“And Darren Mandible was talking about the winds of change, and how they’re coming again, but this time they’re weird, because they’re going to blow offshore, not onshore, and there are a whole bunch of scientists in a laboratory with a cage and they have clipboards, like yours”—here he jutted his chin at Maria’s clipboard—“except that your clipboard is good and theirs aren’t, and they’re waiting for a Seafaring Parrot to be captured so they can put it in the cage and study it, and . . . and . . . and . . .”
“And you’re worried that Birdy is . . .”
“A Seafarer! Yes!”
At that, Birdy untucked her head from her feathers. She pushed off from Pablo’s chest, which made him clutch her tighter. She opened her beak and strained her head back, but made no sound. Maria put one hand on Birdy’s back, stroking her feathers, and the other on Pablo’s shoulder.
“And there were two tourists in the bakery and they were taking a bunch of photos and I heard them say ‘Tip Line’ and if Elmira Toledo finds Birdy, she’ll lock her up!”
Birdy’s talons dug into his arms. Now she started pecking against his T-shirt. Now she was pecking at his necklace. Clink Clink. He couldn’t cover it up because both hands were occupied, trying to keep her still. Maria was silent.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Pablo was being rude but he didn’t care. “They’ll lock her up in a cage. And Seafarers die if they’re locked up in cages. Seafarers have to fly.”
Maria’s hand was still on his shoulder. She was petting Birdy like a kitten, tiny little strokes down her back. But Birdy was still struggling, digging her talons into Pablo’s T-shirt.
“They have to fly,” Pablo said again.
“Birdy doesn’t fly, though.”
“But she wants to. I found her the other night on the cable outside our window. She was trying to get across to the grotesque. And the Committee was down in the street, watching her, like . . . like . . . they were cheering her on.”
Pablo pictured Birdy, silent and still in the dark night air. He kept seeing Elmira Toledo’s face on the television screen, and all the scientists standing like prison guards around the empty cage, and how they needed a real-life specimen. Maria tightened her arm around his shoulder, and he leaned into her. “Why don’t you want her to fly, Pablo?”
“I do want her to fly! I mean, I don’t want her to fly! I mean both!”
If Birdy would die without flying, then he wanted her to fly. But if it would leave him without her, without the one living being who had watched over him forever, then he didn’t want her to fly.
Fortune lost and fortune gained. The winds of change. His mind was all jumbled up. He started crying, right there in the Critter Clinic. Birdy was no longer struggling against him, trying to get away. Now she was quiet in his arms, and Maria was still stroking her feathers, and Maria’s arm was still around him.
“That’s not the only thing,” he said, swallowing a sob. He pushed his hand into his pocket and dragged out the feather. “There’s this, too.”
“Oh, Pablo. Did she give you this?”
Pablo nodded.
“She’s in distress, then,” Maria said. “She’s trying to tell you something, Pablo. Something important.”
Pablo closed his eyes. He was so, so tired all of a sudden. He knew what Birdy was trying to tell him, and what she was trying to tell him was that she needed to fly away. Or that she wanted to. But whether she wanted to or needed to, what was the difference?
If Birdy flew away, she would be gone.
TWENTY-NINE
IT WAS THE middle of the afternoon, but the OPEN sign on Pierre’s was turned to CLOSED. The door was shut and the curtain drawn. Pablo knocked and kept on knocking until Pierre finally came to the door and pushed the curtain aside with a finger.
“It’s Pablo,” he called to the others, and then he unlocked the door. “We’re strategizing,” he said to Pablo. “Take a look.”
Emmanuel was standing next to the PIERRE’S SPECIALS chalkboard, which was leaning up against the pastry case. Lula and Pierre were seated at the table. Emmanuel held a piece of blue chalk in his hands, and the chalkboard was filled with his spiky handwriting.
