Canary in the Coal Mine

by Madelyn Rosenberg

  “We’ll do it!” Clarence said before she could change her mind.

  Bitty went in search of Miss Mona. He wanted to send a message home so the other canaries would know they were coming. When he got to the snaky black wire, though, Miss Mona wasn’t there. Instead, standing sentry, was one of V’s boys, a fierce-looking yellow-eyed grackle.

  The phone wire barely shook when Bitty landed on it. The grackle turned, staring at him over the tip of his pointy black beak.

  “I need to send a message to Coalbank Hollow, please,” Bitty said quickly. “To Two One Two Slusser Road. You can address it to ‘all canaries present.’ Tell them I’m coming home.”

  The grackle stood as still as the snarling lions that watched over the train station. When he spoke, he wheezed like a broken squeak toy. “You’re leaving?”

  “For a while,” Bitty said. “So if you could just send the message.”

  “Coming home,” the grackle repeated. “Got it.”

  “Thank you,” Bitty said. “For the message and . . . for earlier. For the hawk.”

  The grackle didn’t say anything, and Bitty turned to leave.

  “Chck, chck,” the grackle called. “Watch it.” From the bird’s dark countenance, it was impossible for Bitty to judge whether the grackle was making fun of him or wishing him a safe journey. The bird lowered his raspy voice. “Happy to help the cause,” he added. “But don’t tell anyone. It would ruin our reputation.”

  Bitty spent the rest of the afternoon flying around the city. He tried to call on Eck to say good-bye, but the mouse was nowhere to be found. If the mines had taught him one thing, it was the value of a true friend. He’d seen it among the men who worked together and relied on one another. He’d seen it in the Big House. And now he’d seen it here. Bitty searched room after room for the mouse. He couldn’t find Bonnie, either. He didn’t want to leave without seeing them one last time, but after an hour’s wait, he left a message with the cellar mice. He didn’t expect them to deliver it.

  Back at the station, he found Clarence’s mother pacing on the pavement beneath his nest. “Are you going to take it apart or leave it the way it is?” she asked.

  “I’ll leave it,” Bitty decided. “I’ll come back. And in the meantime, some other bird might need it.” He stood for a moment as the sun began to set, trying to remember every detail he could about his station, his nest and his city.

  “If you’re done here,” Clarence’s mother said, “there are some folks who are waiting to say good-bye.”

  Bitty followed her to the balcony, lit by the fading sun and the glow from the familiar arched windows. He landed to the cheers of his new friends. All the pigeons were there. And there was Eck! And Bonnie! So this was where they had been hiding. He took his place beside them. They had brought several servings of the Gilmer Inn’s famous corn bread, though the sparrows gobbled it down before Bitty got even a crumb. Gladys and Phil, the seagulls, were there, too, with a tin of smelly sardines. Dolly, the chimney swift who had called him “sugar,” was there. So were Walter and Miss Mona and the squirrel and the cardinals from Bitty’s language class. His old friends were there, smiling beside him. And strangers were there—creatures who had heard about his mission and wanted to feel they were a part of it.

  The clouds faded from orange to dusty pink, then disappeared into the coming night. Everyone ate and drank and told stories. Some mourning doves dropped by and sang, and Eck and Bonnie demonstrated the dances they’d seen in the inn’s drawing room: a waltz and the Lindy Hop. “I’d like to propose a toast,” Eck said. “To Bitty: a brave adventurer and a fine friend. And to a mission accomplished!”

  To a mission half accomplished, Bitty thought. He opened his beak as if to make a speech, but the only words he could free from his throat were “Thank you . . . I’ll miss you all.”

  “We’ll miss you,” Miss Mona told him, in Squirrel, Bird and Armadillo. “Don’t worry; we’ll tell your story to everyone we see.”

  The squirrel nodded. So did Eck. “Communication,” he said. “Public awareness of the plight of our fellow creatures. That’s what it’s all about. “

  The hour grew late. One by one, Bitty’s friends departed. “Eeni,” he told Eck, touching the mouse on the shoulder with his wing. “I would never have made it here if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “Eeni,” Eck said. He smiled, curled his tail like a lasso and twirled it. “You would have made it. You’re a survivor.”

