Sparrow

by Sarah Moon

  “Damn.”

  “Wow.”

  “Okay,” I say, “so it’s your birthday. You’re not at stupid fat camp, and you’re not at home. You’re not going to have celery. How do you want to celebrate?”

  “Yeah,” says Spike. “What do you want to have for your birthday? We’ll get you whatever it is.”

  Lara laughs nervously. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do,” says Spike. “Think of something you could never get at home. What do you want, an ice cream cake?”

  Lara is thinking. She squinches up her face for a second, and then it’s like a lightbulb goes off over her head. “I’ve always been really curious about pizza.”

  “NO PIZZA? Where do you live, prison?”

  “Kinda.”

  “You’ve really never had a pizza?” asks Tanasia.

  “I’ve had those diet frozen pizzas, but they taste like cardboard, and they don’t look anything like the ones they sell in pizza places. The melting cheese, the pepperoni.” She’s practically drooling.

  “We will get you the best pizza in all the land!” says Spike.

  During our afternoon session in band practice, Ren seems stressed. “Okay, y’all, it’s time. We’ve waited as long as we can. You need a name. I mean, look, you also need a song, but let’s see if we can’t find a name for ourselves today.”

  “Well, I was thinking,” says Spike, “we all love Janelle Monáe, what about the Monáes?”

  “We can wear tuxedos!” adds Tanasia. Lara and I nod in agreement.

  “I like it,” says Ren, but she sounds doubtful. “The thing is you guys are your own band. You’re not just a copy of an awesome band. You’re your own awesome band.”

  “Maybe,” I say, “but awesome bands have songs.”

  “We’ll get there,” Ren says. We all stare at each other blankly. “Ideas?” she coaxes. More blank stares. “Okay, team, everyone take a square.” She hands us all pieces of scrap paper. “Each and every one of you is going to write down three names. I don’t care how silly they are, I don’t care if you would never listen to a band with this name. We just need something to get us going. A bad idea can lead to a great one. Write down your favorite word or your favorite sound. Whatever. Just write. Three ideas. Each. Go.”

  After a few minutes, Ren collects our papers and writes the options on the whiteboard. “Okay,” she says, reading through them, “we’ve got Phalanges, Sinners, Heartbeat, Ampersand, Tuxedo Girls, Hokey-Pokey—you guys are doing great on the words that are fun to say—the Lollygaggers, Eponymous (very clever), Phlebotomy, the SHEnanigans, the Fuddy Duddies and … wait, I can’t read this word.”

  “It’s mine,” I say, looking down. “It’s silly.”

  Ren rolls her eyes in the kindest possible way. “Come on, now,” she says.

  “It says Chachalacas.”

  “What’s a Chachalaca?” asks Tanasia.

  “It’s a bird. It’s this little bird with a skinny neck and a big body. They’re not found in the U.S. except for southernmost Texas; they’re mostly consumed for food and they reside in Central America and—”

  “Wow, you’re like a bird almanac!” says Lara.

  There’s an awkward silence where I know I’ve said way too much, revealed myself for the loser I am. I’ve barely been speaking for two days, and I’ve already ruined the whole thing. I’m about ready to curse myself out for ever being stupid enough to open my mouth, when Spike breaks the silence.

  “I love it! It’s like Boom Shakalaka! But instead it’s Chachalaca!”

  “We could be the Boom Chachalacas,” says Tanasia. Her voice is eager, even enthusiastic. I look up and they’re smiling and writing it on the board.

  “I like it too,” says Ren. “It suits you guys. A vote?” Everyone’s hands go into the air before she even gets a chance to ask for all in favor. “It’s unanimous, then—congratulations, Boom Chachalacas. You can start making your band posters this afternoon.”

  “I think we should still try to get some tuxedos,” says Tanasia. “I mean, we won’t call ourselves the Monáes, but we can at least pay our respects, right?”

  “I think I can get us tuxedos,” says Spike.

