Found Things (5 page)

Chapter 6

I looked in the direction
she was pointing and saw something white in the bushes. It seemed to wriggle. “It looks like a bunch of feathers,” I say.

“Go over and take a look,” she say, and started plowing her way back to shore.

I walked closer and saw that it was a bird, and it was caught in a bush. When he saw me coming, he raised his head and flapped at me, but only one wing opened all the way. The other stayed close to his body, as if it was broken. White feathers fluttered off his body and floated in the air. He was stuck in that bush.

“It's all right,” I say to the bird and cupped my hands around his body. He blinked and cooed, and let me untangle him. As soon as I held him firm in my hands, he settled down, as if he had been waiting for someone to come along and rescue him. I stroked his head, and he cooed again and blinked.

Meadow Lark had returned to the beach by the time I come out of the woods.

“It's a pigeon or a dove,” she say, and patted him. Then she put her face up to his. “Hey, pidge, you're cute.”

He tilted his head, as if trying to figure her out.

“Something's wrong with his wing,” I say, touching it gently. “It looks broken.”

“We can't leave him here—there are wild animals in these woods. They could eat him in a split second.”

“We have an old guinea-pig cage at home—we could put him in that.”

“So you'll take him home?”

“Well, I don't know . . . my mama doesn't like birds. She say they're dirty and sly.”

“She'll like this one. Who wouldn't like him?” Meadow Lark say, putting her face close to his again.

“My mama wouldn't. Why don't you take him?”

“My dad's allergic,” she say very quickly, keeping her eyes on the bird. “He needs a name. Mr. Tricks is a perfect name.”

“It's a funny name for a bird that doesn't do any tricks.”

“Well, I had another Mr. Tricks. He . . . flew out of his cage and never came back, and I always wished I could have used the name longer.”

“I guess that's one trick this bird can't do. Maybe he's faking his broken wing so he can go home with me,” I say.

Meadow Lark laughed. “There's a good trick.”

We left the river, taking turns carrying Mr. Tricks, and Meadow Lark walked with me as far as my house.

“So, this is where you live?” she say. “It's a good-looking house.”

By then it was close to suppertime. “You want to stay for supper?” I asked.

“That depends—what are you having?”

“I don't know, but my mama's a good cook. She works at Shaw's, and sometimes she brings home a whole cooked dinner.” I sniffed. “Maybe she brought home a roast chicken today.”

Meadow Lark glanced at the house, then at Mr. Tricks. “Roast chicken? Maybe not this time.”

We say good-bye and I went into the garage, holding Mr. Tricks in one hand while I rummaged around for the guinea-pig cage. I found it behind Mama's big suitcase, and dusted it off. Then I tore up some newspapers and put them in the bottom of the cage. I put Mr. Tricks in and latched the door closed. The last thing I needed was for him to get lost in our house, or worse, try to fly away with his broken wing.

I carried the cage to the porch. Mr. Tricks cooed the whole time. The front staircase was a few feet away on the other side of the screen door. I could see Mama, standing with her back to me in the kitchen at the end of the hallway. If I could just get in the house and up the stairs without her seeing me, we'd be safe for a while.

“
Shh
,” I told Mr. Tricks, and slowly opened the screen door.

“River?” Mama say.

I kept quiet as I carried the cage to the staircase.

“River, is that you?”

“Yes, Mama,” I say, halfway up the stairs.

“Where have you been?”

At the top of the stairs I say, “I'll be right down.”

I tiptoed with the cage to my room and shut the door.

“Don't coo anymore,” I say to Mr. Tricks, and set him on my bureau. Then I filled a lid with water and put it in his cage. That would have to do until I could bring up some bread and salad from supper.

I put my face up to the cage. “Hi, pidge,” I say. Mr. Tricks tilted his head at me and blinked. Meadow Lark was right—he was cute.

Dusk was falling outside, and Mr. Tricks glowed like the moon in fog. I covered his cage with a towel so he'd think it was night and go to sleep. “Good night for now,” I say.

He cooed at me in reply.

Then I washed up really well to get the river smell off me, and went downstairs, where I knew Mama would ask me all about where I'd been and what I'd been up to.

Chapter 7

It was raining again the
next day when Meadow Lark showed up on our porch, her nose pressed flat against the screen door. Mama had just put Saturday-night supper on the table, and the smell of maple baked beans drifted out the open door.

“What are you doing here?” I asked quickly—because all that good smell was leaking through the screen.

“Can I come in?”

Mama called from the kitchen, “Who's at the door, River? It's suppertime.”

