“What is he, a farmer?”
“He’s a . . . geologist. I thought I told you that before,” she say, and looked around. “You have a nice house.”
“Your daddy would let you stay here?”
“Uh-huh,” she say, and nodded, making her hair bounce all around her. “I have to ask him, but I already know he’ll let me because I’ve told him all about you. He won’t go out in the field unless he knows I’m being taken care of by a good family. But if he doesn’t go, he’ll lose his job. And then we’ll have to move again. So, can I?”
“Would you really move away?” I had just met her, and now that we were friends, I didn’t want her to leave.
She nodded.
Mama would have so many reasons for why Meadow Lark would not be able to stay with us. It would change our routine, a person should wait to be invited, and Mama wouldn’t want to be responsible for another person in the house. And when Theron come back, he might not like someone else here. Those would be Mama’s minus reasons, but none of them were going to stop me from asking if Meadow Lark could stay.
“Wait here,” I told Meadow Lark. “I’ll ask.”
I never had anyone stay overnight before. The time my cousins from Utica come for a long weekend, when I had to give them my bedroom and sleep on the rollaway in the living room, didn’t count. They all smelled like their yellow Lab, Buster, and when they talked, they pronounced Rs like they were squeezing the air out of them. Even Daddy sighed with relief when they packed up their car and left for home, with Buster hanging his head out the window.
But having Meadow Lark stay over would be a real sleepover. And Mama might not need much persuading today. Daddy was working all the way to Orlando and wouldn’t be back for four days, and Mama liked having people around when he was gone. That would be a plus reason.
“First that bird and now a girl in your class” was her answer. “What will it be next?”
“No one, I promise.”
“Who is this Meadow Lark? What do you know about her?”
I picked up a dish towel. “Well, she’s from Arizona, and I’m her best friend.”
“I’m glad you are,” Mama say. I knew she worried that I didn’t have any friends these days.
I wound the dish towel around my hand. “Please? She doesn’t have any other place to go.”
“What would she do if she can’t stay here?”
“Her daddy won’t be able to go out in the field, and he’ll lose his job, and then they’ll have to leave their house.”
I knew that, just like there was a rule in Mama’s book that say you don’t call after nine o’clock at night, there was another rule that say you don’t turn your back on someone who needs your help. She had a tender place for strays and unattractive fruit that other people wouldn’t choose, and I knew that tender place would include Meadow Lark.
“You’ll have to clear off your other bed and share the bathroom,” she say.
“I know.” I tried hard to look calm, but inside I was doing jumping jacks.
“And it has to be okay with her father.”
Then Mama turned to the counter to wipe it down, and I wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t stop her wiping, but I felt her other hand cover mine in the same way she might protect a part of herself.
“Thank you, Mama. I love you,” I say, and wished right then for a feather or a corner of lined paper. Wished I could look up at the sky and see a miracle come down for her. Wished she’d hum again in the kitchen.
Maybe Mama wished that too, because she squeezed my hand and whispered, “River, don’t you ever forget what you mean to me.”
When I got back to the hall, Meadow Lark stood up straight. “Can I?” I nodded, and we squeaked.
“We can get your stuff after supper,” I say, but Meadow Lark waved that idea away. “I’ll go by myself.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling disappointed. “And you have to ask your daddy.”
“Of course.”
So Meadow Lark come back after supper carrying her backpack, a leather duffel bag, a tote bag with ARIZONA sprawled across it like on a postcard, a Tupperware of something, and a bag of birdseed.
“For Mr. Tricks,” she say, and set everything on the extra bed in my room.
She crouched down to his cage on the floor to take a look. “How is he doing?” Then she poked her finger through the bars. Mr. Tricks first settled in his usual way and tilted his head and blinked, but then he got up and strutted across the cage to her finger.
“That means he likes me,” Meadow Lark say. “Has he done any tricks yet?”
“No, but I think his wing is better. When he ruffles himself, his bad wing come out a little more each time.”
She sat on her bed. “My other Mr. Tricks was a parakeet. I got him after I came out of the hospital for the fourth time. He rode all the way to Arizona with us. One time he got out of the cage and hopped around the car until my dad made me put him back in.”
This was the second time she talked about her operations, so this time I asked. “Why were you in the hospital?”
Meadow Lark put her finger up to the cage and looked at Mr. Tricks. “I don’t really like to talk about that.”
“Sorry,” I say. “That was a bad start.”
“It’s okay. I just don’t like operations. And I hate hospitals.”
Then there was a long silence between us until I asked, “Did your parakeet poop in the car?”
At that she laughed and scrunched up her face. “He did! All down the back of my seat. My dad said he wouldn’t drive another mile knowing that was in his car.”
Mr. Tricks shook his head in a blur.
“There’s a trick,” she say. “He thinks we’re talking about him.” She clicked her tongue at him, and he cooed back.
“We have to remember one thing, though—Mama doesn’t like birds, so we need to keep him in here all the time.”
“She’ll like Mr. Tricks. He grows on people.” Meadow Lark always sounded so confident.
