Canary in the Coal Mine

by Madelyn Rosenberg

  “Fee, fi, fo, fum.” Cipher’s voice seemed to be coming from all sides. She hadn’t improved her vocabulary since the last time they’d met.

  Bitty froze and waited. Silence, then footsteps and a crunching sound. The whole can rattled and he felt himself being lifted into the air. Bitty knew hawks were strong, but this was like something out of the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” column in the Charleston paper.

  The can tipped. The canary tumbled, round head over pointy feet, in a waterfall of garbage. But instead of landing on the ground in the alley, Bitty found himself inside a large covered truck. The engine burbled. The horn beeped—arrruuugah!—and he was swept away from all he knew of his new city. He managed to peek through the crack at the back of the truck in time to see the hawk fly off with a limp rat, a consolation prize.

  The truck turned. Bitty fell back into the garbage, the carrot peels wet against his wings. Right turn, left turn, right turn. His stomach churned and he tasted sour bread. One mile. More. Finally, the truck stopped. The whole back seemed to rise, and Bitty slid into a pile of everything that was curdled and rotten. The truck spun away, belching exhaust, but that was preferable to the other aroma, which was so strong that even Bitty, with his limited sense of smell, was aware of it. It was just a shade less pungent than the smell of death.

  The garbage rose into small mountains. Bitty would have gagged, but he was so glad to be out of the truck and away from the hawk that he just burped once instead. And he had company. Birds, mostly white, but with storm-gray wings that made it look as if they were wearing jackets, filled the air. They were carrying trash from one pile to another and they were yelling at the top of their lungs.

  “Tires!” one of them shouted. “Blasted automobiles. What do they expect us to do with these? Can’t eat tires. Can’t even move ’em.”

  “Glass,” said another, in a voice that fell somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Who needs it?”

  And then: “Sardines. Gladys, come quick, sardines.”

  For all their complaining, the birds seemed to enjoy their work, and Bitty watched them drag shiny pieces of metal and soggy banana peels from pile to pile. They flew with such confidence that Bitty had no fear until he realized he had absolutely no idea where he was.

  The train station seemed far away, the mines and his friends even farther. The clock was ticking. The chance to do something was ticking away with it. The only thing he seemed capable of doing was getting lost.

  “Sir?” he called to a bird, who had a rubber boot in his mouth and didn’t answer.

  “Ma’am?” he called to the bird named Gladys.

  She hovered in the air above him, as if she were attached to a string. “Look at you, so polite! What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Bitty,” he began.

  “Now, that I can’t do anything about.”

  “No, I mean my name is Bitty,” he said. “And I’m kind of . . . that is, I’m really . . . I’m lost.” As soon he uttered the word, he stopped talking. He wasn’t sure whether it was tears or garbage that caused his eyes to sting.

  “Pickles to fiddlesticks,” Gladys said. “You can’t be lost. You’re with me, and I’m not lost. Hey, Phil!”

  The bird with the sardines flew over. “This one says he’s lost,” Gladys said.

  “How can that be? He’s with us; we’re not lost,” Phil said.

  “Exactly what I told him.”

  “If I’m not lost, then where am I?” Bitty asked.

  “You,” said Phil, “are at the finest dining establishment in all of Kanawha County, which just happens to be my place of employ.”

  “But where—”

  “The dump, kid,” said Phil. “You’re at the dump.”

  “But isn’t that—”

  “Garbage,” Phil said. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Our little slice of heaven.”

  “We came here on our very first date,” Gladys said.

  “Smoked oysters,” added Phil. “I’d been saving them for someone special. And then this vision of loveliness—”

  “Oh, Phil, stop!”

  “I get carried away,” Phil said. “There are worse things, am I right? So you’re lost. Where are you trying to get, kid? Back to the pet store?”

  “To the courthouse,” Bitty said. “I’m planning to meet with some politicians.”

  “Dressed like that?” Phil asked. “Not that I worry much about fashion, you understand, but last time I checked, our esteemed representatives did not wear carrot peels to work. Not to mention—”

  “Not to mention what?”

