The Ostrich and Other Lost Things

by Beth Hautala

  The grass was wet with dew and soaked through my shoes quickly. Ethel waited as I limped toward her.

  “What am I going to do with you?” I asked. She blinked at me. The yard light cast our deep shadows across the grass. Tall and distorted. If Ethel had been a dog or a pony, I might have patted her neck or something. And even though she’d been part of a petting zoo back in Tulsa, I felt weird about petting her. Her legs were strong enough to kill an attacking lion with a single kick—that was her superpower, that and her running speed—and I didn’t really want to risk either one of those things. So, I kept my distance.

  I stuffed my hands in the pockets of Jacob’s hoodie. One of them was already full of Cap’n Crunch. Had I worn Jacob’s hoodie the last time Ethel had showed up? I must have forgotten.

  “Let’s go, you crazy bird,” I said, dropping a handful of food on the ground. She probably thought this was the best thing ever. No wonder she kept coming back. Free snacks and a friend to walk home with.

  Ethel ate and I hobbled on ahead of her, dropping pieces and leaving a trail for her to follow, all the way down the minimal maintenance road and back to the zoo. It was a very slow walk. Even with taking rests and hopping on one foot now and then, it was hard. And long.

  But I kept going until we reached the zoo’s front entrance. The gate was wide open, and the light that hung over the door of the office building cast weird shadows. Suddenly I was worried. What if whoever had let her out was here now, watching? With the last bit of food in my pocket, I coaxed Ethel back in and closed the gate behind her.

  I waited a minute or two; I couldn’t resist looking in the direction of Charlie and Vera’s trailer. I hoped they were both still asleep inside. More than that, I wished I could go back and change what I’d said the day before. I wished I could make Charlie understand that I never meant to hurt his feelings.

  For now, though, I needed to get home. I was really tired, and I still had a long walk. The cut on my foot pulled and burned under the gauze and Band-Aids. But I walked anyway. Slowly. Mostly on my toes. If only I could fly for real.

  * * *

  • • •

  When I finally got back to the house, I crawled back through my window, peeled off my wet shoes and socks, and changed into some dry pajamas. Then I closed my eyes, snuggled deep into my pillow, and slept.

  Until something woke me up.

  “Olivia. Olivia?”

  I opened my eyes and my breath caught. He looked different than he had the night before. He wasn’t angry or loud or upset. He was just himself. My brother, Jacob. Always full of interesting information and particular about the way he did stuff. But I knew that scary part of him was still in there. The part that had thrown a glass and banged his head against the wall.

  “Olivia! Olivia!”

  “What? I’m right here, you don’t have to yell.”

  “Happy birthday!” he said.

  “It’s not my birthday, Jacob.” It was nowhere near my birthday.

  “Happy birthday for pretend!” he said, and he handed me a small package wrapped perfectly. Every corner creased, every seam perfect. Jacob was good at wrapping gifts.

  “He made you something,” Mom said, peeking around my bedroom door. “He wanted to show you that he’s sorry about what happened last night.”

  “Really? Thanks, Jacob.”

  I took the package from my brother. But I was still a tiny bit nervous. Jacob had never given me a gift before. At least, not one all on his own. He’d given me Christmas presents Mom had bought for him to give to me. But this was different. Then again, he’d never hurt me before, either.

  I pulled back the paper, hurrying and tearing off one of the corners. But Jacob’s face twisted with frustration, and he grabbed the package out of my hand.

  “Be careful, Olivia! Be careful.” And then he slowly handed it back. I took it, cautiously. And I gently removed the rest of the paper, watching Jacob as I went. I didn’t want to do anything that might upset him or cause another meltdown.

  The wrapping revealed a shoe box, and inside was a drawing of an ostrich in green crayon. I looked at Mom and held up the picture so she could see. She nodded. I stared at the drawing, trying to understand what Jacob was saying. Did he know about Ethel? Did he think I liked ostriches? Did he remember that morning in front of the zoo gate? Did he know I was looking for his lost toy?