1. If Birdy is in fact a Seafaring Parrot, and if
2. Scientists and others are desperate to study a Seafaring Parrot, then
3. They will seize Birdy and keep her in an enclosed environment.
4. Seafaring Parrots cannot survive in enclosed environments.
This was what it came down to. With a potential firsthand sighting like this one, surely already called in to the Tip Line by those bickering tourists who had zipped away after taking all those photos, Elmira Toledo would hightail it to Isla. She would be the first on the scene—Elmira was always the first—but others would soon follow.
“Until we have a Seafarer in captivity . . .” said Elmira Toledo’s voice.
They all jumped. The television was off and the screen dark. There was no way that Elmira Toledo had gotten there already, was there? They looked around the room and then at one another, bewildered.
“Until we have a Seafarer in captivity,” said Elmira again.
But it wasn’t Elmira. It was Birdy. She stood on the table, a frantic look in her dark eyes.
It was out of control at this point, Pablo could tell. She couldn’t help herself anymore. She couldn’t keep everything in, the way she must have been doing all these years. She closed her beak and ducked her head into her feathers, as if she hadn’t meant to say anything. But more words emerged, and muffled though they were, with her head tucked under like that, everyone could still hear them. And everyone could also hear that they were Pablo’s words, spoken in his voice.
“They’ll lock her up in a cage. And Seafarers die if they’re locked up in cages. Seafarers have to fly.”
That’s me, Pablo thought, and I sound scared. And it was true. He was scared.
The others were looking at him now, worry and sadness on their faces. Pablo picked up Birdy, pressed his nose into Birdy’s feathers, and rocked her back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth, her dry, warm, dusty, mango-y smell filling his nose. Emmanuel put his hand on Pablo’s knee.
“We all feel the same way, Pablito,” he said.
Pierre clicked on the television. The real Elmira was on the screen, her purple glasses pushed back on her head.
“Viewers! This is Elmira Toledo, reporting live with breaking news on the elusive Seafaring Parrot! Not half an hour ago, two tourists called in from Isla to report a firsthand viewing, in a bakery, of a Seafarer in the flesh! I mean feathers! I mean a flesh bird with feathers in a bakery who was caught talking in a voice from the past!”
Elmira was so excited by the news that she couldn’t keep her words straight. Beyond that, her trench coat was on inside out. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were wild. Someone off-screen must have signaled her at that point, because she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“It is increasingly clear,” she intoned, “that armed with this information, including the photos taken by our sharp-eyed tipsters, we may be on the verge of tracking down the first confirmed Seafaring Parrot in existence.”
They all stared at the screen.
“What are we going to do?” said Pierre, looking to the others.
“We could put Toledo off the scent for a while,” said Lula. “Or try, anyway.”
“By hiding Birdy?”
“Maybe,” said Emmanuel. “And by calling in a bunch of fake tips from some other town.”
“Stay tuned,” Elmira was saying on the screen. “We will, of course, keep you apprised of any and all Seafarer developments.”
Pierre clicked off the television. Birdy shifted in Pablo’s arms, her gaze fixed on the closed door of Pierre’s Goodies.
“What now?” said Pierre. “This is exactly as Darren Mandible said. Fortune lost.”
“Don’t be a doomsayer,” said Lula. “That same fortune brought us our precocious baby, didn’t it? Fortun
e gained.”
Anger rose up inside Pablo, and he didn’t try to stop it.
“I wasn’t a precocious baby,” he said. “That’s just a stupid story. You all talk about my birthday, but no one even knows when my real birthday is. And none of you knows the truth of how I got here, or why.”
Pablo’s heart hammered inside his chest. These were things he had said only to Birdy, and only when they were down on the beach and no one could hear him. The others all looked at one another. Lula looked down at her mug of tea as if there were something she needed to figure out about it. Pierre folded his hands in his lap. No one said anything, and everyone looked sad. Emmanuel was the first to speak.
“Pablito,” he said, “I didn’t know you felt this way.”
“Nor did I,” said Pierre.
“Me either,” said Lula.
“When you were little, I made up stories about how you ended up on the ocean because the thought of a little baby all alone out there was too . . . too . . .” Emmanuel hesitated.
