First Came the Owl

by Judith Benét Richardson

  “You can’t speak loud enough until you know how to breathe,” said Amy. “I hate kids’ plays when everyone whispers. We’re not going to whisper, and we’re not going to rush. Breathe in. Let your stomach swell out when you breathe in, Anne. You’re holding your breath. Come on, team! Breathe!”

  They breathed in. They breathed out. Henry pretended to choke.

  “That’s pretty good,” said Amy. “Now, do you all know the story of Snow White? Did you read it?”

  A chorus of “yes,” “sort of,” and “what?” greeted Amy’s words.

  She didn’t look too worried. “Well, you can say your own words for now, and then later, I’ll write it down. See if you have a feeling for your parts. Let’s start with the First Queen, sitting and sewing.”

  Amy made it seem maybe … possible. The girl who played the First Queen had a soft voice, but Amy got her to take a few deep breaths and it did help. The words “I wish I had a baby as red as blood, black as ebony, and white as milk,” floated out wistfully.

  “That’s great,” said Amy. “That’s the end of scene one. Now for the King getting married again after his wife dies.”

  Brenda bounced up. “I’ll wear high heels,” she said. She took hold of the King’s arm possessively.

  He pulled away, but Amy said, “Good, good. You can pull away, but then give in. Come on, look regal.”

  They got married and marched regally off. “Music, we need music,” said Brenda.

  “Some of the dwarfs could play recorders,” said Nita.

  “Great,” said Amy. “Now, Mirror! Queen! Come on, here’s your big scene.”

  Brenda flashed her red fingernails and preened in front of the Mirror, which, at the moment, was Pete and a big piece of cardboard. The Mirror laughed at her.

  “No laughing!” said Brenda. She stamped her foot.

  “Pete, do the regular Mirror stuff first,” said Amy. “Then laugh at her, that’ll be terrific.”

  “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” chanted Brenda.

  This time the Mirror was really admiring. It turned this way and that way, saying, “I think your right profile is even more beautiful than the left.”

  Nita was amazed. Pete had acted so dumb about being the Mirror that she couldn’t see how he had ever been chosen. But now she could see, especially when they got to the second Mirror scene. Pete’s voice changed to a sneer, as he told the Queen:

  “Beautiful though you are,

  Snow White is more beautiful by far!”

  He laughed. The Queen seemed to swell up with anger.

  “Okay, curtain! Now, Nita. You and the Huntsman.”

  Nita’s heart gave a leap, like a fish jumping out of the water. But her leap only propelled her a couple of steps into the room. She felt like an idiot. She didn’t know her part. Everyone would laugh.

  The Huntsman took her hand. She tried to pull it away. “You must come with me,” said the Huntsman sorrowfully. He held her hand tighter, and Nita followed him.

  As they walked across the kindergarten room, Nita saw the bare trees outside the window. What if it was winter when Snow White went out in the woods? She shivered. The Huntsman pulled out his sword.

  “Listen, I don’t want to do this,” said the Huntsman.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Snow White.

  “I’m supposed to kill you and bring your heart to the Queen.”

  Nita ran behind a tree. “You will never catch me, never, never,” she cried out. She felt like a terrified rabbit in the snow. She felt like … like her mother must have felt when her family hid from the soldiers in Thailand! Nita froze. The play went on, and gradually Nita became aware of the room that was actually around her. The Huntsman had killed a wild boar. He would give its heart to the Queen so the Queen would believe Snow White was dead.

  Nita’s snowy tree turned back into a desk as she heard the voices around her. Mrs. Sommers and Miss Pink, the third- and fourth-grade teacher, stood in the doorway. How long had they been watching?

  Nita crouched where she was, and the desk turned into the snowy tree again. She watched the Huntsman start back to the castle through the snow. Lightly, she stepped out into the tracks of the Huntsman. But she couldn’t follow him. She would be killed if she went back to the castle. Where could she go? She looked all around her and up in the sky. She could see nothing but snow and bare branches. Then she looked at the ground, and there at her feet was a glossy, black feather lying in the snow. She bent down and looked. It must mean something. “I’ll go this way,” she said. “The way the feather points.” Then she picked up the feather and set off through the trees.

