Strays Like Us

by Cecilia Galante

  I didn’t know what, exactly. It just seemed like too soon. I hadn’t even gotten the feel for Margery’s place yet. I wasn’t ready to dive into another unknown arena. And this one would be with kids my age. Strangers who would stare at me and wonder who I was and where I had come from and what my story was. Then, when they figured out I wasn’t going to tell anyone anything, they would make things up and whisper things behind their hands about me. So no, I wasn’t ready.

  I wasn’t ready at all.

  The bus picked me up at 6:40 a.m. sharp, just as Margery had said it would. I was the only one at the bus stop, which was at the end of her driveway, and until we stopped again another twenty minutes later, I was the only kid on the bus, too. This was fine with me. Actually, it was more than fine with me. I walked all the way to the back of the bus and sat down in the very last seat. I ate my everything bagel as slowly as I could. Margery had spread it with cream cheese and topped it with two slices of tomato, and it was hard to imagine anything tasting so good.

  When I was finished, I wiped my hands on the napkin she had given me and lay down flat on the seat. I could see out the window as the bus moved. The sky was white as a sheet, and a dark wedge of geese flew high above in a perfect V formation. I remembered Mrs. Rogers telling us in fourth grade that the reason geese flew in a V formation was so they could conserve energy. Every goose in line flew slightly higher than the goose behind it, which reduced the wind resistance on the whole group. I closed my eyes. Tried not to remember the bird from the apartment. But it was impossible.

  It had been a hot summer night. So hot, in fact, that Mom opened all the windows. We had curtains, long white ones that reached all the way down to the floor, but no screens. Mom wouldn’t be able to get screens until she got her next paycheck.

  It must have been close to midnight when I got up to use the bathroom. I turned on the bathroom light, and when I did, a little bird that had been sitting in the sink flew past me, soft as a breath, and out into the hall.

  “Mom!” I yelled, running into our room and pushing her awake. “Mom, get up! There’s a bird in the house!”

  She shot up in bed as if the fire alarm had just gone off. “What? Who? What?”

  “A bird!” I tugged on the sleeve of her T-shirt. “It’s in the bathroom! It must have flown in through the window! It’s in here! In the apartment! Right now!”

  “A bird?” Her face fell. “Oh, Fred, come on.” She dropped back down against the mattress and pulled a pillow over her head.

  “Mom!” I yanked at the pillow, desperate to get her up. “Mom, I’m not kidding! Come on. You’ve got to help me.”

  “Fred, please just let me sleep.”

  “But there’s a bird in the house!”

  “Then catch it and throw it back outside.” Her voice was muffled beneath the pillow.

  “I don’t know how!”

  There was no answer. For a minute, I thought she’d fallen back asleep. Then, “Throw a blanket over it, take it to the window, and shake it out.”

  “Aren’t you going to help me?”

  “I’m too tired,” she answered. “I can’t even think straight right now. You can do it, Fred. Just go. Please, honey.”

  And so I snuck back down the hall, grabbing the old brown-and-yellow afghan from the living room couch. I could do this. I could. Mom had spent the day cleaning out the ladies’ room after the pharmacy’s toilet backed up. She needed to rest.

  I tiptoed through the living room, turning on lights as I went, in hopes of attracting the bird. But there was no sign of it. I went back to the bathroom and held my breath as I flung the door open. Nothing. The only other room to check was the kitchen.

  When I peeked inside, there, sitting directly on top of the sugar canister, was a little brown bird. It was no bigger than a tennis ball, and its beak was a bright yellow color. I held my breath as it caught sight of me, expecting it to fly away, but it only cocked its head.

  “Hi there,” I said softly.

  At the sound of my voice, the bird tilted its head in the opposite direction. Its beady eyes were bright, and even from where I stood, I could see little tips of white on the edges of its feathers.

  “Where’d you come from?” I whispered. “Hmmm?”

  The bird ruffled its feathers but kept its head very still, watching me.

