Girls Don't Fly

by Chandler, Kristen

  “Not at all,” I say. We walk a ways more in the sand while I try to refigure everything I know about Pete. “So you’re rich? And that’s why you’re mad at me? Or at him?”

  “Right.”

  We are nearly into the water. There’s a fringe of brine shrimp exoskeletons that gives the lake’s edge a cool, seedy vibe. A fishy smell fills the air, even though there are no fish in this water. Gulls wail overhead. Pete picks up a rock and skips it a long way out.

  “Where did you go when you were sixteen?” I ask.

  “I was a basic runaway. I hung out around the local viaducts with all the other homeless kids at first. Then I hitched to South America.”

  “Shut up. How did you get the nerve to do it?” I say. “How did you get across the border?”

  “Fake passport. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” My head spins with questions. “How did you get a different last name?”

  “I changed it.”

  “You changed your name to Pete Tree?”

  “I like it better than Peter Whitehead. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. Mostly I was a mess for a long time. What I want to tell you is that you can write what you want to for your essay. The judges don’t care who you are, or what religion you aren’t. They want a person who will chase an idea. Someone who can take risks and believe in themselves.”

  My eyes drop to my watch. “I’m so late.”

  “I’ll take you back.”

  “Thanks for telling me about your dad. I won’t say anything to anyone.”

  “I know you won’t. You’re kind of an old soul, Myra. You get it.”

  “I’m not sure I do, Pete. Why is your dad in the picture in class? Did he come visit you down in the Galápagos?”

  “Yeah. He’s writing another book. It’s about how nature proves that there’s a God or some other really unique idea. He came down and took a lot of people to lunch for a month. Including the girl in the picture.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  Pete makes a whistling sound through his teeth. “Not anymore.”

  We bump along in the golf cart toward the marina office. “He chased your girlfriend off?”

  “It was kind of a father-son project.”

  “So you can work together, I guess.”

  “Listen. We don’t get along. But at least this project will help somebody.”

  Pete walks me to my car and opens the door. I say, “Why do you think I have an old soul?”

  Just for a minute Pete looks serious. “You care about people, and you’re a little tortured by it. How old are you, anyway?”

  “Eighteen,” I say. “In May.”

  “What day?” he asks. I like that he doesn’t make fun of me.

  “May first.”

  “May Day! That fits you. What are you going to do to celebrate? Feed orphans or solve global warming?”

  I punch him in the arm and he acts hurt.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do.” The thought of my birthday really depresses me. “Not go to my Senior Dinner Dance. It’s that night.” It’s so sad that I know that. I guess I’m not such an old soul after all.

  “You’re a knockout. You must have a million guys who want to take you.”

  I get inside my car fast. My face is bright red and it’s not because I’m sunburned. I don’t want to talk about my love life with Pete. “I’m damaged goods at my school. But it’s fine. It’s almost over.”

  “Does this have anything to do with that Erik kid? The one who’s always giving you the stink eye?”

  “He does?” I say.

  “If no one else asks you, I’ll take you,” says Pete. “As a friend.”

  I don’t know what to say. It’s ridiculous. He’s five years older than I am. And I don’t even care about going. Or at least I wish I didn’t care. “You can’t. You’re my teacher or whatever.”

  “Teachers give grades. I’m a cheerleader.”

  “You’re my boss. Sort of.”

  Pete laughs and leans in the window. “You can just say no, you don’t have to make excuses. Dang, I must be losing my touch.”

  “It’s just ... Aren’t there some rules about this?”

  “You worry way too much about rules.” Pete has a talent for being sweet and rude at the same time.

  “Fine.” I have a talent for liking guys who get me into trouble. It’s probably a really bad idea. Who cares? “Let’s go.”

  “But only if someone else doesn’t ask you, okay? I don’t want to break up any great high school romance you have brewing.”

  “Don’t worry.” I turn on my engine.

