Fly Like a Bird

by Jana Zinser

  Rosie prodded her tangled hair with her thick fingers that looked more like miniature toes. Her stubby thumb looked like a deformed big toe and her nails turned up slightly at the ends.

  “My mother suddenly took a turn for the worse and died before the next Monday came. Can’t stand Mondays. Never could go back to work after that. Couldn’t see the need with her gone and all. Nothing I could do would bring her back. I couldn’t save my mother.”

  She waved her stubby hands at the dancing dogs and tiptoeing cats that filled the house. “But I saved all the strays. These sweet babies need me now. Don’t you, my honeys? And we get along just fine. Don’t need any charity from sweetie-sweet Chickadee girls.”

  Ivy stood up, trying to avoid the garbage and debris, and the animals. “Well, there’s some treats for the dogs and some socks for you. Hope you enjoy the stew and biscuits. Keep the Tupperware. We’ve got to go now.”

  She motioned for Maggie to stand up and they cautiously walked back toward the door. But Ivy’s snow boot hit the side of an empty cat food can on top of a pile of wet dog poop and her foot slipped out from under her. As she fell, she instinctively reached out for Maggie, who was standing on a rotten slimy rag. They both landed on Rosie’s decomposing trash-heap of a living room floor.

  Maggie held up a gloved hand covered with stinky, brown goo. Stuck to the gunk, hung a remnant of a chewed bone and some stuffing from the armrest of the couch. Maggie vigorously tried to shake it off, but the waste hung on.

  Ivy got up from the poop-covered floor and hurried for the door, dodging the mangy dogs and matted cats as she negotiated the piles of rubbish. Maggie followed, holding her soiled gloved-hand in front of her. Rosie remained in her chair, petting a black-and-white cat that had curled up in her lap. When they reached the door, Ivy turned and looked at Rosie. “Sorry, we couldn’t stay.”

  “So, go. Cats are better company anyway.”

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” Ivy said.

  “Yeah. Same here.” Rosie smiled, revealing missing teeth. “I bet you wish you had that bike of yours now. Never seen a girl ride so fast.” Rosie cackled as the door closed.

  Once outside, the girls gulped fresh winter air. They ran until they were far away from Rosie’s house and slowed to a stop when they reached an empty field.

  A giant snow owl flew over their heads, an unusual sight during the day. They watched it soar, its huge wingspan commanding until it blended in with the white sky and snow of the landscape.

  Ivy looked at Maggie. “We’d better earn our Chickadee badge for this one.”

  “Ivy, there’s poop on you,” Maggie said.

  “Oh my gosh, how sick.” Ivy turned in a circle. “Where?”

  “Right there.”

  Maggie pointed to the dark smear on Ivy’s cheek, but her own glove was covered in squished dog excrement.

  “Oh, my gosh,” she screamed. “This is the grossest thing that has ever happened to us.”

  Ivy wrinkled up her nose and turned around like a runway model. “Do I have any doggy doo-doo or kitty poo-poo on my coat?”

  “Both. Ivy, there’s poop all over you.”

  Ivy looked at her coat and laughed. She imitated George Kelsey, the town doctor, speaking with precise medical terms. “Bowel movement, Miss Norton. We are covered in animal bowel movement.”

  Maggie laughed, spraying spit. “My good doctor, do you mean a BM?”

  Ivy laughed and fell in the snowy field. Maggie joined her on the ground and they lay down on their backs, rubbing handfuls of snow on themselves to get the poop off. Ivy brushed the snow from her mittens and scrambled up. She reached out her hand to help Maggie up and imitated Rosie’s welcome. “Don’t just sit there like a bump on a log. Come on in.”

  Their laughter billowed in hazy puffs, floating on the winter air as they strolled arm in arm toward the gravel road which was covered with a new frosting of snow.

  “I can’t wait to tell Nick,” said Ivy.

  Maggie’s cheeks turned red from the cold wind. “Do you think your Grandma’s heard about our great poop adventure yet?”

  “If those stinking dogs and cats told the nosey birds, Grandma knows already.” Ivy threw a snowball at a telephone pole. “Man, sometimes it’s hard to be a do-gooder.”

  Chapter 14

  MUSHROOM HUNTING

  In spring, the light rain refreshed the land and a lush green spread over the gentle hills of Iowa. The trees leafed and the flowers bloomed, like a child’s crayons bringing brilliant colors to the drab landscape of winter.

