Bird

by Crystal Chan

  Miriam laughed as she swung me around. “What a surprise, Jewel,” she said, smiling. Her gold drop earrings dangled elegantly. “Abuelita didn’t tell me you’d be here today.”

  I got shy all of a sudden. “Today’s a food day,” I said.

  Miriam nodded. “Of course it is! You always come like clockwork for Grandma’s food.”

  “It’s really good,” I said, blushing.

  Miriam laughed. “Oh, we know that. You always come back for more, right?” Miriam said something in a flurry of Spanish to Mrs. Rodriguez, who laughed too, and their mouths smiled in the same way. Maybe it’s because of the familiar aromas or how Mrs. Rodriguez looks like Mom, a little, in that moment I feel like I belong here with them. Then that moment dissolves away and there are more parts of me that feel like I don’t.

  It’s like at school. I used to sit with Daniella and Silvia at lunch, and they were nice and all, but when they got excited or wanted to say something in secret, they just switched to Spanish. Sometimes they mixed Spanish into their English and didn’t even realize it, like how you don’t realize you’re breathing. Then I would just wait, letting the sounds roll over me, ungraspable. When the girls burst out laughing, sometimes I laughed too, which made them laugh harder.

  But Miriam wouldn’t laugh at me. Maybe that’s why I said, before I could even stop myself, “Have you ever heard of Xolo dogs?”

  Mrs. Rodriguez jerked her head back a little bit. Miriam shot a look at Mrs. Rodriguez and then said, “Yes, Jewel. I have. Why?”

  The plastic bag suddenly felt heavy in my hands. I looked down and stared at the pile of shoes by the doorway.

  “Do they work?” I asked quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  I wanted to talk about duppies, but they wouldn’t know what duppies were, so instead I said, “Like . . . do Xolo dogs protect you from spirits?”

  Mrs. Rodriguez started prattling away. She put her face right in front of mine and talked at me slow and loud, as if that would help me understand something important. But as usual, her words just danced around my head, tickled my ears, then slipped away. She huffed, frustrated.

  Then she and Miriam talked for what seemed like forever while I stood there, my eyes roaming the terra-cotta sculptures on the wall, the small fish tank in the corner—anything but them. Finally, Miriam laid her hand on my shoulder.

  “Jewel, some people believe in the Xolo dogs, but others think there’s just a lot of folklore around them.” She peered at me. “Why? Is someone trying to scare you?”

  Miriam probably thought that some school kids were playing a joke on me. “No,” I said. “It’s nothing like that—”

  “Well, don’t worry about it, Jewel,” Miriam said, patting my shoulder softly. Then she paused. “What a beautiful necklace,” she said, peering at the chain that peeked from beneath my shirt. “Look at you, getting all grown up. You never used to wear jewelry.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I smiled, but my face felt like plastic.

  When I got home, Grandpa’s door was closed, but maybe he was out at the pond. I wanted to run to John’s house and tell him that I was discovering Grandpa’s secrets, one by one: What he does in his room, where he goes when he’s not in the house, and that he has a thick sadness under his skin.

  But just thinking of John and his secret name made me feel all scrunched up inside. Instead, I took out my favorite pen and started doodling until I found myself grabbing a piece of paper and writing a note to Grandpa. It was strange writing “Dear Grandpa”—all the other notes I’d ever left him were quick jottings, as if I was afraid the ink was going to chase me down for writing Grandpa’s name. But this was a real note. I thanked him for letting me listen to his music and told him that I liked it. Then I drew a little flower after my name, just because.

  But as I was sliding the note under his door, a funny smell came from his room. My body tensed. Something was burning. I sniffed again. Rosemary. Grandpa was burning rosemary.

  I paused at the door, unsure of what to do. A part of me wanted to march in there and scream that rosemary and rice are things you eat, and they can’t possibly have anything to do with duppies. Another part of me wanted to rush in there and make Grandpa stop burning rosemary, just in case, I realized with a start, it would somehow hurt John.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE next day I stood in the middle of my circle of stones. Cumulous clouds shone like clusters of pearls in the sky. The granite boulder watched, its shadow angled thick on the earth.