“Sad,” Lula said, finishing his sentence.
“We didn’t want it to be a sad story,” said Pierre.
“But it is sad,” said Pablo. “It’s happy because I’m here with all of you, but it’s also sad.”
He looked at all of them. Lula, Pierre, and Emmanuel here in the bakery with him. And Maria in the clinic. His family.
“Besides, I wasn’t alone,” he said. “Birdy was with me. I just wish I knew what happened. What really happened.”
“Me too,” Emmanuel said, “me too.”
Birdy’s dark eyes went from one to the other. She leaned forward from Pablo’s arms, her wing raised as if she were ready to swat anyone who messed with him. But no one was messing with him. They were all listening. Now that he had started, Pablo couldn’t stop.
“I’m not a pirate baby,” he said. “I’m not a precocious baby. I’m not from a forgotten world. I don’t know where I came from, and I don’t know what happened to whoever I belonged to.”
Emmanuel scooted his chair next to Pablo and put his arm around both him and Birdy.
“It was a time of upheaval when you came to us, Pablo,” he said. His voice was slow and serious in a way that Pablo had never heard before, as if he were trying to find the exact right words. “Remember I told you about my family, and how they felt they couldn’t stay where they were?”
Pablo nodded.
“What my parents went through is what many people went through,” said Emmanuel. “What people are still going through, even right now, in other parts of the world. When you were a baby, there were stories everywhere of people trying to escape in boats from Cuba, little boats that weren’t very safe, especially in a storm. And there was that huge storm, just a couple of days before you arrived. I figured you survived a wreck . . . that you were the only one to survive.”
“You and Birdy,” added Lula.
“It’s a hard story,” said Emmanuel. “I didn’t want to hurt you. And I was so happy to have you, mi Pablito. I wanted it to be a happy story for my little boy.”
“I’m not little anymore.”
“But you used to be. Not even double digits, until now. That’s what I’ve been trying to talk to you about. Maybe it’s time to stop making up stories.”
It’s past time, Pablo thought. Then Birdy did something. She dipped her head into the crook of Pablo’s neck, plucked up the Dios me bendiga pendant with her beak, and pulled it out from under Pablo’s T-shirt, so it was visible in the dim light of the bakery. She let the necklace drop back against Pablo’s chest, and she began to speak, in Spanish, in the voice of that same woman.
Adios, mi dulce niño. Todo va a estar bien. Tu mamá te quiere. Todo va a estar bien.
Pablo didn’t understand all the words—his Spanish wasn’t very good—so he looked over at Emmanuel, whose Spanish was perfect. Birdy said the words again, in a soft voice, as soft as Emmanuel’s when he translated them.
“Good-bye, my sweet boy. All will be well. Mama loves you. All will be well.”
Birdy tilted her head, studying Emmanuel as if she wanted to make sure that he had translated the words right. Then she ducked her head into her feathers, the same way she had done his whole life whenever Pablo asked her about his story.
THIRTY
OUTSIDE IN THE alleyway, the dog startled awake. He was lying against the back door of the bakery, the place where he had stolen the elephant ears. Where he had heard the man’s horrible voice, the voice that he thought he had gotten away from. Where the bird—the strange bird—had tried to make herself small, tried to keep her beak closed, tried to be silent.
But she was so full of noise. She couldn’t hide it.
The little dog could hear it now, the sounds inside the bird. They were coming at him right through the closed door.
Someone calling.
Someone screaming.
The roar of wind.
Crashing waves.
A baby’s stuttering cry.
The groan and screech of wood pulling apart from nails and screws.
A woman’s voice, low and hasty and full of sadness, saying human words that the dog could hear but didn’t understand. Adios, mi dulce niño. Todo va a estar bien. Tu mamá te quiere. Todo va a estar bien.
The dog didn’t want to hear any of this, but he couldn’t help it. How horrible it must be to be that bird, that bird so full of noise and helpless to stop it.