  I smoothed the drawing across my lap. Maybe he was telling me to keep looking. Maybe he was asking for help? Maybe he wanted me to find his missing ostrich.

  I wanted to tell Charlie.

  I didn’t know what to say. “Wow. Thanks, Jacob.”

  He was excited and kind of jumping around my room, not ruining anything or making a mess, just jumping. Like a little kid at a party.

  “Okay, Jacob,” Mom said finally. “Let’s go make breakfast. You want to help me?” Jacob ran out of the room, and Mom bent over and kissed my forehead. “How’s your foot? You slept later than usual.”

  “It’s kinda sore,” I said. Actually, it hurt like crazy. I shouldn’t have walked on it at all last night. I should have just let the stupid ostrich wander around our backyard, or find her own way back to the zoo.

  Mom looked at me, concerned. She looked sad, too.

  And all of a sudden, my head hurt. It felt like it was filled to the brim with things I couldn’t say and lies and neverdos—Ethel, sneaking out of the house at night, my search for Jacob’s ostrich, latent autism . . . so many secrets.

  “You want some Tylenol for your foot?” Mom asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “And for breakfast—you want toast or an egg, maybe?”

  “Toast would be good, thanks. Can I eat in here?”

  “You feel bad enough to stay in bed?”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, I guess,” she said. “Okay.” She leaned over and kissed my forehead again before leaving the room.

  I pulled the three-ring binder that held my Peter Pan script from my bedside table and turned to the page I was working on. I ran through the lines in my head and imagined each of the people in their places onstage. Performances were still three weeks away, but I wanted to be perfect. Jacob and I had rehearsal this afternoon. I’d have to tell Dorothy and Stephen I’d hurt my foot. I hoped they wouldn’t be upset. It would make things a little trickier, but I knew I could still do this.

  I was going over my lines at the part where I show Wendy how to fly when I heard Mom in the kitchen.

  “No.” She was calm but firm, and I knew she was saying it to Jacob. “No, no!” she said again. She was getting louder.

  My stomach tightened.

  “No, Jacob, stop,” Mom said. “Stop!”

  I could hear Jacob whining and kind of howling now, like an animal. He was upset. I pulled back the covers and put my feet on the floor.

  “No, Jacob! That’s enough,” Mom said, louder.

  I stood up and hobbled down the hall to the kitchen.

  “Jacob! Jacob, no!” Mom yelled, and I made my way into the kitchen just in time to see my brother’s flailing hands hit my mom right in the face. She cried out, and I felt the breath leave my body. Jacob howled, still flailing, but now he was flailing at the wall and the countertop. Food was flying from plates and the butter dish crashed to the floor. I didn’t know what to do. My hands were shaking and my stomach felt sick.

  Mom was trying to grab hold of my brother, but it was like trying to grab hold of something wild. Jacob was almost as big as Mom, and strong. It was hard for her to restrain Jacob and calm him down alone. And it was extra scary that Jacob could have another huge meltdown so soon.

  Things were changing. Jacob was changing.

  When Mom finally managed to contain my brother, she wrapped her arms around him, holding him still, pinning his arms to his sides, rocking back and forth in the middle of
the kitchen. Both of them crying.

  Mom pressed her cheek—red from where Jacob had hit her—against his back. They rocked and rocked and rocked. Jacob, sad and scared and lost, and my mom, trying to hold on to him.

  I had to find that ostrich.

  23

  Pieces

  DAD WAS UPSET. No, he was angry. Furious. Mom’s face bruised where Jacob had hit her. Right across her cheekbone. Dad talked to Jacob. Loudly. But it didn’t matter, really, because none of us could make it unhappen.

