The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney

by Suzanne Harper

  “Of course not, why should anyone else lift a finger to keep this house in order? I’m surprised it hasn’t been condemned by the sanitation department by now—”

  “And has anyone else noticed how much we spend on cat food?” Grandma Bee interrupted. She spotted Mordred, who was sitting in the corner and staring fixedly at the baseboard. “When times are tough, the least among us must be sacrificed. Let him find his own dinner.”

  “We can’t abandon a poor, defenseless cat!” Dove cried.

  The rest of us glanced shiftily at one another. Mordred might be poor—he was a Delaney, after all— but as for being defenseless…

  Dove knelt down to pick up Mordred, crooning, “Poor baby, don’t listen to them—ow!” True to his nature, he hissed, swiped at her arm with his claws, then whipped his head back to his floorboard surveil-lance. In the instant that he had been distracted, a trapped mouse had made a bold but foolhardy decision. It had decided to race for the front door, and freedom.

  Shrieks, groans, and general cries of disgust echoed through the room as Mordred vividly demonstrated the law of the wild.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Grandma Bee said, vindicated. “He can hunt for food the way his ancestors did! Eating meals from a can is an insult to his noble lineage.”

  “That is so gross,” Linnet said.

  “How lucky that we have enough cleaning supplies to take care of the mess,” Wren said, with a cool look at Raven.

  My mother rubbed her temples and sighed. “I feel that we’re straying from the main topic. Perhaps we should pause for just a moment and eat some of this delicious dinner.”

  Wren looked gratified at the compliment. Raven had a wild look in her eye that meant that, now that battle had been joined, she wanted to fight on. She opened her mouth, but my mother gave her a quelling look, and she took a bite of mashed potatoes instead. Grandma Bee muttered, “Enjoy it while you can, girls. It sounds like we’re headed for bread and water.” And for a few moments peace and quiet reigned once more.

  It didn’t last, of course. Such moments never do in my family.

  I had been very quiet during the family conference. I couldn’t help thinking that arguments about cat food and candles paled in comparison to worrying about Luke and wondering about Jack.

  “Are you feeling all right, Sparrow?” Dove handed me the bowl of green beans, a concerned expression on her face. “You seem so . . . downcast.”

  “I’m fine,” I said as nonchalantly as possible. “I’m just a little tired lately. New school, lots of homework, you know.”

  Grandma Bee pursed her lips suspiciously, but she just muttered, “Hmmph!” and didn’t say another word.

  She didn’t have to. My mother had been gazing distractedly at a dark corner by the fireplace where Mrs. Witherspoon sat, rocking back and forth and muttering to herself. “Are you sure, dear?” she asked me. “You look a little pale. Mrs. Witherspoon thinks perhaps a dose of cod-liver oil—”

  My sisters joined me in a chorus of groans.

  “Sparrow’s always pale,” Linnet said. “As pale as potatoes! Year-round!”

  “It’s disgusting,” Lark said. “If you would just lie out in the backyard during the summer—”

  “I’d rather not have skin cancer when I’m forty!” I replied, stung. My fish-belly pale skin was a sore point with me, and the twins knew it.

  “How about getting a date before you’re forty?” Linnet asked, chortling as she exchanged a raucous high five with Lark.

  “My mind is on higher things,” I said, bringing a round of jeers from the rest of the table. I ignored them. “Please pass the gravy.”

  Lark grabbed the gravy boat and handed it across three people, slopping some as she did so. Wren sighed and gazed mournfully at the linen tablecloth (a wedding present for my parents, it was now frayed and dingy and haunted by the ghosts of old spills).

  “Oh, come on!” Raven cried. Her black eyes gleamed with evil delight as she purred, “Are you trying to tell us that there’s not one boy you’re interested in at that new school of yours?”

  Grandma Bee stood up. She did it slowly, with a commanding air and a faraway look in her eye that was meant to draw everyone’s eyes to her.

  It would have been quite impressive if she hadn’t pulled that stunt every month or so when she found that she couldn’t get a word in edgewise during a particularly lively family discussion. Clearly the magic was gone. No one stopped chattering, and she stood there, a lonely prophet, ignored by her own people—

  Until she uttered a mighty “harumph!” and slammed her hand down, rattling the mismatched water glasses.

