Sunshine Picklelime

by Pamela Ferguson

  “That’s who you meant by Animal Planet?” PJ grinned and adjusted her bike helmet.

  “Oh, well, local media first. Then who knows who’ll pick up the story?”

  PJ’s father met her at the front door. He was not in a good mood.

  “PJ, how many times have I told you not to feed birds on your window ledge?” he said. “It’s disgusting. And unhygienic. The ledge is covered with bird droppings stuck with feathers!”

  “I’m not feeding birds there, Dad,” PJ said truthfully.

  “Well, someone must be feeding them. Our bedroom window ledge doesn’t look like that.”

  “Birds enjoy flying around my windows. They don’t enjoy …” Her words trailed off and she looked up at her father.

  “Don’t enjoy what?”

  “Dad, if I can hear you and Mom arguing, so can the birds.”

  Mr. Picklelime’s face turned beet red. “What have I told you about snooping outside our bedroom door?”

  “I don’t snoop,” PJ said angrily. “I can hear you argue through the walls. Come on, Dad. Don’t treat me like a baby.”

  “PJ, we need to talk. After you clean your window ledge.” He went into the kitchen and handed her a bucket, brush, cloth, and citrus all-purpose cleanser.

  PJ took the cleaning things without a word and went up to her room. She closed the door behind her and flung open her windows. Cawing seagulls wheeled around noisily above the house as though waiting for a sweep of fish to rise and roll over in a huge wave. She held a finger to her lips and scrubbed the ledge. When it was clean, PJ made a welcoming gesture to the gulls.

  As if on cue, two of them swooped down.

  “Hey, thanks, PJ,” the larger one said. “It’s been kinda skanky around here.” He tilted a wing down toward the ledge.

  PJ was startled. “How do you know my name?”

  “I’m Big Gull, at your service.” He bowed with a flourish. “My sister, Little Gull, and I were fostered by your Lemon Pie,” he said, and nodded sideways at the smaller gull beside him. “Our friends call us BG and LG.”

  PJ whooped with joy and reached out to stroke their soft white bellies and polka-dot tails. “Oh great! Messenger Gull sent you, right? But shhh. Don’t give me away. My dad’s real mad.”

  “So we heard,” they chorused.

  “Guys, tell your friends to lower the volume around the windows, OK?”

  “You got it, PJ,” said Little Gull. “We’ll tell the others. Hey, any more Messenger Gull b-mails from Lemon Pie?”

  PJ shook her head sadly. “It’s OK. He has to explore the world in his own way now. He doesn’t need me.”

  “We need you, PJ!” Big Gull nuzzled her hand with his beak.

  “Yeah, right, BG. I think you just want to be spoiled!” PJ smiled at one gull and then at the other and silently thanked Messenger Gull for prompting the visit. Talk about timing! Perhaps they could help with the rescue plan? “Listen, you guys, I have a favor to ask,” she said. “Fly inland and check out some pet stores on any main street to the west of here. They could be near a helipad. Can you find out which ones are selling owls and mice?”

  “Owls? We don’t do owls,” said Little Gull.

  “Hold it,” said Big Gull. “Why, PJ?”

  “Haven’t you noticed how quiet it is around here at night?”

  “How would we know? We’re day birds,” said Little Gull.

  “Why’s it always about you, LG?” BG snapped.

  PJ held up her hand. “We’re in crisis and need your help,” she said, and told them why.

  “We’re on it, PJ,” said BG, glaring at LG.

  “Thanks, guys. Now off you go. I need to talk to my dad. This is serious.”

  “Oooh, serious! Don’t forget to ‘drop’ some mixed seeds in the garden, PJ. Now that’s serious! Right, BG?” said Little Gull.

  “Right, LG,” Big Gull replied.

  “Freeloaders, that’s all you are! Go on. Check in with me later!”

  Big Gull and Little Gull made a great show of pretending to fall off the ledge before they swooped and caw-cawed away from the window in wide circles.

  “PJ, who are you talking to in the street?” Mr. Picklelime asked from outside her door.

  PJ pulled in quickly, shut the windows, and pretended not to hear. “OK, Dad, everything’s clean! Come in and look!” she called out cheerfully.