  Jacob needed more than Mom could give him. So, that night, Mom and Dad decided they would hire an aide to help with Jacob two days a week, when Dad was at work. Jacob did better one-on-one with a steady stream of activities—drawing and working on projects, reading, playing games, that kind of stuff—and it was getting harder for Mom on her own all day long. Plus, it would be good to have extra help in case Jacob got too upset for Mom to handle.

  * * *

  • • •

  Three days later, I walked in from helping our neighbor find his wallet to find Jacob sitting at the kitchen table, playing a board game with someone I didn’t know.

  “Oh, hi!” She looked up and smiled. “I’m Megan. I’m Dr. Kathy’s assistant.”

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Olivia.”

  Dr. Kathy and Mom were in the living room, but Mom looked up when she heard me come in. I could tell she had been crying. I slipped off my shoes and stood quietly in the doorway. She wiped her eyes and came over to me.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. It felt like someone had died. Someone, or something. Mom just shook her head and attempted a smile.

  “I’m just trying to figure out how to handle things, Olivia. And it’s hard.” She glanced at Jacob.

  “Harder than it was . . . before?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Is Jacob in trouble?”

  “In trouble?”

  “Because he hit you?”

  “Oh, no!”

  Mom reached out to me. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. I rested my head on her shoulder. She smelled like soap and perfume.

  “Jacob can’t help the way he acts all the time,” she said. Her voice was soft and muffled, heavy inside her own body and in my ear, which was pressed against her shoulder. “He didn’t mean to hurt me, honey. He’s just at a point where he can’t express everything that’s inside him, so sometimes it spills out in inappropriate ways. Imagine if you couldn’t make the people who were supposed to love you the most understand the things you needed. Or if you didn’t even know what you needed. That would be very hard, right?”

  I watched my brother and Megan in the other room. Dr. Kathy was watching them, too. She got up and joined Jacob at the kitchen table, talking and smiling and asking him questions about the game he was playing.

  I turned back to my mom. “So, how do we help Jacob?” I asked. “And how do we understand him if he can’t tell us what he needs?”

  Mom sighed. “Well, that’s what Dr. Kathy and I were talking about,” she said. “There are a lot of different options. So, we’re just going to start exploring them until we find one that works best for Jacob, and for our family.”

  “What kinds of options?” I asked.

  “Well, different kinds of therapy, some special tutoring, extra help here at home for Jacob—like your dad and I talked about.”

  “You mean an aide?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Dr. Kathy is going to help us find someone who will be a good fit for Jacob. Someone who can help out from time to time. And we might think about some possible changes in environment, too.”

  I suddenly felt kind of dizzy.

  An environment was a place where someone or something lived. When Phil said one of the animals at the zoo needed a change in environment, that usually meant they needed to be moved to a different pen for some reason or another. Sometimes, it was so we could clean the enclosure. Sometimes, it was so the animal could stretch its legs and move around in a bigger space.

  I pulled out of Mom’s arms and sat back so I could see her face. She looked tired, and sad. I was afraid to ask, but I had to know.

  “What kind of change in environment? Is Jacob going to have to live somewhere else?”

  “No!” Mom bit her lip and shook her head. “No,” she said again, quieter. “We’re going to do everything we can here at home before we consider anything more extreme. Dad and I have to talk more, and Dr. Kathy will help. We will explore everything, every tool that might be useful. Maybe even a therapy dog! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  But I couldn’t give Mom the answer she was looking for.

  She continued, “As long as Jacob isn’t intentionally violent—as long as he isn’t trying to hurt me or you or Dad, and if we can try some new things that will make it easier for him and easier for all of us to work together and understand each other, your brother won’t be going anywhere.”

  I looked over at Jacob, who was leaning over the board game in the kitchen. Did he know about all of this? Did he understand what was going on?

  “Are you going to tell Jacob about everything?”

  Mom nodded. “Of course. I don’t know how much he’ll understand, but Dad and I will definitely tell Jacob about everything we want to try.”

  “And what if he doesn’t want to try?”

