Who is Mackie Spence?

by Lin Kaymer

  Mackie isn’t frightened by what has been happening.

  The orca and Mackie had a connection that I can’t fully understand, but I recognized something when he surfaced to look at her. He wasn’t a predator sizing us up for dinner. He’d seemed more like a whale who’d swum in to be with his best bud. How can the orca know Mackie? Is Mackie telling me everything she knows? And how can I see and verify all of it?

  But Mackie trusts me. I know that because of the scar she has on her leg. Just two years ago, the summer of our freshman year, a group of us had decided to swim after hours in the East Point Country Club pool. It was mid-July and we’d been at the town square to hear a band playing. The country club was within a mile of the sound stage.

  Six of us, Mackie, Jon, Wendy, Jennifer, Wes, and I, decided it would be cool to climb the club’s wire security fence and take a moonlight dip in the outdoor pool. Starlight filtered through tree boughs as we stripped down to our underwear in the dim shadows. The girls giggled. We eased quietly into the pool water, enjoying relief from the summer heat. Suddenly, the overhead security lights blazed.

  A voice boomed at us from the clubhouse porch. “I want everyone out of the pool. Now!”

  We were busted! Hauling ass out of the water in high warble, we grabbed for our clothes, and hit the fence in wet underwear, scrambling to get over the enclosure. We got away before the police showed up, but the fence top was capped with twisted edges of metal. Mackie was cut just below her left knee. Blood streamed down her leg as we arrived at Jon’s house. His parents were next door, visiting with their neighbors. We huddled like fugitives in the kitchen.

  “Jon, could I have some paper towels and a piece of tape?” Mackie asked, holding a wad of tissues against the gash on her leg. Wendy and Jennifer looked at her like she was crazy.

  “Mackie, that looks bad. We should go to the hospital,” Wendy suggested.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Mackie said.

  Jon left the room and returned with a roll of paper towels and a First Aid kit.

  When Mackie lifted the tissues, I saw that her wound was deep. Like needing-stitches-deep.

  “Mackie, I think you should see someone for that,” I said.

  She looked up at me. “No. Then I’d have to tell Mom and Dad. How would I explain any of this? They’d ground me for the rest of the summer. And you guys might get in trouble, too.”

  “I don’t think the bleeding’s going to stop,” Jon said, frowning. Jennifer, Wendy, and I nodded. Mackie shot us a defiant look.

  “Okay, Jeremy,” she said. “You sew it up.”

  At first I thought she was messing with me, but she didn’t smile, just held my eyes in hers. Jon left to get his mother’s sewing box.

  Trying to recall how sutures were stitched at the animal shelter, I splashed isopropyl alcohol on a small needle and threaded it with white thread. Then, as Mackie watched me in silence, I washed the wound with the alcohol, sewed the split skin with seven small stitches, added antibacterial spray on top, and finally applied a layer of gauze bandages.

  Mackie had tears in her eyes as I finished. I couldn’t tell if they were from pain or relief. Before everyone left to go home, she pressed her hand in mine and said, “I owe you.”

  After last night, I now feel like I owe Mackie something. She paddled out to meet an orca whale that could have killed us with a flip of a fin. She isn’t spooked by the idea of animals that somehow heal in her presence, even if she’s not sure how the energy exchange thing works. And she trusts me with knowing all of it, trusts that I won’t out her as some kind of freak show.

  My skin tingles from the morning cold, and I tentatively set my feet on the braided rug next to my bed. It’s early, but I need to move. My body is tightening down from the race yesterday and walking will help. Padding quietly in my sleep shorts, T-shirt, and bare feet down our wooden stairs, I hear Justin and Mom.

  As I step into the kitchen, Mom looks up from the cantaloupe and honeydew melons she’s chopping at the island counter. “Oh, I didn’t expect to see you up this early. Are you okay?” she asks.

  Mom, a morning person, is both alert and waiting for my answer.

  “Yeah. Well, my legs feel kind of stiff. I need a banana.”

  Justin’s eyes narrow as he watches me peel a banana before our customary late-morning, Sunday brunch.

  I smile. Competition for food is basic to every animal household.