  The sound of clapping brought Nita out of her dream. Miss Pink and Mrs. Sommers were applauding!

  “That’s a great way for Snow White to find the dwarfs’ house, to have a feather point the way,” said Amy. “Remember how the story says ‘then came the raven?’” Her curls stood on end because she ran her hands through them in her excitement. “This was a good rehearsal. Now, Monday we’ll do act two. Everyone practice breathing!”

  Nita was still holding the feather. How had this feather gotten into the kindergarten room? It was a beautiful feather, dark and shiny.

  “Give me that, Nita, I’ll put it with the props,” said Amy. She ran her fingers through her hair one more time and grinned at Nita. “So long!”

  As Nita put on her jacket out in the hall, she overheard Miss Pink saying to Mrs. Sommers, “… had no idea she could act like that!”

  “… shy … surprises!” said Mrs. Sommers. Nita could only make out a few words of the conversation.

  They’re talking about me, she realized as she was swept outside in a crowd of kids who were rushing for the late bus. They really think I’m good! She didn’t have much time to enjoy this thought before Henry came charging over.

  “That black feather came from a vulture, I bet,” he said to Anne. Then he turned and stared at Nita, who was putting on her earmuffs.

  “There’s a vulture out there, flying around Maushope’s Landing! I bet it’s gonna eat you!” said Henry loudly, pointing at Nita’s bunny fur earmuffs. “Vultures love rabbits!” Then the bus zoomed up. Henry stumbled on, and his mother took him away.

  “Good riddance,” said Anne.

  They headed up the hill, and by the time they got home it was dark.

  “Let’s get pizza tonight, girls, because Bill and I are going to a meeting,” said Mrs. S. They were always going to meetings: saving the school, building a new library wing, and organizing beach cleanups.

  “Where’s the pizza? I’m starved,” said Anne, pulling an almost empty bag of cookies out of the cupboard.

  Nita was starved, too. She slumped down in a big chair and stared out the window.

  “Nita was really good, Mom,” said Anne. “When she had to be lost in the woods, she really looked lost.”

  Nita was still surprised at what it felt like to be acting. It was like being in a different place, a different world. The kindergarten room had seemed like a real forest, even though at the same time she could see all the little tables and chairs. And the fear she felt had been real fear, even though part of her mind still knew the Huntsman was only another fifth-grader.

  Now, here in the Stillwaters’ kitchen, Nita thought about Mom and her family, running from the soldiers in Thailand—that’s why she had really been able to act scared. Maybe Mom needs to learn about acting, she thought, and how to get back and forth between wherever she is now and our world.

  Nita let her mind drift out the window, where a few patches of snow stood out in the dark under the pine trees. Her thoughts were a strange combination of snow and rice paddies, with snowflakes falling in the burning sun.

  “What kind of pizza do you want?” asked Anne. Nita came back to Earth with a thud.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, pick something. I hate deciding all by myself.”

  “Banana pizza.”

  “Is that what they eat in
Thailand?” asked Mrs. S. She smiled at Nita.

  “Or coconut pizza,” said Nita, joking back. She didn’t say, like she usually would, that she didn’t know what they eat in Thailand. That she had lived here in the United States since she was five years old.

  “I want pepperoni,” said Petrova. “You can’t have coconut pizza! It’s a … a contradiction, an opposite thing. If you have one, you can’t have the other.”

  But I like lots of opposite things, thought Nita. Snow and orchids. Mom and Dad. Day and night. “Pepperoni and banana,” said Nita. “Can we have a pepperoni and banana pizza? Please?”

  They got a half-baked one and did the bananas themselves. Even Petrova said it was not bad.

  When the phone rang during dinner, it was about Dad. “He’s delayed, Nita,” said Bill. “That was Captain Vanderpost. He’ll call again tomorrow, but you might be stuck with us till next week. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “It’s … fine. I mean, it’s nice of you to let me stay,” said Nita. She took another bite of pizza.

