Roll

  So as Dad’s Subaru turns out of the driveway, I start off after him, fully intending on running my whole three miles.

  Really, I do.

  But as my initial burst of energy begins to fade, I can feel my best intentions slipping away.

  The strawberry gel feels weird and slushy in my stomach. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have eaten something that came packaged in a shoe box.

  I try to think about my stride, about pulling myself up from the top of my head and making sure I pump my arms back and forth, but it’s impossible to concentrate.

  The thing is, I started looking some stuff up on the internet last night.

  Some stuff about pigeons, specifically.

  You know, getting new pigeons to fly with the rest of the kit isn’t as easy as you’d think. They’re not just going to swoop away and start rolling, right off the bat. First off, you need to make sure they’re hungry before you let them fly. They have to associate the coop with food, so they have a reason to come back. Otherwise, when you release them for the first time, they might just . . . poof . . . fly away.

  Obviously, I’m sure Sutton already knows this.

  But I wonder if she’s familiar with Pavlovian conditioning. Back in the day, there was this scientist guy named Ivan Pavlov, and he did this experiment where he’d ring a bell every time he fed these dogs, and pretty soon they started associating the bell with food, and would drool every time he rang it, even if they couldn’t see any food.

  Anyway, I don’t think anyone uses a bell with pigeons, but I did read some articles about whistling in a low tone and shaking a can full of pigeon feed every time the birds are fed. Then you do the same thing when they’re starting to return to the coop after a fly, and they’ll associate with eating, and come down, and . . .

  I’m going to pop over to Sutton’s and talk to her.

  Just for a minute.

  Turning around, I jog quickly back home. Tiptoeing into the house (Mom was up late with an unplanned Labrador C-section), I grab the hard copies of the articles from the printer.

  Cutting through the field toward Sutton’s house, I mentally rehearse different greetings. I’ve never been a Boy Scout, but I do believe in being prepared. Is “hey” too casual? Or just casual enough?

  Either way, I tell myself, it’s better than silently skulking in the tree line.

  But when I reach the coop, Sutton isn’t even there. Inside the coop, I can hear the low-pitched trill of the pigeons and the scrabbling of their feet against their perches. I head around to the side, trying to peer through the tiny gap that lines the plywood exit door. I can catch flickers of movement, but that’s about it.

  I step back, disappointed.

  And almost trip over the ladder lying in the grass next to the coop.

  The birds are still on top of the loft. The new ones. Squeakers, Sutton called them.

  I check to make sure Sutton isn’t coming, then hoist the ladder up from the ground. Staggering slightly, I prop it against the side of the coop. My heart is beating faster than normal, and my palms feel sweaty. How do criminals commit actual crimes without passing out?

  Maybe I should wait for Sutton, after all.

  Putting my foot on the bottom rung, I start to climb. I’m not great with heights (acrophobia, my brain reminds me), but I’m pretty sure I can handle being seven feet off the ground.

  As long as I don’t look down, that is.

  Ha, I think, as my head clears the top of the coop. I was right.

  The two-by-two cage sits near the edge of the roof, close enough for me to reach out and touch, if I want to. Inside, two pigeons turn to look at me curiously.

  They don’t look noticeably smaller than the one Sutton showed me the other day, but it’s hard to tell. The head and tail feathers of the one closest to me are white, while the rest of him is a pale maroon color, with hints of gray underneath. As he bobs nervously around, flecks of sea foam green and purple catch the light on his neck.

  Flecks of sea foam green and purple? I probably shouldn’t let anyone hear me say that aloud, unless I’m in the mood to get beaten up that day.

  Unlike his roommate, the other pigeon doesn’t seem nervous. Cocking his head, he stands still, looking at me curiously. Aside from a tiny patch of white on his beak, he’s all black, with the same hint of shiny color beneath his neck feathers. He stares at me with his strange round eyes.

  “Hey,” I say, staring back at him. “I’m Ren.”

