Bird

by Crystal Chan

  I sucked in my breath. Another scientist. Mom was going to have a hissy fit.

  Mom smiled. “With your interest in physics, I’m sure you’ll be a terrific one.” Then she looked at me, as if suddenly remembering I was sitting at the table. “Don’t you think so, Jewel?”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MOM sent us outside for the afternoon. She told me not to worry about my chores, and when she invited John to join us for dinner the next night, she even smiled, which surprised me, since I knew she was sad. It’s not like she never smiles when she’s sad, but usually when she does it’s a halfhearted attempt that never reaches her eyes, like something is plugging up her smile, stopping it from spreading past her lips.

  Today, her smile seemed to fill up the entire house.

  The last time she smiled all big like that was two winters ago; she had taken me to Caledonia’s county park in the winter, the one everyone goes sledding down when it snows. It was a sticky, bright snow, the kind that burns your eyes with sunlight when the clouds go away. The hill had well-formed sledding paths from the big kids and seemed to stretch up for forever, and we watched the kids come crashing down, sometimes toppling over sideways, their sleds veering out of control.

  I didn’t want to go up that hill. Not at all. But Mom said to me, “Sledding is the best part of Iowa, honey. They don’t do this in Texas.” And the way she smiled when she said that, that smile seemed to warm the snow and slow down the sledders and somehow made everything, everything okay.

  After that, we climbed the hill and she plopped me between her legs, and we swooshed down, laughing and screaming louder than everyone. When we reached the bottom, she raised her arms in triumph, then wrapped them around me and hollered as if the sky, the sun, and the sparkling light would send us right up the hill again.

  And they did.

  That was the last time I saw her smile that big. After that day, I tried so hard to make that smile come back, but for some reason she slipped into this sad Mom and nothing did any good. I made a snowman for her in the yard, and when that didn’t work I drew her at least eight cards until the construction paper ran out, and when that didn’t work I begged her to take me sledding again. She finally did, but it was a chore for her, like cleaning the house, and she waited for me at the bottom the whole time. It felt so wrong I cried when I got home. That smile must have been a mistake, I decided that day. In a way it would have been better never to have seen it at all.

  So of course I didn’t want to go outside now that Mom was smiling like the sun. But how could I tell John that I was afraid her smile would slip through the windows or the cracks in the wall? In the end, I told myself that Mom was smiling because of John, not because of me, and that I shouldn’t hope for things I’m never going to get. When I left her in the kitchen, she was cleaning up from our cookies, humming, and it was all I could do not to dash back into the house and cling to her leg like when I was a little girl.

  I tried to forget about all that as John and I ran through the fields again, which burned like an oven in the midday sun, and we didn’t stop until we climbed up the hill to Event Horizon.

  “You’re lucky you have a cool mom,” John said, once we slipped inside the tree. The cool air on our skin made us both sigh with relief. He gave me a bottle of water.

  “I guess,” I said uncomfortably, and opened the bottle. The water went down warm, almost as if I were still breathing air. His cheek was swollen; it would take a while for it to go away.

  John caught me looking at him. “It’s fine.” His lips curled as much as his cheek would allow. “It won’t be the last time someone hits me.”

  “Really? What other fights have you gotten into?” I couldn’t imagine John getting into a fight with anyone. I squirmed as I tucked my legs under me.

  “Hapkido. I’m a green belt. You get hit a lot.” He looked at me, and his eyebrows rose. “A lot.” He shook his head.

  “Hapkido?”

  “It’s a kind of martial art. I’m pretty good for a kid my age.” He paused. “That’s what my teachers say.”

  “How come your parents let you be in hapkido if you get hit?” I asked.

  “They don’t like it,” John said, rolling his water bottle between his hands, “but they know I do.”

  I didn’t know how you could like getting hit.

  “Besides,” John said, “when you have a green belt, you know you can take care of yourself. One day, I’ll be a black belt.”