  “Justin. You can have a banana, too,” Mom says. She’s a good primate mother who knows it’s wise to diffuse signals of sibling jealousy.

  He raises his eyebrows and wriggles them at me. I grimace back at him.

  “Dad and I fell asleep reading before you came in last night. Did you have a good time at Jennifer’s party?” Mom asks, as she returns to dicing the fruit.

  Setting my hands on the counter and leaning forward, I stretch my leg muscles. Lots of runners’ calf muscles cramp the day after racing and mine are getting there. Usually, eating something high in potassium, like a banana, helps.

  “Oh, yeah, it was okay. Jen put on some old Dance Station.” Luckily, Mom has heard abbreviated answers for years about what I do on the weekends.

  “Hmmm. Well, what’s going on with everyone? Is anyone dating?”

  “Mom, people don’t date anymore.” I pause to reconsider. “Well, Jon and Erica are sort of seeing each other, but you know, that’s different.”

  “Different? How?” she quizzes, looking up from chopping the fruit.

  “They’ve liked each other since grade school. Everyone figures they’ll end up an old married couple.”

  “An old married couple,” Mom repeats with a chuckle. “Right.” She turns to push melon rinds into our composting pail.

  Moving out of my stretch, I slide into a pair of worn flip-flops by the kitchen door before turning to the oversized calendar on the bulletin board. The kitchen calendar shows all of our daily schedules.

  “Are we marking up October today?” I ask, hoping to change the subject.

  “Yes. You finish with cross-country soon, right?”

  “Yeah. And I don’t think Olivia will change my hours.”

  “Fine. Are you doing homework, or do you want to help with breakfast?”

  “Homework, I guess,” I respond. There isn’t much choice. I have lots to read.

  “Okay. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to eat.” Mom waves me off.

  “You know I’m going to the shelter around two o’clock, right?”

  She nods and hands Justin a piece of cantaloupe to eat. He sends me a big grin, like he’s just been awarded top prize.

  Moving gingerly up the stairs, I try to get myself in study mode. My French, English, and history classes require extra time because I read slowly. I never have to spend nearly as much time on my chemistry or algebra homework. But my incentive to study that morning isn’t nearly as strong as my desire to review what happened with Mackie. And I’m beyond curious for another reason. What question does she want to ask me? I space out and nap.

  I jerk awake. With some relief, I hear Mom calling my name. It’s around noon. She’s made my favorites: pancakes, eggs, and fruit. After the meal I try to read more. Finally, at one forty-five I stroll to the wildlife shelter. I’ve packed in a lot of food and do not feel like running. It’s enough to enjoy the light-blue sky and crisp, fall breeze.

  Entering through the shelter’s front door, I enjoy the memory of lying next to Mackie on her bed. My daydream is cut off when the door opens again. Mrs. Vartan and Dru McKibbon have arrived. We’ve been the Sunday afternoon team for the last eight months.

  Like many of our shelter’s volunteers, Mrs. Vartan is old, maybe over sixty. After her first husband died, she used to sail in all kinds of weather to her son’s home on the north end. In the summer, they played croquet on the lawn and she’d take her grandson to the beach to skip stones.

  Both of my grandmothers died when I was still a baby, so I enjoyed listening when she recounte
d taking young Hughie aboard her 24-foot sailboat, the two of them playing pirate as they sailed up and down Locke’s Pass, raising their Jolly Roger flag, and waving to people on the shoreline. That would have been outstanding.

  Dru is my age, but homeschooled, so I don’t know her well. She started volunteering at the shelter a year ago. Occasionally the distress of the animals gets to her, but animals in pain get to all of us.

  We review the day’s workload. It’s pretty light. No new injury admissions except for a peahen that someone shot and a young male coyote that was brought in the day before. Later, I’ll ask Mackie if she already saw him when she worked yesterday afternoon.

  I finish suiting up and wait for Dru to join me for our check-in. Afternoons are prime sleep time for animals because many are nocturnal. But when you factor in injuries, any bird, mammal, or reptile that’s hurt requires sleep off and on, around the clock.

