s wrong.

  After our mandatory bonding, as we are filing out for lunch, Mr. Phillips stops me. “Sparrow, I need to see you for a minute, please.” Is it about the creamed corn? Maybe he just wants to tell me I should really consider making more of an effort, getting to know some of the other kids, blah, blah, blah. Whatever it is, there is nothing in the world worse than standing around a classroom trying to look like everything is fine, waiting for everyone else to leave the room and for Jayce to quit fiddling with his stupid backpack so that some teacher can have their one-on-one heart-to-heart with you. Speaking of hearts, mine is beating fast.

  Once we’re alone, Mr. Phillips says, “Sparrow, what’s going on? School? Classes? Homework?” My stomach is sinking with every word. “Kiddo, I know you’ve had a rough couple months, but you’re not going to make it out of eighth grade if you don’t start doing some work. You’re such a smart girl, Sparrow—what are you doing?”

  I don’t know what to say. I have done every assignment I’ve ever had since I was five. I even kind of liked homework before. Well, you see, Mr. Phillips, between school and therapy and not talking to my mom, and turning into a bird and not sleeping, gadolinium hasn’t been the first thing on my mind. I don’t say that. I say:

  “Okay.”

  “That’s the thing, Sparrow, it isn’t okay. You have two weeks to turn this around. Then I’m going to call your mom and we’re going to have a parent-teacher conference.”

  I nod and leave, holding tight to the straps of my backpack. The next period has started, and there’s no one in the halls. I run to the stairwell and make my way to the bathroom. There’s a buzzing in my ear, a screeching kind of silence. I push through the very, very familiar door. I hear Mr. Phillips say “call your mom” over and over in my head and all I can think about is how much she’s worried about me, and how much more she will be now. What’s worse, so much worse, is that I can’t fix it. I can’t go home and sit down at the table and crank out math problems.

  I walk home after school, looking everywhere for a bird—any kind—but it’s like they’ve all left town. I feel a kind of lonely that’s entirely different from the eat-lunch-in-the-bathroom kind. It’s worse. Somewhere inside is the knowledge that they’re never coming back. That I traded them in for just the idea of talking. That they know that I will eventually betray them, and so they’ve forgotten me. I try not to listen to this knowledge. I blare Alabama Shakes in my headphones to try to drown it out.

  When I get home, Mom isn’t there. She sends me a text: Home late, problem with the server. I’m sorry. Order whatever you want! Love, Mom. There’s always a problem with the server. I go upstairs and lie down on my bed, surprised that I’m still crying, surprised that I have any tears left. I put the Pixies on again, and it’s With your feet on the air and your head on the ground and I’m crying even harder. I curl into a ball on my bed. I can’t bear to look out the window. I don’t want to see the empty sky. Don’t want to wait for them to come, knowing that they never will. I stay curled in a ball until the sun sets. I fall asleep, I guess, but fall isn’t really the word. I plummet.

  In my dream, for a minute, things are perfect. My body goes light and my arms go out, my heart swoops up and soars down; it’s like it always is. But then I realize I’m on the ground. I stretch my wings—green and too thick—I run on my talons, gray, scaly, heavy, more like sneakers than like claws. I look, confused, at the bird that has come for me. I recognize its owl-like face, with its green and yellow feathers and its enormous gray beak that looks just like a nose. It’s a kakapo. I must be dreaming; they’re rare birds found only in New Zealand and practically extinct by now. Also, they’re flightless. They live in the forest and flap their wings and go absolutely nowhere. I know this, and it doesn’t stop me. I’m on the stoop outside my house flapping my wings and running with my heavy talons and going nowhere.

  In my dream, George comes outside from downstairs and says, “Where are you going?” and then I hear Mom laugh. Her laugh turns into a cry and I am up in the air finally, but I’m not a kakapo anymore. My wings are strong and light gray-brown. I look down at my white chest. I swoop in a familiar loop in the sky, taking my time, enjoying the sun on my face, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is very, very wrong. I want to enjoy the flight, I want to enjoy the view and the soaring and the wind, I want to feel how easy it is breathing through a beak.