  “That’s the great thing about me,” says Pete. “I don’t worry.”

  “That is the great thing about you, Pete. Thanks.”

  28

  Suet:

  Bird food made out of boiled beef fat. Yum.

  When I get home the boys are playing basketball in the driveway—except Danny, who has somehow turned the hose on and is trying to flood the basement through the front yard.

  “Didn’t you guys see that he had the water on?”

  Even Carson looks bored by my question. “He wasn’t hurting anything.”

  I stare at my sidekick. Carson’s grown in the last month. He’s playing basketball instead of digging up dinosaurs. The older boys aren’t making fun of him. What is going on around here?

  “Where’s Mom?” I say.

  The three boys shrug their shoulders and keep playing.

  When I go inside I hear Mom’s shower. That means she’s running late. The kitchen and front room look like we’ve been ransacked by the mob. I step through the crime scene and put a full gallon of milk back in the fridge.

  I peek in Melyssa’s room. She’s asleep with her mouth open. She’ll be up all night watching TV.

  I tap on Mom’s door. “Can I help?”

  Her voice calls back. “How about coming home on time for a change?”

  I think of me on the beach with Pete. “Sorry. Things went late.”

  “Now I’m late.”

  My cell phone vibrates.

  Erik: Can u come over tonite?

  Me: What for?

  Erik: New Galápagos movie.

  Me: Maybe.

  His words flash back on my phone, as quick as his smile.

  Erik: I’ll call after run.

  I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything. He’s got a movie about cormorants. We’re friends.

  By the time Mom flies out the door, I have three colors of leftovers put together in a bag for her dinner. I hand off the paper pouch and she hands off the chaos. We’re a team. Not a good team, but still a team. I follow her out into the driveway to make sure she doesn’t run anyone over as she pulls out going fifty. She waves as she disappears down the empty street.

  Danny runs to me. Even his eyeballs are muddy, but they’re wide enough that I can tell there’s something wrong. “I can’t make it stop,” he yells.

  I follow him around the house. Before I see it, I hear the thud on the back window. By the time I get there, the bird is lying on the cement patio with its neck bent.

  I point at Danny. “Don’t touch it. It was sick. That’s why it was flying into the glass.”

  “Is it dead?”

  I get down a little closer and look at the bird’s sealed eyes. “Yeah. You go play. Without the water on this time.”

  I get the shovel from the garage quick, before the boys have time to make a party of the little thing. It’s not the first time a bird has plowed into this window, but usually they get the idea after the first collision that they should fly in the other direction. Some birds are slow learners. I lift the bird onto the shovel and then put it on some newspaper and take it to the trash. The sound of it dropping down to the bottom of the bin is about as lonesome a sound as there is.

  Out of sheer guilt for all the things I’m not telling my parents, I make my dad’s favorite dinner. Meat loaf. No kidding. The guy goes
crazy for the stuff. To me it’s a brick of hamburger with ketchup. But after two servings Dad leans back in his chair and says, “Simple pleasures. Makes life worthwhile.”

  For some reason this depresses the daylights out of me.

  Dad says, “You better get Melyssa up if she’s going to make it to her pregnancy class with Zeke tonight.”

  “She’s going with Zeke to her class?”

  How am I missing all these things around here? Last time I heard they weren’t even speaking.

  “Her doctor recommended it.”

  “Has the doctor ever seen Zeke and Mel in the same room?”

  Dad pulls out a toothpick and pokes at his teeth. “Now. Come on, sweetie. Sometimes all a good man needs is a second chance.”

  “When did you decide that Zeke was good?”

  “I don’t know if he is or not. But not everyone is born good like you, Myra. Some people need to grow into it.”

  My one-track brain does another lap about Erik and tonight. Why does my dad always say the absolute wrong thing at the right time?

  By eight thirty the boys are winding down for the night. Erik hasn’t called. I don’t know if I’m more irritated with him or myself. I walk into Andrew’s room, where he and Brett are reading.

