by Sally J. Pla
“Come on, Charlie,” says Ludmila to me, clicking on a flashlight and grabbing the leash. “Time to walk the what-you-call-him-now, Tiberius.”
“Tiberius,” Davis says, rolling her eyes. “All my life, I’ve wanted a golden retriever named Honey, so of course we end up with a scrawny three-legged mutt named Tiberius.” But she pets him gently all along his back, down to the end of his long thin tail, as he limps past her.
“Dunno why he sticks with Charlie so much,” says Joel, without even looking up from his handheld game.
“’Cause you already stepped on his tail like four times,” says Jake.
“Did not!”
“Because you boys are too rough,” Ludmila says. “Tiberius likes things calm, same as Charlie.”
They are still bickering over that as Ludmila, Tiberius, and I make our way along a wide, mowed path through fields of tall prairie grass.
We are quiet as we walk. I think about that hillside today, with all the stones and crosses on it. I wonder who died there, what their stories were. Stories of people from one hundred and forty years ago. When they were fighting, did they think they were doing the right thing?
Were they?
I think of Dad. What stories did he want to tell about his soldier friends?
Tiberius pokes around. Ludmila has been very quiet all day, but now she says to me, “When I was little, you know, I wanted a dog, too. My brother, Amar, and I, we begged our parents all the time. But then the war came, and it was no time for dogs.”
We follow Tiberius down a little side trail through the tall grass. He limps around, sniffing the ground.
“There was a park near our apartment in Sarajevo, a nice place where people walked their dogs. Then, later, it was a place where many people were shot and killed.”
I almost can’t believe she just said that. I have no idea what to say back.
Suddenly, Tiberius stiffens and barks. An odd noise, a garbled chirp, comes from the grass. I move the flashlight, and right there, caught in the light, is a brown-speckled bird! It scurries in front of a cuplike nest, stamping and scolding Tiberius, who leaps back in surprise. I tighten up on the leash, and feel a flash of joy. I know what this is.
“That’s a bird from Tiberius Shaw’s book!” I tell Ludmila. “It’s called a prairie chicken! They stamp their feet around in a sort of mating dance. They look like chickens with this orange balloon thing on their necks. And when the prairie burns, they can survive it. So the Native Americans call them ‘fire birds.’”
Ludmila stares into the brush, where the little fire bird has quickly disappeared. “That’s a good thing,” she says. “Being able to survive.”
Back at the camper, Ludmila doesn’t go in. She sits in one of the two folding chairs and stares. I sit in the other chair and wait. Something’s been itching at her all day, like there are words that she’s got to wash her hands clean of.
“Ludmila,” I say. “Davis says you were snooping, when you first came to our house. Snooping in Dad’s office.”
She jerks her head back. “What? Oh. Well. I didn’t mean to seem so nosy. It’s just—I was looking around. I wanted—I wanted to see if maybe your father had a photograph lying around or something. Photos of the soldiers, and maybe of my brother. Of Amar.”
She is looping and unlooping Tiberius’s leash around and around her hand.
I feel a strange shock in my stomach. “Why would my dad have a photo of him?”
Then, I think I understand. They must have known each other in Afghanistan. Of course they must have. Gram knew there was some kind of connection. She would say it to Ellie at the gift shop all the time. She just didn’t want to rush Ludmila into having to talk about it.
“Did you find one? A photo, I mean?” I ask, trying to remember all the shots my dad had displayed on his bulletin boards and shelves. There were tons of them. He was a good photographer.
“No.” Ludmila clicks off our little lantern.
In the dark, amid the chirping insects and the rustling tall grass, she’s quiet for what seems like a really long time.
I figure she couldn’t possibly want to talk to me about it, but I ask anyway. “Will you tell us your story, some time, Ludmila?”
Nothing but crickets.
So I stand up, and I’m just about to take Tiberius back inside, when Ludmila’s voice finally comes out of the darkness, soft and low.