  He cocks his head to the other side, bobbing his neck up and down a couple of times.

  As far as greetings go, it’s better than mine.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I say, leaning forward. “What’s your name?”

  “NBRC925-40.”

  For a microsecond, I think the pigeon has actually answered me. Then I realize his voice sounds a lot like Sutton’s.

  Uh-oh.

  Well, this is embarrassing.

  Holding tightly to the ladder, I look over my shoulder. Sutton grins up at me, her eyes shaded by the same, too-big Nationals cap. “Unless you’re talking to NBRC925-41, that is,” she says.

  “I wasn’t talking to him,” I say sheepishly. “I mean, not talking, talking. Just, you know . . . saying hello.”

  Sutton’s grin widens. “If you mean the red one, I call him Squirrel.”

  “Squirrel?” I turn back to look at the birds. “Why?”

  I can see Sutton shrugging in my peripheral vision. “I don’t know. He looks kind of squirrelly, don’t you think?”

  Now that Sutton mentions it, he does look a little . . . jumpy. He’s still pacing restlessly around the cage, weaving back and forth like a mechanical toy that’s wound too tight.

  His cage-mate hasn’t moved. Actually, I don’t think he’s even blinked. With an odd feeling of regret, I start down the ladder. Sutton steps back to make room for me.

  “What about the black one?” I ask, regaining solid ground. “Does he have a name?”

  “Blue.”

  “His name’s Blue?”

  “No, his color. It’s blue, not black.”

  I consider this for a second. “I guess that makes sense.” Kind of. Although it really does look black.

  “What are these?” Sutton asks, reaching down to retrieve the printouts I brought with me. “Imprinting Birmingham Rollers?” she reads aloud, turning the pages. “Conditioning Roller Pigeons for Competition?”

  “Oh, um . . .” I clear my throat. “I did a little research last night.”

  Sutton stares down at the stack of papers, flipping through them with her thumb.

  “Or, you know, a lot of research,” I admit.

  Maybe this was a bad idea. Sutton probably thinks I’m a total jerk. I mean, what am I doing, coming over here with a stack of research? Telling her how she should train her birds? Like Googling them has suddenly made me an expert, or something?

  I shift my feet awkwardly back and forth. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I should probably g—”

  “Do you have a hat?” Sutton interrupts.

  I blink. “A hat?”

  “If you’re going to help me train the kit, you’re going to need a hat.”

  A tiny rush of excitement pumps through my veins. “Really? You want me to help you?”

  “Yeah. I mean, if you want.” Her voice is casual.

  I don’t need a mirror to know that I’m grinning my face off. “Okay. Yeah. I mean, if you want.”

  Sutton grins, too. “Cool.”

  “Cool,” I repeat. “And don’t worry. I’ll find a hat.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NEXT MORNING, Sutton eyes me dubiously.

  “Camouflage?” she asks. “What, are you a hunter now?”

  “Ha ha,” I say, self-consciously adjusting my cap. I found it in the back of Dad’s closet last night. I think it’s from the one and only time he tried to go pheasant hunting.

  She reaches up to scratch her nose, hiding a smile behi
nd the palm of her hand. Her nails have been freshly painted, I notice. Black with red stripes. A suspicious snorting sound escapes from her nose. “Sorry,” she says, pulling herself together. “It’s great. Perfect. So, do you want to do the honors?”

  “Are you sure?” I glance at the coop. “I just . . . open the door?”

  She raises her eyebrows.

  “Right,” I say. “Okay. No problem.” I open doors every single day of my life. This one’s no different.

  Well, aside from the flock of birds lurking on the other side.

  The door is about a foot square, cut into the side of the coop around eye level. I step forward, lifting the hook that’s keeping it shut. Sutton says that some of the fanciers, the ones whose birds are actually worth money, have to padlock their coops at night to keep their kits from being stolen. A good breeding pigeon can go for five hundred bucks, if you find the right person to buy it.

  The door falls open, thudding against the side of the coop.

