by B. B. Ullman
Our house was at the end of Myrtle Road at the gravel turnaround. If the road were paved, I suppose you would call it a cul-de-sac—but it wasn’t, so it was just a dead end. Our neighborhood was nicer than Honey Park, though not by much. It was as if all the homeowners were too tired or too busy working or too poor to make their houses cuter. I guess we had moved out here because it was way cheaper than in the city, where my dad was getting his degrees. He was super smart, only we didn’t have much money, so when my parents found this house on Myrtle, they went for it.
Brit finally got to my house, and we decided we should have sandwiches before heading out because, as usual, Brit hadn’t eaten. Now we were broiling in the living room, putting our gloves and boots back on.
Albert appeared in shiny snow pants with a Goodwill snowboard hat that had brown, furry ears hanging down—they were supposed to look like hound dog ears. Meemaw was standing behind him, straight-faced. “Guess your brother wants to come, too.”
“I said he could,” I confirmed.
“Jane, do you mind if Albert goes out with the girls?” Meemaw called to Ma.
Ma was in the kitchen washing the dishes. She didn’t have to work that week because she was a secretary for the school district. She was on winter break, just like me.
“Keep an eye on him, Mary,” Ma called back.
“Duh,” I said, zipping up my jacket.
Ma poked her head into the living room. “Would you quit with the duh business?”
“Sorry, I guess it’s a bad habit.”
“Duh,” she said.
Brit and I checked each other for a mutual smirk, and then the three of us ventured out into a good six inches of snow. We hiked around the house, through the backyard, and past the garage where my dad used to have his lab. It was still locked up tight, which was dumb because we needed the space. But Ma left it like that, and Meemaw let her call the shots.
It had quit snowing and the air was clean and quiet. I sniffed a lungful of cold air through my nose and my nostril hairs froze. Our boots made a satisfying scrunchy-squeak sound as we walked.
I liked the way the snow transformed things; you couldn’t see our tacky roof patch, and even the garbage cans looked picturesque, topped with dollops of snow, like big cupcakes. The borders that defined our yard and the walkway and the road were just . . . gone. The snow hugged it all and rolled on, clean and quiet.
Behind our garage was a trail that led to the power lines; for a while it paralleled Mr. Shinn’s electric fence. His house was up by the road, but back here the fence line followed the edge of his rocky goat field. We passed one of his sagging sheds, and even that looked pretty in the snow.
All us kids were scared of grouchy old Mr. Shinn and his fence. Rumor had it that the fence was so electrified it would kill a goat, but I think somebody made that up. I touched it once and it didn’t kill me.
“Albert, don’t touch the fence, it’s electric.” I knew that he knew this, but it made me feel better to say it in case he was getting spacey—which he was. “Albert?” He had slowed down to a shuffle back a ways, and he kept flipping the silly ears on his hat to look at the garage.
“Come on, Albie, you gotta keep up.”
He picked up his pace, but then he slowed down again, twisting the ears to stare into the woods. He sent me a memo that implied interest in the snowy scene, only something else leaked through. It was bad order again.
5
Crazy crow
There was an ominous pause after that memo, and then the silence was broken with the noise of flapping and cawing—a crazy crow was hurtling through the woods and aiming right at Albert. It swooped down on him as if to attack. I grabbed a stick and ran back to meet it. “Go away!” I yelled, whacking the trees around me in an effort to frighten the bird.
Brit was close behind me throwing snowballs at the crow. With her good aim, she managed to nail him right on the noggin. Albert was crouching low as the bird flapped above him. It jerked this way and that way in wild-eyed confusion. And then it took off. We watched it zigzag into the forest, a beautiful black bird flying into the frosty white landscape. It called out one more resounding cry that seemed almost . . . sad.
Brit’s eyes were huge. “What the hay?” she exclaimed.