23
“Okay. Imagine us young, like you and the twins. I was nine, Amar, twelve. We lived in a big old apartment building. It was full of houseplants and bright tablecloths and people stopping by all the time, and lovely cooking smells and cheerful voices and fiddle music. We lived on fourth floor. It was an old stone building, with all kinds of what-you-call, carving-stone decorations on the front, in the beautiful old European city of Sarajevo, in what was, is, was, known as Bosnia.”
“This sort of sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale,” I tell her.
“You think?” She snorts. “It won’t end like one, so be warned.”
The camper door opens; the light makes us squint. It’s Davis. She comes slowly down the steps to join us.
“You too?” Ludmila says. “Is this children’s story hour?”
Davis sits down silently on the last step, in the dark with us, and waits.
“Okay. Let’s see . . . Our father, by now, was gone a long time. More than one year, since he put on his old uniform, kissed us good-bye, left us crying. Going to some place called ‘the front.’ No one wanted to explain what that meant, to me. I remember wondering: the front of where?
“My mother was going to have a baby. Amar wanted brother, I wanted a new sister, we spent much time fighting over that.
“‘All we need is for baby to be safe and healthy,’ my mother would say. But she was very worried, with all the madness and craziness in the streets, with us, stuck in our half-deserted apartment building, without our father around to help. Our grandfather, he lived with us, but he was very old and couldn’t do much. And many of the neighbors were gone by now.
“Anyhow. Our father used to take us to the park and teach us to throw and catch. How to run very fast. How to climb a tree. My father believed girls should learn to do everything, same as boys. He was a doctor. He had gone to medical school at Washington University, in the state of Missouri, and he loved to talk about America. He wanted his children to see it someday. But he also loved Sarajevo, loved it enough to leave his family to fight to try to protect it.
“‘This is a bunch of nonsense,’ he’d said to us before he left. ‘We live in modern, civilized world. No one will let this craziness happen. These lunatics in the hills, they will be stopped soon. Things will blow right over. I give it a month, then I will be back, and all will be well!’”
Ludmila makes a kind of snort-laugh, there, in the dark. “Such faith in the world!”
Then she goes on:
“A month went by. Two months. Then three. Our beautiful town of Sarajevo was under siege. The thugs surrounding us, in the hills, were sniping at innocent people, gunning us down in the streets. You never knew when or where there might be shooting. There was less and less food available. Our stomachs growled all the time. Mother and Grandfather would hurry back from market with nothing more than old, moldy vegetables. Each time Mother made it home safely from scavenging food, running with one hand on bag, one hand on belly, we all would be crying with our relief.
“We had taken the geraniums out of our pretty planters and planted carrots and lettuce. We shared seeds with neighbors. We uprooted all the potted plants and window boxes. We planted the cut-up eyes of our very last potatoes and put them in the window boxes.
“When Mother grew too big with baby, Grandfather took over all the going out. He would take a knapsack with bottles of homemade brandy for the black market, to trade for food. ‘Don’t worry,’ Grandpa told us. ‘I can run faster than wind,’ he joked, because we all knew how painfully slowly he walked with his cane. He was old, bu
t brave. He pretended to be brave, for us.
“One night, one hungry, hard night, he went out with his very last three bottles of homemade liquor tucked in his knapsack, to trade for milk and bread. We wait. Midnight. One. Two. Three . . . Dawn came. Still, my grandfather never came back,” Ludmila says in her low, husky whisper. “Later, the neighbor found out he was shot in a raid at black market.”
We sit for a while in the dark.
“I’m sorry, Ludmila. So sorry. And what about your father?” Davis finally whispers.
“He didn’t make it either. Not a very good fairy-tale story. Sorry!”
“It sounds horrible,” I say to Ludmila. “Like, medieval times.”
“Yes. But it feels like only yesterday, when my world went up in smoke and fire.”
I try hard to think about what to say next. “But, after the smoke and fire, you survived,” I tell her. “You survived, Ludmila. Just like the fire bird.”