  A weight had lifted from my chest as if an eagle had swooped down and plucked it away. It had been a while since I had stood inside my circle—I’d been too worried and distracted these days—but it felt like I was coming home. My twelve rocks watched me too, bold, proud to have me back.

  After a while, I stepped out of the circle and walked right to the edge of the cliff. It’d been a while since I did that, stand at the very edge, my toes tingling with all that emptiness a half movement away. When I was young, I would stand right there and dare myself to close my eyes, but every time I did I’d get woozy and open them again, real quick.

  If duppies existed at this cliff, they should have pushed me off a long time ago. But they didn’t. I’m not sure why; maybe because they were waiting for me to be older—although they didn’t think that about Bird, not at all.

  Or maybe they didn’t push me off because there are good duppies here. Maybe the good duppies were protecting me from the bad duppies, like an invisible duppy war battling this way and that, with the bad duppies coming at me and the good duppies wrestling them back, and a young Jewel standing, closed-eyed, right at the edge of the cliff.

  Or maybe none of them pushed me off because there aren’t duppies at all. That way, absolutely nothing would ever trick me, no matter how long I stood at the cliff, even if I dared the entire universe of duppies to come and get me.

  The clouds lined up in rows and got tinier and tinier until they blurred into the horizon. I closed my eyes and started to feel the familiar wooziness come on, but I didn’t open them. Not this time. “Bird,” I whispered.

  The cicadas whirred in the air.

  “Bird,” I said again, louder.

  I kept hearing the cicadas. But there was also something else. Then, suddenly, I saw him. In my mind’s eye. He was big now, older than me, tall and strong and smiling. He stretched out his arms, inviting me into them.

  Then he jumped.

  When I was young I used to talk to Bird all the time, like how some kids do to their imaginary friends. Except Bird wasn’t imaginary. He just wasn’t around anymore, that’s all. But it had been a long time since I’d done that. Sometimes when I’d imagine Bird talking to me, I’d put words right in his mouth so he’d tell me what I wanted to hear, or I’d make him tell me my favorite jokes, or we’d laugh at something the teacher said in class that day. But the way that I had seen Bird, I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t making Bird hold out his arms, all open and wide.

  I saw him.

  I buried a pebble that afternoon, but it wasn’t for Bird. I guess part of me was afraid that if I spoke out loud what had happened, it wouldn’t be true anymore. And the Bird I saw was so crisp in my vision, so breathing-to-goodness real that I couldn’t risk losing him, not even on a pebble.

  The pebble that I did bury was for Grandpa, because I felt like I had been carrying him under my skin and needed to get him out. It was strange to bury a pebble for Grandpa—usually it’s about Grandpa because he makes our house go silent. This time, though, was different.

  For starters, I wasn’t used to seeing him. Before, when Grandpa would come out of his room, he’d sit in the living room or on our front porch at dusk. He’d never really want anything, and we never really asked him anything, until I guess after a while he just disappeared, right in front of us.

  But now, not only was he out of his room, he was out of the house, and he was sad and listened to music that gets into your blood it’s so alive an
d believed in duppies and burned rosemary and maybe liked chocolate. And the way his face softened—just for a moment—could that have been the Pooba that Bird knew?

  I grabbed John’s binoculars, climbed the boulder, and perched on the ledge that overlooked the rolling fields and then the hills in the distance. It was fun to use the binoculars: I could spot birds’ nests, tell the way the different trees wore their bark, and see the way flies looked all golden in the sunlight. I swung the binoculars to Event Horizon. John was there, his body about the size of my hand. I focused the binoculars, enjoying a giddy, spying thrill as I watched him. Then I realized that he was watching me; I could barely make it out, but there he was, waving at me, jumping up and down, and gesturing wildly for me to come where he was.