  “You’re so sweet,” I whispered. “But you can’t stay here. You have to go back outside.” The afghan in my hands was heavy. If I threw it over the sugar canister, the bird might suffocate before I had a chance to get it outside.

  “Here’s what I’m going to do.” I kept my voice very soft as I took a step backward. “I’m going to go over to that window over there and push the curtains open real wide. That way, you can just fly away. All by yourself. Okay? You think you can do that?”

  I dropped the blanket to the floor as I walked backward to the window. The bird watched me, staring from its perch on the sugar canister. I turned around when I got to the window and slid the curtains open. The bird fluttered its feathers a bit at the movement and peered out the window. “See?” I pointed. “That’s where you need to go. Outside where you can fly and be free. There’s nothing in here for you.” I slid down the small wall of cabinets and tucked my knees under my chin. “Go ahead,” I whispered. “Fly away now.”

  I sat there on the afghan, staring at it for what felt like hours, but the bird didn’t move. The faint sounds of traffic drifted through the window. A car horn blared and someone yelled an ugly word. But the bird stayed put. My eyes got heavier and heavier, and the next thing I knew, I was squinting against the glare of sunlight as it streamed through the window. I sat up quickly when I remembered, and looked over at the sugar canister on the countertop.

  The little bird was still there.

  “Good morning.” I smiled as it cocked its head. My voice was soft and groggy. “You stayed here all night? Right here with me?”

  The bird ruffled its feathers. And then, before I had a chance to say another word, it flew out the window and disappeared.

  Now, lying on the seat in the bus, I wondered again about that bird. It must have seen the open window across the room. It must have felt the breeze floating in, beckoning it back outside. So why had it taken it so long to go? Why had it waited there all night with me instead?

  I sat up and stared out the window of the bus. Maybe it had been frightened. Of both leaving and staying. Maybe flying out that window had felt like too big a thing just then, especially at night, with only the stars overhead to light the way. Maybe staying had felt difficult, too, as it struggled to make sense of its strange surroundings. Maybe all it had really needed was that long expanse of night to sit there with me and wait for its tiny heart to slow down before gathering its courage and disappearing into the day beyond.

  The rest of the day was a blur.

  I only remember art class and a girl everyone called Lardvark. Oh, and the principal’s office, where I had to sit for two and a half hours, after I got into a fight. In art class. Over the girl everyone called Lardvark.

  We didn’t have art in my old school; something about money and budget cuts and all that junk. So nothing prepared me for what I saw when I stepped foot into the classroom. It kind of mesmerized me with the sun streaming through its tall glass windows, lighting up papier-mâché airplanes and hot-air balloons and blue and pink and orange birds and butterflies, all dangling from the ceiling on whisper-thin threads. Man, it was nice.

  I was just sort of standing there, looking at all of it, when someone shoved me. Or rather, someone shoved Lardvark, who fell into me. My books flew out of my hands, and I staggered forward, just catching myself on the edge of a large granite table. “Hey!”

  “Watch out, Lardvark!” a shrill voice spat. “You don’t want to crush the new girl, do you?”

  The biggest, tallest seventh grader I’d ever seen shrugged her shoulders and stared down at the floor. Her wide face was flushed, and beads of sweat had broken out alo
ng her forehead like small pearls. “Holy cannoli!” She coughed nervously, brushing her blond bangs out of her face. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

  “No, I’m fine.” I watched the girl behind Lardvark, the one who had shoved her, as she made her way over to the other side of the table. Her name was Michelle, and I’d noticed her in my homeroom, mostly because when she laughed—which she seemed to do every few minutes—she shrieked. It was a loud, awful sound, something a hyena might make, and I had turned, wondering where it had come from.

  Now Michelle glared at me. She had long, very dark hair and dangly earrings with blue stones at the tips. Her sweater, which stopped right at her belly button, was at least three sizes too small for her, and I could see the outline of a phone inside the front pocket of her jeans. “What’re you looking at?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Then stop staring.” She tossed her head and sat down amid a flurry of giggles from two other girls.