  I duck out of the way. It’s not that I’m scared, exactly, I’m just . . . cautious.

  Maybe a little overly cautious.

  It’s only a second or two later when the first bird pushes its way through the slim, metal bars that hang like wind chimes from a rod at the top of the exposed opening.

  “The bars only swing one way,” Sutton explains. “So the birds can push their way out of the coop, but nothing else can get in. You have to prop the bars up when it’s time for the kit to come back in.”

  I know from my research that Sutton’s talking about predatory birds, like owls, or hawks, that prey on smaller birds. The fact that there are birds out there that eat other birds is pretty creepy, when you think about it.

  Sutton tells me she even keeps a pair of cymbals out by the pigeon coop, just in case she ever needs to scare a hawk away.

  The heavy thudding of the pigeon’s wings takes me by surprise again as it lurches upward, winging into the air.

  One by one, the rest of the kit crowds through the opening, eager to make their way out. It’s like a miniature tornado of feathers and feet and confusion and sound. In less than a minute, it’s over, and the birds are climbing into the sky.

  “You don’t want them too low,” Sutton says. Her voice sounds loud in the sudden silence. “They need enough height to roll. But too high is worse; sometimes entire kits just . . . drift away. Especially the young ones.”

  I crick my head back, staring up at the birds. They’re gaining height now, starting to crisscross back and forth in a pack.

  “How long before they start to roll?” I ask.

  “It depends. On a good day, it should just be a few minutes. In competition, you only have five minutes to time in. Otherwise you’re disqualified.”

  “And you get twenty minutes to fly after you time in, right?” Sutton sent me a link to the National Birmingham Roller Club’s (or NBRC’s) website last night. I’ve always prided myself on being an excellent student. “What happens if it starts pouring, or something, right in the middle? Is there a rain delay, or something?”

  Sutton shakes her head. “We’re just out of luck. There’s only one judge for the whole region, so he doesn’t have time to wait around for anyone.”

  So after months of training, a few sprinkles can just ruin everything? “That sucks,” I say, making a mental note to check the long-range forecast on the national weather service website later.

  “Kind of, yeah,” Sutton agrees. “Anyway, here.” She holds up a little metal tape measure thingy, like the one I saw her using the first time we met. “It’s a tally counter,” she explains, handing it to me. “It’s my dad’s, but you can use it until he gets back home. Did I tell you his doctor said he might be out sooner than we thought?” she asks eagerly.

  There’s a button on the side of the tally counter. I give it a curious click, and the little number on the side of the counter flips over from zero to one. Click, click. Two, three.

  “That’s awesome. So this is how you count how many times they roll?”

  “Yeah.” She clears her throat. “I’m warning you, your thumb is going to be killing you by tonight.” Sutton points toward her upper shoulders. “Here, too.” I tilt my head back again, experimentally. She’s right; now that I think about it, it’s pretty uncomfortable.

  “We should get those weird neck pillows people use at the airport.”

  Sutton laughs, even though I wasn’t really joking.

  “Okay. Basic rules,” she says. “The whole point is that you want as many birds as possible to roll at the same time. But you also want them to roll for as long as they can each time they do it. Because the longer they roll, the deeper they’re going, and the more points you get.”

  “As long as they don’t go too deep, and splat on the ground, right?”

  “Right. You also can get bonus points for speed. So the more birds that roll at the same time, and the faster and the deeper they go, the more points you get.”

  More birds. Faster. Deeper.

  Got it.

  Well, kind of.

  “Cool,” Sutton says. “So under twenty feet, it’s one point per bird. Twenty to twenty-nine feet, two points. Three points for anything over thirty feet. You get a bonus point if they break really fast, or roll anything farther than forty-five feet.”

  I look up at the sky. “But how can you tell how far twenty feet is? And when a bunch of them are rolling at the same time, how do you count them all at once?”

  “Practice.” Sutton grins.

