The Ostrich and Other Lost Things

by Beth Hautala

  “What? She got out?”

  I nodded. “Promise not to tell anyone?”

  “We have to tell someone. It’s important!”

  “No! Please. I don’t want to get in trouble. And I want to figure it out.”

  “What’s to figure out?”

  “How she got out of her enclosure.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Because,” I said.

  “Can’t you just ask Phil or Bridget or Maggie if the gate was left open?”

  “I already know it was left open.”

  “Did you leave it open?”

  “No, of course not! I don’t even have a key. See? That’s why I can’t ask too many questions! I’m in enough trouble already, and people might think I let her out. I haven’t been here very long; no one has any reason to trust me. The only reason I’m here at all is that I got caught doing something I shouldn’t.”

  “You mean sneaking into the zoo?”

  I felt my cheeks go red. “You know about that?”

  He shrugged. “My mom told me. I think it’s kind of awesome, actually.”

  “It’s not awesome! It was stupid.”

  “But now you’re here.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed.

  “Well, I’m glad.” He grinned. “And I promise not to tell anyone about Ethel. For now, anyway. Maybe I can even help you figure out how she’s escaping.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Good thing it’s just her and not one of the other animals. At least Ethel’s not dangerous or anything.”

  “She’s not?”

  “Not really. I mean, not unless she gets scared or something. She was part of a petting zoo exhibit in Tulsa.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good to know. So . . . you really want to help me figure this out?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “I can be like your inside guy, gathering intel.”

  I laughed.

  “And . . . you don’t mind?” Charlie was suddenly nervous. He fidgeted.

  “Mind? About what?”

  “That I’m blind?” His voice had gone small.

  “No. Of course I don’t mind,” I said.

  Charlie nodded, and a wide grin spread across his face. It felt like we were agreeing to something important. I smiled, too.

  13

  Enough of What We Need

  FRIDAY CAME AND went. It had been over a week since the auditions and still no call from Dorothy or Stephen.

  Then Saturday.

  I’d quit jumping every time the phone rang because Mom’s phone rang too often to keep that up. But inside I was still asking, still hoping they had just needed more time to make their decisions.

  We were eating breakfast Sunday morning when Mom’s phone rang again. This time when she answered, I could tell it was them. I knew because Mom looked at me across the kitchen table and smiled, and changed her telephone voice from Who is this? to So glad to hear from you!

  My stomach flip-flopped and I put down my toast. I tried to hear what they were saying on the other end of the line—tried to catch the name of the character I’d get to play, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. And then Mom’s voice changed again, and she got up from the table. But I saw her glance at Dad before walking into the next room. It was weird. I looked at Dad, but he was wearing a look that wouldn’t tell me anything. On purpose.

  Maybe they were calling to explain why I didn’t get a part? My stomach sank.

  “Olivia, I’m afraid you didn’t get the part of Wendy.” Or, “Olivia, you get to be in the play, but you’ll just be part of the general cast—you won’t have any lines.” Or, “Olivia, they thought you would make a good tree.”

  But my mom didn’t say any of those things when she got off the phone. Instead she called Dad into the next room, too, and that was really weird. I suddenly wanted to scream, or run around in circles. Instead I took a few deep breaths and clenched and unclenched my hands in my lap.

  The whole time Jacob sat beside me, lining up pieces of his cereal in neat rows across the table. He was making a pattern. A pyramid. Eighteen pieces of cereal on the bottom, then seventeen on top of that. Then sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. He was mumbling numbers as he went.

  “One. Thirteen. Seventy-eight. Two hundred eighty-six. Seven hundred fifteen. One thousand two hundred eighty-seven. One thousand seven hundred sixteen.” And then he went back down in the same order. When he got back down to “one,” he finished with “Pascal’s Triangle!” And then added another row. “One. Twelve. Sixty-six . . .”

  Jacob knew things I would probably never know. And I really didn’t care about knowing them. He did things I would probably never understand, too. Like making Pascal’s Triangle, whatever that was, out of cereal on the kitchen table. But he couldn’t make a phone call or have a normal conversation without help because he would say something weird or just set the phone down and leave the person on the other end wondering what happened. He couldn’t go out to a restaurant without getting upset, or take a shower without having someone turn the water on and off for him. And sometimes, it made me angry. Because it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that some people got to be normal and other people didn’t. It wasn’t fair that some families could just go places and do stuff without someone screaming and crying and melting down over the carpet pattern or the number of chairs at a table.

  Dad said fair had nothing to do with it.

  We’d just finished dinner one night; Mom and Dad had made me eat my vegetables. Every last one. But Jacob didn’t have to.

  “Fair isn’t about two people getting or having the same thing, Olivia. Fair is about two people getting enough of what they need, when they need it,” Dad said.

  I needed this play now. I just hoped Mom and Dad—and Dorothy and Stephen—would agree.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Olivia, can you come here a minute?” Dad’s voice startled me, and I jumped up so fast that some of Jacob’s pieces of cereal scattered onto the floor. We looked at each other for just a second, and then my brother started moaning. I crawled under the table, frantically searching for the pieces that had fallen.