THIRTY-ONE
THEY SAT TOGETHER for a while longer, all of them, in Pierre’s bakery. Pablo held Birdy on his lap and then against his chest, as if she were a baby. He rocked her back and forth, the way he rocked himself to sleep in his hammock at night.
“I thought there would be more,” he said at last. “There must be so much more.”
Had he come from Cuba? Was his mother trying to leave there, with him, her baby? Had their boat foundered at sea in a storm? Had his mother been lost? Was Birdy with them both from the beginning, or had she found Pablo floating alone on the ocean and landed on the swimming pool to take care of him?
“Why did your family leave, Emmanuel?”
“Remember, Pablo? I told you they felt they couldn’t stay anymore.”
“Yes, but why, exactly?”
Emmanuel went quiet again, looking for the words. “They did not trust the new government,” he said. “They were worried and afraid.”
“My family too,” said Lula. “Not Cuba, but Haiti. They were afraid.”
“Mine too,” Pierre said. “They weren’t afraid of the government, but of starvation. This was a long time ago, in Ireland, during something called the potato famine, when many people died of hunger.”
Cuba. Haiti. Ireland. Fear and distrust and starvation. There is so much I don’t know about, Pablo thought. But at least Emmanuel and Lula and Pierre knew who their families were and where they had come from. Birdy had made herself small and silent, a ball of bird tucked up against his chest. Her head rested against his pendant.
“Birdy? Can you tell me more?” he whispered. “Can you tell me if it was my mother who gave me my necklace?”
She didn’t move. Was she even listening? But then there was a faint push of a claw against his belly. She was listening, but she was silent. It must be so hard to hold all those sounds inside herself. Never to be able to unhear them. If she flew fast enough and high enough, could she outrace them? Was that why Seafarers never stopped flying?
“Pobrecita Birdy,” he whispered. And then, to the others, “I’m going to Maria’s.”
THIRTY-TWO
“SHUT THE DOOR behind you, Pablo, will you?” Maria said. “And lock it, if you don’t mind.”
She must be as worried as everyone else about Birdy’s safety. Elmira Toledo was exactly the kind of person that Maria kept her distance from. Maria didn’t trust people who had “ulterior motives,” as she called them. Pablo had never been exactly sure what that meant, but what he did know was that he trusted Maria, so he did as she said. She wa
s sitting on the orange couch as if she had been waiting for them, the long blue-green feather that Birdy had plucked out and given to Pablo that morning in her hand. She handed it to him, and he slid it into his back pocket.
“What’s going on?” said Maria.
He got straight to the point.
“If Birdy really is a Seafarer, then why can’t she fly and why can’t she talk?”
“She can talk. You’ve heard her.”
“Not that kind of talk!” Pablo’s voice was suddenly loud, even to his own ears. “Not other people’s voices kind of talk! Not ‘you worthless mutt’ talk, or that voice that maybe is my mother and maybe isn’t but who knows for sure and who ever will know for sure because, because . . .”
“Because what?”
“Because Birdy won’t tell me!”
Pablo felt mean. And something else. He felt angry. As if she sensed his anger, Birdy jumped off his shoulder and landed with a small thud on the other side of Maria. “And that makes me mad!” he said. “All this time—all these years—she’s known my story? And she never told me?”
Pablo turned to Birdy. “All those times I told you how much I wanted to know my story, and you knew? You knew?”
He had never been angry at Birdy before, and it was a terrible feeling. Terrible to see her gaze back at him with that look of . . . of . . . “Don’t look so sad, Birdy!” He was yelling now, but he could not stop. So many years of wondering, and she had known all along? “If you can talk, you should have told me! You knew!”
His hands were shaking, and Maria took them and held them between her own.
“Pablo,” she said, “have you considered that it may not be her fault?”
“How could it not be her fault?” Oh, he sounded spiteful, but he couldn’t help it. His bird! She had known all this time—his whole life!—and she hadn’t told him!
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