  “Look,” she says, pointing toward the kit. A few of them have just pitched backward into a roll. “When they start rolling like that, it’s called ‘breaking.’ So how many points would you get for that break?”

  I concentrate on the birds that are already swooping back up to join the rest of the kit. There’s three of them, so . . .

  “Easy,” I say, clicking the tally counter. “Three points.”

  Sutton raises her eyebrows.

  “Not three points?” I ask in confusion. I’m not used to getting the wrong answer. It feels, well . . . wrong.

  “That was a deep enough roll for two points each,” Sutton explains. “Twenty to twenty-nine feet, remember?”

  “Right,” I say. Clearing my throat in embarrassment, I click the tally counter three more times. Which brings the total up to . . . nine? That can’t be right.

  Oh, shoot, I forgot to reset it. How do I . . . wait, they’re rolling again! And this time there’s a lot of them!

  My eyes flick back and forth as I try to count. I click frantically, forgetting about the extra points from before. Are there seven of them? Or eight? And are they rolling deeper than the other ones? Shallower? How are you supposed to even tell?

  “Sixteen points,” Sutton calls, calmly clicking away on her own counter.

  Sixteen points total? Or sixteen new points? Sixteen plus nine is twenty-five, minus the three extra points, and aargh! They’re going again!!!

  “Nine points!”

  I click desperately at my counter, trying to catch up. When I glance over in Sutton’s direction, she grins. “How’s it going?”

  “Great!” I lie, trying not to panic.

  Okay. You can do this, Ren. Just keep calm.

  Two-thirds of the kit drops into an impressive roll, tumbling so deep I’m worried they’re going to hit the ground.

  “Is that a three pointer?” I call out.

  “They’re on fire today!”

  I nod in agreement, even though it isn’t exactly a specific answer, when you think about it.

  “Fifty-two total!”

  I look down at my tally counter. It reads forty-one.

  Sidling over, Sutton peers down at my counter. Then she laughs. “Just try watching for now,” she advises me. “It takes a while to get the hang of it.”

  I try not to be offended. I’m not used to it “taking a while” for me to get the hang of something.

  Well, most things, I think, looking down at my
shiny athletic shorts.

  I fully intend on running after this.

  Probably.

  If it’s not too hot by then.

  Dropping my hand, I lean my head back. We settle into silence, disturbed only by the clicking of Sutton’s tally counter.

  It’s peaceful out here, in the middle of the field. The air is warm, the insects buzzing past are actually leaving me alone, and the still-wet ground beneath us smells oddly nice.

  I’m not sure how long we stand there, staring up at the kit as they somersault through the air together. Probably longer than I think.

  Eventually, though, the rolls become fewer and farther between. Sutton glances at her watch.

  “They should be coming down soon.” She checks the face of her counter. “Ninety-six!” She looks up at me, her eyes wide with excitement.

  “I take it that’s good?”

  “With a score like that, we could place at Regionals,” she says, grinning. “Although there’ll only be eleven birds in the actual competition. We’ll have to narrow the kit down before then.”

  I scan the birds, which are circling lower above the coop.

  “What about Squirrel?” I ask. “And Crow? Do you think they’ll be ready to fly by then?”

  Sutton gives me a look. “Crow?”

  Oops. “Oh. Um . . . the other squeaker. The black one. I mean the blue one.” I pretend to be very interested in a patch of weeds next to my foot. “He just looked like a Crow, to me.”

  “Crow” is the name of Bananaman’s sidekick. He’s, wait for it . . . a crow. Unlike Bananaman though, Crow is supersmart.

  Once, just after we’d gotten our report cards back, Aiden joked that he was Bananaman, and I was Crow.

  I laughed, because I could tell he wanted me to.

  And because I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Crow,” Sutton repeats. “I like it.”

  I look up. “Really?”

  “Sure. Now tell me again how this Pavlov stuff works,” she says, thrusting one of the feed cans in my direction. She nods toward the coop, where the first member of the kit is banking downward toward the door. “We’re on.”