  “It’s better than dressing up like a chachalaca,” I say quietly. “They’re pretty ugly.”

  That night at dinner, we’re all told to sit down and wait. Kendra lets us know that they have something important to discuss with us when we’re seated. I look at my bandmates, confused. “Did we do something wrong?”

  “Yeah,” says Lara, “are we in trouble?” Spike shrugs like she doesn’t know but she sends a wink my way when Lara isn’t looking. A minute later, barely hiding the glee in her voice, Spike asks, “What’s that smell?”

  “It’s pizza!” cries Tanasia. “Like a lot of pizza!”

  Counselors are going from table to table dropping off a box of pizza for each band. When they get to ours, the box is extra large, and when we open it, there’s pepperoni on top that spells out Happy Birthday! We all begin to sing. Ren takes a candle from behind her ear and puts it in the middle of the pizza. Ty lights it, and when the song is over, Lara closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and blows it out. When she opens her eyes again, they’re a little watery. Her smile is so big it looks like it might hurt in the morning. She takes a hot cheesy slice in her hands and happily burns the roof of her mouth a little. “Thank you,” she whispers to Spike between bites.

  Lara comes into band practice grinning. “I think I’ve solved our song problem,” she says.

  “Here’s hoping,” says Ren. “What do you have?”

  “Well, you know how Yoko is on the first floor? I woke up and found this sheet of paper pressed against my window a few days ago. Someone must have dropped it, but it has this awesome poem on it. I thought we could use the lines and start our song that way.”

  My stomach drops straight to the bottom of the world.

  “Go for it,” Tanasia says.

  I look down, like I’m listening oh-so-carefully.

  “I’m feeling restless, reckless, like flying up at night and never coming down.”

  I tell myself not to look guilty or embarrassed so that no one asks me what’s wrong.

  “Sweet. Let’s each start writing from there and see what we come up with. Then we can combine, share, whatever,” Tanasia says.

  “Do you all feel like it’s something you can work with?” asks Ren.

  “Definitely,” says Spike.

  “Let’s do it,” says Tanasia.

  I force my head to nod up and down and hope that will be enough for Ren.

  “Okay, so what we need to do is ask at lunch for the next few days for the permission of the person who wrote it. We need to give them credit for their work.”

  We all start writing. Well, they all start writing. I doodle and try hard to keep my face from showing my feelings. The rest of the morning goes great—everyone writes their ideas on the whiteboard, and we join verses and borrow words from each other. By tomorrow, we’ll have the chorus down and the bridge worked out. It’s kind of easy, working together to get the best song possible, except for the pounding in my chest that will bang and bang against my ribs right through the rest of class and straight through lunch. When we make our announcement asking the mysterious author of this wonderful poem to please come forward, I wish for back when a pack of birds and fifteen minutes of recess would fix everything. It beats right through that, and stomps through the rest of the day until bass class. I pick up the instrument like it’s a life preserver. Because I guess it is.

  I run in out of breath. “Sorry I’m late, I’m here.”

  “I’m glad you made it. Where were you?”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  “I was ‘hanging out,’ I think they call it, with Tanasia, Lara, and Spike.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Dr. K says with a grin.

  “I was!”

  “My goodness. What a week it�
��s been. What happened?”

  “I don’t know where to begin. We started talking?”

  “Wow, Sparrow. So, I’m guessing you know where they’re from?”

  “Well, Tanasia is from Brooklyn, obviously. We’re going to the same high school next year. Spike is from upstate. She’s gay, and it’s awful for her there, so her parents send her here every year. Lara is from Connecticut. Her parents send her to fat camp every summer, but this year her music teacher convinced them to let her come here. She eats frozen yogurt at every meal. We all love Janelle Monáe. Spike and I love Nina Simone, and I played her Patti Smith.”

  “Huh. Sounds like a band to me. How’s it feel?”

