First Came the Owl

by Judith Benét Richardson

  Then Amy stuck her pencil into her wild hair, and said, “Okay, now here is the way I think the parts should go.”

  “But we haven’t tried out!” said Brenda. “That’s not the way it was at the Maushop Playhouse, when we had scripts and makeup.”

  “Well, this is a different kind of play,” said Amy. “This is … we all know the story, right? So we improvise.”

  Brenda folded her arms and glowered.

  “Right,” said Amy. “Now, I pick you for the Wicked Queen, Brenda.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Noooooo,” wailed Brenda. “I don’t wanna be the Wicked Queen. I wanna try out for Snow White.”

  “Brenda, you’ll be great,” said Amy. “I can just see you biting into Snow White’s juicy heart.”

  “Or your little feet, dancing in the red-hot shoes,” said Anne.

  “I’m good at dancing,” said Brenda. She tossed her ponytail. “So who’s going to be Snow White? There’s no one who’s used to acting but me.”

  “Nita is going to be Snow White,” said Amy.

  There was a short silence. Then Henry burst out, “She can’t be Snow White. She’s not white! She’ll have to be Snow Brown!”

  Some people laughed. Amy fluffed up like a cat about to scratch. “Don’t be stupid, Henry,” she hissed. “This is acting. That’s the whole point of acting—you pretend to be someone else.”

  Nita looked at the floor. She could feel eyes on her skin, eyebeams running over her like X rays. They could see even inside of her and see how different she was from everyone else, inside and out.

  “Okay, okay,” said Henry. “I was only kidding.”

  “And I pick you for the prince,” said Amy. “But I’ll take it back if you don’t act like one.”

  For once, Henry had nothing to say. He staggered around, pointing at himself and smacking his forehead, then shaking his head in amazement.

  “I’m so excited you got that part!” Anne whispered to Nita.

  “I want to be excited,” Nita whispered back. “But now … I’m kind of scared, and I don’t want Henry to be the prince.”

  “That wasn’t very nice, what he said. But look at him. He’s a very good actor.”

  Nita guessed even Anne didn’t understand how she felt about Henry.

  “And Anne, you’ll be the head dwarf. Pete, you’ll be the talking mirror,” Amy went on. She picked the Huntsman and the King and Queen. All the others were dwarfs. There were a lot of dwarfs because, as Anne said, there’s no rule that says there have to be seven.

  David came over from the technical crew corner. “Who’s going to build Snow White’s coffin?” he asked. He and Amy looked at Anne. “Petrova’s the best builder,” he said. “Will you ask her if she’ll help us?”

  “I’ll ask her as soon as I get home,” said Anne. “Come on, Nita. It’s time to go, anyway.”

  “And one more thing,” said Amy. “Get out the story and read it when you get home. Then you’ll all know what to do for your part. See you tomorrow!”

  “Boy, that Henry,” said Anne, as they headed up the hill to the Stillwaters’. “Did he make you feel bad when he said you had to be Snow Brown?”

  Nita felt her face get hot. “Well, maybe a little. I do look different. At my other school, someone asked me if I could see out of my eyes very well, because they were so little.” There! She had told Anne one of her most embarrassing secrets, one that she had never told anyone before.

  Anne looked mad, just like Amy had over the name Snow Brown. “Yeah, well, my Mom and I love the way your eyes squinch up when you laugh.”

  They did? That meant they talked about her when she wasn’t there. Nita’s face felt even hotter. The Still-waters talked about everything.

  “Don’t worry when Amy’s around. She won’t take anything from Henry. And she’s kind of brown herself.”

  It was true, thought Nita. So, good. “Whose skin is as white as snow, anyway?” Nita said out loud.

  “Not Brenda’s, she’s spotted,” said Anne. They came into the house laughing, thinking of Brenda’s freckles. “Spotted like a leopard,” said Anne.

  They found Petrova, as usual, working on her owl model. “I’m going to hang it from the ceiling,” she said. “Down on the floor, I’ll put a model mouse.”

  “Ugh,” said Anne. “Swooping down on poor little mice.”

  “That’s their nature. You shouldn’t criticize an owl for having an owl nature.”