  Andrew drops his novel on the bed. “Your pirate story is better than this one.”

  Brett looks up from his comic book.

  Carson peeks his head in the door with Danny right behind him.

  “Well, where were we then?” I find myself surrounded by four boys before I drop to the floor. I have no idea why my brothers humor me the way they do.

  Carson says, “The people from the town had to learn to talk to the birds to go. That’s what you said.”

  “Yes, yes, our friends had to learn to speak Gruntn-screech.”

  “What birds speak that?” says Brett.

  “Good question. Birds have as many languages as we do, but there are certain things they have in common. These were seabirds. And like pirates and other sea creatures, their language involved a lot of gruntin’, swaggerin’, and squinty-eyed cursin’.”

  “And singing. All pirates sing,” says Carson.

  “There were just five townies left, trying their luck for the hazardous honor. So the pirate king took them all onto the ship for a final test of sea legs and savvy. ‘The sea be a watery desert where a soul can die o’ thirst or hunger, less’n he learn to hear what the birds be tellin’.’”

  Danny starts sucking his thumb.

  I put my hands to the side of my chin like a sweet and saucy scullery maid. “ ‘But how do ye know, Cap’n Pirate?’

  “ ‘Ye have to think like one,’ says the pirate king.

  “So the would-be pirates parked themselves on board and traveled down the coast in search of talking birds. Not far down the rocky shore the wind stopped. The clouds came in and the crew got bored. So they did what pirates always do when they get bored. They got stinkin’ drunk. Except the maid, on account of her prim and proper stomach. Instead she watched the birds and wondered what it would be like to fly over crests of water for days, riding the wild wind. In her mind she saw the world of sky and water. Then, as the maid was standing on deck having such deep an’ salty thoughts, she heard the cry of a gull, and then another. They were swirling on the horizon around an outcropping of rock. Why, she wondered, and soon got her answer. A boat so small it was nearly impossible to see in the waves. She raised the alarm. The pirate king looked into his telescope and whistled. ‘They be wavin’ for help, boys. Their ship be sinkin’. Hoist the sails!’ ”

  “Do they save them?” says Danny.

  “As they pulled forward toward the dinghy, the gulls began to scatter. The maid searched the sky and water. She saw bread floating in the waves. Why would drowning men feed the birds? she thought. She listened to the birds’ thin calls. And what she heard was fear. ‘Look again, Cap’n,’ she called in haste. ‘It’s a trap!’ The pirate king laughed but humored the maid, only to see from behind the rocky outcropping another pirate ship emerge. Yet thanks to the savvy scullery maid there was still a chance. The pirates fired their cannons and sent the bad boat smoking. The other ship’s pirates tried to board, but the pirate king and his crew were ready. And the new recruits showed themselves as fierce as any other mates. Soon throats were cut. Sad but true: pirate blood floated on the salty sea.”

  “Awesome,” says Andrew.

  “Arrrr, ’twas awesome awful,” I say. “But thanks to the savvy maid, alert to birds and bandits, the good pirates and their guests weren’t hacked to briny bits. And the lousy, no-good pirate ship was sunk to the bottom of the cold sea. Now that the test was done, the brave crew returned to the town of Deadendia to make their last preparations for a voyage to Isabela.”

  “So who gets to go?” said Brett. “Besides the dumb girl.”

  “Aye, the scullery maid had read the signs of the birds to save the day. But the others were brave. Plus, later that day, three crew members ate the town meat loaf and came down with landlubber disease. So all five of the townies set sail for Isabela to retrieve the magical jewel.”

  I stand up and hold out my hands. “Time for bed.”

  “That was okay,” said Andrew.

  “Whatever,” says Brett.

