Lifting my hand I gave Sitta the signal to land on my outstretched finger.
“I don’t know about you, but I need sleep,” I told him as his talons curled into place.
Sitta turned his head sideways, which is always partly cute and partly comical. His bright eyes glistened with what I was pretty sure was intelligence.
“Talk!” he said. Or something like that.
That seemed like good advice; everyone needs someone they can talk to. Even if that someone is a bird.
Eleven
“CORBIN! CORBIN!”
Mom’s voice. Calling my name as she tugged at my shoulder. It took everything in me to struggle my way back to consciousness. It felt as though powerful hands were trying to pull me back into the dark emptiness of sleep.
Even when I’d forced my eyes open, my brain felt clogged and unready. I knew I’d barely drifted off before having my rest interrupted.
“Wake up!” Mom’s voice was urgent but quiet, as though she was trying to whisper, but couldn’t quite manage the necessary control to carry it off.
“I can’t,” I groaned. My whole body felt dog-tired and I was sure I couldn’t drag myself out of bed much less spend hours listening to fragmented delusions.
“We’re in danger,” Mom said. “Quick, you have to get dressed. We need to get out of here.”
Not that again. No, no, no.
“We’re not in danger, Mom,” I said. “Please just let me sleep.”
“They could be here any minute,” she said, as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “We have no time to waste.”
I sensed rather than saw her move then, a jolt, a twitch, her head snapping toward whatever had caught her attention.
“The bird,” she said, standing suddenly. She moved toward Sitta as smooth as a cat and snatched the cover from his cage.
Fear shot adrenaline through my system, parting the slowly lifting fog in my brain and bringing me to my feet. I reached her side as she leaned forward, her face barely an inch from the thin bars.
“You know things, don’t you?” she hissed. “You know, but you won’t tell us.”
“He doesn’t know anything, Mom. He’s just a bird,” I said. Not that I really expected my words to get through.
“What I can’t tell is whose side you’re on,” she continued, peering through the bars of his cage.
“Our side,” I said firmly. “He’s on our side.”
Sitta’s head turned slowly toward us. I could see the streetlight’s soft glow reflected in his eyes as the lids slowly opened and closed. Poor guy. Now we were both losing sleep.
I scrambled into the clothes I’d dropped on the floor earlier, never taking my eyes from Mom as I dressed. She shuffled back and forth beside the cage, but made no move to open it.
“You said we had to get out of here,” I reminded her once I’d tugged on my shoes. “That we were in danger?”
“Yes, danger.” She nodded vigorously as her hands found each other and clasped tightly. She spun around; I wasn’t sure if she was checking for someone, or if it was just a burst of energy that had to be burned up.
She grabbed my arm, pressed two fingers to her lips and then to mine, and tugged me out of my room and toward the entry door.
“Shhh,” she said. She pressed her back against the wall, slid herself along, and motioned for me to do the same.
A memory flashed. A smaller version of myself, maybe six years old, on a similar late-night excursion. I remembered how my heart had pounded from the thrill of it. Tonight, I found it anything but fun.
“We’ll go up the stairs,” Mom said. “That will throw them off if they’re inside already.”
“What do you think they’re after?” I asked.
For the record, I knew there was no “they” and I also knew going up the stairs made no sense. We’d eventually have to come back down if we were going to leave the building, and being outside is always better than skulking around the hallways. The last thing we needed in a place we’d lived for such a short time was for someone to call the police. I didn’t even want to think about that.
What I hoped to do was get Mom talking. If that happened, there was a chance she’d distract herself from whatever had sprung up in her head and triggered her fear.
“Me, Corbin. They’re after me, of course. I’m the one who has the formula, the plan that’s going to change the way the free world treats its workers. There’s a grid, and no one else realized that it’s warped and twisted only I’ve found a way to straighten it out, but if they can get to me, they’ll do everything in their power to keep me from acting on what I know.”
“What if you record your plan and put it somewhere it will be protected?” I said. “Like on a USB drive in a safety deposit box at the bank.”
Mom laughed, a sneering, lip-curled denunciation of my suggestion.
“They count on people being naive and gullible, falling for exactly that kind of idea. Do you know how much power these people have? There’s nowhere my plan would be safe. Nowhere except right here.” She tapped the side of her head.
I clenched my jaw, fighting the angry tears that were stinging my eyes. She began to move again and I went with her, followed her out the apartment door and down the hallway, up two flights of stairs, up and down the fourth-floor halls, back down one flight, through the third-floor halls and on and on. Until she decided it was safe to exit the building.
As nervous as I’d been slinking through the building, the relief I felt when we stepped into the night air disappeared fast. It was colder than I’d expected, and I wished I’d pulled a sweatshirt on under my jacket.
Tired, cold, and hungry, I trudged behind her, shivering as we crept in and around buildings. Mom paused now and then, crouching and listening. Her face was pinched and fearful and, in spite of all the miseries I had to deal with, I couldn’t help pitying her. At least I knew the so-called danger wasn’t real. I pulled my jacket tighter and tried to ignore the emptiness gnawing in my belly.