  Nita tried to keep them from arguing. “Maybe you can put the mouse on a string, too, so we can jerk it away. Oh, Petrova, David wants to know if you’ll help him build Snow White’s coffin.”

  Petrova frowned over her paper and glue. “You guys and your fairy-tale projects,” she muttered. “Tell him I might help. If I get my owl done.”

  Petrova wasn’t much like Anne. But then, she was getting old. The older people got, the busier they were and the less they did anything interesting. A few older kids, like Amy and David, are still interesting, thought Nita, but I bet people call them childish.

  Nita and Anne went into the kitchen and found some saltines and cheese to eat. They nibbled the food like mice and hid under the table. Even Petrova joined in the spirit of things, swooping around the room making weird screeches and moans until they let her have some cheese and crackers. Maybe there was hope for her after all.

  But the fun ended for Nita when she found a note on the counter from Mrs. S. It said: “Nita, please do your homework this afternoon, because I’m going to take you to the hospital to see your Mom tonight.”

  Nita’s orphan feeling washed over her like a wave. Maybe the Stillwaters could adopt me, she thought. I don’t want to go to the hospital. She felt like getting back under the table and staying in the corner, as small and still as a mouse.

  Eight

  I WONDER if anyone laughs here, thought Nita as she walked down the long, green corridor with Mrs. Stillwater. The hospital air was hot and stuffy after the winter night outside. As if in answer to her thoughts, a loud laugh rang out from the nurses’ station. That made Nita feel worse. They probably think the people in here who have problems are funny, she thought.

  “In here, Nita,” said Mrs. S. She stopped at a half-open door. “I’ll wait for you down there, in the waiting room.” She pointed to the end of the corridor.

  Nita grabbed her hand to get her to stay, but Mrs. S. whispered, “Remember what we talked about? I know you’re a little scared, but it could really help your Mom to have you visit. I’ll be right down there if you need me.”

  Nita stood, frozen, by the half-open door. That mouselike feeling, as if something were going to swoop down and pounce, paralyzed her. No! I don’t want to be the mouse! I want to be the owl. I need that feeling back to get me through this door, she thought.

  “Mom?” she said, and gave a little tap on the door. It swung open. Her mother was lying down. Slowly, Nita walked over and sat on the chair next to the bed. Her chest felt tight and it was hard to breathe. Talk to me, she pleaded silently with her mother. Silence was back in the room with them, like a glass wall they couldn’t break through.

  Mom looked at the wall at the end of the bed, not at Nita. Nita jammed her hands in her pockets and stared at the wall, too. She took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. One hand fidgeted with something in her pocket. She pulled it out. It was her Mayflower pen.

  Nita leaned over and showed the pen to Mom. “Remember when we went to Plymouth Rock?” she asked. There was no answer. Idly, Nita tilted the pen so the boat sailed in toward Plymouth Rock. Then she tilted the pen the other way so the boat sailed out to sea again, backward. Then she sneaked another look at Mom. Mom’s eyes were moving! She watched the little boat. Back and forth Nita tilted the pen. Back and forth went her Mom’s eyes, watching the little boat.

  “Come back, Ma-jah,” Nita said softly. Slowly, Mom turned her head and looked at Nita.

  She had sent Mom a message and Mom had understood. You went away, Nit
a said with her pen, you went away, but you can come back.

  “Ma-jah,” said Nita, “I’m going to be Snow White in the play.” She looked at me! Now Nita knew Mom could hear her. She could tell her about the play and about how she went ice skating at night, and Mom would listen.

  But the most important thing, Nita decided, was that she wouldn’t try to get Mom to talk. I’ve got lots to tell, and I won’t worry about getting an answer, just yet. I know it’s hard to speak up sometimes.

  She leaned back in her chair and smiled at her mother. At Ma-jah. Suddenly, she sat up again. I wonder if that’s why she looked at me! Because I called her Ma-jah? Because I spoke to her in Thai? Nita sank back in the chair again, and now Silence seemed more like a friend, leaving space for a few words of Thai to make their music in Nita’s memory. Ma-jah. Jing-jok. Sawadee. Hello. Good morning. Good night.