  “Good?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I’m still not used to it. It’s not like I’m talking to anyone other than these three people, but … ”

  “It’s a start, don’t you think?”

  “I think it might be. It’s hard to trust it. But I think I might be having fun. That’s new.”

  “The girl I met in February didn’t know how to have fun.”

  “It’s cool when it’s not scary.”

  “A start.”

  “Yeah. It’s crazy that next week is our last week. Next time I talk to you it’ll be in person.”

  “How does that feel?”

  “You are such a therapist.”

  “Humor me.”

  “It’s kind of hard to imagine past the show Sunday.”

  “That’s the finale, right? You guys have a show?”

  “Yeah, all the parents, all the kids, all the teachers, everyone. They even sell tickets to the community, like people who are up from the city come, the college kids in town, everyone.”

  “Is your mom coming?”

  “Yeah, Mom, Aunt Joan, and my cousin, Curtis.”

  “Wow.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Fair enough. What are you going to play?”

  “Well, we were having trouble getting started on a song, and then three days ago Lara comes in and she’s like, I found the most amazing poem. She woke up with it pressed against her window. She loves this poem, but it’s just the first three lines, and she wants to use it to start our song. So we get up every day at lunch and make this big announcement, like, ‘Who wrote this poem? We love it and we want to use it in our song,’ but no one has come forward.”

  “Because it’s yours?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Part of the job.”

  “Yeah, it’s mine. I was writing on my balcony and it fell to the ground right before curfew. I checked in the morning, but it was gone.”

  “And you didn’t tell them?”

  “Look, I asked some people where they were from and listened to a few songs with my roommate; I didn’t become a different person. Of course I didn’t tell them!”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “But you guys wrote a whole song based on your poem?”

  “Based on three lines, yeah.”

  “I’m sure they’d like to know.”

  “Maybe, but I have to get through Sunday first.”

  “Will you tell me the lines?”

  “Fine. It’s just the few lines. It’s I’m feeling restless, reckless, like flying up at night and never coming down.”

  “Sounds like a pretty good start.”

  “Not really, I couldn’t get the poem to go anywhere. I was going to throw it out, but now it’s the first verse of our song.”

  “Well, I think it’s a pretty great accident. I hope you tell them someday.”

  “We’ll see. I don’t need any bird questions, you know?”

  “If they picked the poem, it sounds like they already know.”

  “You think they know?” I hear the tremble in my voice. My face is hot.

  “I don’t mean literally, but, Sparrow, if they picked the poem, it’s because something in it spoke to them. You’re not the only person who’s felt restless or reckless or like flying away and never coming down. You might be the only one in the band who’s experienced it, but they’re trying to tell you they know what that feels like and they feel that way too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s human. I don’t think there’s a person on the planet who hasn’t felt that way. It might not lead them up to a rooftop, but when people hear your song, watch for the nodding heads. It’s not because of the beat, or at least not only because of the beat, it’s because they know exactly what you mean. You know that feeling, I know you do, when someone else says how you thought only you felt? You’re giving that to people, you’ve already given it to the band, and on Sunday you’ll give it to a few more.”

  “A few.”

  “Deep breath. You’ll be great.”

  “Okay.”

  “Next time I talk to you, it’ll already be over.”

  “Okay, right. Good.”

  “Sparrow, one more thing: Even if you can only do it for a minute, try not to fly away during the show. Stay there. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to them.”

  “I can’t fly anymore.”

  “You know what I mean. No checking out, no hiding in the bushes. Be there. You won’t want to miss it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. I’ll see you next week.”

  The days leading up to the show fly by. We’re practicing and practicing. Tanasia brings in a new song idea for the encore because Ren says that all bands should be prepared for an encore, even though we won’t have time for one. We spend our mornings in Instrumental perfecting our songs and our afternoons in workshop, making Boom Chachalaca posters and T-shirts and figuring out how to get four tuxedoes by Saturday.

  “I might have been a little overly optimistic,” admits Spike the day before the show.

