First Came the Owl

by Judith Benét Richardson

  “Is he okay?” she whispered.

  “Get the cans,” said Petrova. “Oh, he’s fine, Nita. Now we’ve got to band him.” She didn’t seem to feel the way Nita did at all. To her this was technical, like pictures in a how-to book. To Nita, it was like catching the sun, or an angel in your arms.

  “The cans, Nita,” said Petrova again.

  Nita found the metal tube and helped Petrova ease the owl into the cans head first. Gently they set the tube on its side on the ground. The owl didn’t struggle at all. He didn’t make a sound. Now all that could be seen of him were his feathery legs and fierce talons.

  Quickly, Petrova found a metal tag in her bag and slipped it around his ankle. She squeezed the tag shut with pliers. Nita read the words engraved in the aluminum: Advise Fish & Wildlife, Washington D.C., and a number.

  “Wonder where he’ll go next,” said Petrova. “Do you want to take him out?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Nita. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore, and she hated seeing him in the tin can. She couldn’t wait to get him out.

  “Hold him like I did,” cautioned Petrova.

  Nita got hold of his feet, and they stood him up, still inside the cans. As the tube slipped off over his head, Nita put her arm around him. He was heavy and very warm and soft. Nita held on. “Good-bye,” she whispered, and let go of his wings. Instantly, he spread them, and Nita released his feet with a little down and then up motion. It couldn’t have been enough to throw him into the air, but he caught the rhythm and the wind took him. He soared over the dune and was swept down the beach until he was a white dot in the distance that finally dissolved in the winter sky.

  “I need my earmuffs,” said Nita. “I’m freezing.” As she covered her ears with soft fur, she remembered the downy warmth of the owl in her arms before she released him into his real world, the sky.

  Nita laughed. She took off and ran down the beach. She held out her arms like a pair of soaring wings and the wind blew her. She soared, laughing, all the way to the end of the sand.

  Breathless, she ran back to Petrova. “That was so great,” Nita said.

  Even Petrova smiled. “We were really lucky,” she said. “Lots of times they get away.”

  I forgot I was never going to speak to her again, thought Nita. Oh, well. I can’t be mad at her after she let me hold the owl. They walked back to the Stillwaters’ in a friendly silence. The day was so bright with sun on the snow, and the memory of the wonderful bird, that she hardly noticed the long walk back.

  Twelve

  THE STILLWATERS’ woodburning stove made the living room cozy on this chilly afternoon. Anne played the piano. Petrova sat in front of her paper owl model, made of hundreds of tiny cutout pieces. It wasn’t flat but rounded, a three-dimensional model.

  Nita slid onto the other chair at Petrova’s card table and watched Petrova fit A to B and E to F.

  “Do you have another pair of scissors?” she asked.

  Petrova shoved them over. Nita began to snip at a big scrap of paper. She cut bits of paper off the edges here and there, and the round head and streamlined body of the owl appeared. The feathery legs and huge talons were a little harder. But in a few minutes, Nita trimmed out quite a believable owl.

  Anne stopped playing the piano and looked at Nita’s creation. “It’s a shadow puppet,” she said.

  “I think … I think they have them in Thailand. When I was little I saw a show,” said Nita, suddenly remembering. Like the lizard moment, another picture flashed into Nita’s mind. A warm summer night with lanterns hung in the trees and huge black shadows sword fighting on a white screen. Nita had sat on a wooden bench and leaned on someone’s knee, but she couldn’t quite remember whose knee it was.

  Now, in the Stillwaters’ living room, Anne aimed the lighted lamp at the wall and Nita held up her cutout. A big black shadow soared around the living room.

  “Eek!” said Anne. Even Petrova looked a little surprised. “It’s a really good owl. Maybe we could use it in the play,” Anne went on.

  “Ma-jah says in Thailand owls are evil spirits,” said Nita. She hadn’t remembered this until she made the shadow leap across the wall.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Petrova. Nita bounced the owl shadow on the shadow of Petrova’s head and Petrova shrank back in her chair.

  “So there!” said Anne.

  Petrova glared at them.