  “Oh, we like you,” said Bill. “Even if it means we have to have very weird dinners.”

  “You mean unusual,” said Anne. “Thai pizza! I read something about Thailand today in one of my books, why it’s called the Land of Smiles.” She started to tell a story about two quarreling children, a dog, a cat, some honey, and a lizard.

  “Jing-jok,” murmured Nita.

  “And they ended up destroying the whole village,” said Anne, “so that’s why Thai people always smile now and never fight. Did you know that story, Nita?”

  “No. But they do fight, because I remember Mom telling me about hiding from the soldiers,” said Nita. “It was very scary and her family had to hide.”

  “See, that’s real life,” said Petrova, “not your silly old ‘land of smiles’ fairy tale.”

  The two sisters glared at each other.

  “And here are two real live quarreling children,” said Mrs. S. “Stop it, you two.”

  Suddenly, Nita felt left out, even though she didn’t want to argue. She took a last bite of pizza. The spicy meat and the soft, warm fruit made a great combination. She would have to make some for Dad and Ma-jah if they were ever together again. But would she ever have her old home back, the way it was before? Or, like the lost village, would it completely disappear?

  Eleven

  ON SATURDAY morning it was nice and warm in the kitchen, and it was great to know you didn’t have to go out. Bill said it went down to twenty degrees again during the night. Nita was on her second helping of French toast when Petrova came in from the garage, bringing a blast of cold air with her.

  “I’m working on my trap,” she said to Nita.

  “Trap?”

  “For the owl.”

  “We don’t want to hurt it!” Nita had forgotten they were going down to the beach.

  “Well, we have to catch this owl if we want to band it,” said Petrova. “You put a tag on its leg and then when someone else finds it, you can tell where the owls are flying to. One guy banded a nest of babies up in the Arctic and they found one later in Canada and one in Siberia. That’s in Russia! It went that far.” She showed Nita a strange combination of two large tin cans taped end to end to make a metal tube, and a kind of wire box.

  “Now tell her what you put in the trap for bait,” said Anne. “And it’s your turn to do the dishes, Petrova.”

  “We put bratty little sisters in the trap,” said Petrova. “Come on, Nita.” She threw her equipment to the floor with a clatter and put a few plates in the dishwasher.

  “I’m not even dressed.”

  Petrova fixed a beady stare on Nita like a bird of prey, like the owl, except her eyes weren’t yellow. “Well, get dressed.”

  Nita found herself walking toward the stairs. No wonder Petrova likes owls, thought Nita. She’s so fierce.

  Nita put on her ski underwear, her jeans, and her warmest sweater. Downstairs, she wrapped a huge scarf around her neck, put on her earmuffs, and said good-bye to Anne.

  The two girls went over the hill, across the main road, down a path, and across the ferry parking lot. Then they went along the road to the beach by the lighthouse. It was such a gray morning that the lighthouse was flashing, though its beam was pale in the daylight.

  Nita was glad to see the light was still working and to see the garland of Christmas lights circling up the white tower. She had been thinking about home as if it had disappeared in just these few days. She wriggled her chilly fingers and looked closely at every dune for the owl. “I don’t see it,” she said.

  Petrova clutched the stiff folded metal netting that made her trap. In a bag she had fishing line and the taped tomato cans. “I’ve only got one mouse,” said Petrova.

  “Will the owl kill it?”

  “If the owl comes, it can’t reach the mouse. It only stomps around on the wire trying to get the mouse, maybe catching a foot in one of my snares.”

  They trudged along the beach. “Can we go into my house for a minute?” asked Nita.

  “I guess so.” Even Petrova was cold.

  But when they got to Nita’s house and opened the door with the hidden key, she was sorry they had come. Someone had been watering Mom’s orchids. Who? Someone had left tools and boards in the corner. What was going on around here?

  Nita picked up the sprayer and misted a couple of the orchids, but all their little mouths were open, and they spoke to her again, “Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home, your house is different and your family is gone.”

  Nita remembered the mean things they had said to her when she was trying to start her report. “Shut up or I won’t water you,” she told the flowers.