  It was the time of year that Grandma Violet and Matilda Kelsey turned into a devoted pair of mushroom warriors for the few weeks of mushroom season. Ivy often joined them.

  Matilda Kelsey helped her husband, the doctor and county coroner, run the only medical clinic in town. Despite a twenty-six-year age difference, Grandma and Matilda Kelsey developed a great friendship that grew from their love of mushrooms.

  One May morning, as the wild plum trees flowered and the redbud trees bloomed purple, Ivy was hunting for morel mushrooms with Grandma and Matilda in Luther Matthew’s woods. Luther didn’t like mushrooms, so he let Grandma, Matilda, and Miss Shirley hunt in the woods behind his house whenever they wanted. Miss Shirley said she didn’t have the time or the energy for mushroom hunting anymore, so Grandma gave Miss Shirley huge bags of mushrooms that she froze to use in her famous gravy. In exchange, Miss Shirley gave her pies.

  Most people were scared to hunt for mushrooms in Luther’s woods after his father died of mushroom poisoning when Luther was still in high school. But that never stopped Grandma, Matilda, and Ivy because they could identify the edible morels from the poisonous fakes.

  The morning brought dampness and the woods bloomed with dogtooth violet, mayapples, and Dutchman’s breeches. The birds watched them and occasionally called to them from the trees. Ivy breathed in the smell of leaves and damp earth as they tramped through the trees behind Luther’s house, looking for mushrooms.

  “I smell mushrooms,” Ivy said, searching the ground. The pits and ridges of morels looked like Christmas trees made out of sponges or honeycombs. The brown, gray, yellow, or almost white mushrooms grew from less than an inch to almost a foot tall.

  “You’ve got to think like a mushroom,” said Grandma.

  Ivy stopped and leaned on a maple tree, pulling off the burrs stuck to her sweatpants. A flash of white metal caught her eye through the trees. “Looks like Conrad Thrasher’s car over there.”

  Matilda looked over at the parked big white whale of a car and shook her head. “Really? Who’s he trying to fool?”

  Grandma picked up a sturdy branch for a walking stick and snapped off the smaller twigs. “Why doesn’t he hunt his own woods? That old coot’s been trying to steal our mushroom territory for years. But Luther won’t let him step foot on his property.”

  Ivy pulled off the last bur and threw it into the weeds.

  Grandma rubbed the extra skin hanging under her chin. “No-good mushroom thief.”

  Matilda shook her head. A few strands of her jet-black hair fell loose from the two combs that swept her hair up on her head. “If we’re lucky, he’ll get a poisonous one.”

  Ivy knew that mushroom hunting could be a dangerous hobby for the careless or uninformed. Grandma had carefully explained how the false morels looked similar to morels and contained a toxic chemical called monomethyl hydrazine that caused diarrhea, vomiting, severe headaches, and sometimes even death.

  “It takes sharp eyes and years of experience to find mushrooms—” Grandma started.

  “And not get poisoned,” Matilda finished with a smile.

  Grandma leaned against her walking stick. “Is the good doctor still nervous about mushrooms?”

  “He won’t touch them,” Matilda said.

  Ivy picked her way carefully across a wet gully, choosing her path carefully. “Why doesn’t he like them?”

  Matilda cupped her hand to the side of her mout
h and whispered, “Afraid of getting poisoned.”

  Grandma leaned on her stick, breathing heavily. “He’s never forgotten Luther’s father’s death. It must have been horrible. But I figure, what the heck, all the more mushrooms for us.” She pointed to a cluster of dead maple trees at the top of a sunny, steep rise. “If I was a mushroom, that’s where I’d be. Got to outsmart the fungus. Ivy, you run on up there and see if I’m right. Matilda and I will wait right here.”

  Ivy’s muddy shoes made the short climb difficult. A lone hawk at the top of a dead maple tree watched her approach. When Ivy reached the crest of the hill she smiled and turned back toward Grandma and Matilda, raising her arms in victory. “Mushrooms!”

  The hawk screeched and swooped down. Ivy turned to watch his rapid descent.

  A shot rang out in the woods. Branches shattered nearby. Ivy covered her head and stumbled back as twigs rained down around her. The hawk dropped from the sky, dead.