  Lardvark pulled on my sleeve. “You know that was an accident, right? That I didn’t mean to do that? It was a total accident. Really. I just wasn’t watching where I was going and …”

  “Yes, you were,” I said. “I saw what happened. She pushed you.”

  Michelle the hyena girl was talking to her friends, but she stopped midsentence when she realized what I’d said. She stood up, narrowing her eyes at me. “What’d you say?” Her head was dangerously cocked; I could tell she was ready for a fight. Behind me, I could feel Lardvark’s fingers as they yanked on my T-shirt. I took a step away from her.

  “I said you pushed her. Which you did. Everyone saw it.”

  “Oh, really?” Michelle pretended to act surprised. “Everyone saw it, huh?” She turned to her friend on the right, who was picking at her fingernails and blowing a purple gum bubble. “Sophia, did you see me push Lardvark?”

  “Uh-uh,” Sophia answered, popping her gum bubble loudly. “I can’t imagine you pushing anyone, Michelle.”

  “How about you, Renee?” Michelle glanced at her other buddy, who was texting furiously on her phone. “Renee!”

  Renee looked up, startled. “What?”

  “I said, did you see me push Lardvark here on our way in?”

  “No!” Renee acted all horrified. “No, you’d never do something like that.”

  Michelle shrugged and put her hands on her hips. “That’s two against one. Whaddya say now?”

  Before I had a chance to answer, a small woman, barely taller than me, emerged from a closet on the other side of the room. “All right, everyone,” she said, clapping her hands, “it’s time to sit down now and stop talking so I can take roll.” She perched on a stool and glanced at a piece of paper. “Terry Anderson?” She went down the line of students. “Georgia Granger? Ardelia Lark?”

  Lardvark, who had taken a seat next to me, raised her hand as the last name was called. She watched Michelle and me nervously, her eyes flicking back and forth between us like a Ping-Pong ball. Michelle was watching me, too, still waiting for me to acknowledge her last question.

  “You pushed her,” I hissed, leaning a little across the granite table. “And I don’t care what you or your friends say—you and I both know you did.”

  “Michelle Palmer?”

  Without taking her eyes off me, Michelle raised her hand. “Here.” She reached up and twirled a piece of her hair, and I could tell she was debating something inside her head. Every muscle in my body tensed as she looked me up and down, taking me in. Whatever came next, I’d be ready.

  “Who cares what you think?” she said suddenly, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. “You’re just trash.”

  And that was it. That was all she said. Three little words that flicked a switch inside me. My body moved with a will of its own, flying straight across the granite table. I grabbed and shook and pulled and yelled, and so did Michelle, until someone pulled me back, hauled me off her, yanked me to my feet, and pushed me out into the coolness of the hallway.

  I was able to take two deep breaths before the art teacher appeared. Her green eyes flashed. “Office. Now.” Her red flats made a soft peeling sound against the linoleum as she marched me down the hall. She didn’t say another word until we reached the office door. Then she turned, her hand on the knob. There was a swipe of blue paint on her face. “You might solve your problems like that where you come from. But that’s not how we do things here. Especially in my room.”

  She left me sitting in a red plastic chair across from a secretary who looked like she was about a hundred years old. Then Mr. Coolidge, the principal, opened the door of his office and told me to come in and tell my side of the story. When I was finished, he gave me a two-day suspension, wrote me up in a file, and called Margery to come get me.

  “Your first day?” Margery tossed me my helmet as we made our way over to Luke Jackson in the school parking lot. “Really?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” She swung a long leg over the seat and settled herself. “I had to take my lunch break early to come get you. Now I’m not going to have any time to eat.” She snapped the helmet clasp under her chin. “And you don’t want to know me when I get hungry.”

  I sighed and got on the bike behind her.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Margery kicked the stand up, revved the engine, and roared off down the road. Even with the wind blowing against my face, I could feel my cheeks flush hot as I replayed the fight again in my head.