Then she reached into her backpack and pulled out an envelope. “Before I forget, this is for your parents. But you can read it too. It’s from my dad.”
Inside was a typewritten note on thin, crinkly paper. It read:
Dear Byrne family,
Thank you for letting my precious Meadow Lark stay with you while I’m working in the field. If you didn’t, I could have lost my job. I should be gone only a few weeks. If anything happens, Meadow Lark knows how to contact me.
Yours truly,
Derek Frankenfield
“My dad has really bad handwriting, so he types everything,” Meadow Lark explained before I could ask her.
“Mama will want his phone number too.”
“I’ll give it to her,” she say, and pulled a wad of clothes from her duffel bag. “Where can I put these?”
I opened the bottom drawer of my bureau for her. “And you can have some space in my closet.” Then I showed her the bathroom down the hall, and made room for her toothpaste, and showed her the towels I’d hung on the bar for her.
On our way back, she stopped in front of Theron’s room and looked the door up and down. “Was this your brother’s?”
“It is his room, but you can’t go in. No one is allowed.”
“I don’t want to go in—I just want to look. Can I look, just for a minute?” she asked, and turned the doorknob so slowly that it didn’t make a noise.
“I guess so,” I whispered. “But be quiet.”
Meadow Lark nudged the door open. All the usual things of Theron—his trophy, the bed made up with two pillows, one on top of the other, and his picture of Shawna on the bureau, were still there. The sunlight glowed through the gauze curtains, and I knew that before the day was over, Mama would come in and close the draperies, just like Theron would do every nig
ht if he were here.
“This is it,” I say. “It’s just like the day he left it.”
“Kind of like a shrine.” Meadow Lark took a few steps in. “Who is this?” she asked and reached for the picture of Shawna.
“Don’t touch it! Come on, we have to get out.”
“I just wanted to see,” she say, but pulled her hand back. “Who is she?”
“That was his girlfriend. Well . . .” I wasn’t even sure if she was. “He liked her.”
“Really? Do you ever see her now?”
I shook my head. Shawna never come to see us after Theron left, and she never called. I saw her downtown a few times with some other girls from the high school. And once I saw her on her bicycle, but I ducked into the deli so I wouldn’t have to talk to her.
Then Meadow Lark went over to the bed and sat on it so hard that it creaked.
“Don’t do that!” I whispered as loud as I could without yelling, but she ignored me and spread her hand along the dark blue comforter.
“So, was he really drunk when he had the wreck?
“If we don’t get out now—”
“Tell me and I’ll get out. I promise.” Then she leaned back on her arms, and for a second I thought she was going to lie down on Theron’s pillows.
I crossed my arms over my chest and stood up straight and stiff. “Of course he wasn’t drunk. Theron wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Meadow Lark say nothing for what seemed like a long time. She just kept smoothing her hand over Theron’s comforter. Finally she say, “Innocent people don’t leave. Tell me what happened.”
My arms and legs felt like wet cardboard, so shaky that I had to sit down in Theron’s desk chair.
“Theron used to get into trouble all the time. It was awful then. So Daddy told him he was ruining our family, and if he mess up one more time, he’d have to go. That was about two years ago, when he was sixteen. Theron must have wanted to stay here, because then all the trouble stopped, and Daddy say he straightened up. But then the wreck happen.”
I wanted to get that story out so fast that I didn’t try to correct how I say it. But Meadow Lark never seemed to mind.
“And that was the one more time?”
I nodded. “Everyone say he was drunk. The night he crashed the car, he come right home. It was late and I was asleep, but I woke up when I heard Theron and Daddy arguing. They sound like they did before Theron straightened up. I couldn’t hear all their words, but Daddy told him he had to go. He did not want Theron in this house anymore. He didn’t yell it—he just sounded sad. And Theron say, ‘Fine, I’m leaving. But I’m never coming back, so don’t look for me.’”
Meadow Lark stopped touching the comforter and put her hands in her lap. “Wow, no wonder you miss him.”
“So, you know about the wreck?” I asked.
Meadow Lark shook her head. “Not really. I just heard that he got drunk and drove into the river. Is there more?”
I nodded. I was just about to tell her about Daniel when Mama called up the stairs. “River, I need you girls to help me.”
I stood up. “We have to get out of this room,” I say to Meadow Lark.
But she kept sitting on Theron’s bed. “Didn’t anyone, like your mom and dad, go look for him?”
“He told them not to, so they didn’t. Theron just turned eighteen, and Daddy say eighteen is an adult and you have to take responsibility for your own actions. And he say that if Theron ever did come back, there could be trouble with the law.”
“Well, what about the police—didn’t any police come for him?”
I shook my head. “They come next morning, but Theron was gone by then. So Daddy wasn’t lying when he say he didn’t know where Theron was. And now they just don’t talk about him.”
I didn’t tell her that Mama cried for two weeks and stopped humming in the kitchen after Theron left us.
Finally, Meadow Lark got off the bed, as if she’d heard all the story she wanted. “Maybe they don’t talk about him. But they haven’t forgotten him. I’m sure of that,” she say.
Like me, I thought. I would never forget him.
