The Ostrich and Other Lost Things

by Beth Hautala

“Peter Pan. Auditions June eighth. Children of all ages welcome.” I whispered the words out loud to myself until I had everything memorized. Then I pulled off one of the little perforated tabs at the bottom of the poster that had a phone number and the name of the theater company on it. I slipped it into my pocket—more precious than any coin I might have found.

  This was my chance.

  * * *

  • • •

  Before Jacob lost his ostrich, we used to put on shows for Mom and Dad all the time. Things didn’t always go as planned because Jacob liked to do his own thing, but it was still fun to pretend. And sometimes Jacob’s version made our performances even better. One summer I even convinced my best friend, Becka, to do a talent show with us. We hung sheets over the garage doorway so we could open and close the curtain between performances. It wasn’t professional, but it was exciting, and I loved performing.

  The only real play I’d ever been in was a second-grade end-of-year school performance of The Wizard of Oz. All the elementary classes had to participate. I got to play the part of a poppy in the scene where Dorothy and her friends are lulled to sleep in the field before they reach Oz. Mostly I just stood there and swayed a little, but I’d loved every minute. The feel of the stage under my feet and the buzz of the audience before the curtain lifted. The heat of the lights, the rush of excitement, the thunder of applause at the end. There was just something about performing, about being on a stage. Something magical. It was a kind of pretending everyone agreed to believe. You got to be someone else, and everyone let you become that person.

  After Jacob was diagnosed, it was hard to be anything other than his sister. Even a couple years ago, when Mom and Dad had agreed to an extracurricular, Jacob and I joined 4H together, and working on projects with him was fun. But lately, any extra activity at all, even if Jacob wasn’t involved in it, was just too much. Like soccer this past spring. I wasn’t very good, but it was fun to play, and I got to hang out with friends at practice after school. But there were a lot of practices, and games almost every Saturday; Jacob got nervous watching the ball fly around, and being around so many people all the time, and riding in the car more than usual. So, after the season ended, Mom and Dad said the family needed a break. No more “extra” things for a while.

  But a play was different. It didn’t last nearly as long as a soccer season, and Jacob wouldn’t have to come to rehearsals because Mom could just drop me off. Plus, performances were just for one week at the beginning of August, and Jacob would only have to sit in the audience once—maybe twice.

  This was different from soccer for another reason, too. I absolutely loved Peter Pan. I’d read the book over and over. I’d watched every version of every movie ever made. And I already knew exactly what part I wanted. Not that I’d definitely be cast as Wendy. But even if I wasn’t, a Lost Boy or a pirate would be better than nothing. Finally, there was something I could do just for me. I could be in a play on my own, and I wouldn’t have to worry about my brother.

  The Wizard of Oz had been great, but Peter Pan would be even better—if I could convince Mom and Dad to let me try out.

  * * *

  • • •

  I rubbed my fingers over the slip of paper in my pocket and thought about the play the whole ride home. What my costume would be like if I got the part of Wendy. A nightgown-dress kind of thing because Wendy and her brothers leave for Neverland at night when they are supposed to be sleeping. My hair was wrong—I didn’t usually think of Wendy as having red hair—but hopefully that wouldn’t matter. And maybe there would be actual flying! I wondered if Tinkerbell would be more of an imagined character instead of a person. A person-sized fairy didn’t seem right somehow.

  It was all so exciting.

  I took a deep breath before I spoke. Jacob hummed to himself in the backseat.

  “Mom? There’s a community theater company doing a production of Peter Pan in Tulsa.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Her voice sounded kind of stiff.

  “Yes,” I said. “Auditions are next Wednesday at three p.m. And performances are in August—just for one week. And I really, really, really want to audition.”

  Mom didn’t say anything. I could tell by the look on her face that she was thinking about things that were extra.

  “I know after soccer you said no extra things for a little while because it’s hard with Jacob and everything, but maybe you could just think about it? Please? Especially because it’s summer? We don’t have as much going on right now.”

  Mom stayed quiet. She didn’t even look at me. She just gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and sighed.

  “Just think about it?” I said softly. “It’s important.”

  “I don’t know, Olivia.”

  “Please? Just thi—”

  “All right. I’ll think about it,” she said. Her words said maybe, but the tone of her voice said no.

  I took another breath and stared out the window. On the inside, my heart felt hot. I tried not to do or say or even think anything more. It wouldn’t help, and I didn’t want to cry, because making a big deal about stuff just made everything worse. Jacob made a big deal about everything all the time, and it only made things harder for everyone.

  So, I didn’t bring up Peter Pan again for the rest of the ride, and when we got home, I pulled that little slip of paper from my pocket and looked at it, just for a second, before dropping it into the trash can.

  4

  Not Forgotten

  I SAT IN my room and tried to forget about the play—about being Wendy, and the rush of being onstage. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was Jacob flailing on the ground in front of the zoo gate the way he had that morning. Or sitting buckled up with every seat belt strapped around him.

  Jacob and I were so different.