  “I may not have the keenest olfactory sense, but you smell, kid.”

  “Phil,” Gladys said.

  “I speak the truth. I don’t mean to be offensive, but you only get one chance to make a first impression.”

  The bird had a point. Bitty couldn’t go before the legislators smelling like garbage, even if the garbage was relatively fresh.

  Eck, then. The mouse would understand about the smell, and maybe even help him find a place to clean up.

  “Then I need to get to the Gilmer Inn in the East End, please,” Bitty said.

  “What do you want with them?” said Phil. “Hoity-toity, that’s what they are over there. You want a good time, you stick with us. This is living!”

  “Phil,” Gladys said. “I think he knows where he wants to go.” She turned to Bitty. “Don’t you worry, we know all about the Gilmer Inn. Look, right over there. That’s their garbage. We don’t get as much of it as we used to, but I’ll say this for them: they make a terrific corn bread.”

  “Hoity-toity corn bread,” Phil muttered.

  Bitty moved closer to the small pile. He saw kitchen trash and sharp glass, and near that, some broken tubes and pieces of copper that had been fused together in a miniature dome. There was a flat piece, too, and painted across it, in a thin black brushstroke, was:

  Whatchamacallit. G.D. No. 43159.

  The inventor! Bitty thought. This must be his garbage. But why would he be throwing a perfectly good invention away? Unless . . . unless it wasn’t perfectly good.

  “You don’t want to go to that inn,” Phil said.

  “Yes,” Bitty said, “I do.” He tugged at a wire. “Listen, do you know what my job was up until yesterday?”

  “You were a movie star?” suggested Gladys.

  “I was a coal miner,” Bitty said.

  “No offense, kid,” said Phil, “but you don’t look big enough to handle a shovel.”

  “I didn’t dig the coal,” Bitty explained. “I breathed it.”

  He told the birds about life underground, sniffing for gas instead of for garbage. He told them how safety lamps had been replacing birds in mines for years, but how the flame from one had caused an explosion in his mine—one big enough to make newspaper headlines. The men were reluctant to give up their birds, and even the canaries—well, Uncle Aubrey, anyway—didn’t blame them.

  “ ‘You’ll never find a piece of mining equipment that’s more sensitive than me.’ That’s what my uncle always says,” Bitty continued. “Even if it’s true, times are changing. They act like we’re still in the 1800s.”

  “Sounds like a tough life, kid,” said Phil. “I don’t think I could survive in a cage, not with these wings. But what does all that have to do with the Gilmer Inn? I’m not following.”

  Bitty gave him the short version of the story but highlighted his chance meeting on the train with Eck, who’d told him about the inventor in the inn’s smallest room. “I have to follow up every lead,” he said.

  “And this is a lead, am I right?” Gladys asked, indicating the dented copper and broken tubes.

  “I think so.”

  “Kid knows what he’s talking about,” Phil said. Bitty didn’t feel that way, but he was glad he at least gave the appearance of being in control. It gave him hope.

  “Everything happens for a reason,” Gladys said. “You meeting that mouse was no accident.”

  The
word accident echoed in his brain. “So will you help me get to the inn?”

  “Of course we will,” Gladys said. She looked at Phil. “Do you know how to get to the inn?”

  “Er,” Phil said, “not exactly. Do you?”

  “How would I? You’ve never taken me to the inn.”

  “Maybe if you had a map?” Bitty suggested.

  “Attaboy, that’s using your head!” Phil said. “No map. But don’t worry. I’ve got something better.”

  He whistled loudly, and another bird appeared. This one had long, arched wings the color of one of the Gap-Toothed Man’s cigars. Bitty had gotten to see those cigars up close on their walks together. Mine safety rules meant the cigar was never lit, so he never had to endure the stench of it.

  “Hey, sugar,” the bird said. Her accent was so different from the gulls’ that at first Bitty thought she was speaking Squirrel. Or French. “What’s a little thing like you doing all the way out here?”

  “He’s lost, obviously,” Phil said. “He’s trying to get to the Gilmer Inn in the East End.” He turned to Bitty. “Dolly here’s a chimney swift. Been in every chimney in Charleston.”