  “And then what?” I asked.

  “Then everyone knows you’re the best.”

  I picked at the dirt under my fingernails. I’m not the best in anything—not even close. Not in math class or gym or art. Even Mom is worried that I won’t be anyone when I grow up, maybe that I’m not anybody now.

  “I think your parents are cool for letting you be in hapkido,” I said.

  The happy look in his eyes flicked away, as if my words had smashed it to a million pieces. “Like I said, they suck,” he said.

  My throat tightened. “But I thought—”

  “Look, Jewel,” he said. His voice wasn’t as sharp this time. “People only want to hear that you have great parents, that you never think about the life they stole you from.”

  My jaw dropped. “That they what?”

  John looked up at the bright hole at the top of the tree. “How do I know that my parents—my real parents—wanted to give me up? How do I know that they’re not out there looking for me at this very moment?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “How can I call Jack and Susan my parents? They don’t look like me. They don’t even talk about the fact that I’m adopted. Or black.” His mouth tugged on the sounds of that last word. Black. “They just tell me, ‘We’re all human on the inside.’ ” He snorted. “Like that’s helpful.”

  “And since people don’t listen to what you want to say,” I said slowly, “why bother telling them the truth?”

  John paused and looked at me, surprised. “Yeah. Just like that.”

  We both stopped talking at that point. John and I, we just leaned our backs against the inside of Event Horizon and took our time listening to the birds chirping, to the humid air filling up the afternoon sky. It felt strange to talk about things that mattered—not things like what I ate for lunch, or did I do my chores. I didn’t want to stop talking about important things, so I turned to John. “It’s like with Bird,” I said. “I think about him all the time.”

  He nodded. “You don’t talk about him, though, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. Nobody wants to listen either.” I stood up and left Event Horizon. John scrambled to his feet, following me. I found a good, low-hanging branch of a maple tree and swung up onto it. “Just like my parents aren’t going to listen to me when I try to tell them why I was hitting Grandpa,” I said, looking down at John. The trunk was solid and the nearby branches forked gently. I got to my feet, holding on to the trunk, and moved to the next branch.

  John was already climbing up. “They can’t be mad at you,” John said. “Your mom saw everything.” He pointed to his swollen cheek with his free hand.

  “I saved Grandpa’s life and they were still mad at me,” I said, looking for my next branch.

  “Really?” John seemed impressed.

  “So I don’t know why they’d be happy about me hitting him.” The bark bit into my hands. I grabbed the trunk, steadied myself, and stepped onto the next limb. This branch stretched up at a steep angle. I bit my lip. A part of me suddenly wanted to climb all the way to the very top thin branches of the tree, to bend with the leaves and the wind.

  Maybe fly.

  “Okay, they might not be jumping for joy.” John was perched on the branch I had just left. We were almost at the same level. “I get that. But they can’t expect you to watch what your Grandpa does and not get mad.”

  I didn’t answer John because I was getting confused. He had a point: If I had don
e what Grandpa did, my parents would sure be mad at me. But somehow, I wasn’t supposed to get angry. Grandpa’s the angry one. I was the responsible one. Levelheaded.

  But it’s hard to be levelheaded and watch what Grandpa does and keep all these secrets about the cliff and the duppies and the I-don’t-know-whats that make my skin tingle. Mom wouldn’t be happy knowing about that because I-don’t-know-whats aren’t practical. Dad wouldn’t be happy either, because he’d think I’m playing with spirits and things that shouldn’t be touched.

  I guess I don’t know what they expect of me anymore.

  John was swinging around to a branch slightly above mine, the last branch before the limbs got thinner and farther up. A chickadee peered down at us, chirped, then flew away.

  “Besides,” John said, “you were protecting a friend, right? How could that be so bad?”

  My head snapped up at him. A friend. Somehow, that one word melted away the dark, swirling confusion in my chest. I might not be able to tell Mom I want to be a geologist or Dad about the cliff, and I might not raise my hand a lot in school, but with John—John knew everything about me. As a friend should.