We hurried out of the woods and onto the power-line road. Albert still hadn’t bothered to send me a memo that could explain the strange behavior of the crow, and he was usually able to tune into animals really well. Finally I just asked him, “Albert, what happened back there? Did you do something to bug that crow?”
No teasing of crows! Albert’s memo was indignant. He reminded me how much he liked crows by showing me a picture of a flying black bird with a pretty presentation of feathers around it.
“Then why was it acting so crazy?”
This time he sent me a solid and serious question mark, along with the words More information is needed.
“You can give me your opinion at least.”
He responded with a careful memo that was cushy and soft. No worries for Pearl. More information is needed.
“What’s going on?” Brit asked. She was used to me having these one-sided conversations.
“Grr. Albert won’t tell me what happened back there. He just says he needs more information and he doesn’t want me to worry.”
Brit shoved her gloved hands in her pockets. “That bird acted like it was threatened. Maybe it was just protecting its territory or something.”
“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced.
Brit started pulling the sled again. “Mary, he’ll tell you when he figures it out—right, Albert? Come on, let’s forget about it for now and have a good time.”
She was right. Christmas break was almost over, but we had snow, and we had a sled, and we had each other to goof around with. “Okay.” I grinned. “Onward!” I started marching with exaggerated enthusiasm.
It was really pretty out here. No one had messed up the snow yet. It was a smooth, white blanket in every direction. Above us, the pearly clouds hung low and the power lines crackled.
“We are the first people in this snowy land!” Brit yelled dramatically. She waved her red scarf and started running, so Albert and I chased her.
Brit and I got along really well, plus she didn’t mind Albert tagging along. She was used to him because she practically lived at our house. Her mom was okay when she was sober, but Mrs. Stickle definitely had her ups and downs—which made Brit’s home life unpredictable. Despite all that, Brit was a steady person. She’d always gotten super good grades, and most of all she was nice, and I liked nice people.
When Brit hit eighth grade, she shot up and got tall and skinny. Since her name was Brit Stickle, someone started calling her “Stick Brickle,” and it really caught on. I knew she hated it; it made her feel like a doofus . . . that and being hit hard with acne and zero hope of a dermatologist because her family didn’t have insurance. Plus she didn’t have much variety in the stuff she wore because she just didn’t have a lot of clothes. But jeans and hoodies were practically the uniform at our school, so I thought she fit in fine.
When Brit got bummed about this stuff, I’d remind her that it was just a phase, that she would end up gorgeous and brilliant, which was what she really was. I mean, she was smart. If she hadn’t been so shy, for sure she would have been captain of the Equationauts, which was our math team at Adeline Dillmore Middle School. We were the Dillmore Snapping Turtles. Could they have thought of a dumber mascot?
One day when she was feeling super-low, I told her, “Brit, you are going to look back on all this and just laugh. You are so much smarter and nicer and prettier than anyone in this whole school.”
“Right. Too bad they don’t know it.” Her face was sullen and kind of angry when she said this, but I knew Brit too well. Tears were not far away.
“Of course they don’t know it,” I said, keeping my face serious. “Those dumb Snapping Turtles couldn’t find their butts in a blizzard.”
&n
bsp; Brit recognized the phrase as something Meemaw might say. “Your Meemaw is having a bad influence on you.” She shook her head but managed a smile.
The snow was too deep for good sledding, so we kept on walking to Kelly Road. There, we found a hill where the snow had been compacted, and we pig-piled to take a test run. It was really fast and we had a spectacular wipeout at the bottom.
“Car!” Brit called.
We got off the road for the approaching vehicle.
“I hope it’s not anyone we know,” Brit said. “We look sorta dorky sledding like kids.”
“We sorta are kids,” I reminded her.
“No, we’re teenagers,” she said—and she didn’t sound thrilled.
Brit and I had turned thirteen back in August. We had celebrated a double birthday, just like we’d done for years. We liked it that way. It was way more festive.