  Ivy’s slipped on a protruding root and twisted her ankle. She tumbled backward. The underbrush crunched like a fleeing animal as she fell down the short incline. At the bottom, she sat up, leaves and mud clinging to her. A cold chill ran down her back. She felt evil in the air. She had felt it before at Thrasher’s pond.

  “You all right there, Ivy?” Grandma called.

  “Twisted my ankle,” Ivy said as she got up and limped down the hill to them.

  “Let’s get the doc to check you out,” said Grandma. “But don’t tell him what we were doing.”

  Matilda laughed. “Oh, he’ll know.”

  Dr. Kelsey, wearing his usual brightly-colored Hawaiian shirt and open-toe sandals, examined Ivy’s ankle and wrapped a bandage around it. “Just a bad sprain. It’ll be tender, but you’ll be fine in a few days. Mushroom hunting can be dangerous.”

  Ivy nodded, glancing at Grandma and Matilda, who laughed.

  When they came out of the examining room, Ivy froze. Conrad Thrasher was slumped in one of the orange vinyl chairs. Matilda straightened her shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tetanus shot. Tangled with some rusty barbed wire when I was in my fields,” Conrad said.

  Grandma thumped over to Conrad, reminding Ivy of Grandma’s determined attacks on her perpetual enemies, the pesky backyard squirrels. Violet stuck her face close to his, speaking just loud enough for Ivy and Matilda to hear. “I know exactly where you were today, and it wasn’t in your fields.”

  Conrad smiled, showing his tobacco-stained teeth. “What?” He flapped his arms. “Did your birds tell you that?”

  Grandma shook her finger at him, the flab of her arm swaying. “Let me tell you this. If you ever come near my granddaughter again, I’ll see to it that seed corn isn’t the only thing planted in your fields. That’s a promise from this old lady who knows all your secrets.”

  His face lost its color, but he stared back defiantly. “And I know yours.”

  The door opened, and Miss Shirley and her new baby entered the clinic. “Hello, good people. Saved any lives today, Dr. Kelsey?” Her voice filled the waiting room.

  Miss Shirley, unmarried and entering her forties, was a large woman, both tall and voluminous. The birth of her baby had surprised everyone in town. No one even knew she was pregnant. Miss Shirley’s son, Justin, was a beautiful baby with soft curly hair, light brown skin, and penetrating light gray eyes. She wouldn’t say who the baby’s father was, but most of the people on Mulberry Street thought it was Max Black, who was three years younger than Miss Shirley, and Max did nothing to deny it. Grandma took a liking to Justin from the beginning, buying him gifts and looking forward to the times when Miss Shirley, baby Justin, and Grandma would sit on the back porch for a while, after she had brought over the pies.

  “No, but I plan to save some lives before the day is out. I’ll be right with you, Miss Shirley,” said Dr. Kelsey, standing in the doorway behind Ivy, Grandma, and Matilda. “Conrad, you can come with me.”

  Conrad glanced at Grandma and then sauntered toward the doctor. “Aloha, Doc. Looks like Miss Shirley’s got a who’s-the-daddy baby. She needs to figure out what’s causing that, don’t you think, Doc?”

  Conrad’s deep laugh boomed throughout the clinic even after he shut the door. Ivy could tell by Miss Shirley’s scrunched-up eyes that she was contemplating storming the examining room and rearranging the mayor’s face. She’d seen that look before when Miss Shirley watched the villains in her soap opera story.

  Chapter 15

  THE SUPREME COURT SAID YOU COULD

  Once Ivy’s ankle felt good enough, she, Nick, and Maggie spent the afternoon riding their bikes around town. King, the great purple dog, trotted beside them as they circled the familiar streets of Coffey. They stopped by Judy’s Beauty Shop and made faces at Judy through the shop window. Judy laughed and pretended to chase them away. Judy was thirty-one and Ivy wondered why she had never remarried. Judy told her she would never rely on a man again.

  The Iowa sky remained blue and cloudless. The spring sun warmed their faces as they rode around the town square before parking their bikes and sitting outside the Coffey Shop. King curled up on the sidewalk next to them.

  After Bertha Tuttle, the official town snoop, whispered to everyone about the disgrace of Miss Shirley’s unexpected son, Miss Shirley lost her cleaning jobs. But she didn’t care.