  He looked so funny making big gestures like that. I laughed. Then I climbed down and ran as fast as I could to Event Horizon.

  “It is not easy to just run over here,” I said, panting, as I entered the grove of trees. Sunlight clung to the edges of the leaves.

  John grinned and handed me a bottle of water. “You made good time.”

  “So what happened?” I asked, wiping my brow with the sleeve of my T-shirt.

  “You’ll never guess what I found,” John said, his eyes flashing.

  “What?”

  John paused, looking a little guilty. “You’ve been rubbing off on me, okay? I was digging around in the dirt and found this.” He shoved his hand out to me, holding something. When he opened his fingers, I gasped.

  It was a Xolo dog.

  “No way!” I said, smiling. It was similar to the one we had at our house. I looked at John. “You found it out here?”

  “Yup,” John said, all proud. Then he gave it to me. “It was right by the tree nearest to Event Horizon.”

  “How do you think it got here?” I asked.

  John shoved his hands in his pockets, thinking. “Well, someone put it here,” he said. “It’s not like it’s just going to appear places.”

  The dog was a shiny ceramic thing, with a larger belly than the one we had at my house, but there it was, that little fierce face, that protective stance. “Maybe it’s a regular dog,” I said, despite myself. “Not a Xolo dog.”

  John laughed. “Are you kidding me? This thing looks like yours.”

  I had to admit, he was right.

  “You should put it by your doorway,” I said, holding it out to him. “It’ll protect your house from spirits.”

  “The Xolo dog is for you, not for me,” John insisted. “You guys believe in that stuff. You should take it.”

  “But we already have one, and you don’t have any,” I said.

  “So?”

  “So you should have something to protect you . . . like layers of protection.”

  “Do I look like I need layers of protection?” John asked, and he stretched out his arms.

  “Just take the Xolo dog, okay?” I said unsteadily.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. He went into Event Horizon and brought out some more water, and wordlessly we walked over and sat beneath one of the maples. He took a long swig, emptying the bottle in one gulp. I gave him my bottle and he took it, tilted his head against the trunk, and closed his eyes.

  “You know what?” he asked. His eyes were still closed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I didn’t always want to be an astronaut.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He opened his eyes and peered at the tip-tops of the trees.

  “What did you want to be?” I asked. My hands started digging at the earth, under the cool leaves.

  “A firefighter.” He smiled faintly. “You know, saving people and stuff. Going back for the cat.”

  The moment he said that, I could see him running into the flames, his face fierce and focused. “So what happened?” I asked.

  “We were on vacation in Florida. Disney World, the whole nine yards. And when we were eating lunch, in the middle of the fun, my mom said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to work here?’ and I said, ‘Nah, I want to be a firefighter,’ and she said, ‘Oh, you want to rescue people! Your dad and I are the same way.’ ” John shook his head, his cheeks tightening. “For some reason, I got really mad when she said that. Like she thought they needed to rescue me from my birth mother. After that, we went to the Kennedy Space Center, and there was something about those spaceships going up and up and those space probes exploring the universe, never coming back . . .” He shrugged. “It seemed a whole lot better than being a firefighter.”

  I mounded my dirt into a little pyramid and patted the sides. Out of the corner of my eye, John’s face sure looked sad, even though he wasn’t saying anything about it. Suddenly something about what he said made sense. Never coming back.

  “I always wanted to be a geologist,” I said.

  “Always?”

  I nodded as I picked out the leaves and sticks. “I didn’t always know it was called a geologist, of course, but I was always digging and collecting rocks and looking at cliffs.” That last part came out by accident—I didn’t want him to think I was crazy, thinking about Bird all the time.

  John’s brow furrowed. “It’s like, that cliff is everything for you.” He said it really respectfully, though, like he was talking about Jupiter’s moons.