  But Mom was right—he needed me. And I needed that play. I had to help Jacob get better; I had to find his toy ostrich. I’d looked every day at first, but I hadn’t been able to find it. Now it seemed crucial that I start looking again.

  I grabbed my flashlight from the drawer in my nightstand and went outside.

  * * *

  • • •

  There was a wooden board covering the opening of our porch’s crawl space to keep skunks and rabbits and stray cats from getting in. I pulled away the board, crouched down, and turned on my flashlight. The beam of brightness cut through the darkness, traced only with dusty light that fell between the floorboards over my head. It was like another world under there. Damp and musty, cluttered with old leaves and dirt, mostly. Plus some pinecones and spiderwebs. Were there other animals hiding? Mice? Rats? Would I find old bones? Or maybe a toy ostrich.

  I took a deep breath and wiggled through the crawl space on my stomach. It would be a strange place for Jacob to lose his ostrich, so I hadn’t thought to check here until now. But didn’t most lost things end up in strange places?

  A cobweb stuck to the side of my face and I swiped it away, trying not to panic. I swept the beam from the flashlight toward the back wall under the porch, but I didn’t see anything unusual.

  “Olivia! Olivia?” Mom’s voice carried through the floorboards overhead, muffled and far away inside the house. There was no point in answering. She wouldn’t hear me. I shone my flashlight all around, into every corner. There was something stuck in the dirt, partially buried on the far right side. I couldn’t make out what it was, so I crawled closer—elbows, knees, stomach to the ground.

  “Olivia?” Mom yelled louder. The front screen door opened, and she stepped out onto the porch, almost directly overhead.

  “Here! I’m, uh, I’m down here.”

  “Olivia?” She paused. “Are you under the porch?” Her voice sounded confused. And then amused. “What on earth are you doing under there?”

  “I’m looking for something,” I said.

  “Like the opportunity to do so
me laundry?”

  I rolled my eyes. She was right, though. My clothes were going to be filthy.

  I stretched my arm as far as it could reach, and was just able to grab the thing I couldn’t identify. A small plastic card. I rubbed the dirt off and held it up to my flashlight. A driver’s license. Mom’s driver’s license. One she’d lost several months ago.

  “I found your old driver’s license,” I called up to her.

  “My old what?”

  “Your driver’s license.” I swept my flashlight across the darkness of the crawl space one last time. There was nothing else under here. I crawled my way back toward the square patch of light. Mom’s feet appeared in the opening, and then her face as she crouched down and stared into the darkness. I clicked off my flashlight and stuffed it into my pocket as I emerged back into the sunlight. Everything was suddenly very bright.

  “Here.” I handed her the driver’s license and stood up, brushing dirt from my clothes and shaking dust out of my hair.

  “Wow.” Mom stared at the card in her hand and then at me.

  “How do you think that got under there?” I asked.

  She rubbed it between her fingers, thinking.

  “I dropped my purse one day,” she said. “A while ago. Everything fell out all over the porch. This must have fallen between the cracks in the floorboards. I replaced it and forgot all about the old one. I look so different!”

  She laughed and held out the card so I could see. She did look different.

  I smiled at her funny haircut and serious look in the picture. “It’s still you, though,” I said.

  “Hmm.” She smiled. “Lost or found—still the same.” She reached out and brushed a smudge of dirt from my cheek. “Now. You, young lady, should head directly to the shower. Lunch is waiting when you’re finished.”

  She pointed me in the direction of the bathroom, past Jacob, who was doing a puzzle at the kitchen table, but her eyes lingered on the lost ID in her hand. “Whatever possessed you to look under the porch?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Just good to look for missing things in unusual places every once in a while,” I said. “You never know what you’ll find.”

  She squinted at me. “Honey,” her voice changed. “You are excellent at finding missing things. I love that you’re always helping Mrs. Mackenelli find her glasses, and helping your dad and me, and Jacob, too.”

  “And Jacob, too,” Jacob repeated.

  I did my best to ignore him. Still, I couldn’t ignore the “but” I heard in Mom’s words. I didn’t understand where she was going with this.

  “I love finding lost things,” I said.

  “I know.” Mom paused. “But maybe you don’t have to try so hard? I just want to make sure you know that if you can’t find something, that’s okay, too.”

  “I know,” I said. I’d become very good at not finding Jacob’s ostrich.

  Mom looked at me again for a minute before she spoke. “Okay, good.” Another pause. “It’s just that your dad and I have noticed that you’ve been spending a lot of time alone lately. Maybe too much time. I know Becka is gone for the summer, but—”

  “Sometimes it’s easier to do things alone. And to look for things by myself. It’s not like there’s a ton of stuff to do around here, especially because doing anything extra is so hard.” I glanced up at her and thought about that slip of paper sitting in the trash. “But . . . if I could try out for that play, then I’d be doing stuff with lots of other kids.”

  Mom sighed. She looked tired. “Just promise me you won’t put so much pressure on yourself. Especially with looking for lost items. I bet most people don’t even realize half the things they’ve lost are even gone!”

  I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but for some reason, what she said made me want to cry. If Mom was right, and people lost things all the time without ever even realizing they were missing, could some things just disappear and stay forgotten forever?