  “Well, not every chimney,” Dolly said. “But I know that one. I’ll get you where you need to go.”

  “And step on it,” Phil said. “This kid’s a coal miner. He’s got important work to do. Lives are at stake.”

  Chapter 11

  Bitty thanked Phil and Gladys and flew off with the swift. He stayed to her right, hoping to keep the aroma of the garbage, which clung to his feathers, downwind. She slowed her pace to match his.

  “So what did Phil mean, ‘lives are at stake’?” she asked.

  Bitty recounted his tale briefly. It was good practice for when he figured out a way to make the lawmakers hear him. And the swift seemed interested, especially in the parts about safety, a subject on which she was an expert.

  “I thought you were from out of town,” she said. “We don’t get many of your kind in the city, unless they’re in cages.”

  “I lived in a cage,” Bitty said. “But I’m free now.”

  As they flew, Dolly told him about the city—which buildings were safest and which he should avoid. The inn had received a first-class safety rating. “Too many cats for my taste,” the swift said. “But the chimneys are perfect. No downdrafts.”

  “My friend works with those cats,” Bitty said.

  “Imagine inviting that sort of danger. Though there’s danger everywhere, I suppose.”

  “I’ve seen it.” Bitty told her about the grackles and the hawk.

  “Those grackles,” Dolly said. “They’re ruining our reputation for down-home hospitality. And the hawks—”

  “I didn’t think hawks even lived in cities,” Bitty said.

  “We don’t have many of them, mind, but we have a few. Two are nesting in the bell tower of the church, so be careful if that’s on your route. I hear a third hawk moved in just this morning.”

  Bitty swallowed. Thankfully, the swift changed the subject. “So when did you leave your cage, honey?”

  “Just yesterday,” Bitty said. “I came here all the way from Coal-bank Hollow.”

  “On those little wings?”

  “I cheated,” Bitty said. “I took the train most of the way. I’m staying at the station on MacCorkle Avenue.”

  The swift laughed. “That’s not cheating, sweetheart, that’s old-fashioned ingenuity. And that,” she said, “is the East End.”

  Bitty recognized the farmers’ market and was glad that something, at least, looked familiar. “There’s Quarrier Street,” said the swift as she flew on. “There’s Virginia. And there”—she nodded—”is your Gilmer Inn.”

  “Thank you!” he shouted—more loudly than he needed to, as the swift was still beside him. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you . . .”

  “Well, shoot,” she said. “I’m proud to help your cause. We all are. If you need anything, you just let me know.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and disappeared into the chimney of the house next door, humming a melody from a song about blood and coal.

  The Gilmer Inn stood back just a bit from the main road, though it was close to the houses on either side of it. It was huge—bigger than the houses he’d imagined the coal barons would own, with a lawn that looked as if the gardener must have cut it with a ruler and scissors. The houses beside it were big, too, with roofs that sloped down sharply, like wedges of cheese. But the inn stood out, in part because of the magnolia tree, budding pink in the front yard.

  The houses in the East End were cleaner than the houses in the coal camp. They seemed untouched by poverty, at least from a distance. But as Bitty got closer, he saw peeling paint on some of the shutters. The hotel was marked by a brown sign with swirling letters. The building itself was made not of brick, like the surrounding houses, but of stucco and dark wood. On the top floor, there was a crisscross design, as if someone had started a giant game of tic-tac-toe but hadn’t finished it. It made the inn seem as if it belonged far away—in England or Switzerland, perhaps, though the closest Bitty had gotten to any foreign country was the sound of the accents that sometimes blasted from the Campbells’ radio. The inn was three stories high. How would he find Eck?

  He circled twice and was about to take a third spin around when he spotted a cement pedestal topped by a large dish. A birdbath! There wasn’t much water in it, but Bitty did what he could to wash away at least some of the smell of the dump. He couldn’t get rid of all of it—he’d need the creek for that—but at least he’d be a little more respectable for a trip inside the inn. If he could get inside.