  Nine

  BACK IN HER bed in Anne’s room, Nita dreamed of a ship going out and coming back. She dreamed of Dad going out in his Coast Guard cutter, but the ship that returned was the Mayflower, manned by dwarfs. A yellow-eyed owl hovered on the ship’s bow as a figurehead, wings spread and talons extended. No wonder the ship arrived safely home—any sea monster would be afraid of that fierce-looking owl.

  Then it was morning. Nita looked up at the gray sky and gray branches of a winter morning in Maushope’s Landing, and then over to Anne’s empty bed. The smell of bacon drifted up the stairs. Quickly, Nita got out of bed and started dressing.

  “You look just like Snow White,” said Anne, when she came back from the shower. “Red as blood, white as milk, and black as ebony. I read the story last night while you were out.”

  Nita looked at her black jeans, white turtleneck, and red sweatshirt. She hadn’t done it on purpose, but it was as if some part of her remembered that today was the first rehearsal. “Now I’m scared,” she said as they went down the stairs. “I wish I’d never said I’d be in the play.”

  “You’ll be good,” said Petrova. Nita hadn’t seen her around the kitchen door, or she might not have said that about being scared. Petrova was probably never scared.

  “And Brenda is so witchy, she’ll be great,” Anne added.

  I wonder why Petrova thinks I’ll be good, thought Nita. Because I look like I’m lost in the woods? Or because I’m so stupid I’d eat a poisoned apple? That was one thing that bothered her about Snow White. Nita thought about it as she ate her bacon sandwich. Maybe Snow White had never learned to speak up and say, “No!”

  Petrova and her father talked about banding snowy owls at the airport.

  “Are you going to band the one out at the beach by our house?” asked Nita.

  “I can hardly believe there’s one still out there,” said Bill. He wiped his mustache carefully after he drank some coffee. He looked like a sleek walrus this morning, with his hair still wet from the shower. “Maybe that snowy was on her way somewhere.”

  “Let’s go down this afternoon,” said Petrova. “We’ll look. I went yesterday, but I didn’t see her.”

  “We have a rehearsal today,” said Nita. “We could go tomorrow. It’s Saturday.”

  “How’s your science paper going, Anne?” asked Bill, the keeper of the family homework.

  “Okay. But I have to explain some things, like those balancing stones and stuff. I keep forgetting what you told me about glacial more-whatever-they-are.”

  “Lots of rock was left in strange places by the glacier,” said Bill. He curved his arm across the breakfast table. Slowly, his arm moved over the table, and the coffee mugs, the sugar bowl, and the spoons all crowded together in the crook of his arm as he pushed. “I am a river of ice, sweeping down from the North,” he intoned. Then he sat up and took his arm away. “And then it melted,” he went on in a more normal tone of voice, “leaving a glacial moraine.”

  “So it left everything all jumbled up?” Petrova frowned. “A glacial pile of junk?”

  “Wait, wait,” said Anne. “Let me get that down. ‘Glacial pile of junk,’ that’s a nice thing to say about poor old Cape Cod.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be looking things up in the library,” said Bill, “not just picking your poor old father’s brains. What’s your report on, Nita?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure yet,” stammered Nita.

  Bill gave her a questioning look. “Better get busy, hadn’t you?” he said.

  Oh, I hope he’s not going to start keeping track of my homework, too, thought Nita.

  “Let’s go,” said Anne. “We’ll be late to school.” When they were out in the hall, Anne laughed. “You had a narrow escape there!”

  Nita didn’t laugh.

  The cold wrapped its freezing gray fingers around the two girls as they stepped out the door. Nita zipped up her collar when an icy draft went down her neck. She clamped her fur earmuffs over her ears. Anne pulled a red ski hat down low over her forehead. They hurried down School Street, and Anne told Nita the Snow White story all the way to school, so she’d be ready for the rehearsal that afternoon.

  “In the middle of winter, a beautiful queen sat sewing by the window,” Anne began.

  The old school sat patiently waiting to be filled, as it had sat on winter mornings for one hundred years. Nita had seen the pictures in the front hall of the school, class photographs that showed old-fashioned boys in caps and high leather shoes and girls with hair ribbons and dresses. Horses and wagons stood in the dirt road outside. Now Henry’s mother zoomed up in the yellow school bus and red lights flashed as she unloaded. The old photos faded behind today’s bright colors.