  Now familiar with the train’s schedule, the canaries decided to take the noon special so that the pigeons could fit in one last morning shift at the park. Soon they were poised on the roof and ready to go. They heard the train before they saw the big black engine barreling toward them.

  Tooooooooot.

  They waited for it to slow and stop. Instead, it whistled past them, heading south. If they didn’t catch up with it soon, it would hit the tunnel the coal trains used as a shortcut. Bitty and Chester took off as fast as they could, with Alice, who was still slower than usual, behind them. A little farther back came Clarence’s mother, huffing and puffing, and behind her flapped Clarence. His strange flying rhythm had once made Bitty laugh. Now it made him panic. Clarence moved in spurts, burping his way through the sky. He’d sink low, then soar, then sag back down.

  “It’s his stomach!” yelled Alice as the canaries reached the train’s red caboose and found their footing on the guardrail. “Come on, Clarence, you can do it!”

  “I’m . . . coming,” Clarence called. He wasn’t coming fast enough.

  Clarence’s mother reached the caboose, too breathless to speak. They neared the mouth of the tunnel. If Clarence didn’t make it soon, he’d be lost in the darkness, with no hope of catching up.

  “Hurry!” Bitty yelled. “Faster!”

  Clarence was concentrating too hard to reply.

  “Flap. Flap. Flap,” Bitty yelled in rhythm with the train’s wheels.

  Alice and Chester joined in, along with Clarence’s mother: “One, two, three. Flap. Flap. Flap.“

  Clarence flapped. The burping eased and his rhythm evened out. He pushed ahead in a final burst of speed just as the rear of the train disappeared into the blackness of the tunnel. Bitty felt, more than he saw, Clarence land on the caboose beside him.

  They rode on, listening to the chug of the wheels and the panting of the pigeons. Soon they could see shadows again. Then the train chugged back into the brightness of the early afternoon.

  Scenery whizzed by. Now Bitty was able to see the country he had missed during his dark, sleepy ride northeast. He could see the mountains stacked behind each other, blue, like waves. The train snaked along beside them and through them, passing towns and valleys and gaps. At each station, the train paused just long enough for a hiccup. As they approached Oak Hill, Clarence’s mother bobbed her head at them. “Be careful, now, all of you,” she said. “Remember, our aunt Zelda is your aunt Zelda. You know where to find me! Oh, dear, I’d better hurry before I—” A flutter of feathers, and she was gone.

  On they went, toward Coalbank Hollow. The train stopped briefly to change drivers, and the friends (except for Clarence, who decided he was better off where he was) left the caboose to hunt for food. The muscles in Bitty’s wings were strong now. There was no ache as he zipped through the bushes and snatched a teaberry he found growing low to the ground.

  The train started again, and soon Bitty recognized the mountains as his own. “This is it,” he announced. “Everybody off.” He led the way toward the coal camp he had seen whole only once before. He and Chester jockeyed for position, each vying for the role of tour guide.

  “On your right you will see some company houses,” Bitty said.

  “On your left you will see more company houses,” said Chester.

  Outside one of them, a group of children played tag in the warmth of the afternoon.

  “On your right is the company store,” Bitty announced as they flew past the window. The display had changed sinc
e March, and now it featured pots, pans, medicines, pickaxes, a red wagon that looked identical to the canaries’ former chariot, and a doll with real hair. “This is where the miners spend their paychecks before they even get their paychecks.”

  “They carry our birdseed,” Chester added. “Not that I eat that stuff anymore.”

  They came upon a tiny building Bitty hadn’t noticed the last time through. One side of the shingle said medical office. The other side said vet. Hanging on the door was a piece of paper with writing that was almost illegible. Boy needed, it said. See Doc.

  “We’d better take it,” Chester said. “For Jamie.”

  They grabbed the note the same way they had grabbed the stick and lugged it to Jamie’s house, which was right where they’d left it. They dropped the sign on the porch, to the right of the front door, where Mr. Campbell usually left his boots.

  “We lived around back,” Bitty told Clarence, flying to Jamie’s bedroom window. Bitty used to spend all his time looking out that window. Now he was looking in. The cage was there, right next to Jamie’s bed. Bitty thought it would be empty, and that the canaries would be at work. Instead, the cage was full.