  He opened the door. His eyes swept the window ledge and the sky beyond, but he made no comment. “We’ll talk in the kitchen, PJ,” he said.

  PJ followed him downstairs and helped him chop Costa Rican pineapple, bananas, and mangoes to throw into the blender for smoothies. Mr. Picklelime filled two tall glasses with balloons painted all over them. PJ stuck thick spiral glass straws into the drinks.

  “PJ, your mom and I are going through some changes.”

  “Is that why you argue?” PJ asked.

  “It’s … more complicated than that,” her dad said, taking a quick sip.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to go there.”

  “Dad, you and Mom seem to think I’m too young to know what’s going on. I hate it. Does everyone believe I’m either deaf or stupid? You walk away from us all the time and Mom spouts poetry when she’s upset.”

  Mr. Picklelime sat back and stirred his smoothie. “I can’t blame your mom for needing space. She’s going away for a while to do some graduate training in counseling.”

  “You mean Mom’s moving out?”

  “Not quite. She’ll be home every weekend.”

  PJ pushed her smoothie away and sat back. Outside the kitchen window, the gulls formed a zigzag line of tiny black V shapes, like musical notes in the graying sky. She listened in her heart to their carefree caw-cawing and the comforting link to Lemon Pie that call meant now. She longed to fly away with them.

  Her dad was trying to make reassuring comments about “not worrying” and “bringing work home” and “fun evenings cooking together or sending out for pizza,” but PJ didn’t want to hear it.

  Then Mr. Picklelime said, “I can’t blame you for spending less time at home recently. It’s not just this animal rescue fad, is it?”

  “It’s not a fad. It’s something I really want to do.”

  “You’re neglecting your homework,” he said.

  “I’m not. What are you and Mom arguing about?” PJ asked.

  “That’s private. Between us.”

  “Dad, please.” PJ placed both hands flat on the kitchen table. “This isn’t a talk show. Half the kids in my class have parents with problems. You think we don’t pick up on these things? I want to hear everything from you. Not pssst pssst pssst gossipy bits from the neighborhood!”

  He shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. Mom and I disagree on some things.” Mr. Picklelime sipped more smoothie and stared at his daughter. “PJ, don’t push it.”

  The front door opened and slammed shut. Mrs. Picklelime poked her head around the kitchen door, said something like, “Oh,” and disappeared.

  Later PJ called Ruth from her room. “Hi, Ruth. You knew my parents were having problems, didn’t you?”

  “I heard things, sure. But I felt you didn’t want to talk about it yesterday. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks. It’s tough.” PJ paused and bit her lip. Her parents didn’t laugh together anymore. That’s why she didn’t hang out at home so much. “I like spending time with Mrs. Patel or you and the birds,” PJ said. She started to sketch Big Gull and Little Gull frolicking in the sky.

  Ruth said, “PJ, you’re part of the tree-house family. You’re not alone.”

  PJ didn’t reply.

  “You still there?” Ruth asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Are they arguing a lot?”

  “More and more.”

  “My advice? Cover your ears. Remember you’re not the reason they’re arguing.”

  The kindness in Ruth’s voice was comforting, but PJ didn’t really want to go into details. “I do
n’t want you to think I’m being disloyal to my parents,” she explained.

  “I don’t, PJ. You could never be disloyal.”

  Both girls were silent for a few moments. “Feel up to talking about the owls?” Ruth asked, then she said, “I could call later if you like?”

  “No, I’m OK. I want to hear what you found out.”

  “I Googled pet stores in a radius of twenty miles and came across a couple of possibilities. Wings and Tweety Birds.”

  “Great! I’ve just made some new gull friends and sent them wheeling around to see what they can discover, too.”

  “What a team, PJ! Let’s compare notes tomorrow,” Ruth suggested. “Whoa, Cardy just flew off. A lady cardinal was batting her eyelids at him outside the window.” She chuckled.

  PJ smiled. “Cardy won’t go too far away. Unlike Lemon Pie.”

  “Hmmm, we’ll have to keep our eyes open for little Cardinellas, won’t we?”