  She turned her head to look around the now-silent table, her magnified eyes staring through each of us. “I have heard enough,” she announced grandly. “My spirits are telling me that mighty and mysterious forces are at work here, and we should not make light of them.”

  I felt a little shiver go down my spine.

  A quiet giggle to my right (Lark?) indicated that not all my sisters felt the same way.

  But then, they were not attuned to the supernatural the way I was. They were not visited by ghosts on a daily basis. They were not—

  “Falling in love,” Grandma Bee was saying.

  What was that? I snapped to attention.

  “The spirits are telling me that there is a person, waiting in the wings perhaps, not yet known to any of us perhaps, who will have tender feelings for our dear Sparrow,” she continued.

  A vision of dark blond hair and hazel eyes and a crooked smile flashed through my mind . . .

  “Really, Sparrow!” an acerbic voice said. “Try to keep your mind focused on important matters, if you please.”

  Professor Trimble shimmered into view, her mouth drawn tightly in disapproval. She hated hearing girlish chitchat on the subject of boys. She claimed that it distracted young ladies from more vital aspects of life, like Latin declensions and geometric proofs.

  “Sparrow? In love?” Raven asked in a shocked tone that was, frankly, quite insulting.

  The others took up the cry.

  “Who is it, Sparrow?” Dove asked.

  “What does he look like?” Lark asked.

  “Is he cuuuuute?” Linnet added, not even bothering to stifle her giggles.

  Professor Trimble rolled her eyes. “Oh, honestly.”

  Oriole murmured conspiratorially, “Is it that boy you’re doing the project with? What’s his name? Jack?”

  I made a face before I could stop myself. “Ugh, no.”

  “Methinks she doth protest too much,” Raven sang out merrily.

  I glared at her, my heart filled with murder.

  “Yes, yes, confess all!” Lark cried, laughing.

  “I have nothing to confess!” I exclaimed. “Or to confide! I’m just trying to eat my dinner in peace.”

  “Now, dear, you don’t have to tell your secrets if you don’t want to,” my mother interrupted hastily. “Although”—she turned a wistful eye in my direction—“if you’d like to confide in your mother, I hope you know that I’m always here, sweetheart.”

  My mother’s gaze swept around the table as she added sternly, “But the rest of you, leave poor Sparrow alone.”

  For the second time in one evening she managed to silence the room, and we ate our desserts without saying another word.

  Later, though, my mother came upstairs. She glanced around my bedroom before sitting in the rocker. “I haven’t seen your little nest for a while,” she said. “It’s very cozy.”

  I sat on my bed and pulled a pillow in front of my chest. “Thanks.”

  Her eyes flickered over my father’s postcards on the wall, and her eyebrows went up a fraction, but she didn’t comment.

  “I don’t mean to pry, Sparrow, but I feel that I would be remiss in my motherly duties if I didn’t, well”—she gave a wry shrug—“pry. At least a little.”

  I grinned. “Sounds like you’ve been talking to Mrs. Witherspoon. Mothe
rly duties?”

  “I know, I know.” My mother sighed. “But you know how persistent she can be. And I do like to know how my girls are doing. In general terms at least.”

  “In general,” I said cautiously,

  “I’m doing fine.” “I’m so glad to hear it!” Mother beamed at me. She lowered her gaze to the rocker’s cushion, where her fingers had found a loose bit of thread. As she tried to snap it off, she said, “And school is going well?”

  “Yes. I mean, as well as can be expected.” I paused, then added, “Gym is horrible.”

  “Isn’t it always?” She finally lifted her eyes from the coverlet. “As for falling in love?”

  “Oh, no, absolutely not,” I said quickly. “You know how Grandma Bee likes to exaggerate.”

  “Of course. You have been making friends, though?”

  “Oh, yes.” I didn’t want to seem like a total loser. “Just friends, though. Nothing more.”