  Chapter 20

  “So you’re back, are you?” Uncle Aubrey’s voice seared through the gap beneath the window. “Want your old jobs? Well, you’re too late.”

  “Bitty, thank goodness you’re safe!” said Aunt Lou.

  “Wait,” Bitty said. “I don’t understand. Why are you all here?”

  “Gas detectors,” Uncle Aubrey said. “ ‘Innovative.’ ‘Better.’ They got here last night. Some fancy-pants politician swept into town and talked the boss man into trying them out. Foreman comes by and says, ‘You give those birds a rest tomorrow, Clay.’ Says some inventor’s got something special, a mechanical canary.

  “Mr. Campbell says, ‘I’ve seen them things before. I’ll stick with my bird, thank you very much.’ Foreman says, ‘You’ve got to set an example, Clay. You bring your bird, it just won’t look right. It’ll look like you’re second-guessing the management.’ ”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Bitty said. “How could they have gotten here so soon?”

  Uncle Aubrey glared. “This was your doing? Was this how you were going to make things ‘better’ for everybody? By putting us all out of work?”

  Bitty’s silence amplified his guilt. Uncle Aubrey shifted his rage to Alice and Chester. “Of course they’d welcome a machine, after dealing with the likes of you two,” he said. “Getting fired. You’ve ruined our reputation. Ruined it.” He sounded like the grackle.

  “Careful, Aubrey. That’s my daughter you’re talking to right there,” said Alice’s mother.

  Uncle Aubrey’s eyes moved farther down the window ledge. There was only one bird he hadn’t addressed yet, and it wasn’t a canary.

  “A pigeon?” said Uncle Aubrey, who had apparently seen one before. “You can’t be serious.”

  “This is Clarence,” Bitty said. “My friend.”

  “Well, that figures.”

  “Aubrey.” Aunt Lou’s voice was full of needles. “Be quiet and let the kids talk.” She looked through the bars at her nephew. “There, now. Tell us everything.”

  They did, taking turns, even Clarence.

  “Languages,” Uncle Aubrey sputtered when they were done. “Telephones. Grackles. Mice who speak Bird. It’s all Squeak to me, that’s what I say. And pigeons.” He looked at Clarence. If canaries had been able to spit, Uncle Aubrey would have. “Pigeons. Working. Is that what you want me to believe?”

  “Uncle Aubrey, everyone knows that—” Bitty began, with a worried glance at his friend, though this time, Clarence looked more amused than offended.

  “A waste of wings, if you ask me,” Uncle Aubrey said. “Though I guess I didn’t do anything with my own wings today, now, did I?”

  Trying to talk to Uncle Aubrey was like trying to talk to a lump of coal. No—it was worse. At least he could pretend that the coal was listening to him. Bitty looked at his family stuck behind the bars while his uncle ranted and raved. He needed air. Now. He shot up and over the roof and was rewarded for his decision: there was Jamie, walking up the road, his schoolbooks and baseball glove slung over his shoulder. The boy seemed to have grown the way everything does in spring. His brown hair was tucked back behind his ears; his pants hovered too far above his ankles. Bitty watched as Jamie climbed onto the uneven porch and picked up the note from Doc Tatum.

  He dropped his books. “Ma!” he yelled. “I’m running to town. I’ll be back!” When he returned home thirty minutes later, he was whistling.

  “Fee-yo.” Bitty swooped onto the porch and interrupted Jamie’s tune. He worried that the boy wouldn’t recognize him. He worried that he would.

  “Big Yellow!” Jamie said. “You came home!” He grinned the way he did when Mrs. Campbell made apple pie. “Guess what?” the boy told him. “I’ve got a job. Well, maybe I do. Doc’s going to try me out for a week because I’ve got experience with animals. And if I do a good job, he said he might let me help him out for the whole year. What do you think of that?” He gazed at the bird again. “Where have you been all this time? I must have checked every tree.”

  Warmed by the smile, Bitty flew in an orbit around Jamie’s head. The boy watched him until his mother called from inside the house. “Don’t go anywhere,” Jamie said. “My ma won’t believe this.”