I don’t know how long this went on. It was hours for sure, but whether it was two or five I couldn’t say. It felt endless. At some point I began to stumble, half disoriented from exhaustion. Mom’s terror was too powerful to let her sympathize with me. She decided I was trying to signal the enemy.
“It won’t be good for you if I find out you’re double-crossing me,” she warned ominously.
“I swear, I’m not,” I said blearily.
She was not persuaded, which actually worked in my favor because a short time later she decided we should split up and meet back at the apartment at dawn. The second I was out of her sight I beelined it home and fell into bed.
I was beyond tired, but it took a long time before I stopped shivering enough to fall back to sleep.
Twelve
I’M PRETTY GOOD AT forging my mom’s signature, so it wasn’t hard to hand in a note explaining the days I missed at school last week. Three in all. Wednesday, which was the day after Mom dragged me through the city for half the night, but also Thursday and Friday. Two nightmarish days I wish I could wipe from my memory.
Mom was in the worst state I’d ever witnessed. The ongoing terror from imagined threats to her safety had her wild-eyed and ghostly pale. She went from pacing frantically, to hunching, huddled in her room, whispering one moment, weeping the next, and sometimes crying out as though she’d been struck. The single good thing was that her fear was powerful enough to keep her from going out again.
I felt awful, watching her suffer that way. The torment she was under would have forced anyone else to shut down, but there was no escape in sleep for my mother.
I stayed as close to her as I could, and looked on helplessly. The few times I nodded off, it was for brief, fitful snatches, slumped wherever I happened to be sitting when exhaustion overcame me.
Finally, mercifully, Mom crashed a
round dawn on Saturday and we both slept the day away. Sunday was quiet and I could hardly wait to get out of the apartment and back to school on Monday. With my forged excuse claiming I’d been sick with an infected throat.
My homeroom teacher, Mr. Cameron, didn’t comment on the note, but when I was leaving at the end of the day he asked me how I was feeling.
“A lot better,” I said. I tried to meet his eyes, but couldn’t quite manage it.
That was because his voice sounded as if he was actually concerned. Without warning I realized I was in danger of crying. Stress and fatigue can do that to you, even if you’ve learned to be tough, which I definitely have.
“Well, let me know if there’s anything you need,” he said. “Anything at all. I mean it.”
So. He’d finally gotten around to looking at my file. Terrific.
“Sure. Thanks.”
I got out of there quick and spent a minute hauling in oxygen while I rummaged around in my locker for nothing.
As soon as I’d smoothed out I started home, although I had one stop to make first. That was the grocery store, the one with the dumpster where I’d been getting discarded produce for Sitta. I got caught the last time I’d gone there, but when I explained it was for my parakeet the guy had been nice about it.
“We had budgies when I was a kid,” he said, grinning at the memory. “They were quite the characters. I’d like to have a bird or two now, but my wife doesn’t like them.”
He asked a few questions about Sitta and then went inside and came back with a bag of dried stuff like beans, lentils, rice, and barley. There was a piece of tape over a spot that had been punctured.
“For sprouting,” he said.
“I tried that a couple of times,” I admitted. “I didn’t have much luck.”
He got me to describe my failed efforts and gave me some pointers of things I could do differently, including how to make sure air was able to circulate — something I hadn’t done in my previous attempts.
I thanked him. Then, on a whim, I said, “I’m a pretty good worker if you ever need help with odd jobs.”
“I can’t think of anything at the moment,” he said. “But check back with me in a day or two.”
That was my reason for stopping there on my way home from school today, but when I looked inside there was a woman behind the counter. I walked up and down the street a couple of times, snatching quick glances through the window as I passed by, but there was no sign of the guy. I decided I’d try again tomorrow.
I set my jaw and started to walk home. Even though I knew better than to ever count on anything, disappointment sat in my gut like a stone. There was almost nothing left to eat in the apartment. I’d spent the last three bucks I had on a half-price loaf of bread and a can of tuna yesterday and I had no idea where I was going to get more cash.
My babysitting job had gone down the drain last Thursday when Taylor came to my place to ask if I could watch Molly. At that particular moment, the only thing I could do was shake my head “no” and ease the door shut — before she could hear Mom’s barely coherent mutterings about big corporations and the miserable, sniveling traitors at her last job.
For a few minutes I’d stood, slumped silently against the door frame. Even without seeing her, I knew Taylor was still there in the hallway. I’d half expected she’d knock again and demand to know what was wrong with me. She hadn’t and eventually I heard her walking away. Safe to assume that was the end of that job and the bit of money I’d been earning from it. Twelve bucks a week. Food on the table.
I turned onto my street wondering about Mom’s state of mind today. She’d been calmer and close to quiet yesterday. That might have been exhaustion, or it could mean she was coming down.