  * * *

  Nita wasn’t the least bit sleepy that night as she lay on her bed in Anne’s room, looking at the moon through the trees. The moonlight was not the friendly, pulsing light of the lighthouse, which was put there by people to help people. The moon was bright but cold. Maybe it didn’t care about people. Petrova would say it didn’t. Like the owl, thought Nita. Like the owl, which isn’t my owl, the moon isn’t my moon.

  But it drew her. The moonlight on the snow. The cold, lonely winter outdoors, when everyone else was in their cozy houses. Except I’m not in my cozy house. I’d like to be out there with my … the owls!

  Nita felt hotter and hotter. She looked at Anne, who was asleep with the blue fairy-tale book on her chest and the bedside light shining on her eyes. Nita turned out the light and went over to the window. She thought of the stars and the owls. The snowy owl sleeps at night; I wonder where?

  She went out into the hall, down the stairs, and put her jacket and Anne’s old snow pants over her pajamas. She grabbed her skates. The front door clicked loudly as she opened it, and she froze for a few seconds, but no voices called out. Nita knew you were never supposed to skate without a buddy, but she slipped out the door anyway.

  It was not very cold and Nita could see lots of stars. She slid down the slope behind the house. Quickly she laced her skates and picked her way to the edge of the frozen pond. With one long swoop, she glided out into the middle of the ice. She skated backward. She twirled with her arms over her head. She tried a little jump, but it wasn’t much like a triple toe loop in the Olympics. She tried another jump, a little higher. CRACK!

  Was she imagining the long line that stretched like black lightning across the ice? Crack! Crack! The ice thundered and trembled.

  Nita’s feet broke through the thin skin of ice into the freezing water. She threw herself flat on the ice, but she was far from shore.

  “Ma-jah!” she croaked. “Chuiy duiy! Help!”

  Now she couldn’t feel her legs. “Ma-jah,” she sobbed. She flailed her arms up and down as if they were giant wings. It was working! She thrashed her way forward and after a long minute, she felt her knees buckle and her feet touch the bottom. Sobbing, she struggled to the shore and crawled out on her hands and knees. Her feet were totally numb.

  Nita’s teeth chattered and her body shook as she sneaked in the Stillwaters’ front door and up to Anne’s room. She stripped off her wet clothes, yanked on her long johns, and huddled under her quilt.

  She was still terrified and shaking, but she whispered over and over, “I saved myself, I didn’t drown. I saved myself. I didn’t drown.”

  Thirteen

  BEFORE NITA even got out of bed on Sunday morning, she heard an unfamiliar voice in the kitchen. Rumble, rumble, she heard, like the cello, then a higher voice like the flute part, then an even lower rumble like the double bass. The double bass is probably Bill—he has a very low voice. But who is the cello? Nita wondered.

  She sat up. Where were her clothes from the night before? She found clean jeans and put them on over her long johns. It was only eight o’clock. What was going on down there so early on Sunday morning?

  Halfway down the stairs she stopped.

  “… not doing schoolwork … outside skating in the middle of the night … why the hell is her father away at a time like this?”

  Nita couldn’t move. They were talking about her dad. And what Bill said about Dad was true! But Bill sounded angry at her, too. An outer door slammed.

  Then she heard the flutelike tones of Mrs. S., who poked her head around the kitchen door and saw Nita on
the stairs. “There you are! Come and have some breakfast. You have a visitor.” She seemed the same as always and Nita’s knees unlocked.

  In the kitchen, she saw that Captain Pudge was standing in the middle of the room. He was as big as the refrigerator. Bill is gone, thank goodness, thought Nita. She made herself very small in the corner of the breakfast table and stared down into her orange juice glass. She knew she should say hello, but before she could get up her courage, Captain Pudge spoke. “Hi, there, Nita.”

  “You’re the person Dad goes fishing with,” she heard her own voice say, finally.

  “I wish he were here now,” said the Captain. “Then we might get in some ice fishing.”

  Suddenly Captain Pudge looked embarrassed and shifted from foot to foot. Maybe he hadn’t meant to say anything about ice, thought Nita.