  “Of course.” She stood up and, after one last, searching look, gave a satisfied nod. “I admit I’m somewhat relieved to hear that.” Her gaze flickered again past the postcards on my wall. As she drifted toward the door, she added, “But you know, Sparrow, if there’s anything you ever want to talk about, anything at all . . .”

  But now my attention was focused on the postcards as well. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “Why doesn’t he ever write ‘love’?”

  “I’m sorry?” She sat down again and folded her hands in her lap, leaning forward with a careful, listening expression on her face.

  I bit my lip. “On all the postcards he sends us . . . he always writes ‘more later.’ He never writes ‘love.’ I was just wondering—” My voice quivered, embarrassingly high. I stopped, cleared my throat, started again.

  “I mean, why is that, do you think?”

  “Ah. I don’t have to think. I know.” She looked past me and smiled to herself as if reviewing a bittersweet memory. “When we were dating, he would write me letters, even though we only lived a few miles away from each other.” She smiled again, more happily, now totally lost in the past. “Wonderful letters. But he would never sign them ‘Love, Patrick.’ He would always write ‘more later.’ Frankly, I wondered why, too. I thought perhaps he was trying to tell me that he didn’t love me, or he didn’t love me enough to say that he loved me, or he had doubts about any love he might have been feeling, or . . . I don’t remember all the theories I concocted, but there were quite a few, believe me. Finally I realized that I was doing nothing but upsetting myself and that the only sensible thing to do was just to ask him.”

  “And what did he say?” I asked in a hushed tone. My mother never talked much about my father.

  “He said he thought that love was the most over-used—and misused—word in the English language. That people said, ‘I love you,’ when they really meant ‘I like going to the movies with you.’ Or they said, ‘Remember, I’ll always love you,’ as they walked out the door to be with someone else. So he refused to sign his letters with ‘love.’ ” She shook her head fondly. “That’s your father. Very . . . scientific, I guess you’d say. Very logical and precise. He always wrote ‘more later’ because he considered that . . . well, he would say that it was a promise to the future. That there would always be more, later.”

  “Oh.”

  She patted my hand. “Your father may be in South America, or Madagascar, or Tibet, but he’s still connected to you. And your sisters.” She looked serenely and utterly certain of what she was saying. “And to me. So don’t worry, all right?”

  I couldn’t speak. I nodded.

  She stood up. “Good,” she said briskly. “Now, do you have a lot of homework?”

  “Well, I probably should start reading this history chapter,” I said. “I have a test on Friday.”

  “Good idea.” Her gaze flickered past the postcards again. “We should always prepare for the tests that we know about. After all, there are so many that surprise us.”

  Chapter 15

  “May I remind you that this is exactly what you wanted?” Professor Trimble said, with some asperity, just behind my right ear. “A best friend, someone to study with after school and share secrets with and— what is the current phrase? Oh, yes—to hang out with?”

  I was standing on the school’s front steps, waiting for Fiona. We had made plans to go to her house after school. Professor Trimble was standing to my right, grandly ignoring the students who were pouring out of the doors and milling about on the sidewalk, talking, flirting, yelling, and pushing one another.

  “I know, I know,” I said, trying not to move my lips.

  “But—”

  “Yes?” Professor Trimble sounded as if she were doing her best to sound patient and understanding. Her best, I reflected—and not for the first time—was not very good.

  “Fiona asks a lot of questions.”

  The professor nodded approvingly. “And then really listens to the answers. Very rare in this day and age.”

  “Or any time, really.” I smelled nutmeg, and Floyd popped into view on my left, dusting off his floury hands. “No wonder everyone likes her. She’s a real sweetheart.”

  This was true. Just today I had watched Fiona walk up to Seth Roberts, one of those shy, genius boys who rarely speak and who, when spoken to, always look both startled and irritated, as if they were just about to solve the mystery of the universe until you so cruelly interrupted them.

  “Hi!” she had said. “I’ve heard you’re really good with computers, and I’m having this problem with my laptop. Would you mind taking a look?“

  He had glanced at her warily but nodded agreeably enough. As he frowned at the screen and began pushing various keys, she chatted merrily about topics ranging from this week’s football game to a recent horror movie marathon on TV. Within two minutes she had persuaded him to say something back. Within ten minutes he was cautiously debating the relative fright factor of zombies versus vampires. By the time the bell rang, they sounded like old friends. He handed her laptop back and wandered down the hall in a daze, a little smile on his lips.