  Even if that were true, I had to keep looking for Jacob’s ostrich. I knew he wouldn’t forget it, and I couldn’t, either. It was too important.

  I walked to the bathroom without another word to Mom, turned the shower to hot, and stepped right in.

  5

  Another Visit

  LAST YEAR, MY teacher, Mr. Larson, assigned Peter Pan for one of our book reports. We also read Romeo and Juliet, Tom Sawyer, The Jungle Book, and a few others. The cool part was that we read the books aloud in class. We all thought it was a dumb idea at first. Our teachers had pretty much quit reading aloud to us after third grade. But because it was part of a literature section we were working through, Mr. Larson insisted we read it aloud. He wanted us to practice oral presentation. So, each kid got a turn to read a chapter to the class.

  The book version of Peter Pan was way different from the movie, but I liked it better. I especially loved the idea of Neverland as a place for lost things and lost people. A place where you could belong and have fantastic adventures and forget you’d ever been lost before.

  Peter was lost and couldn’t get found. He had always been locked out when all he wanted was to belong. And nothing I’d read before had ever made me quite as sad as that. So, I left my window open from time to time. Just in case.

  * * *

  • • •

  Later that afternoon, Jacob started wailing in his bedroom. I heard Mom go in to ask him what was wrong, and I heard Jacob answer that he was frustrated. He couldn’t get his shirts hung up in the closet just right. He was hysterical about it.

  I couldn’t tune it out, so I pulled my copy of Peter Pan from my bookshelf and flipped through it. The pages were dog-eared in the places I liked best. I’d underlined stuff and even made notes in the margins. It would be nice to reread some of my favorite passages. And maybe if Mom saw me carrying the book, she’d realize I was extra serious about wanting to audition for the play.

  I held my copy of Peter Pan in one hand and a package of Starburst in the other. Starburst was my most favorite candy ever.

  “I’m going outside!” I shouted.

  “Where to?” Mom shouted back. She was cutting up vegetables for stir-fry. Not my favorite dinner.

  I walked into the kitchen. “Just down the road. I want to go look at the zoo again.”

  “Really?” Mom turned around from her spot at the counter.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I just want another look. By myself.”

  Mom nodded, but she looked confused, and I couldn’t really explain it. I didn’t know why I wanted to go back. I just needed to be by myself, out of the house, for a little while. I needed to get away from things that felt like they were the way they were—the way they had to be—because of my brother. And I wanted to see the animals on my own. Think my own thoughts without worrying who was upset or who might possibly have a meltdown if one little thing went wrong.

  “Don’t be long, though, okay? Dinner will be ready soon.”

  “Okay. I’ll be quick.” Then I went back to my room, slipped on my shoes, and ran out the door.

  The early evening sun had dipped low enough to cast shade over the road, and though it was still hot, it made the walk a little better than the one Jacob and I had taken earlier.

  I read a little bit as I walked, and as I got closer, I saw the NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC sign on the front gate of the zoo. I knew they’d eventually take it down and open the gate once everything was ready. But I wanted it to be open now. I needed to see that ostrich again. For myself.

  I pulled out my package of Starburst and unwrapped one of the square fruity candies. They were kind of soft from being in my pocket.

  Everything was quiet; the staff must have already left for the day. I couldn’t see any of the animals from where I stood behind the gate, but I knew they were in there, resting and settling into their new homes. Did they like the space? Did they kno
w they were somewhere different? Did they feel lost?

  The sign glared at me and I glared back.

  “Oh, come on.” I pulled on the gate to see what would happen. It was held to the fence with a lock and chain, but the opening was just wide enough for me to squeeze through the gap.

  Getting in wouldn’t be hard, but I’d be in so much trouble if I got caught. So, I wouldn’t touch anything, I wouldn’t bother anyone, I wouldn’t even stay more than a few minutes. No one would ever know I’d been there. I’d slip right back out and head home for dinner.

  I pushed myself through the gap, tearing a hole in my T-shirt along the way, but I was in. I just needed to see the ostrich, and then I would leave. I wanted to see it without Jacob melting down beside me, crying and wailing. I wanted to see it in the quiet. Safe and found.

  I felt bad, guilty almost, for the ostrich, and all the other animals. They were all locked in cages so people could come and stare at them. I knew what it felt like to be stared at. It was mean and unfair. And there was something scary about zoos, too. There were wild animals just an arm’s length away. If the cages weren’t sturdy enough, the animals could get out, and people might get hurt. I had to be careful.

  * * *

  • • •

  I tiptoed across the makeshift parking lot as best as I could, trying not to crunch loudly in the gravel.

  The exhibits were laid out in a large half circle. The donkey and ostrich enclosures were next to each other on the far left and were bigger than most. Those animals needed more space to move around.

  The monkeys were in a tall cylindrical cage just past the ostrich pen. It looked like there were eight or nine of them jumping around and hanging from various limbs of the tree inside. As soon as they saw me, they started making noise. Screeching and chattering. Not in an alarming way, but like they knew I was something out of the ordinary, something they should probably be talking about.