  We have flown north to Albany; I recognize the capitol building from a trip there in elementary school. That’s not why we’re here, though. I feel dread climbing its way up my body. I am headed for an enormous landfill, as if my chest were being pulled from the sky to the ground. I’m not headed for the trash, I see now, but for a small, skinny dog wandering the heap. That’s when I look at my wings and understand—the light grayish brown, the white underbelly, the soaring in circles. A vulture. That dog is supposed to be my dinner. I try to keep myself in the air, anything to keep that dog from ending up between my talons. As I get closer and closer, my feathers begin to fall out, first one by one, and then in clumps, until I can see my bones. Below me, I see my right talon fall off my body to the ground. Then my left. I hear the thunk they make as they land in the pile of trash, becoming a snack for the junkyard dog. A strong wind comes, and all my belly feathers are gone. I’m a pile of bones in the air. Suddenly, I’m headed straight for the Brooklyn Bridge. I crash headfirst into the bricks and crumble to dust in the water. Then I wake up.

  I can’t breathe. Beak or no beak, I can’t breathe. It’s a dream, I tell myself, but it doesn’t help. I get out of the too-hot bed with its clinging covers. I open the window. It’s not enough. I feel stuck, like there’s not enough air in my room. I run down the hall to the bathroom. I splash water on my face. It feels hot even though it’s cold. I can’t catch my breath. I feel like my face is on fire and nothing can put out the flames. I don’t hear Mom knock, but all of a sudden her hand is on my back.

  “Sparrow,” she says, and her voice puts the flames out. “Sparrow, it’s okay.”

  I look her in the eyes; mine are wide, I can tell. I can’t breathe. She takes my hands.

  “Breathe with me. You had a bad dream. Just breathe.” I follow her breath, and then she pulls me to her and holds me there.

  “Little Sparrow,” she says, “you’re okay.”

  I don’t think so, and I bet she doesn’t think so either, but I’ll take it. I start to breathe again. She walks me back to my room and makes my bed for me, shaking out the crumpled sheets and smoothing the duvet. She fluffs the pillows. Mom likes a bed just so.

  “Come now,” she says, and I get in. The sheets feel cool now, and the breeze through the window feels good on my damp forehead. She sits on the edge of my bed, and I roll over to face the wall. She is rubbing my back until I fall asleep, like I’m five years old. Then again, I just woke my mom up with a nightmare, so five sounds about right.

  “Mom?” I say.

  “Yes, Sparrow?”

  “Stay.”

  I wish that had changed everything, but once daylight hits, we get weird again. I go downstairs for breakfast, and Mom makes me eggs and some tea and I pick at the eggs and drink the tea.

  “You feeling better?” she asks, her voice nearly shaking with worry.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m fine,” I say, sounding lifeless even to my own ears. I can’t even reassure myself.

  “Okay, well, if you want to talk.”

  “It was just a bad dream.”

  And then there it is, our new, ter
rible silent routine. And to top it off, I have no birds and the world feels like a different kind of dark than it felt before. Mom isn’t perfect, but I miss her. I miss her picky neatness, I miss her bothering me about taking my nose out of a book and making a friend for once, I miss her getting on my case about my hair. I miss telling her about what I’m reading, what I’m thinking, asking her about work, listening to her carry on about Aunt Joan and whatever drama she’s gotten into. I miss her. There is a sadness I can’t shake, that’s not just from breakfast. There are no birds by the feeder. There aren’t pigeons cluttering the sidewalk as I go to school. I know, now, that last night’s dream was the last flight I’ll take.