  I nodded. Then I started another pyramid, trying not to show that I felt like a giraffe on a hilltop, all exposed. I was going to say I should go home when John started helping me. We made a pyramid city in the shade of those trees, and we built it much faster than I could have done alone, with moats and roads and bridges and even a stable for the horses. It was incredible, the way it sprawled with detail, like nothing I’d ever done before.

  As we were leaving, I saw him drop the Xolo dog in a pile of leaves.

  “You really don’t want it?” I asked.

  John shrugged, embarrassed. “Not really.”

  “Then I’ll take it,” I said, bending down and scooping up the little figurine. I wasn’t sure if leaving the Xolo dog behind would bring bad luck, and I certainly didn’t want to find out. Besides, having one more Xolo dog at home couldn’t hurt, even though I wished with all my heart that John would have kept it. I didn’t know if it was already bad luck that he tried to leave it behind.

  As I walked home, I couldn’t help but think about how John had more than a flicker of sadness in him when he said he was going into outer space and never coming back. As I got closer to home, my thoughts turned to Grandpa, how he was probably there, invisible and waiting. Two sad people. But why would Grandpa shut himself in his room like that? Why couldn’t he just talk about what was bothering him so he could feel better? Well, maybe not talk talk but, well . . . express himself.

  Grandpa’s shoes were by the door when I got home, which meant that he’d returned. Mom was home from work too, going through the pile of bills on the kitchen table. She always insists on doing the bills, since she does the same kind of thing at work. When I see her with that big stack of papers saying that we owe money, though, she gets these worry lines on her forehead and around her eyes. I always know not to make her more upset than she is. The easiest thing to do is just leave her alone and be as quiet as possible.

  But John’s sadness and Grandpa’s sadness were pressing down on my lungs, and I was bursting to ask Mom about all this. For some reason I didn’t think she’d want to hear about Grandpa being sad, so instead I said, “Mom?”

  She sighed, switched to another bill, and propped her forehead in the palm of her hand. “Yes, honey?”

  “How do you make someone feel better when they’re sad?”

  She was reading whatever was written on the piece of paper, her eyes moving back and forth really fast. “Sometimes it’s hard,” she said, but I knew she was thinking about the letter. Then she took out her checkbook and wrote something on it.

  I shifted my weight. She wanted me to go away. “What about John?” I asked.

  Mom raised her head. My stomach tightened. Now she
was listening.

  “He’s sad,” I said.

  “About what?”

  A beat of silence.

  “I don’t know,” I lied.

  Mom put down her pen. “You just do your best, Jewel. But sometimes being sad needs to run its course. It can take a long time, depending on what it is.” She paused, as if she’d suddenly thought of something else. But the next moment she was back, studying me carefully.

  She eyed the dirt on my legs, my hands. “Go wash up, okay? You have leaves in your hair.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll get started on dinner soon.”

  My breath caught when I opened my bedroom door. Grandpa had put another cassette tape on my bed. My skin prickled with excitement. He was on the other side of my wall, probably waiting for me to find his gift. Did he want me to listen to the cassette now and thank him afterward, or the other way around? I grinned and slipped the tape into the cassette player.

  Just as I was about to hit the play button, Mom knocked.

  “Jewel?” Her voice sounded funny.

  “Yes?” I said. I pulled off the headset and tucked it under my pillow.

  Mom opened the door. “I just talked with Mr. McLaren on the phone.”

  I froze. “You did?”

  “I was going to surprise you kids by inviting John over for dinner.”

  “You talked to Mr. McLaren about John?” This was not good. Not good at all.

  “Jewel, there is no John.”

  I made sure not to move a muscle on my face. “What do you mean?”

  Mom was looking at me, her face a swirl of clouds and confusion. “What is going on, Jewel?”

  I looked down at my hands. Mom wouldn’t understand about Eugene changing his name—and after all, I did say I would keep his secret. Do I lie to Mom and act surprised, too? But if I tell her the truth, she’ll be upset I kept a secret from her. Tears of frustration welled in my eyes.