  Petrova gave her a sarcastic look. Talking to flowers? the look said.

  The girls stepped out again into the wind that swirled around the white clapboard house. The tall light brightened and dimmed. Nita went to the sheltered corner by the bedroom window and dumped some birdseed in the feeder.

  “That’s a neat feeder,” said Petrova. She ran her fingers over the curved roof and examined the fitted wooden pieces of the little house. “Is it from Thailand?”

  “I think so. We’ve always had it, wherever we moved.”

  Petrova picked up her trap and they went back down to the beach. Nita had almost given up hope when around the point came a ray of white that settled on top of a dune with a stretch of white wings.

  “It’s a different one!” Nita called to Petrova.

  “Where? Oh! This is a male! The pure snowy white one!”

  The owl Nita had seen before was white with brown flecks in its feathers. This one was big, but not quite as big. It was too far away to see any yellow eyes.

  Petrova clattered her trap down onto the sand. She fumbled in her bag. But, she was in too much of a hurry. The little box that held her mouse somehow slid open as she sank to her knees.

  A tiny brown body scampered over the sand, hesitated, twitched its nose, and dove under a clump of brown beach grass.

  “Rats! Triple rats!” shouted Petrova.

  “Don’t shout,” said Nita in a tense voice. “The owl will go away. We’ll think of something. We’ll…”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” said Petrova. “Now we’ve got no bait. That’s it. We might as well go home.”

  And I have to go to your home, thought Nita. The home of someone who calls me an idiot. Great, really great. How could I ever have wanted to be part of her family? She pressed her hands against her earmuffs so she wouldn’t hear one more word Petrova said to her. And she was never going to speak to Petrova again. And … an idea jolted into Nita’s mind.

  “Petrova! Do they … do owls ever eat rabbits? Maybe we can fool him with my bunny fur earmuffs!” Nita snatched off the white fur circles and held them out, her fury vanishing in the wake of her great idea.

  Petrova frowned. Then she laughed. “Hey, I’ll try anything! Take a long piece of this line and tie it on.”

  Nita worked on the fa
ke bait while Petrova set her trap. She had made loops out of nylon fishing line that could snare an owl by the foot. She tied the loops onto the top of the wire trap. Then she put the bunny fur earmuffs inside the wire mesh cage.

  And still the owl sat, a white flash on the top of a dune, almost as if he were watching them, waiting for them.

  They had to stop watching him to fix the trap, and when they finally had it ready, the owl was nowhere to be seen.

  “Never mind,” said Petrova. “Maybe he sees us. They have fantastic eyesight. Come on! Let’s hide behind the dune.”

  They lay on their stomachs behind a dune about fifty feet away, out of the wind. Nita held the end of the line they had tied to the earmuffs, and every once in a while she tugged the line so the earmuffs twitched. She thought hard about the owl, as if she could will him to come.

  “Good idea, this trap,” said Petrova.

  “Come on, owl,” Nita murmured. And suddenly, lying there, Nita felt her wonderful “owl feeling.” For a day or two, she had completely forgotten how she had been swept away by the soaring calm of the huge white wings.

  She took a deep breath the way Amy had taught her.

  “Come on, owl,” she said again. Funny, Petrova didn’t seem to mind her talking to birds. Maybe she could understand this kind of conversation.

  * * *

  He came fast. He dropped down, his talons out in front of him, his feathery legs extended. His white wings were spread wide and he looked like a wild angel who had decided to swoop down into the ordinary world for a visit. Nita held her breath.

  The owl gripped the wire mesh with his talons. Nita twitched the line. The powerful feet trampled back and forth, trying to get to the pieces of white fur.

  Suddenly, the huge bird pulled away and fell over sideways. Nita jumped up. Oh no! Was he hurt?

  “It’s okay,” said Petrova. “We’ve got him! Come on!” She ran toward the struggling bird, and Nita followed more cautiously. Those feet looked dangerous.

  But in seconds, Petrova had him in a firm grip. One hand held both feet and her other arm was around the wings. The owl was still. Nita came closer, and the fierce yellow eyes stared into hers.