  Maybe Dr. Katz will be sick today, maybe she’ll be sick forever, maybe she’ll decide she doesn’t want to waste her time on nutcases like me anymore, maybe she’ll say, “Listen, Sparrow, some people are just fine. You’re one of them. Off you go.” I think terrible things. I think, Maybe she was in an accident. I think, Maybe she’s dead.

  “Sparrow.” She appears at the door, perfectly healthy, in a white linen shirt rolled to her elbows with a red striped shirt underneath and black jeans. I can see her tattoo fully now; it’s a ring of black waves that goes all around her forearm.

  “Hi,” I say.

  I walk through the door and to my chair. This is habit by now; I do it the way I do math class, not because I want to, not because I understand it, but because my body knows what to do and does it without my approval. I am sitting. I am waiting. I am not making eye contact.

  “How are you over there?”

  “I’m okay.” There are no birds. I am nothing like okay.

  “You don’t seem so okay.”

  “I guess I’m a liar, then.”

  “Sparrow.”

  I’m done. Forget this woman. I can’t look out the window, I won’t see any birds, and the loneliness will swallow me up and I’ll die. I’ll stick to my shoes on the carpet.

  “Can we just listen to music, please?” I am all snarl and growl today. Get. Away. From. Me.

  “I think we have to talk a little, Sparrow.”

  “I’m scared, okay?” I spit the words out of my mouth.

  “Yeah, that’s okay. Of what?”

  I shake my head slowly. I have to control my body to keep myself from rocking back and forth like those kids you see in the Orphans of the World infomercials or whatever. For one dollar a day, you can make a difference in this child’s life. Picture of a skinny, miserable, rocking child, flies near her mouth. That’s me, minus the flies.

  “Does it feel like this is going to kill you?”

  Yes, I think. But I say, “That’s stupid.”

  “Sparrow, does it feel like this is going to kill you?”

  “It feels like it already has.”

  “Okay.”

  She presses play on her iPod. I let myself think that she’s going to lay off, to give me a freaking break already, but not this lady. There’s something coming.

  The piano is first, banging but controlled. Like it’s only hinting at all the anger underneath. Like if she—before I hear the voice, I know this is a she—if she let it all out, the stereo would explode.

  Is the first word pissing? It is. Damn, Dr. Katz.

  I like the moaning in her voice. I like that she doesn’t sound like a woman. It’s not that she sounds like a man; it’s like she sounds like something way beyond silly signs on a bathroom door. It’s human. It’s animal.

  I’m crying. I want the birds to come back. I want Mom to come back. I want Mrs. Wexler to come back. I want Chocolate to come back. I want to come back. I curl my legs under me. No one can make a difference in this child’s life. Here, the world says: love things, lose them, good luck. The woman cries through the stereo. What about it?

  It’s an accident, the look I give her, straight at her face.

  “I HATE THIS,” I shout across the music.

  “This what?”

  “THIS. THIS. THIS ALL OF THIS,” I shout, and I keep shouting, “I hate Mom, I hate school, I hate therapy, I hate that anyone found me on that stupid roof, I hate that Chocolate’s gone, I hate that Mrs. Wexler’s dead and I hate that I was doing fine until two months ago and now I’m worse off than ever and if I could just fly, I’d be fine, but I can’t even do that anymore because the birds are gone.”

  I know I’m screwed. I know I have said way too much, and said it in the craziest way possible. And the music is over, and now it’s just me and this woman and our chairs. Except I am standing. Why am I standing? I sit.

  “Okay,” she says. “Now we can get somewhere.”

  “Oh, well, hey, as long as I’m making your job easier,” I hiss through my teeth.

  “Now you get to feel better. You’ve got a lot to say, Sparrow, and when you keep it inside for as long as you have, it’s going to do a whole lot of damage. And getting it out isn’t easy, or painless.”