  Maybe Dad was right about the pleasure thing after all. I send the boys to bed and turn off my messageless phone. I’m surprisingly calm about being blown off. I have homework to do. Good homework. Not Erik-in-a-dark-family-room homework. Much later that night I fall asleep with my mind stuffed with facts and pictures of birds from all over the world. When I dream, I am surrounded by wings.

  29

  Home Range:

  Where specific birds hang out, not their whole species.

  When I see Erik the next morning I don’t say hello. In fact I don’t say hello to anyone, because I’ve got a homework hangover. The upside is that I know things I didn’t know yesterday morning, like that birds have two voice boxes, and some can sing a duet with themselves. Some birds migrate sixty thousand – plus miles in a year. Half the birds that fly south for the winter never come back. Birds are intense.

  So is getting up at five a.m. on a Saturday after two hours of sleep.

  “Hey, how are you?” says Erik. He stands next to me with his arm against the wall.

  “Hmm ...?” I step away from the wall.

  “Sorry I didn’t call last night. I ran the Skyline loop and my ankle hurt so bad when I got home I just fell asleep.”

  I say, “Don’t worry about it.” I have an underdeveloped vocabulary for telling Erik to get lost, even when I think he’s lying to me.

  “Something wrong?” he says.

  “Why would anything be wrong?” My voice is three-fourths whine and one-fourth sarcasm. It’s going to take some practice to get the mix right.

  Erik smiles his pointy white smile. “No reason. But your shirt’s inside out.”

  Pete yells through rolled paper. “All aboard!”

  I climb into the back of the van and sit next to Dawn. She looks like she’s had a night even longer than I have, except her clothes are on right-side out. “What’s up?” I say.

  She ignores me.

  Pete bellows again, this time from the front of the van. “Everybody ready for an adventure?”

  Pritchett climbs in next to Dawn and looks us both over. “You two go to the same coven last night?”

  “Shut your hole,” says Dawn.

  “Yeah, I like my women spicy,” says Pritchett.

  Dawn says, “How do you feel about fatal? You like your women that way, Stretch?”

  I comfort myself with the knowledge that if these two kill each other, there will be less competition for the scholarship.

  We head out to the freeway, but today we turn back toward Landon.

  “Where are we going?” says Erik.

  “In the Galápagos Islands you have to be aware of the relationship between things. So today we’re studying geology wh
ile we look at birds and mammals. We’re going to Yellow Rock Canyon.”

  “Where?” says Ho-Bong.

  “We’re going clear to the copper mine?” says Erik. “Geez, can you get me back for graduation?”

  “We’ll get you home in time for lunch. Anybody else who’s going to turn into a pumpkin if we’re gone a few hours?”

  “Why are we going to the copper mine to study how to write a proposal for the Galápagos Islands?” asks Ho-Bong.

  “At least three of you in this van aren’t going to the Galápagos Islands, so I thought I’d teach you something about your local habitat.”

  “That’s cheerful,” says Dawn.

  “The first thing I want you to do is look out the window. By the time I get to the entrance of the canyon, I want all of you to have a one-sentence description of the town you live in. Everybody got paper?”

  “What’s the point of that?” says Erik. “Is that part of our application?”

  “A good scientist understands his or her tools. And you’re a tool, Erik.”

  Pritchett and Dawn burst out laughing. Okay, I laugh too, but quietly. The twins look at Pete like Erik has a point.

  I say, “You want us to think at this time of the morning?”

  “Discovery doesn’t happen when it’s convenient,” says Pete.

  I look out the window as we pass the mobile home park along the freeway. I see the towers on the roof of my high school that make it look like a juvy center. Main Street looks like a mothballed movie set. All around Landon, urban sprawl is creeping to the corners, but in Landon, life plugs along, stubbornly unchanging, except to keep becoming more and more outdated. And yet it’s a town where everybody knows who you are. You can’t fall down in the street without getting a hand up. There are four seasons. I live near mountains and deserts and lakes. They just aren’t places I go very often. I live in my house, car, classes, and job.