Later, in bed, I think about the last time I saw Dad. He hadn’t put on an old uniform, like Ludmila’s dad had. No. He was just wearing a gray T-shirt from the school Fun Run, and a pair of his regular jeans when he left. But something was still different about him. All his bags were piled up in the hall. I hate him leaving, so I ran upstairs to my room to lie on my bed, stare at my mom’s profile on the pine-knot ceiling, and wait for the sound of the front door closing.
But Dad followed me. “Charlie?”
He leaned into my doorway, holding on to the frame, so that I could only see his upper half, slanted diagonally. Like he already was aiming himself downstairs, out and away from us.
“Love you, buddy.” Dad slapped the doorframe with his hand. “Be good. Listen to Gram. She means well. And email me!” he said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s so great there,” I said, “that you have to go?”
He straightened up so I could see all of him in the doorway. “I’m not going because I think it’s going to be great.”
“Then why?”
He thought for a minute. “I’m going because it’s the opposite of great. Because it’s terrible.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s important to tell the stories of the people that get caught up in war and violence. We can’t pretend it isn’t happening. So I’ll be over there, writing it down, for them. To save their stories. And why don’t you write something, too? We can message back and forth.”
“What the heck do I have to write about?”
Dad had smiled. “Birds,” he’d said.
Then he was gone.
That night in the camper, I dream about fire. Old-fashioned General Custer on his horse, on a grassy hillside, yelling “Fire!” A desert jeep exploding in flames. Ludmila’s grandfather and mother, weighed down with bags, running in a fog of fiery smoke.
Prairie grass, ablaze.
Then, a little brown speckled bird struts into my dream. That’s what I focus on, behind my closed eyelids: a bird, pecking around despite the flaming prairie grass. A bird, finding a way to survive.
24
Someday Birds List:
Bald Eagle
Great Horned Owl (CHECK!)
Trumpeter Swan (HALF CHECK!)
Sandhill Crane
Turkey Vulture
Emu (in Australia)
Passenger Pigeon (extinct)
Carolina Parakeet (also extinct)
Screech Owl (bonus bird from Yellowstone)
Prairie Chicken (bonus bird from Montana)
I stare at the list. It’s tough, but not hopeless. Since we’ll be driving through Minnesota and Wisconsin in a few days, we’ll be passing through bald eagle nesting areas. And it’s still feasible that while we’re in the Midwest, by fields and lakes, that we could come across a sandhill crane.
Joel is hanging over the seat, trying to read over my shoulder. “Dad doesn’t care about those dumb birds, Charlie,” he says.
Davis turns around and slaps at him. “Shut up, Joel.” Then she says to me, “Dad is going to be really happy to know you’re trying to see the birds on that list. As long as your bird-watching doesn’t slow down our progress. Right, Ludmila?”
“It’s birding,” I tell her. “Not bird-watching.” Why is that so hard for people to remember?
We’ve left Montana behind, and we’re finally on our way to Wall Drug, South Dakota, and its magical, mysterious offer of “free ice water” that the twins can’t seem to shut up about.
“Hey,” says Davis. “We’re passing right by Mount Rushmore. Isn’t that kind of a cross-country road trip must-see?”
Joel and Jake groan. “But the ice water!”
We turn off I-90 and curl back down southwest a bit to Rapid City and Keystone. I don’t mind. Anytime we stop, I can scout for birds.
Mount Rushmore looks smaller than I thought it was going to be. I’d always imagined those heads to be enormous, something you could see from space, but they’re more the size of something on the Las Vegas strip.
I watch the trees. I think I see a Steller’s jay, up high in a pine. His coarse rusty-hinge call was the first clue; then I swear I saw a flash of blue among the pine needles. I find a bench, take out my Bird Book, and make a sketch. Then I try to sketch the presidents’ heads. But it comes out all cartoony. I’m way better at birds than people.
After an hour at Rushmore, we’re back on the road. And as we head east, more and more of those strange road signs start looming up.
“What do you think ‘free ice water’ actually means? There’s got to be something more to it . . . ,” Joel says.
“Yeah,” says Jake. “It’s got to be code for some kind of secret drink, or something.”
Davis just rolls her eyes.