I let myself hope. It wasn’t impossible that she’d smoothed out. Not happy, but steadier. She could even have realized that we were out of food and gone to the food bank. They won’t give me anything, but the few times Mom has gone there we’ve gotten a bunch of stuff — peanut butter, Cheez Whiz, bread, pasta, potatoes, carrots, cereal, milk, canned goods …
I felt my stomach clench and forced myself to stop thinking about food. I kicked at a stray stone on the sidewalk. The cold air stung my eyes.
My apartment building was cold and gray against the fading sky and the sight of it sent a sudden shiver through me. Dismal seemed to be the only constant in my life.
I trudged toward the doorway too preoccupied to notice Izelle standing there until it was too late. She saw me first and for a second I thought she might come charging at me like some kind of enraged bull, that’s how furious she looked. It took everything in me to keep walking toward her.
“Hey!” I said as I got closer. I lifted my hand in a casual, friendly wave, trying frantically to figure out what I’d done wrong. Not that I doubted she’d fill me in.
“Liar!” she said when I was a few feet away.
What? Liar?
What had I lied about? I tried to remember if I’d even talked to her today. She parked her hands on her hips, thrust her face toward me, and cleared up the mystery as I got closer.
“Last week you said I could come every Monday. You promised. And then you didn’t even come home after school.”
It sounded vaguely familiar. Not that I thought she was making it up, but so much had happened in the last few days.
“Oh, man! Look, I’m sorry. I had to go somewhere after school and I just forgot, but come on up and have a visit.”
Izelle gave me a thin smile. I returned something that was probably closer to a grimace, but she was too relieved to mind.
“It’s okay — sorry I yelled at you.”
Whatever else, it was a relief to get out of the cold. We made our way up the stairs and down the hall to my apartment. I heard Zinbendal’s door creak open just as I pulled mine shut behind us.
I breathed out slowly, relieved that there was no sign of Mom.
Thirteen
I NOTICED I DIDN’T like watching Sitta with Izelle.
Sure, I expected Sitta to be happy to see her. He’d been her bird for more than a year. And he wasn’t the problem in any case. It was her. There was an attitude of ownership in the way she talked to him and leaned her head in his direction and gave me completely unnecessary advice.
“He likes it when you do this,” she said, like she was offering up an amazing secret. Except, what she was showing me was how she stroked his feathers, and it was the exact same way I’ve done it since he got here, without her instructions. There aren’t a lot of different ways you can pat a bird.
She talked about his favorite foods too, and I hated the way it came across like a criticism. It was as if she knew I hadn’t been able to get him certain things, even though I acted like he was eating them on a daily basis. No matter what she mentioned, I made myself grin and say things like, “Oh, yeah, he goes crazy for that stuff,” as if I got it for him all the time.
The thought strayed through my mind that we’d soon be kicked out of here and I’d be switching to yet another school and these visits would be over with. Which should have brought a flood of relief, even in anticipation. It didn’t.
“Okay, well, I’d better get going,” Izelle said after a long half hour. She carried Sitta into my room, to his cage, and kissed his beak before inserting him inside and shutting the door. I decided to wait in the hall. When she came out she paused by the kitchen entrance.
“Doing some sprouting for our bird, huh?” she said.
Our bird?
I let that go, not wanting to slow down her departure. But she’d stepped into the kitchen and picked up the bag of dried things I was using to grow sprouts.
“Nice mix,” she said. “This will last him a long time, unless, of course, you’re planning to make soup.”
She laughed at her own joke, and I managed to get out a “heh-heh” too, but he
r words almost made my knees give out.
How had I missed that? I’d so completely related that bag of dried beans and peas and barley, and a dozen other things, as sprouting material for Sitta that its intended use had never once crossed my mind. It was soup mix, not bird food!
As soon as the door shut behind Izelle, I raced back to the kitchen and read the instructions on the bag. There wasn’t much to it and while I didn’t have any of the other ingredients they suggested, I couldn’t have cared less. I half filled a pot with water, rinsed a cupful of the mix, and put it on to cook. As soon as it started to boil, I turned it down and put the lid on, then started to look for things I could add to the water for flavor.
I came up with onion powder, chili flakes, oregano, and some celery seed. After measuring in a spoonful of each, I added salt and pepper. It was even starting to smell good. And better than that, the thought that I’d soon be filling my empty stomach with a warm bowl of soup somehow gave me courage. I double-checked that it was simmering on the lowest setting and wouldn’t need any attention for a while, then I slipped out of the apartment.
A moment later I stood at Taylor’s door. I knocked before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, but it wasn’t Taylor who opened the door. It was some guy.
“What?” he said.
I blinked.
“Who is it, DJ?” came Taylor’s voice from the background.
“Who knows?” the guy said over his shoulder. “Some weirdo who’s just standing here not saying anything.”
“I uh —” I began. That was when Taylor’s head poked itself between DJ and the door frame.
“Oh. Corbin,” she said, monotone.
I’d gone there to explain, or actually, to offer a lie about my odd behavior last week, hoping, of course, I might get the babysitting job back. This obviously wasn’t the right time for that — if a right time was even possible.
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