  You’re just trash. My insides clenched as I remembered Michelle’s words. The look on her face as she’d spit them at me. Like I was a bug on the floor. A rodent. I’d seen a cashier look at Mom that way once, after she’d handed over her food stamp card. The cashier had taken it gingerly, as if it might be dirty, and slowly, disdainfully, swiped it through the register. She glared at Mom as she gave her change and put our stuff in two paper bags. Like we didn’t deserve to eat because we got help from the government. Like we were trash because Mom didn’t make enough money to pay all our bills and put food on our table.

  I’d seen all that again in Michelle’s face as she’d looked me up and down in the art room: disgust, pity, and resentment. That day, staring at the cashier, I’d just felt sad. So sad that I held Mom’s hand all the way home, giving it little squeezes whenever we crossed the street. Today, though, that sadness was nowhere to be found. It had been replaced with something bigger. Scarier. Something I didn’t recognize.

  Something I wasn’t sure I wanted to recognize, maybe ever again.

  “That’s strange.” Margery stayed put for a moment after she turned the motorcycle off in the driveway. “Carder’s truck is still here.”

  “Why is that strange?” I got off the bike and unfastened my helmet. The wind was sharp, and it blew my hair around my face. Behind the fence, Toby had already started to bark.

  “He works down at the pretzel factory in town.” Margery’s eyes searched the outside of the house. “I’ve never seen him home before me on a weekday. Ever.”

  “Maybe he took a day off.”

  “Yeah.” Margery swung herself off the bike. “Maybe.”

  Toby continued to bark, more frantically now. I glanced at the bottom of the fence where the hole had been to see if I could catch sight of him, but it was boarded up, sealed tight with a piece of plank and some nails. Margery wasn’t kidding when she said John Carder was the meanest person on the planet. He might be the meanest person in the entire universe, too, I thought to myself as I followed her into the kitchen.

  Before she could ask, I gave her the rundown of what had happened at school. What had turned me from someone who’d wanted to keep her head down and disappear into the crowd into a stark raving lunatic.

  “Well, I’m not going to lecture you.” Margery rested her hands on the back of a chair. “I’m sure the principal did that already, and it’s all stuff you already know. Besides, I have to get back to work. But I do want to
tell you something.” She hadn’t taken off her leather jacket or her leather riding gloves, which stopped at the knuckles and were fastened at her wrists with silver buckles.

  I sat down across from her, at the other end of the table. “You want me to leave?”

  “No.”

  “You’re going to call Carmella?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  Margery stared at the wheel under the table for a few moments. The silence made me nervous, like she was trying to muster the energy to start yelling and screaming. But then she looked up at me. And when she did, I could tell she wasn’t going to do either one.

  “I had a day like yours once,” Margery said. “A long time ago. When I was furious at everyone and everything. I went for a walk to try to blow off some steam, and about a mile down the road, I saw this old, rusty wheelbarrow on the front of someone’s lawn. There was a big sign on it that said ‘Please Take Me,’ so I took it. I didn’t know why I took it or what I was going to do with it, but I rolled that darn thing all the way home.” She grimaced. “It was heavy, too. And the wheel was broken. Took me over a half hour to get back.”

  Her face flushed a little as she spoke. She reached up and pulled on one of her earlobes.

  “Anyway, I brought it in the house. And I just left it there. I didn’t really give it too much thought until a few days later, when, all of a sudden, right out of the blue, it came to me.”

  “What did?”

  “What it wanted to be.”

  I frowned. She’d had me up to this point. Now I was getting lost. “What do you mean, what it wanted to be? Like it told you?”

  “In a way.” Margery nodded toward the living room. “Look for yourself. It’s sitting right there.”

  I turned around, scanning the living room. Two blue couches. A green-and-white area rug. Something that looked like a cabinet with two doors filled with small glass panes. A large lamp with a white shade. Next to the lamp …

  I stood up slowly, examining the strange-looking chair. It had an oddly shaped seat and short, stubby legs. Another set of legs had been drilled into the back to hold it up, but everything else—I could see it now—was the wheelbarrow itself. Margery had even kept the wheel, which stuck out between the front two legs like a little toy. “This is the wheelbarrow?” I looked back at her, wide-eyed.