A Different Blue (11 page)

“Blue?”

I didn't move.

“Are you ill?”

“No,” I grumbled, sitting up and shoving my hair from my face. I glowered up at him as I took the paper that he held out to me. He acted as if he wanted to speak, thought better of it, and retreated to his desk. I watched him go, wishing I dared tell him I wouldn't do the assignment. I couldn't do it. My sad little paragraph looked like chicken scratch on the wrinkled page. Chicken scratch. That's what I was. A chicken, pecking at nothing, squawking and ruffling my feathers to make myself appear strong, to keep people at a distance.

“Once upon a time there was a little blackbird, pushed from the nest, unwanted. Discarded. Then a Hawk found her and swooped her up and carried her away, giving her a home in his nest, teaching her to fly. But one day the Hawk didn't come home, and the little bird was alone again, unwanted. She wanted to fly away. But as she rose to the edge of the nest and looked out across the sky, she noticed how small her wings were, how weak. She was trapped. She could fly away, but where would she go?”

I added the new lines to my story and stopped, tapping my pencil against the page, like tiny seeds for the chicken to peck. Maybe that was the truth beneath the surface. I was scared. I was terrified that my story would end tragically. Like poor Anne Boleyn. She plotted and planned and became Queen, only to be discarded. There was that word again. The life she had built was taken from her in one fell swoop, and the man who should have loved her abandoned her to fate.

I had never considered myself a chicken. In my dreams I was the swan, the bird that became beautiful and admired. The bird that proved everyone wrong. I asked Jimmy once why he was named after a bird. Jimmy was used to my questions. He told me I had been abnormally resilient and mostly unaffected by the absence of my mother. I hadn't cried or complained, and I was very talkative, almost to the point of driving a man who had lived with little company and even less conversation a little crazy. He never lost his temper with me, although sometimes he just refused to answer, and I ended up prattling to myself.

But this particular time he was in the mood for storytelling. He explained how hawks are symbolic of protection and strength, and that because of that he had always been proud of his name. He told me many of the Native American tribes had variations of some of the same stories about animals, but his favorite was an Arapaho story about a girl who climbed into the sky.

Her name was Sapana, a beautiful girl who loved the birds of the forest. One day, Sapana was out collecting firewood when she had saw a hawk laying at the base of a tree. A large porcupine quill stuck out of his breast. The girl soothed the bird and pulled the quill out, freeing the bird to fly away. Then the girl saw a large porcupine sitting by the trunk of a tall cottonwood tree. “It was you, you wicked thing! You hurt that poor bird.” She wanted to catch the evil porcupine and take his quills so he wouldn't hurt another bird.

Sapana chased after him, but the porcupine was very quick and he climbed the tree. The girl climbed after him but could never seem to catch up to him. Higher and higher the porcupine climbed, and the tree just kept extending itself higher and higher into the sky. Suddenly, Sapana saw a flat, smooth surface over her head. It was shining, and as she reached out to touch it she realized it was the sky. Suddenly, she found herself standing in a circle of teepees. The tree had disapeared and the porcupine had transformed himself into an ugly old man. Sapana was afraid and tried to escape, but she didn't know how to get home. The porcupine man said, “I have been watching you. You are very beautiful and you work very hard. We work very hard in the the Sky world. You will be my wife.” Sapana did not want to be the wife of porcupine man, but she did not know what else to do. She was trapped.

Sapana missed the green and browns of the forest and longed to return to her family. Each day the old man brought her buffalo hides to scrape and stretch and sew into robes. When there were no hides to stretch, she would dig turnips. The porcupine man told her not to dig too deep, but one day the girl was daydreaming about her home in the forest and paid little attention to the depth she was digging. When she pulled the large turnip from the ground, she saw light shining up through the hole. When she looked into the hole, she could see patches of the green earth far below. Now she knew how to get home! She rolled the huge turnip back into the hole so the porcupine man would not see what she had discovered.

Each day Sapana would take the leftover sinews from the buffalo hides and tie them together. Eventually, she had a very long rope she could use to lower herself back to the earth. She tied the rope to a nearby tree and rolled the turnip from the ground. She lowered herself down through the clouds, and the patches of green grew closer and closer, but she was still high in the sky. Suddenly, Sapana felt a yanking on her rope and looked up to see the porcupine man peering down at her from the hole in the sky. “Climb back up or I will untie the rope from the tree and you will fall!” he roared. But Sapana would not climb back up. Suddenly, the rope loosened, and she was falling through the air. Then something flew up beneath her, and she settled onto the back of a large hawk. It was the hawk Sapana had helped in the forest the day she had chased the porcupine. He flew to the earth with her on his back. Sapana's family was so happy to see her. From then on, they left bits of buffalo meat for the hawk and other birds of prey as a symbol of their gratitude for Sapana's protection and return.

“You are like the hawk that saved Sapana!” I had squealed, delighted by the story. “I wish my name was Sapana! Then I would be Sapana Echohawk!”

Jimmy had smiled at me. But he seemed sad, and he muttered, “Sometimes I feel more like the porcupine man than the hawk.”

I didn't understand what he meant and laughed uproariously at his joke. “Icas is the porcupine man!” I said, pointing at the lazy dog with the shaggy coat. Icas raised his head and looked at me, as if he knew what we were talking about. He ruffed and turned away, as if offended by the comparison. Jimmy and I had both laughed then, and the conversation was forgotten.