  Brenda hopped out of the bus, rushed up to Nita and Anne, and pulled off her gloves. One! Two!

  “There!” she said proudly. Her fingernails were long and red. “Stick-ons!” She swiveled her wrists high in the air, like a Spanish dancer playing her castanets.

  All morning, Nita couldn’t think about anything but the first rehearsal. Time raced past quickly and also crept by very slowly. Fast, when she thought about getting up and acting; slow, when she tried to do any of her schoolwork.

  Finally, it was lunchtime. The fifth and sixth grades ate in the classroom in the winter, when it was too cold to sit outside. Nita got out her turkey sandwich, with Russian dressing on black bread. Stillwater lunches were different than Dad’s.

  Brenda sat on the art table next to Pete’s desk. She hissed into his ear, “Mirror, mirror, tell me true: do you love my eyes so blue?”

  “You’re ugly,” said Pete.

  “That’s not what the mirror says!”

  “So, I don’t know my part.”

  Brenda tried again, “Mirror, mirror on the wall: who is the loveliest one of all?”

  Henry leaned over from the other side of Pete and said:

  “Snow Brown and you,

  Are the ugly two.”

  He and Pete got out of their seats and stomped off, laughing and waving their lunch bags. Everyone looked from Brenda to Nita.

  “They’re really dumb,” said one of the dwarfs from where the group of them sat eating their lunches in the science corner. They had started to do things in a group since being cast in the play.

  Nita looked at her sandwich, but she felt she couldn’t swallow another bite. It didn’t help that they were mean to Brenda, too.

  After lunch, there she sat with her Mayflower pen again, but this time Mrs. Sommers noticed the blank piece of paper.

  “You know, Nita, I had an idea for you. You seem to be awfully stuck.”

  Nita looked up.

  “How about doing your report on Thailand?” said Mrs. Sommers. “Maybe your mother can help you.”

  “My mother is in the hospital,” whispered Nita.

  “I know,” said Mrs. Sommers, “but even so, she really might like to help you with your report. I’m sorry she’s in the hospital, Nita. You must miss her.”

  Nita couldn’t answer because she was afraid she would cry. Her throat felt swollen shut. What if this happens when I’
m in the play?

  I’m going to have to get up there in front of an audience. In a dress, she suddenly realized in horror. Nita bent her head over her paper and started to draw. Anything was better than thinking about the play. Orchids were what came out of the end of her pen—orchids, not mayflowers at all. Nita drew the white, cascading Coelogyne nitia, but when she drew the yellow dancing lady orchid that Mom kept on the kitchen counter, the little flower mouths seemed to say, “You’ll freeze up. You’ll forget your lines. Your face is too brown. Your eyes are too little.” The yellow and white flowers laughed and jeered.

  Mrs. Sommers passed by and smiled. “Orchids are certainly part of a good Thailand report,” she said. “Now try for some words.”

  After she was gone, Nita crumpled her paper and threw it on the floor. Then she put her head down on her desk and curved her arm around it. She turned her head sideways on the brown wood and looked at her hand. It was the same color as the desk. Nita wished she could melt right into the desk and be a piece of wood, a piece of furniture, and never have to have any feelings again, ever.

  Ten

  NITA DIDN’T SEE how she could go to the rehearsal that afternoon. Unfortunately, she hadn’t turned into a piece of furniture, and she still felt awful, but the moment never came when she could say no. Amy and David came down from the junior high, and Mrs. Sommers sent the cast down to the empty kindergarten room.

  Nita found herself down there along with the others, surrounded by tiny chairs and nature collages. And Amy didn’t even start with the play.

  “Now we’re all going to do some deep breathing exercises,” she ordered.

  “Except for the tech crew,” said David. “We’re going down to the lab to get some plastic for the coffin.” He left with his crew.

  “Now we’re all going to do some deep breathing exercises,” said Amy, more impatiently. “Stand apart from each other. Give yourselves plenty of room.” Amy shook her curly hair out of her brown eyes and smiled. Just her smile helped even Nita to relax.