  When the boy went inside, Bitty flew as far as the back ledge, to get another lecture from Uncle Aubrey and to wait for the return of Mr. Campbell and a report on the mechanical canaries.

  The whistle blew, signaling the end of the shift. Bitty flew to the roof. The shingles felt rough beneath his feet, not smooth like the terra-cotta tiles on the train station. Mr. Campbell was walking home along the tracks, with the Gap-Toothed Man beside him. They were swinging their lunch pails like school boys.

  “See you, Steve.”

  “Say hello to Mary.”

  “You tell Becca the same.”

  The free birds joined Bitty on the roof.

  Thud. Thud.

  “What was that?” Clarence said.

  “Mrs. Campbell won’t let him in the house until he takes off his boots.”

  A second later the door opened and shut. Bitty could hear the Campbells talking in the main room, and Jamie’s footsteps as the boy ran to join them.

  “Well? How’d they do?” Jamie asked.

  “Finally taking an interest in the mine, are you?” said Mr. Campbell. “How’d who do?”

  “Quit teasing, Pa. You know who I mean!”

  “The mechanical canaries?” Mr. Campbell said. “Can’t say as I felt completely comfortable, going in without a live bird. But a lot of the other miners seemed to like the idea, especially when that Delegate Finch said the new equipment comes without a price tag. If we don’t have to pay for canaries, that’s one less expense for us. And as he reminded us, ‘These here won’t die They won’t get sick or eat sunflower seeds.’ Said the mine could have them, no strings attached. Said they would give us a sense of—what was the word he used? Modernity. Safety and modernity. He’s coming back in a couple of days to see how we like ’em.”

  Chester leaned over and whispered: “Can you imagine Uncle Aubrey after he’s been out of work for a few days? Maybe we’d better go back to Charleston.”

  But they stayed.

  The free birds set up a camp tucked away in the green needles of a cedar tree, while the rest of the canaries stayed crowded in the Big House. Uncle Aubrey was more like a lion than a bird; he roared whenever anybody tried to talk to him. Clarence had a hard time being out of work, too. The miners were gone all day, and the women walked too quickly from one thing to the next. Clarence tried following Mrs. Campbell around, but she almost kicked him twice when she hung out the laundry. He was forced to eat berries instead of bread.

  On the brighter side, Clarence joined the canaries for a baseball game between the miners of Coalbank and th
e miners of McDowell (they cheered for Coalbank). And from their spot in the tree, they could hear the strains of music from front porch picking that seemed to be as much a part of the West Virginia night as the stars.

  And then, two nights after the game, Mr. Campbell knocked on Jamie’s bedroom door with an update. “It’s official,” he told his son. “They don’t want your canaries anymore. They said it makes us look too old-fashioned. It’s time to join the twentieth century and let . . . how did he put it? ‘Let the innovations take over.’ ”

  Uncle Aubrey swore. “Machines to a do a bird’s job. Here of all places. That tears it.”

  “At least they’ll be safe now,” Jamie said.

  “Nobody’s going to be paying you anymore to take care of those birds, Jamie. You know that. You’re going to have to come up with the feed money yourself. Doc Tatum giving you anything for helping him out this week?”

  “Feed,” Jamie said.

  “Well, that’s something. Listen. You can keep them birds if you want to. Or you can let ’em go. I’m leaving that up to you.”

  He went back into the kitchen. The birds studied Jamie for a sign of his decision, but they didn’t get one. That night, before bed, he stared into the canary cage for a long time. Bitty watched through the window. He wished—for a second—that he were close enough for the boy to touch his head.

  “Oh, this is ridiculous,” Chester’s mother said from the cage. “Our lives in the hands of an eleven-year-old boy?”

  But their lives were always in someone’s hands.

  The next day, Jamie walked home from school with one of his friends, a boy named Preach who was a year older and a head shorter.

  “You wanna throw?” Preach said, tossing a baseball and catching it.

  Jamie didn’t answer, so Preach sat down on the bed and they both stared at the birds.

  “I know how they feel in there. I know,” Jamie said. Bitty had heard that once before and hadn’t believed it. Maybe the boy did have a clue after all.