  Mrs. S. put a plate of pancakes in front of her and headed for the stairs.

  “Well, Nita,” Captain Pudge said as he sat down across from her, “I have an idea to do something while your Dad’s away. I wonder if you’ll think it’s a good idea.”

  He was asking her if he had a good idea? Nita put a big bite of pancakes in her mouth.

  “About your Mom…” He stopped, embarrassed.

  Nita thought, I know how it feels when you’re trying to tell someone something and you just can’t get it out. But what can Captain Pudge do for Ma-jah?

  “Those flowers of hers, I’ve been watering them, and that got me thinking.”

  Nita was so surprised that she said, “What do you want with them?”

  “I want to make her a better window. Out at your house. So her orchids will grow better.” He shoved a picture across the kitchen table. “It will get lots of sun, and look, lights along the side for when the day is dark, or, like now, winter. And a tray of stones so it doesn’t matter if the water spray gets on the floor.”

  Underneath the picture it said DOUBLE GLASS. It showed a window that was twice as big as the little windows in the house by the lighthouse. “Well?” said the Captain.

  This was not the moment to be tongue-tied, a joke Dad used to make about her, only he spelled it tongue-thai-d.

  “It’s great!” said Nita, relieved that this conversation was not about herself at all; it was about Ma-jah. She beamed at the Captain. “Is that why there were tools in our kitchen?”

  The Captain smiled back and let out a deep breath. “I got the stuff together but I want to be sure you think she’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure. I’m sure she will.”

  “So, will you come out to the house with me?”

  “Well, okay.” Nita felt more doubtful. “But … do you know when Dad’s coming back?”

  Now the Captain looked worried again. “They put in to Boston, but now they’ve gone back out, and he went with them. You know how stubborn he is. He wants to get that system working right.”

  “That’s not why he went back out. It’s because Mom isn’t home. I don’t think he wants to be home without her.”

  There! It was out. Captain Pudge looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t say anything.

  For a minute neither of them spoke. Then Nita asked, “What is your real name, anyway?”

  He laughed. “Al Vanderpost, but I know what they call me!” His big body shook with laughter. “Now, let’s get going, if you’ve finished those flapjacks.”

  Nita laughed. “Can Anne come too?”

  “Sure.”

  Nita ran upstairs to find her. She met Mrs. S. at the top of the stairs. Mrs. S. smiled. “Oh, Nita,” she said, “I want to tell you not to worry if you heard Bill sounding grouchy. His bark is worse than his bite.”

  “His bark?”

  “He won’t bite you. He likes you but he’s worried about you.”

  Nita wasn’t sure this was true. “Can Anne come with me to my house?” she asked.

  “I’m coming,” called Anne from her room. Nita went in to put her shoes on. “I told them I went with you to the pond last night,” Anne said softly. “But Nita, I was scared when I saw the hole in the ice.”

  “You can go, Anne,” said Mrs. S., coming in the door. “Nita, Bill is worried for a good reason. That was not smart to be out on the ice last night. Think how we’d feel if anything happened to you.” She put Nita’s dry clothes on the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Nita. Then she put her head down and tied her shoes. When she looked up, Mrs. S. was gone.

  As Nita and Anne rode through the quiet morning streets of Maushope’s Landing with Captain Pudge Vanderpost, the car splashed through puddles of icy mud. The sun was out. Nita’s heart lifted as they drove along the beach and the lighthouse came into sight, and then it fell again at the thought of the empty house. Rise and fall, rise and fall, like the little waves breaking along the beach, thought Nita.

  Nita got the key and they went in. The house didn’t seem so empty with Captain Pudge inside. He was so big, he made the chairs and tables look little.

  “See now, these orchids,” he said. “They’re all crowded in over here, but they sure are pretty. Look at this one, like moths all over the branch.” He picked up the spray bottle and began to mist the greenery. “The new window will go right here, easy as pie. The frame’s the same size as the old one, but it bows out, see. You think your parents won’t mind? Maybe I’m too used to thinking of all the Coast Guard houses as my own.”