  After she hung up the phone, PJ closed her eyes and conjured up the sights and sounds of Ruth’s garden. She imagined the red splashes Cardy would make flying from branch to branch and chirruping after his soft brown lady love with her red plume. She pictured the lawn after a downpour of rain, covered with white rain lilies. There were huge, old sprawling live oaks, pecan trees, and hedges of sweet-smelling honeysuckle. Circular beds of tall, deep pink coneflowers waved in the wind. Water bubbled out of a graceful fountain sculpture of a girl carrying an earthenware pot. Frogs croaked nearby. When she opened her eyes again, she quickly sketched the garden in pastels.

  PJ’s thoughts also drifted over to Mrs. Patel’s garden. Then she looked out the window. Her mother hadn’t started to plant anything yet as she usually did in spring. PJ hadn’t even noticed until this moment. The yellow Lady Banks rosebush was beginning to drop its petals to the soft earth below. It had been a long time since its blooms flourished when Lemon Pie hid there. Even the lawn needed some care. If her mom was going away, perhaps Mrs. Patel would help her? She knew her dad wasn’t all that interested in the garden, except to complain when the friendly gulls pooped on the lawn.

  “PJ?” her mom called out.

  PJ opened her bedroom door. “I’m here, Mom!”

  “Let’s go for a walk, honey,” her mom said from the stairs. “Mrs. Patel’s invited us over for one of her special curries later.”

  PJ reached for a red fleecy pullover. A chilly, salty breeze had moved in from the sea, the sort of breeze that matted and tightened her growing crop of black curls. She joined her mom in the road. “Is Dad coming?”

  “No. I hear you and your dad have talked.”

  PJ nodded and shivered and dug her hands into her pockets.

  “I want to go back to work, PJ. I need to do some courses before renewing my counseling license. It won’t take long.”

  As they started to walk, PJ ran her hands across the top of a huge rosemary bush that bordered the sidewalk and then raised her fingertips to her nose to inhale the essence of the sprigs combined with sea salt. “Aren’t you really going away because you and Dad argue a lot?” PJ asked.

  Mrs. Picklelime shook her head. “We just need a little space.”

  “When are you going?”

  “Soon.”

  “Oh.” PJ listened. Breezes moved Ms. Naguri’s bamboo chimes on one side of the road, harmonizing with the deep resonance of Mrs. Patel’s metal chimes on the other side. Sometimes, depending which way the wind blew in from the sea, PJ could enjoy their comforting sounds at night. She loved them.

  PJ realized her mom was talking to her.

  “I wish things were different, but I really need this time and space for me. Even if your dad and I didn’t argue. Do you understand?”

  PJ nodded. “I do, Mom.” She watched her mother’s denim sneakers and her own fire-engine red sneakers move together along the sidewalk. “I want to be an architect so I can design funky tree houses or barns or houseboats and gardens for people and animals so no one needs to ask anyone for space.”

  Mrs. Picklelime smiled at her daughter. “You do that. Find a soul mate with wonderfully crazy ideas just like yours!”

  PJ slipped her arm around her mom’s waist. “What happens when you stop being soul mates? Do moms and dads just stop loving one another? You know, just like that?” she asked, snapping her fingers.

  “Now the poet Keats would say, ‘At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth,’” whispered her mom. Then, “PJ, you know far too much for a girl of your age.”

  “Oh, Mom, please!” PJ said irritably. They stopped talking as they reached Mrs. Patel’s gate and followed one another along her pebble path to the front door. The evening air was getting even chillier. PJ was glad to step into the warm kitchen with its fragrantly spicy smells and a lovely tablecloth patterned with hummingbirds.

  Mr. Patel was a systems analyst and working late, so it was just the three of them—a “girls’ night out,” as Mrs. Picklelime said.

  Mrs. Patel placed steaming bowls of orange daal, mixed-vegetable curry, and saffron rice on the table. She warmed up thin, crisp papadum and spread all PJ’s favorite little side dishes around. There were bowls of sliced banana, grated coconut, lemon chutney, tomato, and yogurt with cucumber.

  Before they ate, Mrs. Patel reached out and clasped PJ’s and Mrs. Picklelime’s hands and said, “Peace to our food and our friendship.”

  “Always.” PJ smiled. “What a feast!”

  “Shanti, you spoil us,” said Mrs. Picklelime.

  Once they started eating and bowls crisscrossed the table, PJ asked, “Mrs. Patel, are you and Mr. Patel soul mates?”