  “It’s okay, Jacob! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your pattern!” I was gathering bits of cereal off the floor like they were pieces of gold, setting them back on the table and trying to calm Jacob down as fast as I could because I was dying to hear what Mom and Dad had to say. “Shhh. It’s okay, Jacob! I’ll help you fix it!” But my brother only wailed louder and louder. And then with one swift sweep of his arm, he pushed the rest of the cereal off the table and sent it flying all over the kitchen.

  “What is going on in here?” Mom came in looking frustrated, and Dad was right behind her.

  “Olivia ruined Pascal’s Triangle!” Jacob screamed, pointing at me.

  “It was an accident!” I stood up. “I bumped the table and some of his cereal fell on the floor! I didn’t mean to. Really.”

  Mom’s face went from frustrated to sad, and a lump rose in my throat. What if they’d been about to tell me I had gotten a part in the play, but now they had to rethink whether or not I could do it? What if now they had to tell me no because everything—even breakfast—was just too hard?

  Suddenly I couldn’t hold them back. Tears started running down my face.

  “Okay, okay, everyone. Let’s just take a deep breath.” Dad grabbed a broom and started sweeping up cereal. “Jacob, time for some more counting. Let’s count Pascal’s Triangle together.” Dad looked at Mom with question marks all over his face, and Mom looked at Dad the same way. I almost laughed in the middle of my tears because they clearly didn’t know what Pascal’s Triangle was, either. “You start, Jacob,” Dad suggested. And Jacob did.

  Sometimes people think being autistic is about being smart in a special way, or havin
g some kind of quirk that makes it hard to be with normal people because you’re so brilliant. And that can be true. But other times, it’s more like having cereal all over the kitchen floor, and melting down over Pascal’s Triangle, and needing to have a big cry.

  * * *

  • • •

  By the time Jacob calmed down, and Dad swept the kitchen, and I’d quit crying, some of the excitement about Dorothy and Stephen’s call had faded. But not completely.

  “So,” Mom began, “why don’t you come with us into the living room, Olivia.” Jacob stayed where he was at the kitchen table, counting and recounting his cereal.

  Mom, Dad, and I sat down on the couch.

  “Before all of . . . that,” Mom gestured toward the kitchen, “Dad and I were talking about the play and what part you got.”

  The butterflies in my stomach forgot all about cereal on the kitchen floor and jumped into action with a simultaneous loop the loop.

  “I got a part? I get to be in the play? What part did I get?!” I couldn’t stop smiling.

  Dad grinned, rubbing his hands together and building the suspense.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this kind of news?” he said.

  “I’m ready!”

  “Are you really, really ready?”

  “Dad. I’m ready! Just tell me!”

  Mom looked at Dad, and Dad looked at Mom, and they said it in unison:

  “Peter Pan!”

  What?

  I looked at Dad’s face first and then at Mom’s, and then back again while my stomach went from excited to kind of twisty. Peter Pan was a boy’s part. Dorothy and Stephen thought I’d be better at a boy’s part than at being Wendy? It didn’t make sense. I didn’t want to be Peter. I wanted to be Wendy. I wanted to help lost people, like Peter Pan and his Lost Boys, just like Mrs. Mackenelli had said. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Oh, honey!” Mom said. “Are you disappointed? I get it, Olivia. It’s not quite what you were expecting. Right?”

  I nodded. I couldn’t believe it.

  “What part were you hoping for?”

  “Wendy,” I said. But it came out sounding more like “Windy” because my voice got stuck on the lump in my throat. I needed a minute to get used to this.

  “Oh, sweetheart. It’s okay!” Mom wrapped her arms around me. I could see Dad looking at her above my head. They were doing that thing where adults talk with their eyes.

  “You don’t have to accept the role if you don’t want to,” Dad said. “You could simply thank them and let them know you were hoping for a different part and—”

  “Are you kidding me?” I looked at my parents. “This is amazing!”

  My heart was racing. Can you explode from feeling too many things at once?

  “Peter is the lead role!” I said, and Mom nodded. This was so unexpected. But so exciting.

  Dad did a little fist pump, and I laughed. My butterflies were back. “I want to do it. I really do. Please, please say I can do it?”

  Dad nodded.

  “Woohoo!” I shouted. Because they could have said no. They could have said it was going to be too difficult. With Jacob. But they were letting me do something extra.

  Dad held up his hands. “There’s one more thing.” He was still smiling, but he looked more serious, too.

  I stopped jumping around. “What?”

  Mom smiled. “Jacob got a part in the play as well.” Her voice was calm. Like she was saying something totally normal.

  “What?” Disbelief tasted like sour milk in my mouth.

  “Now hold up,” Dad said. “Let us explain.”

  “Explain? You don’t mean you’re actually going to let him?”

  “Olivia, this is coming from Dorothy and Stephen, so before you get too upset, please listen to what they had to say.”