“Whew, it’s just Lars,” Brit said, grinning at the slow-moving truck. Lars was Brit’s older brother. He looked a lot like her: pale and blonde and skinny, only he’d gotten through that awkward phase that Brit was in now. He’d ended up cute in a lean, intense sort of way.
Lars Stickle was in his sophomore year and he ran with a tough crowd. He worked at the Honest Lube changing people’s oil and had saved enough money to buy a crappy pickup truck. It was a patchwork of parts and primer and it left a cloud of blue smoke everywhere it went.
I gave Lars a halfhearted wave—then a snowball soared through the air and exploded on the driver’s side window. Brit had thrown it, and she was laughing and running for cover, so I ran, too, dragging Albert with me.
Lars and his coworker, Tim Guthrie, leapt out of the truck, throwing snowballs as they pursued us. They got us good, and I took a snowball in the ear. I appreciated that they didn’t target Albert.
“Okay, okay!” Brit cried. “Truce!”
Lars was laughing at the easy triumph, but he seemed happy to quit the game—he didn’t have gloves on. “That’ll teach you little rug-gnats,” he said with a smug grin. “Not a bad shot, Brit,” he added.
She beamed at the compliment.
“Me and Tim are going over to Pacco’s to practice,” he informed her. Lars was in a band with Tim, and Pacco Morrison, and Pacco’s brother Mike. The band was called Gut Me, so yeah, it was pretty bad . . . though Gut Me did a battle-of-the-bands at the high school and people hadn’t booed. That was something, anyway. Lars was actually good on the guitar when he wasn’t banging out ear-splitting chords.
Lars said, “Mom’s a little out of it today.”
Brit lost her smile. “She must be getting a start on New Year’s.”
“I was going ask you to sleep over,” I said quickly.
Lars gave me a tiny nod. “I can swing by with your toothbrush and stuff,” he offered. “You want your old bear? What’s her name—Douchey?”
“Quit calling her Douchey!” Brit smacked Lars on the arm. “She’s Darcy and she helps me sleep.”
The two boys returned to the truck, snickering. From the still-open window Lars gave Brit a wave that was just him pointing his finger at her—she nodded back. The pickup roared up the hill, leaving a cloud of smoke in the air and a dirty spot on the snow.
Albert wasn’t one to smile or get too excited, but he definitely had a sparkle in his eyes that afternoon. When we pig-piled for the last run, I knew he was happy. He sent me a nice memo; something about cold and acceleration, but also about the good company of Pearl and Equationaut. Ever since Brit joined the math team, she’d become “Equationaut” in Albert’s memos. This never failed to crack me up.
We crossed our footprints on the power-line road, hiking back the way we had come. The clouds had turned heavy and steely gray, and the twilight was painting the snow a cold blue. Feathery flakes started falling again, and the electric lines buzzed like crazy. After we turned onto the Shinn trail, it all went quiet, protected from the noisy buzz by a wall of trees. We marched single file next to Mr. Shinn’s electric fence, careful to keep our distance. I kept looking warily into the woods. “Do you think it’s still around—the crow I mean?”
“I doubt it.” Brit was behind me, dragging the sled. “I don’t think they’re active after the sun goes down.”
I checked on Albert. He was way behind Brit, moving slower and slower; he was staring at the woods again.
“Albert, what are you looking at?”
I scanned the trees and bushes. It was just a quiet forest, made quieter by the drifting snow. “The crow went to bed, Albie.” My breath came out in frosty clouds and lingered with the moment. I couldn’t see anything that looked particularly interesting—evergreens, a fallen tree, six old posts where I guess a shed used to be—all covered by a layer of snow that had managed to filter down through the branches. What was he looking at? You just never knew with Albert.
“Come on, Albie, it’s getting dark and my feet are freezing.”
I waited for Albert to slowly catch up and then I took his hand to get him moving, but he stopped and yanked it away. Once again he was staring as if hypnotized by the shadowy woods.
Brit had passed me on the trail, but now she backtracked to see what was holding us up. “What are you guys looking at?”