“
Once upon a time there was a little blackbird who was pushed from the nest, unwanted. Discarded. Then a Hawk found her and swooped her up and carried her away, giving her a home in his nest, teaching her to fly. But one day the Hawk didn't come home, and the little bird was alone again, unwanted. She wanted to fly away. But as she rose to the edge of the nest and looked out across the sky, she noticed how small her wings were, how weak. She was trapped. She could fly away, but where would she go? She was afraid . . . because she knew she wasn't a hawk.”

“Jimmy?”

The trailer was dark around me, and I listened to see if I could hear the sounds that Jimmy was still sleeping. Rain was pushing down on us from what felt like all sides, the little trailer rocking slightly from the water and wind.

“Jimmy?” I said it louder.

“Hmmm?” His reply was immediate this time, like he too lay listening in the dark.

“Did my mother look like me?”

Jimmy didn't answer right away, and I wondered if he was going to entertain this conversation in the middle of the night.

“She had dark hair like you,” he responded quietly. “And she reminded me of someone I used to know.”

He said no more, and I waited in the silence, hoping for crumbs.

“Is that all?” I said finally, impatiently.

“She didn't really look like you,” he sighed. “She looked more like me.”

“Huh?” I hadn't anticipated that response at all.

“She was Native, like me,” he grunted. “Her eyes and hair were black, and her skin was much browner than yours.”

“Was she Pawnee?”

“I don't know which tribe your mother belonged to.”

“But I'm still Pawnee?” I persisted. “Because you're Pawnee?”

Jimmy grunted. I hadn't recognized his discomfort for what it was. I hadn't realized what he wasn't telling me.

Jimmy sighed. “Go to sleep, Blue.”

Chapter Eight

When I heard the first shot I thought of the fireworks that had cracked and sizzled throughout the neighborhood on New Years Eve. It startled me, but it didn't occur to me to be scared. The parking lot around my apartment complex had been lit up for the last two days with residents setting off bottle rockets and spinners and kids running around with sparklers, and I was almost used to the sound. I slammed my locker shut and headed toward my seventh hour class as another shot rang out.

And then kids were screaming and people were yelling that someone had a gun. I rounded the corner on the way to Mr. Wilson's room and saw Manny, his arm raised like the Statue of Liberty, a gun clutched torchlike in his hand. He was shooting at the ceiling and striding toward Wilson's door demanding to know where Brandon Bates was. Horror slammed into me like a runaway train. Brandon was in my seventh-hour, European History class in Mr. Wilson's room. I dropped my books and raced after Manny, screaming.

“Manny! Manny, stop!” I shrieked. Manny didn't even turn his head. He kept walking and shooting. Three shots and then four. He walked into Wilson's classroom and shut the door behind him. A shot rang out once more. I flew through the door seconds later, expecting the worst. Mr. Wilson stood in front of Manny, one hand stretched out toward him. Manny had the gun pointed at Wilson's forehead and was demanding to know where Brandon was. Kids were crying and huddling together underneath their desks. I saw no blood, no bodies, and no sign of Brandon Bates. My relief gave me courage. I was behind Manny, facing Wilson, and though Wilson's eyes never left Manny's face or the gun pointed at his forehead, his hand motioned me away. I moved toward Wilson, giving Manny a wide berth so I wouldn't spook him, speaking softly as I did.

“Manny. You don't want to hurt Wilson. You like him, remember? You said he's the best teacher you've ever had.” Manny's eyes swung wildly to me and then zeroed in on Wilson once more. He was breathing hard and sweating profusely, and his hands were shaking violently. I was afraid he would accidentally pull the trigger. At that distance he wouldn't miss Wilson.

“Stay away, Blue! He's protecting Brandon! Everybody get down!” Manny screeched, waving the gun in every direction. “I'll b-blow his head off, I promise,” he stuttered, the words so at odds with his young voice that I almost laughed. But it wasnt funny. None of it was funny.

I kept walking, and Wilson shook his head furiously, willing me to stay put. But I kept moving. My legs felt like they weighed four hundred pounds, and I couldn't feel my hands. I was completely numb with fear. But I wasn't afraid of Manny. I was terribly afraid for him.

“Manny. Give me the gun, sweetie. None of us are protecting Brandon.” I looked around at the cowering students, praying Brandon wasn't in the room. Several students lifted their heads, looking for Brandon too, but nobody spoke.

“He's not here, Manny,” Wilson offered, his voice as calm as if he were just giving another lecture. “I'm not protecting him. I'm protecting you, do you understand that? Your sister needs you, and if you shoot Brandon or anyone else, you will go to jail for a very long time.”

“But she's only fourteen! And he sent the pictures to everyone! She thought he liked her. He told her to send him some pictures and then he sent them to everyone! She tried to kill herself, and now I'm going to kill him!” Manny cried, bending down to look underneath the desks, certain we were hiding Brandon.

“And he's going to have to answer for that, Manny,” I soothed, now within an arm's length of him. Wilson reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward him. He tried to push me around his back but I shrugged out of his grasp, keeping myself between him and Manny. I knew Manny wouldn't shoot me. Manny had resumed pointing the gun toward Wilson, but I now stood in the way.