  Well, he knew almost everything. And what he didn’t know, I wanted to show him. John might not believe in duppies, but if he could share Event Horizon with me, why couldn’t I share my cliff with him?

  “John,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear my pounding heart, “want to go somewhere cool tomorrow, before you come over for dinner?”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “Jewel Campbell, what kind of question is that?” He had propped himself in the forking branch and was scratching the back of his neck. “Of course I do. You and me, we go everywhere together.” His eyes smiled back.

  I nearly broke open with joy.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WE met up the next day at Event Horizon when the sun was high and blistering. We didn’t start at my place, even though it was closer to the cliff, because Grandpa was out of his bedroom more often now, doing things to protect us from duppies, like putting out bowls of water and hanging horseshoes and red socks and sweaters right on the walls. I didn’t even know that bowls of water could protect you, but the way Grandpa put them by our bedroom doors and even in the bathroom, I supposed they did. I felt bad that he was working so hard to keep a duppy out, but it’s hard to feel really awful for someone who just hit your friend.

  John and I walked along the dirt road that led to the footpath, which led to the cliff. His binoculars hung around his neck, as if he wanted to look at things close, real close. A flash of panic churned in my stomach: Did I really want to show him my cliff? My circle? For an instant I thought about walking right by the footpath—he’d never know, the long grasses covered it up so well. I could show John the pond with the slime over it instead, and I could scoop some up and throw it at him. The look on his face would be worth the retaliation.

  “Helloooo?” he said, waving a hand in front of my face. “Earth to Jewel.”

  I jumped. “What?”

  “I said, ‘Do you think I should bring my mouth guard or my helmet to dinner tonight?’”

  I looked at him quizzically.

  He pointed to his cheek, still slightly swollen.

  My neck felt hot, and I kicked at a stick on the road.

  John suddenly burst out laughing. “It was a joke, Jewel!” he cried out. “It’s not your fault he’s crazy. Besides, with you as my backup, we can take him.”

  John’s smile was contagious, and I stood there smiling and staring at him, like an idiot, probably. Why wasn’t John afraid of Grandpa like everyone else? Instead there John was, letting his laughter settle over the grasses, and the grasses bent as if his laughter were raindrops.

  “Come on,” I said. “The footpath is this way.”

  I did have to point out the footpath to John, but to me, it was so obvious I could find it in my sleep. Dad had first shown me the cliff when I was eight years old, even though Mom was upset when she found out where we were going. “There’s nothing she needs to know about that cliff,” Mom said to Dad. He pressed his lips together and nodded like he agreed with her, but he took me straight there anyway.

  That first time the walk took forever, like the sun was stuck in the sky and we were walking and walking and would never stop, but then suddenly there was the granite boulder and then the open space where the ground should have been. The hairs on my neck stood up.

  “Can you feel it?” Dad had said.

  I didn’t know exactly what it was, but the hairs on my neck sure knew.

  “This is where your brother jumped,” Dad said, and he suddenly put his hand on my shoulder, strong and firm; I couldn’t move if I tried. He looked out into that open space for the longest time, and the boulder sat there and watched us, listening to every word we said, maybe like how it sat and watched and listened to the noises Bird made before he jumped.

  Dad turned and said, “There are duppies here, Jewel.” His voice was low, and though he’d talked about duppies before, his voice never sounded like that, all strange and tight. I suddenly felt like crying. “Duppies are everywhere, but they like certain places. This cliff has duppies, and a duppy is what made Bird jump. The duppy tricked him.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t call him Bird anymore,” I said.

  Dad shook his head. “I don’t know, Jewel. Whatever duppy tricked him might get upset all over again. I think we need to keep his name Bird.” But he looked unsure as he said that.