  “Before I get upset? What about Jacob?” Had Mom and Dad already completely forgotten about Pascal’s Triangle? “Dorothy and Stephen don’t know how he—”

  “They do know,” Mom said. Her voice was firm. “They called yesterday to offer parts to both you and your brother. They really liked how you two interacted onstage.” She cleared her throat. “We had a very lengthy conversation about Jacob. His behavior. His potential to disrupt performances. The chance that he would have a meltdown onstage. All of it. And they listened to everything I had to say. I was very clear. And when we finished talking, Stephen told me that, given everything I’d just told him, he needed to speak with Dorothy before they made a final decision. I told them that your father and I needed to talk as well and decide what would be best for Jacob, if indeed they chose to offer him the part of a Lost Boy. Which they did. Before, on the phone.”

  “So, you’ve known since yesterday? You’ve known all this time and you didn’t say anything? And, and how can you even think this would be a good thing for Jacob? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” I was tripping over my words, sputtering as I tried to get them out. Tears were streaming down my face.

  “Olivia, don’t you think your brother deserves the chance to try?”

  “But they’ve never worked with Jacob! And you know him better than anyone! How can you think this is a good idea?” I was choking on my tears now. There was no way I could play the part of Peter or even a tree if my brother was in the play. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

  “I know it seems like a big risk, honey, but Stephen assured us that if things get to be too much for Jacob, at any point, they will let us know. And I’ll be sitting in on the first few rehearsals, so I’ll be able to see for myself, or help, if Jacob needs it. If we think it’s too much for him, we can pull him out of the show at any point.”

  “Of course it will be too much for him! He can’t even eat cereal without melting down!”

  “Okay. Olivia, I think you’re overreacting just a little. You’re right. We do know Jacob better than anyone. Even better than you. And we think this could be very good for him. We understand he could make a mistake or have a meltdown or be disruptive. But this is a great opportunity in a safe environment. And it would allow Jacob to explore his ability to communicate and interact with others in a really cool, new way.”

  “But what about me? What about my opportunity? I had to beg you to let me even try out for the play! And then when I get the biggest part in the whole thing, Jacob has to do it, too? Just so he can go and ruin everything!”

  Jacob was rocking back and forth in his chair at the kitchen table. Dad closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out real slow.

  “Look, I realize you didn’t plan on doing this with your brother,” he said. “But that doesn’t give you the right to refuse him the opportunity to try. His participation doesn’t change the fact that Dorothy and Stephen thought you were perfect for the biggest role in the whole production! And so do we!”

  That’s what he said, but it didn’t feel like anyone was thinking about anything besides my brother.

  “I can’t play Peter now!” I screamed the words. Jacob was slapping his hands against the top of the kitchen table, upset.

  “Jacob, honey, it’s okay,” Mom said.

  He could hear me. He could hear all of us. But I didn’t care.

  Dad sat up taller and straighter on the couch. He was tired of being patient. So was Mom. But I wasn’t finished.

  “I can’t have Jacob ruin the play in front of hundreds of people! I just can’t,” I said. “And what does he even think? Did you even ask Jacob if he wanted a part? Or are you just going to make him do it whether he wants to or not—just like you do with everything?”

  “We did talk to Jacob, Olivia.” Mom crossed her arms, and her voice was tight. “Like we do every time he has the opportunity to try something he has never done before. We talked yesterday after Stephen called the first time. And Jacob was very excited.”
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  “Oh! So, you talked to Jacob but not me? You told Jacob he got a part but you didn’t tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?” Angry tears were running down my face. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Olivia! That’s enough!” Dad was done. “We don’t need to ask your permission. And we didn’t keep anything from you. We waited to talk about this because we wanted to have something real to say. We needed to be able to make a decision about Jacob’s involvement before we told you anything. But you know what? You don’t have to play the part of Peter! You can just forget it, if this is how you feel. Stephen said he’d chosen understudies for all of the major roles. He can give the part to someone else. If that’s your choice.”

  This was the most unfair thing I’d ever heard of, and I didn’t know how to make them see it. See me. All they could see was Jacob.

  All they ever saw was Jacob.

  Mom stood up. “Olivia, we want to give both you and your brother the best opportunities we can,” she said. “Jacob is autistic, and that makes things more complicated. But he isn’t incapable or unable to do this. And it would be wrong for us to deny your brother the chance to do something he wants to do just because it makes you uncomfortable, or because there’s a chance that he might not get it perfect. None of us get everything perfect. There’s always a chance we’ll make a mistake, or make people around us uncomfortable.”

  My eyes had dropped to the floor. I couldn’t bring myself to look at my parents.

  “And you never know,” Mom said. “He could surprise you and be absolutely amazing. Just as I’m confident that you will be amazing as Peter.”

  Then she went into the kitchen to soothe Jacob, who was howling now. And I knew that whatever happened, nothing about Jacob being in the play would turn out absolutely amazing.

  But they weren’t going to change their minds. They’d decided. Nothing I had to say was going to make any difference.

  * * *

  • • •

  Dad and I sat in silence until Mom came back into the room.