  “A child is worth losing a job over. A hardworking woman like me can always find a job,” Miss Shirley told Ivy and Maggie. And she did. Miss Shirley started working as the new cook at the Coffey Shop only a few weeks after her second son was born, but now she could only watch her soap opera on her one day off a week. Her neighbors loved the baby and took turns watching the little boy while Miss Shirley worked.

  The corner restaurant filled up as soon as the word got out that Miss Shirley was cooking. People flocked to the restaurant for her special chili, chicken dumplings, mashed potatoes with skins and wild morel mushroom gravy, and most of all, her homemade pies, now available to everyone, not just her friends.

  Ivy loved to eat at the Coffey Shop, especially after Miss Shirley started working there. But Maggie, along with all the other black families, didn’t frequent the Coffey Shop because the bank was across the street and Conrad Thrasher was often there for lunch or coffee with the guys.

  Ivy, Nick, and Maggie watched people in the square going about their daily business. Ivy’s ankle throbbed, and her throat felt dry.

  “Let’s just go inside. It’s way after lunch, so, he won’t be there,” Ivy said.

  Maggie shook her head, her brown eyes wide. “I can’t go in there.”

  “Miss Shirley’s in there,” said Nick.

  “Yeah, but she works there. That’s a whole other thing.”

  Ivy frowned. “Okay, listen. I’ll look in the window. If it’s empty, we’ll go in, all right? Come on.”

  Maggie glanced around. “I don’t know. I guess. If you’re sure there’s nobody there.”

  Ivy tucked her hair behind her ears and tiptoed up to the window. She cupped her hands around her eyes as she peered inside. “It’s empty. Let’s go in. I’m thirsty and tired, and besides, Nick’s dad says the Supreme Court said you can. Right, Nick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Maggie said.

  Ivy opened the creaking screen door. She stepped into the restaurant and the smell of French fries filled the room. Miss Shirley looked out from the kitchen and wiggled her hands high in the air. “Glory be, let the sun shine in.”

  “Hi, Miss Shirley,” Ivy said.

  Nick followed Ivy, blocking Maggie. “How is the best cook in Coffey?”

  “Pretty darn fantastic,” Miss Shirley said.

  Kitty, the waitress, waved from the kitchen. “Hi, kids.”

  Maggie took a deep breath and followed Nick into the restaurant. Miss Shirley froze when she saw her, and her eyes darted to the restroom. The kids walked toward the red stools by the grill as the restroom door opened, and Con
rad Thrasher stepped out. He glared at them as they sat down.

  Conrad Thrasher pointed at Maggie’s stool. “That seat’s taken.”

  Maggie’s face went pale. She looked at the stool and slid over to the next one.

  “They’re all taken,” Conrad barked.

  Quiet tension filled the Coffey Shop. Miss Shirley was still frozen and Kitty peered fearfully from the kitchen. Ivy’s hands trembled at her side as she turned to face Conrad Thrasher. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, and her heart pounded. She could feel his hatred oozing from the holes in his cold heart. “We just want to sit down.”

  Conrad’s blue eyes shone cold beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Her kind don’t come in here.”

  Ivy swallowed, trying to get rid of the huge lump stuck in her throat. She glanced back at Maggie and Nick. “Well, the Supreme Court said she can.”

  Conrad pointed at the kids with his chin. “Don’t see no Supreme Court in Coffey. Hate uppity people like you. Your grandmother may have everyone else in town shut up, but I know what really happened and I know who you really are.”

  Miss Shirley dropped a pan, and it clattered to the floor, echoing in the empty restaurant. Conrad’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Ivy.

  Nick moved to stand next to Ivy as she took a deep breath.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Just what I said.”

  Ivy absently pulled her mother’s necklace back and forth along the chain. Conrad’s steel eyes followed her every movement.

  Ivy looked straight ahead. She wanted to run away from this hateful, frightening man, but she stayed because she could not move. A few empty seconds ticked by.

  “Miss Shirley, we’d like three Green Rivers, please,” Nick said politely.

  Miss Shirley squirted lime syrup in the carbonated water and set the glasses down on the counter. Conrad Thrasher glared at Miss Shirley.

  “You’ll all regret this.” He stomped across the restaurant’s wooden floor without paying for his three cups of coffee and piece of apple pie. “And you got no business wearing that necklace,” he mumbled, as the creaky screen door bounced shut behind him. King’s barks and growls turned into a yelp as Conrad kicked him as he passed.