  Her mom stopped sprinkling coconut over her curry. “PJ, that’s very personal.”

  Shanti Patel threw back her head and laughed, a wonderfully musical laugh. “No, of course it isn’t! Oh, child. We were married very young. What did we know about soul mates in those days? But we were good friends, you know? We were at school together.” She thought for a minute. “You can’t be soul mates without being good friends. Why do you ask?”

  PJ and her mom exchanged quick glances. Mrs. Patel picked up on this, eyes moving kindly between mother and daughter. “Child, sometimes people marry for all sorts of reasons without being soul mates,” she said. “You’re very young, PJ. But not too young to learn some good life lessons from this. Friends and partners can grow in different directions and become closer. Or grow apart. Now, come, we’re getting too serious! Shall I heat more papadum?”

  Later, when PJ and Mrs. Patel were alone for a moment, PJ asked her for some gardening advice for their skimpy flower beds and lawn.

  “Of course, child. Come tomorrow afternoon to my greenhouse and we’ll get cracking. We can plan lovely surprises for your mom when she comes home every weekend!”

  As her mother returned to the kitchen, PJ looked up and realized her mom had also talked privately to Mrs. Patel, otherwise how did Mrs. Patel know she was leaving?

  Mrs. Patel smiled at her reassuringly and said, “Reach into the fridge, PJ. I made your favorite, mango ice cream, for dessert!”

  The moon was high and hazy through the salty night air by the time Mrs. Picklelime and PJ left the warmth of Mrs. Patel’s kitchen to go home. They were both sleepy, but it had been a lovely evening they knew they would remember for a long time.

  “I’ll miss you, Mom,” PJ said as her mother unlocked the front door. “Even when I don’t see you I know you’re around. Soon you won’t be.”

  “Remember we’ll see each other every five days, honey. That’s not too long for us to be apart, is it?”

  operation owl rescue

  When PJ left school the next afternoon, the air was fresh and sparkling and the sky was a sharp blue, free of the heavy sea mists of the evening before.

  She joined Mrs. Patel in her greenhouse and selected some tiny cherry tomatoes from clusters of sturdy vines. PJ couldn’t resist popping a few of them into her mouth and snapping the skins between her teeth.
“Mmmm,” she said, juice trickling from her lips. “They’re like fruit. Soooo sweet, Mrs. Patel!”

  “Pick as many as you like. Here, fill this,” she said, handing PJ a basket. “Put the tomatoes in a beautiful bowl in the middle of your kitchen table to light up the room. Come, I’ll help you create your own garden. Let’s start you off with some sweet-smelling herbs.” She selected pots of basil, thyme, parsley, and oregano and placed them in a plastic tray. When PJ didn’t react, she added, “Be strong, PJ. Trust me, child. I know what it’s like when parents go through a rough patch. Work extra hard at school. Make your room into your den and pin up more of your lovely artwork, so you always have a little place where you feel good. Keep working with birds and animals. They’re great teachers.”

  “I know,” PJ said.

  As they carried their overflowing baskets of tomatoes into the kitchen and rinsed them in filtered rainwater, Mrs. Patel told PJ about the ways some animals could predict earthquakes or volcanic eruptions or other disasters.

  “When they had an earthquake in China, the streets were jumping with frogs and all the ponds suddenly emptied. Birds disappeared from the skies. Cows threw themselves against fences,” said Mrs. Patel. “PJ, make a note of everything you are learning now from animals. They make you more observant.”

  “My dad said my work with animals was just a fad,” PJ said.

  Mrs. Patel chuckled. “Child, don’t worry. Sometimes our parents don’t understand us! My father couldn’t understand why I collected seeds from pods and grew them on windowsills in different types of soil to see which grew faster in which soil, which light, or which warm spot. When I tried to grow roses in a new color by attaching a crimson rose to a yellow rose, he said botany was a waste of time for a girl.”

  PJ tried to imagine Mrs. Patel as a young girl. All the wonderfully abundant vines of bougainvillea she could see peeping through the kitchen window seemed different now. Mrs. Patel was more than just a good gardener. She had lived gardening for years! If Mrs. Patel could achieve her dreams in spite of a difficult father, so could she.

  “Come, child. Time I taught you how to compost!” said Mrs. Patel.