  I shuddered to think about what that duppy would do if it got upset a second time. “Should we forgive the duppy?” I asked. Mom’s priest talked a lot about forgiveness.

  “You can’t forgive this,” Dad said, and his voice turned hard.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted him to hug me, to tell me that everything was okay and that he was going to protect me from every duppy that ever existed and ever would exist, but he didn’t. Instead, he took his hand from my shoulder and looked out over the cliff, and I felt coldness where his hand used to be.

  “Are there good duppies here too?” I asked. I really didn’t care about the answer, I just wanted him to look at me, to remember that I was here with him.

  “I doubt it,” Dad said, staring off into the distance. “Most duppies are bad because someone has done something to upset them.” Dad paused. “The one that tricked my son was very, very upset.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Who upset it?”

  “Grandpa.”

  Dad didn’t know it, but I snuck away later that day and went back to that very same cliff with those legions of duppies, those bad ones and good ones and I-don’t-know ones. The walk didn’t seem half as long this time. I went back to where the ground dropped off, and I leaned against the boulder—I was too short to climb it back then. This is where my brother died, I thought. And right when the duppy was telling him to jump, I was being born. I ran the tips of my fingers over the rough grooves of the boulder, and I couldn’t explain it but I felt like I belonged there, at that cliff.

  To be honest, I don’t know if there are duppies there, or if there are duppies at all. But I do know the first time I snuck out and stood at the edge of the cliff, my heart was stapled to my throat, because I knew something was there, and it was very, very important. The earth did too; from the grasses to the boulder to the smudged clouds to the trees in the distance, they all leaned forward, sharing in that silent secret.

  It’s hard to explain what happens when you realize that something is even more important than what you thought was already important. When making Mom or Dad upset suddenly seems like nothing at all. It’s like the universe falls apart. Or comes together. But that’s exactly what happened that day when the sky suddenly crushed down on me, when I knew that something was there. That same something tugged at the fibers inside my chest and didn’t stop tugging until I picked up my first stone. That’s how it started. Within a month I found my eight stones, and I’ve added a stone a year ever since.

  As John and I he
aded along the footpath, he didn’t say anything—not with his mouth, at least. The swooshing of his shorts, though, and the way he dragged his feet along, instead of lifting them up and placing them down softly, like mine, was as loud as shouting. It felt strange to be leading the way, unlike when we hiked to Event Horizon. Maybe he was thinking the same thing.

  My thoughts boomed through my head and before I knew it we rounded the field. When I glimpsed the tip of the boulder, I stopped, and John stopped behind me.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice low.

  I shook my head. How could I explain to him all that has happened out here, everything this place means?

  “There’s a cliff ahead,” I said. I didn’t mean my voice to come out as a whisper, but it did.

  “Cool.”

  An ugly thought flashed through me like lightning burning over the earth. I spun around and faced him. “Why don’t you know about the cliff?”

  His eyebrows lifted and he leaned back a little. “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone in this town knows about this cliff. About my family.”

  “Your grandpa?”

  “My family. Why don’t you know, like everyone else?”

  John shrugged, but he was looking at me carefully. Cautiously. “I’m visiting my uncle, like I told you.”

  “Right. But how long have you been here?”

  “A couple weeks.”

  A couple weeks. Could it be possible that he didn’t know about Bird? The cliff? That his uncle didn’t tell him about his cursed neighbors and to stay away? I paused, and I looked at the ground and imagined digging a hole next to the goldenrod by John’s foot, a big hole where I could bury these fears. If it was true that he didn’t know about Bird, then why would I tell him—so he could think we’re freaks too?

  “Jewel, what’s wrong?”

  I looked away, but the panic in my stomach settled down a little. It was too late to turn back now, anyway. When I lifted my eyes, I saw a red-tailed hawk circling in the distance, watching us. I took a deep breath and pretended to watch the hawk, but really I was telling myself to calm down. Finally, I looked back at John. “It’s a steep cliff. Watch where you step.”