  “I think they’ll love it,” said Nita as she poured birdseed into a cup. “I’m going to feed the birds,” she said, and started out the door.

  The Captain peered out the window. “I see you’re using your spirit house for a bird feeder,” he said. “What does your Mom think of that?”

  “Spirit house?” asked Anne. This was her kind of subject.

  Nita put down the birdseed. “We’ve had that bird feeder for a long time.”

  “In Thailand, there’s always a little house like that next to your house so the good spirits will stay nearby and watch out for you.”

  “How do you know that?” Nita asked him.

  “I was in Thailand, same as your Dad, same Loran station. And … well, I don’t usually tell people this, but I had a Thai wife, too. Then I … lost her. She died in a car accident.” For a minute his big face drooped. Then he smiled at the girls. “It was a long time ago. But it’s one reason I like knowing your Mom.”

  Nita went out to feed the birds. This was too much to take in all at once. No one had ever said one word to her about spirit houses and Captain Pudge’s wife. Or could she possibly not have been listening?

  She examined the bird house. The birds didn’t actually go inside but got their seed on the large tray the house was nailed to. Suddenly, Anne was there, peering through the dark door of the spirit house. “I don’t see anything,” she said doubtfully.

  “You don’t see spirits,” said Nita.

  “Now you sound like Petrova.”

  The Captain came outside.

  “I have an idea, too,” said Nita. “To cheer up my mother. Do you think if I spoke Thai to her, that would help? I mean, I’ve almost forgotten, but I could try. And maybe then she’d tell me about the spirit house and things.” As she spoke she felt more and more doubtful, but the Captain gave her a big grin.

  “See, that’s a great idea. I was thinking when I watered those plants—those roots. What she needs are roots, and Thailand is where she has her roots. It would be great, Nita, it would be like water and light for her orchids, keeping her past alive, sort of. Tell you what. We’ll be a committee. Not a very big committee, with only two people on it, but a committee. The Roots Committee!”

  He looked so pleased that Nita couldn’t laugh. He held out his hand and Nita shook it. His hand was so big that her hand vanished for a minute. It was like shaking hands with a bear.

  “I want to be on the committee, too,” said Anne.

  “It’s a deal,” said the Captain, shaking hands with her as well.

  As Nita finished feeding the birds, she felt a wa
rmth inside that didn’t go away in the cold wind. The Roots Committee. But would it work? Would Ma-jah come home?

  Fourteen

  MONDAY MORNING came all too soon, with Bill ordering everyone around. “Petrova, take out the trash. Anne, don’t forget your piano music. Nita!”

  “Yes?”

  “After school, report to the base. You have a radio date with your Dad.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” she said, the way she sometimes did to Dad. Then she felt bad because Anne’s Dad wasn’t her Dad. Nowhere near as nice as her Dad. Suddenly she missed her father so much that all the air went out of her chest and she felt deflated, like a limp balloon.

  Bill stopped in the hall and looked at her with a little grin. “Well, don’t forget to go to the base.” Then in the kitchen, she heard him say to Mrs. S., “She’s perking up.”

  Nita took a double-deep breath. But later, in school, she felt definitely unperked. School, home, the Stillwaters, and Thailand. She’d like to put them each in their separate folder and think about them one at a time. But they wouldn’t stay separate. And then there was the play.

  Nita was still thinking about this when she walked over to the library with the others who had not made much progress on their reports. They took the shortcut on the snowy paths and came out behind the building, breathless and laughing.

  Nita sat down at one of the big wooden tables and idly turned the pages of a book on flowers she found there. She turned a few pages and suddenly she slid right into a lush jungle world of orchids. She had a strange feeling of actually being there.

  Then she closed her eyes. She saw snow, the icy path to the library, her friends laughing, their pink cheeks, Anne’s red hat.

  She opened her eyes. Orchids, vines, jungle green. The silent mouths of orchids. Her mother’s face seemed to be right there, in the book. Did Ma-jah get stuck in this world? Nita wondered.

  “Nita!” said Ms. Keene the librarian. “Is that book helping you? Do you need another?”