As we tiptoed out to the hall, she turned around and say, “I have to tell you something very important. I walk in my sleep. If you see me do that, you can’t wake me up.”
“What happens if I wake you up?” I asked.
“There’s no telling. So if I sleepwalk, just put me back in bed.”
I nodded. “And don’t wake you up.”
“So, can I still stay here?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a strange thing to do.”
It wasn’t strange—it was another interesting thing about Meadow Lark, along with her eye and her leg and that she come from Arizona and was in the hospital four times.
As Meadow Lark went downstairs, I smoothed out the comforter where she had sat. Then I took one more look at the room to make sure nothing was out of place, that nothing was moved and nothing was different. Because I knew that changing Theron’s room would change Theron. And that would change us.
Chapter 8
Daniel Bunch was not in art class on Monday, and he wasn’t in the quad at lunch on Tuesday to pester me. By Wednesday, the worry that had settled in me as I watched our wish slide down the river sat up and looked around.
“Where’s Daniel?” Sonya asked to the middle of the art table.
When class began, Ms. Zucchero had put a pile of things on the table—a CrimsonCrisp apple with a brown bite in it, a tube of Colgate rolled up halfway, a Slinky with kinks in it, a picture of a brown-haired girl who looked a lot like Ms. Zucchero, a paperback book with the cover half torn off, and one of Ms. Zucchero’s crocheted squares with a hook stuck through it.
“I liked your collages so much that I brought my own collection,” she say. “These are just some of the things I found in my car yesterday.”
Then she told us to draw what we saw without looking at our sketch pads—just let our pencils move across the shapes in our minds. So everyone was not looking at their sketch pads and not looking at one another, but talking to the pile in the middle of the table.
On the other side of the pile was where Daniel Bunch would be sitting if he were in school, and the gap he left was like when a tooth falls out. I kept wiggling that space with my eyes, to make sure he truly wasn’t in it. Because even if Daniel Bunch was absent, in my mind he sat there just like always, watching me and waiting to pounce.
“Daisy Crumb said he’s sick,” Kevin Kale say to the pile. “He has a hundred and four fever.”
“What’s that mean?” Sonya asked.
All the water left my mouth, and my hand holding the pencil shook so to hear about Daniel Bunch being sick. I looked down at my sketch pad, and I had just drawn something that looked like a clump of hair in the bathtub drain. And the worry in my heart nodded at me and say, Isn’t that what you asked for?
Even before Kevin answered, I knew it was bad. Theron once had a 103 fever, and Mama put him in the tub with ice water until he cooled down. Even when he called to me, I wouldn’t go into the bathroom to see him. I thought if I didn’t see him, I wouldn’t miss him as much after he died from that fever.
Kevin answered Sonya in the same voice he announced what page we were on. “Your brain can melt when you have a fever that high.”
“Which can only happen to people who have a brain,” Martin say. “So Bunch is safe.”
I wondered what Daniel would think if he knew how they talked about him when he wasn’t there.
“Oh no,” Sonya say.
All during those three days he’d been absent, no one seemed to notice or care what had happened to Daniel Bunch. And now, no one seemed scared except me. I was the only person in the room who had wished that Daniel Bunch would disappear and then floated the wish down th
e river.
“Focus, people,” Ms. Zucchero say from her desk, “or we’ll have quiet time.”
Everyone knew that meant no talking until the bell rang. Usually we listened to Ms. Zucchero when she had quiet time. I wished she had made quiet time before Daniel Bunch trashed my collage last Friday.
Martin slid his sketch pad across the table and stretched out his arms. “Anyway, he’s at the hospital.”
Now my sketch pad trembled so bad in my hand that I let go of it, and it clapped to the floor. When I bent to pick it up, I had to swallow hard to keep from gagging.
“How do you know that?” Sonya asked, tossing her ponytail. “Did you see him go?”
When Martin didn’t answer, she asked again, “Did you see him?” This time her voice sounded like it was flapping on a clothesline.
Fear slapped my chest and dribbled into every cell of my body. I stared at the picture of the brown-haired girl and tried to draw the smooth line down her cheek, but I felt my hand making a long squiggle on the page. If Daniel Bunch got sick before Meadow Lark and I made the wish on Friday afternoon, then we had nothing to do with Daniel’s 104 fever and his being in the hospital. But if he got sick after we made the wish, then it might have been our fault.
I swallowed again, and without thinking I asked, “When did they take him to the hospital?”
“She talks,” Kevin whispered.
Just then Ms. Zucchero shifted in her chair. It was her signal for what was to come. “Okay, people. Quiet time now.”
Then Sonya say, “The fake-accent girl talks. Why would she care what happened to Daniel?”
She was a fly in my ear, and I waved her away and asked again. “Does anyone know when they take him?”
But Sonya just kept talking to the pile. “Maybe she likes him. Or maybe she knows more than she’s telling. You gotta watch out for the quiet ones, because they’re always listening. Maybe if we listen, we’ll find out what she knows. Talk, fake-accent girl.”
My heart pounded, and I couldn’t catch my breath. “Anyone know?” I asked, looking at Martin.
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