by Sarah Moon
Arrived.
The roof.
“Really?” I ask.
“Why?” she says, smiling. “You got a thing about roofs or something?”
“I used to,” I say with a laugh. “Something like that. You’re not afraid I’ll jump?”
“I’ve never been afraid of that. Are you afraid you’ll jump?”
“I’ve only been afraid of that once.”
It’s beautiful. I mean, it’s a Brooklyn rooftop in August. It’s tar and cigarette butts and bird crap and not much else, but someone’s laid down some rugs. You can sit and not feel like you’re going to get stuck in the hot black tar.
“Not so small up here, is it?”
“No, this is better,” I say.
“You going to fly away on me?”
“We’ll see.”
“Fair enough. Take a seat.”
Dr. K sits cross-legged on the rug in the middle of the roof. She looks up, watching the birds come and go, maybe just watching the sky. Her hair is blowing slightly. I sit across from her like we do in the office, here in our new office with the panoramic views.
“So, what’s happening at home?” she asks.
“It’s okay. Mom can’t believe I sang. She wants me to take voice lessons this fall.”
“Do you want to?”
“Not really. But Tanasia talked about starting a band with kids at the new school. I’d like that.”
“So, you guys are going to stay in touch?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s weird. It’s not the same, but it’s good.”
“How was leaving?”
“It was hard. Spike cried a lot because she had to go back to the hellhole town she’s from. She says we’re the only friends she has.”
“Huh, that’s not what you thought when you met her.”
“I guess she means close people, like people who know her real name and what a softie she is. She has to act like she’s so tough at school, sometimes she doesn’t remember to let it down at camp either.”
I lean my head back. There’s a soft, hot breeze. The kind that doesn’t make it any cooler, but it feels sweet up here. I let my head roll all the way back on my neck so all I see are clouds, birds, planes. This is what the world looked like before I jumped from the swings with Chocolate that first time. “Lara was sad because it meant the end of the frozen-yogurt vacation. Her mom came; she looks like she’s made out of plastic surgery and Diet Coke. Tanasia rode back to the city with me and Mom. It was weird, like we were able to pretend that everything was fine and we were just talking like normal about music and school and whatever, and then we pulled up to her house and her parents were there and we couldn’t move slow enough. We stood in the middle of the sidewalk like dumb tourists; we couldn’t get out of the way. That’s when we both started crying.”
“Did you try to fly away?”
“From Tanasia? Absolutely not.”
“Well, not too long ago crying in public would have had out you out the window.”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t leave her like that. I walked her to her stoop and said good-bye. It’s weird, Mom being so happy to see me, and I’m just … I didn’t really want to come home.”
“Does she understand that?”
“She’s going to work on it.”
“And what are you working on?”
“Not lying to her about having friends, not lying to her about liking camp more than home. I mean, I’m not telling her, ‘Oh, I hate it here, I like everything else more than here.’ But I told her how sad I am not to be with my friends. How it’s so nice to have friends. That it’s important to me that I see them again. She seems to get that. I’m hanging out with Tanasia on Friday. Mom says I can stay over there if I want. That’s a big deal for her. I know it’s hard for her. She’s trying.”
“Not a bad start.”
A pigeon lands on the edge of the roof. I get quiet. I’m just watching the hazy blue and listening to traffic that seems very far away.
“It’s weird being up here,” I say finally, as the pigeon picks up one foot, and then the other.
“Why?”
“Because it’s a roof. And not too long ago, this was the only place I ever wanted to be.”
“And now?”
“I like it. I mean, I really like it. I still love seeing the birds, and I like being so far above everything. It’s beautiful and calm. But it’s not … even if I could take off right now, I wouldn’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“I think … ” What do I think? “I think my life is on the ground now.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I always figured you’d live among us mortals eventually.”
“I wasn’t so sure.” I stand up. I walk over to the ledge. I stand in this place where it all started. Not this roof of course, but a roof. A snowy one, during a lunchtime winter sky break. It couldn’t seem farther away from this hot tar roof and my shrink staring at my back, waiting for me to speak. I turn around and face her, smiling. This is where I want to be. Not up, not down, but right here where my feet are.
“You seem like a girl with a song in her head,” she says, standing and coming toward the ledge.
“I am.” What she does next surprises me, but Dr. K is full of surprises today.
“I’ll take the first verse; you can take the second,” she says. Then she opens her mouth and sings.
She has a nice voice, low and worn, like she smoked a lot when she was young, but full and warm, like she means every word. My arms go out wide and strong and then fall loose and easy by my sides. I take a deep breath. My chest goes open and happy.
I wish I could be like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found I could fly
I’d soar to the sun and look down at the sea
And I’d sing ’cause I know
How it feels to be free.
There is a long list of people without whom this book would not exist. First and foremost the amazing Arthur Levine, who has read every version of Sparrow since her wings spanned barely fifty pages, whose ability to see true north at every turn has been essential, and without whom Sparrow would sit in a drawer, shorter, sadder, and less herself. Weslie Turner, along with her extraordinary eyes and ears, has been invaluable to bringing Sparrow into the world. Her patience, vision, and insight are in every sentence of this book.
My mother, Amy Bloom, has been a tremendous guide toward not just the accurate, but toward the true in fiction, and in everything else.
Joy Marie Johannessen, not-mom and editor extraordinaire, nudged me out the gate every single time I got stuck or scared, and I got stuck and scared a lot.
Jasmine’s careful eye and perfect ears make sure that Sparrow always talks like a kid and only listens to the best music. It is quite simply true in every way that there is no Sparrow without you.
Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and the Center for Creative Youth will recognize themselves in these pages; many thanks to both of them for letting me borrow from their schedules and their spirits.
Much love and gratitude as always to: Ms. Freyda Rose, Caitlin Moon, Alexander Moon, Donald Moon, Margret Goodwin, Kate Roberts, Ellen Shapiro, Priscilla Swan, Rae Leeper, Melissa Esmundo, Maggie Raife, Maia Cruz Palileo, Kim Katzberg, Annie, Dave and Sal Rollyson, and the wonderful Saint Ann’s community.
And, of course, to the original Dr. Katz.
SARAH MOON is a teacher and writer. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, with her wife, Jasmine, and their dog, Otis. She is the coeditor of The Letter Q, a young adult anthology. Sparrow is her first young adult novel.
Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Moon
All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and the LANTERN LOGO are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Moon, Sarah, 1982- author.
Title: Sparrow / Sarah Moon.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2017. | Summary: Fourteen-year-old Sparrow Cooke of Brooklyn has always been the kind of child who prefers reading books to playing with friends (not that she has many of those) and since fifth grade the one person who seemed to understand her was the school librarian—so when Mrs. Wexler was killed in an accident Sparrow’s world came apart, and when she was found on the edge of the school roof everyone assumed that it was a suicide attempt, which Sparrow denies, but cannot find the words to explain.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017322 | ISBN 9781338032581 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Suicide—Juvenile fiction. | African American girls—Juvenile fiction. | Mothers and daughters—Juvenile fiction. | School librarians—Juvenile fiction. | Grief—Juvenile fiction. | Psychotherapy—Juvenile fiction. | Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Suicide—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction. | Mothers and daughters—Fiction. | Librarians—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction. | Psychotherapy—Fiction. | Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M65 Sp 2017 | DDC 813.6 [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017322
First edition, October 2017
Jacket art © 2017 by Cannaday Chapman
Jacket design by Maeve Norton
e-ISBN 978-1-338-03259-8
Quote from “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free,” written by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas, with kind permission of Duane Music, Inc., administered by 1630 Music Publishing Services, Inc. New York, NY, USA, www.1630music.com
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