Soon, we’re crunching into the gravel drive of Wall Drug. It’s like an old-style, western-themed, touristy mall. The twins are squirming out of their seats.
It seems bigger inside than outside, with storefront boutiques in long hallways that branch off in various confusing directions. Everyone in here looks sweaty and dazed, like they just rolled out of their cars. Which they have, just like us.
“Hey, mister, where’s the ice water?” Joel tugs on a man’s green apron, standing outside a western bookstore. “Where’s the special ice water?” Jake adds. The man waves them vaguely toward the left.
I smell coffee and French-fry grease and candles and potpourri, hear the clink of dishes and the shrieks of annoyed little kids. There’s too much noise, and light, and action. Too many people in here.
I need to wash my hands.
I do like I do in the halls at school: keep my eyes down and walk like I know exactly where I’m going, even if I don’t. I keep turning down different hallways filled with weird tourist shops, until eventually I find a men’s room.
The soap here comes out of a huge brown bottle with a sticker on it that says, “For Sale in Our Own Apothecary Shoppe!”
Soap-rinse-one-soap-rinse-two-soap-rinse-three-soap-rinse-four-soap-rinse-five . . .
Then, breathing deeply, I step back out—and my stomach squirms. I’ve lost them! I’m all turned around. On the alert for familiar voices or a tuft of pink hair, I wander the maze of boutiques and hallways and people. I try to remember what they were all wearing. Davis has this T-shirt that says “The Sports Team from My Area Is Superior to the Sports Team from Your Area,” which she says is to make fun of sports fans. But she also wears a blue Chargers shirt sometimes, so I don’t get it. Anyhow, I don’t think she has either of them on today. And of all the crazy outfits Ludmila owns, I can’t remember what she had on this morning. I speed up, darting around corners and down halls, looking everywhere for that flash of her pink hair. Nothing.
I wander out to a courtyard, and suddenly, a bloodcurdling shriek assaults my ears. Then a shrill, garbled, inhuman voice behind me says, “Step up, step up!”
There’s a flash of green wings, and before I can put up my arm to protect myself, I feel a whoosh of air—then, daggers dig into my scalp
.
Oh my gosh. There’s a parrot on my head.
I look around in a panic, and realize I’m standing by a bunch of parrots—I see a grey and cockatiels and even some macaws—on tall wooden perches, bobbing their heads this way and that. Parrots! In a semicircle, in a small alcove in the courtyard.
The bird on my head feels like he’s scratching some of my hair completely out. I might end up being the only kid to start school this fall with an actual bald spot.
“Doodie! Doodie, you naughty fellow! Get off!” A smiling, plump lady waddles up to me like a flustery hen. She has a bun of frizzy red hair, and she’s wearing a green sweatshirt that says “Parrot Rescue.”
“Step up!” she sings to the bird on my head, high and loud, flapping her elbows up and down and almost smacking me in the nose. Her voice makes my ears hurt almost as much as the parrot. “Step up, Doodie! There’s a pretty bird! Who’s a pretty bird?” she shrieks.
With one last sickening scrunch of claws down into my scalp, Doodie pushes off and flutters onto the lady’s arm to calmly preen his feathers. He’s the biggest, brightest macaw parrot I’ve ever seen.
His face is white marked with black, and he has a great, curved golden beak. His eye is purplish, ringed with white, then black. He only has the one eye. Where the other eye should be there’s only scarred-up bird skin, like a patch of black leather.
“Let’s just straighten your hair back, there: oops!” she says, bending my head down with her non-parrot-holding hand. “He pooped on you! Naughty Doodie! Stay right where you are!”
I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or the parrot, but I don’t move. I am paralyzed, anyway, with parrot-poop-horror.
She puts big green Doodie back on his perch, and reattaches his leg leash. The bird tilts his head and winks his one eye.
Then, the lady waddles toward a giant “Parrot Rescue” tote bag, and fishes out some wet wipes and paper towels.
“Stay still,” she orders. I feel like if I don’t obey her, I may end up on a perch with a leg leash myself. This thought makes me switch from parrot-poop-horror, to parrot-poop-hysteria.