  First, we look in on the peahen, Pavo cristatus, a domestic bird. That’s a genus and species name that I don’t get to see, or practice saying, often. She’s been placed in a medium-sized cage in one of the rooms with some smaller birds. The feathers on the tip of her right wing have been damaged. A surgical envelope, shaped like a rectangular sleeve, has been slipped over the last five inches of her wing. She’s been given a light sedative to quiet her. Her food and water bowls are still full. Soundlessly, we leave the room and close the door.

  “Why would anybody shoot a peahen?” Dru asks in a whisper.

  “Who knows? It’s stupid. Her mate wouldn’t have been too far away. If she came from near Hawke Harbor, I know the people that raise them. Have you ever seen the Henrys’ peacocks?”

  “No, but the males’ feathers are gorgeous. I couldn’t see the hen well. Do the females have any bright colors?”

  “Not really. Mainly they’re sort of brown and gray.”

  “Hmmm,” Dru looks up at me with a giggle. “So the pea men are styling. Seems like the males are big show offs.”

  I grin at her. Male peacocks, with their deep-blue, iridescent green, and rust-colored feathers, compete to attract mates. When a peacock fans his tail he can make the males of any other species look downright dowdy.

  We continue down the hall, looking in on sleeping animals through door windows. All is quiet. I try to concentrate on what’s in front of me, but images of Mackie and the whale keep surfacing, like hallucinations.

  Moving back to the main room, we rejoin Mrs. Vartan.

  “That new coyote pup made a mess in Cage D this morning,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I heard Doc had to reset his back leg and the pup went bonkers when the team walked in. Probably the tranquilizer wasn’t strong enough. He’s in isolation right now, so would the two of you do the cleanup, please? I’ll keep an ear open for the phone and clean out the small birdcage.”

  Dru and I nod and turn to the cleaning closet. We need buckets, disinfectant soap, and scrubbers. I also remove two respirator masks from the upper shelf.

  “How stinky is this going to be?” Dru asks, eyeing the masks as we exit to the outside.

  I hand her one. “You’ve never smelled coyote urine before?”

  “No. It’s bad, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” I reply as we round the bend to the fourth of ten outdoor cages.

  Even with the advantage of fresh air and a breeze, the foul odor hits us like a wall. We set our cleaning materials down and quickly put on our masks. The base of the cage is splattered with feces. Other fluids have splashed on the open metal links and dried. Seeing how bad things look, I turn back to the main building. Before I put too much distance between myself and the cage, I lift my mask and motion for Dru to join me. She runs to my side.

  “I need to get the pressure washer,” I tell her quietly. “Don’t do anything until I’m back.”

  It will be best to first power-spray everything from a distance, and cleaning will be a real challenge. Using their urine, coyotes mark territory to let each other, and other animals, know they’re around. Farmers and gardeners sometimes buy and apply the urine concentrate to keep deer away. I can understand why it works. Stinkeroo! And we humans don’t have nearly the acute sense of smell that wild animals have.

  After the pressure wash we scrub, and in about ten minutes we take off our masks. The smell isn’t as strong, but still foul. Dru pulls a face like she’s about to gag, but handles it all pretty well. At least, she doesn’t say anything. In twenty minutes the cage is clean, with Dru doing the final pressure-spraying to rinse everything off.

  We’ve just returned the disinfectant and scrubbers to main storage in the shelter when I feel my phone buzz. It’s a message from Mackie!

  R U off at 6?

  yes Y

  Call me then, PLZ.

  It’s four o’clock and we still have more cleanup. Mrs. Vartan motions us over to the front desk.

  “The Large Flight Cage didn’t get cleaned this morning. They were short a volunteer and just ran out of time. Jeremy, would you handle that?” she asks.

  I nod because I like being in the big cage with Number 26. Cleanup includes removing bird droppings and food scraps that haven’t been eaten. Those can be almost anything. Like the hair or bones of dead, thawed chicks, rats, mice—whatever has been sent to the wildlife shelter. Though we breed mice for food, sometimes there isn’t enough, and our director, Gabe Hawes, purchases “frozen dinners.” We have an old microwave for defrosting the “dinners” before they are placed in cages for the birds to find. I remember watching in horror when a new volunteer took her warmed sandwich from the animal warming microwave to eat. Whoa! We have another microwave for our own food!