  Mom didn’t say anything, and when she did, her voice was low. She was trying not to cry.

  “We’re just going to take things one day at a time.”

  My heart thrummed in my ears. I felt sick.

  Mom’s voice was calm. But I knew she was only making it calm for me. I wanted to stomp my foot or scream or something, because this wasn’t anything to be calm about. Not at all.

  “We need to think about what’s best for Jacob, and for our whole family. But please try not to worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

  I wanted to believe Mom, but it didn’t feel like everything would be okay. It felt like everything was awful and only getting worse.

  If my brother needed a change in environment, if he was sent away, then there was absolutely no going back. No matter what. Not for him, and not for me, either. My brother was still a part of this family, even when he frustrated me. He was a part of us as much as I was, and Mom and Dad. If he went somewhere else, were we even a family anymore? Or were we all just broken pieces?

  I leaned into Mom’s arms again so she couldn’t see my tears.

  24

  Okay

  THAT AFTERNOON I doubled my search for Jacob’s ostrich.

  I put big red X’s through the places Charlie and I had already looked on our map, and drew new places, too. It was now three sheets of paper taped together. I drew the street in front of our house. The park three blocks away. The post office five blocks past that. The corner market and gas station. I pulled my bike out of the shed because my foot was too tender to walk that far, and I pedaled to all the new places I’d drawn on the map.

  I rode around the perimeter of the park and then made smaller and smaller circles through the grass, stopping every now and then to look carefully around tree stumps and playground equipment, too.

  Nothing.

  I rode to the post office, but it wasn’t in their lost and found box, and when I talked to the clerk behind the counter, he hadn’t seen Jacob’s ostrich, either.

  “Can you just check in the back room for me?” I asked. “Really quick? Or can I? It’s super important.”

  “Miss, I’m very sorry, but I’m not authorized to allow you into the back room. Everything back there is property of the United States Postal Service, a branch of the US government.”

  “Even my brother’s ostrich? If it’s back there?”

  The mail clerk rubbed his chin. “Well, no.”

  “Then can you look and see if it’s back there? Just peek behind the boxes
and check the corners?” I was nervous he’d say no again, but I had to ask.

  “Peek behind the boxes and check the corners?” The clerk was looking at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. But this was more important than he realized.

  “Please?” I asked.

  The clerk rubbed his chin again. “Well, shoot. All right.” And he disappeared behind the door.

  I could hear a bunch of muffled rustling. I closed my eyes and imagined Jacob’s ostrich right where I wanted it to be. I imagined the clerk moving a few boxes here and there and checking the corners and then—

  “I’m sorry, miss.” I jumped and opened my eyes. “I didn’t find any toys back there—ostriches or anything else.” But he hadn’t been gone very long. Maybe he hadn’t looked hard enough.

  “You looked behind the boxes?”

  He nodded.

  “And in the corners?”

  The little metal bell over the door jingled as a new customer came in. The clerk smiled and looked relieved.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “But unless there’s anything else I can help you with, I have another customer.”

  I tried not to show my disappointment. “No. That’s all. Thank you for looking.”

  He nodded, and I limped back outside toward my bike.

  After the post office, I rode to the gas station. The lady behind the counter hadn’t seen Jacob’s ostrich, either. I asked if I could search out by the pumps, and back behind the building where the air hose was coiled up and waiting to fill flat tires. She looked at me a little strangely but gave me a nod. With the money I’d earned from Mrs. Mackenelli, I bought a package of Starburst to reassure the gas-station attendant that I was a pretty normal person—normal people like Starburst—and after I looked and couldn’t find anything, I got back on my bike and left.

  * * *

  • • •

  I pedaled around town a little bit, keeping my eyes open. Maybe a clue would show up unexpectedly. But an hour later, there was still nothing. Not one single clue. I’d looked everywhere I could think of. I’d checked off every place on the map Charlie and I had made, and more. There was nowhere else to look.