  Watching, I just shook my head. “I think your hobby is conversation,” I had said, not accusing at all. In fact I was beginning to admire Fiona’s warm and openhearted interest in others (as long as it wasn’t directed at me). “Endless, unlimited, infinite, never-ending conversation.”

  “I know! My mom says I even talk in my sleep!” She looked a little smug. “My dad says I have ‘an uncanny ability to establish dialogue with a wide range of personality types.’ He says it’s a gift.”

  “You must promise to use it only for good,” I had said, mock solemn, and she had laughed.

  “I mean, she asks a lot of questions,” I said again.

  “I would not worry if I were you.” Now Prajeet manifested, lounging on the stone steps. He smiled up at me. “It is not such a terrible thing to have your friends know who you really are.”

  “Mmm,” I murmured skeptically. I would have liked to say more, but I didn’t want everyone to see me talking to empty space. As it was, listening to three ghosts was proving to be quite distracting.

  “Sparrow!” Fiona was hurrying across the courtyard.

  “We shall leave you now,” Professor Trimble said.

  “Have a good time, honey.” Floyd winked.

  “Do not worry.” Prajeet raised a hand in benediction. “All will be well.”

  They vanished just as Fiona ran up, breathless. “I’m so so sorry I’m late! I had to talk to Mr. Renfrow about my civics paper, and then I ran into Rachel, who wanted to ask about the biology assignment and tell me about the fight she had with Paul, and then I couldn’t get my locker open, and anyway, you know how it goes, blah blah blah, here I am at last!” She grinned and brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Hey, listen, I’d better warn you about my mother—”

  Just at that moment a shiny silver Mercedes pulled up to the curb.

  “Oh. That’s her.” Fiona’s face darkened a
little—it wasn’t a look that worked for her; she looked like a peevish elf—and she said quickly, “Listen, be sure to fasten your seat belt. And whatever you do, don’t let her start asking questions!”

  A carbon copy of Fiona—at least a Fiona thirty years in the future—sat behind the wheel. She waved a perky Fiona wave, smiled a bright Fiona smile, and called out, “Hi, girls! Sorry I’m a little late, my meeting ran over and then I had to stop and pick up some milk and lines at the grocery store were horrendous and the traffic is just beyond belief, but here I am at last! Are you Sparrow? So nice to meet you!”

  Fiona rolled her eyes at me, whispered, “My mother is such a flake!” and trotted down the steps to the car.

  We climbed into the backseat. Fiona’s mother pulled out in front of a black SUV with a slapdash style that resulted in a series of angry honks. She waved her hand in carefree acknowledgment and called out, “Sorry! Nice job of braking!”

  “Brace yourself,” Fiona muttered. “My mother learned to drive the summer she worked at a carnival. On the bumper car ride.”

  Her mother just laughed as she merged onto the highway, inches in front of an eighteen-wheeler. “Don’t listen to a word she says. I’ve never had an accident. Not once in my whole, entire life.” She slipped in between two cars in order to change lanes. Fiona made a small strangled noise in her throat. I gripped the armrest and tried to smile.

  After a moment or two, however, I realized that Mrs. Jones was actually an excellent driver, and I started breathing again.

  “So, tell me all about your day, girls,” she called back to us. “Every tidbit and detail! I want to hear all!”

  And now Fiona, who could normally talk without pausing for hours at a time, stared out the window, as tight-lipped as a CIA operative.

  Her mother glanced at her in the rearview mirror and sighed in frustration. “Okay. Let’s see . . .” She paused to think. “What was the most startling thing you learned in school today?”

  “Nothing, really.” Fiona seemed to be fascinated by the passing scenery.

  An awkward silence filled the car. “I learned that the giant squid has the largest eyes in the animal world,” I volunteered finally. “They’re the size of volleyballs. I thought that was interesting.”