  Mrs. Vartan continues. “Dru, let’s transfer the new dry feed from the bags into the bins. Then we’ll check the boxed donations that came in yesterday.” The gifts will include old towels, linens, and bandaging items that people have dropped off.

  With my hood and goggles in place, I approach the Large Flight Cage quietly. Afternoon is down time for Number 26. Eagles sleep at night, but are most active in the morning, when they usually hunt. Since Number 26 has been with us for about six months, she knows our schedule for cleaning this cage. If she wanted to, she could get territorial and come after me, but she never has before. A part of me wants to believe that she understands how much we’ve been trying to help her. Or maybe she doesn’t and only tolerates us because of her weakened state.

  Brody was lucky when Mackie moved into the cage to defend him. Yeah, Number 26 absolutely would have noticed Brody. With two centers of focus, eagles can see both forward and out to the sides of their eyes at the same time. When an eagle hunts, it spots small animals on the ground up to one and a half miles away. There is no way that anyone could sneak in and surprise Number 26.

  My thoughts return to Mackie as I clean the cage. Mackie and Number 26. What has Mackie done that makes Number 26 show her respect? What is it about Mackie and wounded animals? How does the energy exchange work? What, exactly, does she do for them?

  Exiting, and after locking the cage door, I pull off my hood and dump the eagle’s refuse in a waste compost bin before heading back inside the shelter building. Re-entering the main room, I sit with Mrs. Vartan and Dru in a loose circle around the front desk. We review new informational handouts that Gabe and Olivia have prepared about ospreys.

  Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Keith, two volunteers who have worked third shift for a long time, push through the front door, laughing about something. I jump to my feet, ready to end the day. Mrs. Vartan nods. “You and Dru go ahead. I’ll wait for Seth,” she says smiling at us.

  “Thanks,” I return and then, “See you,” to Dru. Passing the Keiths, I give them a big smile. It feels good to know that Mackie wants to talk with me.

  Walking up the shelter entrance drive, I pull my phone out and call her.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Hi, where are you?” she asks, in a soft voice that gives me goose bumps.

  “Heading home.”

 
; “Were there any emergencies?”

  “None. It was really quiet.”

  We paused. Had I lost her?

  “Jeremy, I should have asked you this a long time ago, but if you aren’t already going to Sadie One, would you go with me?”

  Somehow, I manage to hold onto my cell phone as I leap high in the air, pumping my fist. She has just asked me to the first of two Sadie Hawkins dances that our school holds every year. This is way better than I could have guessed.

  “Yeah, sure, that would be great,” I say, excitedly. Holding my cell phone an arm length away from my mouth, I make a disgusted face. That didn’t sound very cool. Bringing the phone back, I try to sound more sophisticated by speaking in a lower octave, “I mean, yes, I’d like to go with you.”

  “Oh, good.” She seems relieved. “It starts at seven thirty on Friday. That’s when the Dance Club begins their clinic. They show everyone dance steps. It’ll be like last year’s Sadie One. Do you know how to dance to fifties music?”

  “Not really. Will that make a difference?”

  “No. It won’t be as wild as dancing at Jen’s, but it’ll be fun. And guess what?” Her voice hits a conspiratorial tone. “I heard Angela Bruner asked Wes.”

  “Oh,” I say, surprised. “Wes hasn’t said anything.”

  “She asked him last night at the party. At least that’s what Jen told me this morning.”

  “Okay. I didn’t know Angela had a thing for Wes,” I comment, perplexed as usual by the ins and outs of high school romance.

  “Yeah. It’s cool. Angela’s pretty sweet and, well, you know Wes. He’s fun. I think they could be good together.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her last statement. Wes has never seemed remotely interested in Angela. But I never thought I’d have a chance with Mackie, so hey, maybe Wes and Angela?

  “Jeremy are you there?”

  “Uh, yeah. Have you finished the French translation?” I ask, searching for a subject that will put me back on solid ground.

  “No. Do you want to work on it together tonight, after dinner at my house?”

  “That sounds good.”