  An upstairs window was open, but he didn’t trust it. He remembered Eck describing a tunnel, an entrance to the basement near the back porch. On his first pass, he didn’t see anything but a drainpipe and a large boulder. But on his second pass, he saw it: a potato-shaped hole just a foot or so away from the hotel, partially hidden by a gardenia bush that had not yet bloomed. Bitty worried that it could be a snake hole, and he remembered the fate of Eck’s unfortunate cousins. But Eck would have warned him about a snake hole if he knew about it. And anyway, the snakes would still be hibernating. At least, that was what Bitty told himself.

  “Helllooooo,” he hollered into the hole.

  No answer.

  “Helllooooooo,” he yelled again. There was no answer this time, either. Boldly, he headed into the darkness.

  Chapter 12

  Bitty could feel, but not see, the cool dirt walls as he worked his way down the passage. The temperature dropped, reminding him of the mines, where it stayed cold and damp year-round. That was bad for the canaries, who were susceptible to colds. Without proper care, a canary could die from a cold, but there were so many things in Bitty’s life that could have killed him, he hadn’t dwelled on it much. He remembered the ache from the last time he’d been sick; he remembered wanting to be warm. “What’s wrong, Big Yellow?” Jamie had asked when he saw the canary shivering. He’d consulted his manual. (It was a point of pride with Uncle Aubrey that canaries were important enough to warrant manuals.) And Bitty had spent the next three days near the lamp by Jamie’s bed. He remembered eating something called germicide, which tasted even worse than it sounded. On the fourth day, he went back to the main cage and the ache was gone.

  The light at the end of the dirt tunnel brought Bitty back to the present. Cautiously, he stepped out and found himself in a large room lined with jars of peaches and beans and bottles of—was that wine? Prohibition made it illegal to make and sell alcohol—though that hadn’t stopped the miners, as Bitty knew from Mr. Stinson. He supposed it didn’t stop them in the Charleston, either. There was a whole row of the bottles, each bottle in its own little compartment. Braids of garlic hung from the ceiling. And on the floor, scurrying this way and that so that the room looked as busy as any city square, were dozens and dozens of mice.

  “Ahem.” Bitty cleared his throat. A few mice looked up at him, though none o
f them stopped moving to do so and there was a collision. An indignant mouse stood up, rubbing his head.

  “You’d better have a good reason for being here,” he squeaked in perfect Bird. “You aren’t authorized. No one is.”

  “I’m looking for Eck,” Bitty said.

  “I don’t know any Eck. Does anyone here know an Eck?” The mice shook their heads and shrugged their tiny shoulders.

  “No Eck,” said the angry mouse.

  “I’m sorry to intrude,” Bitty said. “I can see that you’re busy.” (Though what they were busy doing he wasn’t sure.) “Eck should have gotten in late last night. Eck. Short for Esquire. He’s an animal trainer.”

  “Oh, an animal trainer,” the mouse said. The title seemed to carry some weight. “If he’s really an animal trainer, he’s upstairs in the main house on the first floor. You came into the cellar. They only send the cats down here at night.”

  “Could you direct me to the—” Bitty began.

  “Back in the hole, first left. It’s a steady climb up, then the third opening on your right.”

  “Got it,” Bitty said. By the time he added a “thank you,” the mouse had already gone back to whatever it was he was doing, but Bitty could feel the beady eyes upon him as he backed into the tunnel and began his upward climb.

  It was slow going. He tried to use his wings, but the tunnel was so cramped that more often than not they were pinned to his sides. The dampness made him worry about getting sick. What would he do without Jamie to take care of him?

  Bitty plodded on, and the path grew wider and more level. He saw a small hole to his right. One. Two. There it was. Bitty pushed his way through and found himself in a large room with a roaring fire. Above the fire was the head of a deer—no body, just the head, with antlers that spread toward the ceiling like the branches of a tree. Bitty nodded politely, though he knew the deer was dead and stuffed. But crouched down in front of the fire, looking very much alive, was a fat orange cat. And underneath a regal leather chair, only inches from the cat, was Eck.