“I don’t know—Albert sees something.”
6
Another weird thing
I followed my brother’s gaze, straining my eyes in the fading light. The tree silhouettes looked purple now and the tops of the old posts held tall slices of snow. Nothing moved. But then I saw something. “Do you see a reddish mist over there?” I asked. “Look in the middle of those posts—it’s more visible if you don’t look right at it.”
“Oh, yeah, I see it.” Brit squinted. “Like somebody exhaled and their breath came out red.”
I shivered. There was something wrong with the mist. I felt like maybe we should get the heck out of there. At that moment Albert confirmed my uneasiness with a red memo that said Danger.
“Hey, you kids!” A gravelly voice came from behind us. When I turned around, a light blinded me; I couldn’t see past the glare. “You better watch it, messin’ around in these woods. It ain’t safe.”
It sounded like old Mr. Shinn. He kept pointing the flashlight right in my face. “Something might gitcha,” he said.
“We’re not on your property!” Brit snapped. “Mrs. Day owns all this—all the way to the power lines.” Wow, Brit’s natural shyness took a back seat when she had to stick up for somebody else.
Mr. Shinn pointed his flashlight at Brit and away from me, so my eyes had time to adjust. I could see him, now, on the other side of the fence in his ratty overcoat and a dirty, plaid hat with earflaps.
“I’m glad it ain’t my property,” he grumbled. “Just sayin’ you better steer clear ’lest you’re looking for trouble with a capital T.”
He was holding something in his other hand. Something shaped like a gun. Turning abruptly, the old man ambled away across his snowy field. I watched the wobbling beam of his flashlight until I couldn’t see it anymore.
“Well, that was weird,” I said.
“What a creeper!” Brit exclaimed.
Albert sent no comment.
I tried to focus again on the faint, red fog. “What is that stuff, Albert?”
Albert took my hand, which wasn’t like him; he rarely initiated touch of any kind. He only tolerated the sledding because he was on top and he liked going fast. But now he scooted ahead of me and gave me a tug. He even pushed Brit to get her moving. He sent me no explanation at all.
When we reached the backyard, I breathed a sigh of relief. In the swirling snowfall the house looked super cozy with cheerful, yellow windows and smoke puffing out of the chimney. Our house was beautiful.
“Hey Mary, check it out—a coyote.” Brit tipped her head at the dog-like animal slinking out of the woods behind us. It stopped when we stopped and crouched low in the snow.
For the second time, Albert tugged my hand to get me moving.
“It’s okay, Albert; they’re scared of people. He must be hungry to come so close. Good thing we don’t have a cat, right, Brit?” Brit and I had a joke about LOST CAT signs around Myrtle Road—that they ought to say, GOODBYE, DEAR FLUFFY because we always figured the coyotes got them.
The coyote was at the edge of the garage, watching us. This was odd; normally they were such careful and shy creatures and they’d skitter off before your eyes could even track them. But this one stayed. And it growled.
“Oh my God, could this day get any weirder?” Brit threw a snowball at the coyote. “Get lost!” she said harshly.
Instead of slinking off, the creature came nearer, making a guttural sound. My heart skipped with a thud. This wasn’t right. I stepped in front of Albert.
“Run to the porch,” I ordered.
At that moment, an immense shadow took shape from above. A pale bird swooped silently down and landed on the coyote, talons outstretched. It was a huge owl, and it clawed and pecked at the neck of the coyote, while the shocked coyote snarled and snapped its jaws, twisting to free itself. And then from nowhere, a crow descended to join the skirmish, tormenting both the owl and the coyote.
“Mary, move!” Brit shouted. I’d been mesmerized, watching the bizarre show. We all bumbled up the back porch steps and burst into Meemaw’s room. I watched through the window as the coyote freed itself and ran. The owl and crow continued to spar in a cyclone of combat until they separated and flew into the snowy night.
“What the hay?” Brit was looking at me with her eyebrows arched high in alarm.