  “Ya think?” Tanasia says, with a little edge to her voice.

  “I just wanted to do right by Janelle … okay, and to wear a tux.”

  We’re sitting among piles of T-shirts and markers and fabric pens, knowing other bands are already putting the final touches on their outfits.

  “Well, we could make our own,” says Lara, holding up a black T-shirt and a white one.

  “I don’t think making four tuxedoes by tomorrow is exactly a plan,” Tanasia says.

  “But what if we did it like this?” Lara says, grabbing some scissors. She cuts the middle out of a black T-shirt, making a kind of jacket. She draws a bow tie on a white T-shirt and then puts it on, slipping her arms through the black fabric. “I mean, I’m no artist, but it could work, right?”

  “Don’t give it to your boyfriend to wear to the prom, but yeah, I think it could work,” says Tanasia with a smile. She slips it on over her tank top. We look at each other and nod, grabbing shirts and scissors. We work straight until dinner, our hands tired from cutting and making the posters and all the practicing we’ve been doing.

  You can tell the minute you get to Heart that it’s not just us—everyone is exhausted. Every single person in here looks like they could use a nap. Kendra seems to have other plans.

  “ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!” she shouts from the stage. Mouths full of macaroni and cheese, barely lifting our forks from the tables, we all manage a weak “Yeah … ”

  “Oh, this will not do!” she shouts into the microphone. “Can we do something about these sad sacks, DJ? We used to have a camp full of rock stars here, as I recall. I think we know what they need.” Ty is in the DJ booth grinning. The bass line comes in right away; it makes my shoulders go up and down even though I thought I was too tired to move. I try to keep them still. “What do you want to do, Ty?” shouts Kendra over the music.

  “I want to shoop!” he shouts. The chorus comes in and all the counselors flood the stage shooping at the top of their lungs. They’re showing off their dance moves, busted robots and the cabbage patch, and looking ridiculous. Then they spread through the cafeteria, grabbing us by the hand one by one
and spinning us around. Ty comes up to me.

  “You know I don’t dance,” I say.

  “Mmmhmm,” he says, taking my hand and turning me under his arm. “Oh, look … that’s called dancing!”

  I laugh at him and roll my eyes, and then the song changes. Everyone starts hooting and hollering as “Run the World” comes on—apparently everyone, even Spike, even Spike’s coolest friends, loves Beyoncé. Lara is fist-pumping the air and screaming “Girls!” Spike is marching in place like a soldier in Queen Bey’s army. I turn to look for Tanasia. She’s in the corner, like she thinks no one will see her there. Her eyes are closed and her back is to us, the same way I play the bass. She’s moving her shoulders up and down crazy fast, her legs are kicking up and down, taking her down to the floor and back up with the beat. She could be a dancer onstage with Beyoncé.

  I approach her when she takes a break. “That was amazing,” I say.

  She looks away. “Don’t tell anyone at school, okay?”

  “What, that you’re a dance machine who can do crazy things with her body and loves Beyoncé?”

  “Yeah. Don’t tell them that. I don’t want to be like … you know … those other girls.”

  “Look around. Everyone loves Beyoncé.”

  “I know, but first those girls at school know that you have something that they want, then they bring you into their group just so you can teach them dance steps or whatever.”

  “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Leticia?” It’s been so long since I thought of Leticia that it surprises me to hear myself say her name.

  “Worse. Monique.”

  “You were friends with Monique?”

  “For about thirty seconds in seventh grade, until she got tired of me. She realized that just because I’m a good dancer it doesn’t mean I hate school or only like Juicy Couture or want to be mean to people. So, anyway, don’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “I won’t. I will keep up your disguise as a big dork, when in fact you’d be like the most popular girl in school.”

  “I prefer dorkdom.”

  Lara and Spike come over just in time for “Independent Women” and we all throw our hands up at each other and laugh. It is maybe, maybe true that I’m dancing.