  I close my eyes. I see walls coming down around me, they are thick bricks that rise over Dr. Katz’s face, I see her eyes like she wants to say something to me but then the bricks cover them and she’s gone. I am in a dark brick room, and I can’t hear her voice, I can’t see anything, it’s just me in here, and it’s safe. It’s not as fun as flying, but it’s better than sitting in this terrible room with this terrible woman who thinks she knows me.

  Eventually I hear her voice. “Sparrow, you’ve shut down. That’s okay. We can try again next week.” I want to think, Fat freaking chance, I want to think, You’re never going to see me again. Instead, I’m just surprised to hear the voice on this side of the wall. Surprised that she somehow made her way in here. And maybe a little relieved.

  In English today, we get to listen to music during reading. We’re only allowed to on Fridays, and I’ve never taken advantage of it before, but I do today—I just downloaded a White Stripes album onto my iPod. I’m listening to them and holding The Perks of Being a Wallflower in my hand. I turn the music up and crack the cover. A flyer falls out. It’s bright blue and purple and says Gertrude Nix Rock Camp for Girls, with pictures of girls screaming into microphones, guitars weighing down their shoulders, drumsticks flying. It’s a monthlong sleepaway camp for eight- to sixteen-year-old girls. My throat tightens. I wonder if this is Mrs. Wexler’s last attempt to get me to open my mouth and make a friend. Missing her comes like a wave, fast and unstoppable. I can’t cry. Not here. I stuff the flyer into my backpack and go back to my book.

  “Hi!” Mom shouts when she comes in my room, and I finally turn around.

  “Oh, hey,” I say, glued to the screen. She reaches over and turns down the volume, which is annoying but also parental, and it feels good to have her be annoying instead of worried and sad.

  “What is this?”

  “Sonic Youth,” I say.

  “Okay,” she says. “How’d you hear about them?”

  “School,” I say, trying to sound natural, trying to sound like my sudden interest in the old-school indie rock is what all the brown girls are doing these days.

  “A friend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A boy?”

  “No, Mom.”

  “Okay, okay. Dinner in fifteen minutes.”

  She heads downstairs, and I’m grateful for the mildly normal interaction, though I’m pretty sure that once we sit through dinner, things will be all awkward again. Soon the smell of macaroni and cheese wafts up to me and carries me downstairs by the nose.

  “It smells good, Mom,” I say. Macaroni and cheese is my favorite, how she makes it, hot and gooey from the oven, four different kinds of cheese, and bread crumbs brown and crunchy on top. She takes a kale salad out of the refrigerator, for balance, I guess.

  “Good,” she says. “Set the table.” This feels normal. I feel nervous. I put two plates on the island and try to grab the forks, napkins, and glasses in one hand—she would call it a lazy man’s load.

  “How was your day?” she asks.

  “Okay,” I say. �
�Yours?”

  “It was busy. You know, too much work.”

  “As always.” I smile. This feels good.

  “Did you want to go to Central Park some weekend soon?” Central Park. Where we always go when springtime comes on strong. I sit and read and “watch” the birds (she thinks I’m only watching), and she reads. We have an actual picnic basket and everything. It’s usually my favorite thing. It’s like how most kids feel about Disneyland. I don’t know about this year. It might be too sad, since I’m obviously never going to get to fly again.

  “Um, maybe,” I say, trying to keep the normal going. I have to put my fork down, though. The thought of sitting on the ground looking up for the rest of my life ruins my appetite.

  “You don’t want to?”

  “We’ll see.” There it is—the weird blanket of tension that settles in on both of us, my mother thinking, probably, that I don’t want to spend time with her, me thinking about the fact that I turn into a bird and am totally, certifiably crazy and she has no idea. She just wants to go to the park. Because I like the park. Or did. And because she loves me. Or did.

  “Maybe a movie?” I suggest, trying hard to sound light, bright, happy.

  “Sure,” she says, unsure. I’ve ruined everything. Again. We don’t speak for the rest of the meal, which isn’t much longer, since I’m just picking at my mac and cheese now and she seems to have lost interest in her kale salad.