Mama had strict rules about when you should visit another person's house, when you should call them on the phone—not before breakfast or after nine o'clock at night—and how to write a thank-you note.

“A girl from school,” I called back. Mama didn't have to know everything about Meadow Lark that very second.

“What does she want? Is she fund-raising? I don't have much to give for fund-raising right now.”

“No, she's not selling anything.” I turned back to Meadow Lark. “Are you?”

“No,” she say, and I heard Mama open the refrigerator door.

“Does your friend want to stay for supper?” Mama asked. “Bring her in before the food gets cold.”

Through the blurry screen, Meadow Lark's good eye widened. “Can I? It smells so good.”

I opened the door for her. “So, why are you here?” I whispered. I wanted her reason to be a good one, because seeing her made me happy. She had to see me at school, she saw me at the river by accident, but she appeared to come to my house on purpose.

“Well, because . . .” She looked behind her at the porch as if something out there waited for her. “Since you're my only friend here, I have to ask you—can I stay here?”

“Mama just invited you.”

“No, I mean
stay
. . . like a sleepover, but for more than one night. My dad has to go out in the field for a while.”

“What is he, a farmer?”

“He's a . . . geologist. I thought I told you that before,” she say, and looked around. “You have a nice house.”

“Your daddy would let you stay here?”

“Uh-huh,” she say, and nodded, making her hair bounce all around her. “I have to ask him, but I already know he'll let me because I've told him all about you. He won't go out in the field unless he knows I'm being taken care of by a good family. But if he doesn't go, he'll lose his job. And then we'll have to move again. So, can I?”

“Would you really move away?” I had just met her, and now that we were friends, I didn't want her to leave.

She nodded.

Mama would have so many reasons for why Meadow Lark would not be able to stay with us. It would change our routine, a person should wait to be invited, and Mama wouldn't want to be responsible for another person in the house. And when Theron come back, he might not like someone else here. Those would be Mama's minus reasons, but none of them were going to stop me from asking if Meadow Lark could stay.

“Wait here,” I told Meadow Lark. “I'll ask.”

I never had anyone stay overnight before. The time my cousins from Utica come for a long weekend, when I had to give them my bedroom and sleep on the rollaway in the living room, didn't count. They all smelled like their yellow Lab, Buster, and when they talked, they pronounced
R
s like they were squeezing the air out of them. Even Daddy sighed with relief when they packed up their car and left for home, with Buster hanging his head out the window.

But having Meadow Lark stay over would be a real sleepover. And Mama might not need much persuading today. Daddy was working all the way to Orlando and wouldn't be back for four days, and Mama liked having people around when he was gone. That would be a plus reason.

“First that bird and now a girl in your class” was her answer. “What will it be next?”

“No one, I promise.”

“Who is this Meadow Lark? What do you know about her?”

I picked up a dish towel. “Well, she's from Arizona, and I'm her best friend.”

“I'm glad you are,” Mama say. I knew she worried that I didn't have any friends these days.

I wound the dish towel around my hand. “Please? She doesn't have any other place to go.”

“What would she do if she can't stay here?”

“Her daddy won't be able to go out in the field, and he'll lose his job, and then they'll have to leave their house.”

I knew that, just like there was a rule in Mama's book that say you don't call after nine o'clock at night, there was another rule that say you don't turn your back on someone who needs your help. She had a tender place for strays and unattractive fruit that other people wouldn't choose, and I knew that tender place would include Meadow Lark.

“You'll have to clear off your other bed and share the bathroom,” she say.

“I know.” I tried hard to look calm, but inside I was doing jumping jacks.

“And it has to be okay with her father.”

Then Mama turned to the counter to wipe it down, and I wrapped my arms around her. She didn't stop her wiping, but I felt her other hand cover mine in the same way she might protect a part of herself.

“Thank you, Mama. I love you,” I say, and wished right then for a feather or a corner of lined paper. Wished I could look up at the sky and see a miracle come down for her. Wished she'd hum again in the kitchen.

Maybe Mama wished that too, because she squeezed my hand and whispered, “River, don't you ever forget what you mean to me.”

When I got back to the hall, Meadow Lark stood up straight. “Can I?” I nodded, and we squeaked.

“We can get your stuff after supper,” I say, but Meadow Lark waved that idea away. “I'll go by myself.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling disappointed. “And you have to ask your daddy.”

“Of course.”

So Meadow Lark come back after supper carry­ing her backpack, a leather duffel bag, a tote bag with
ARIZONA
sprawled across it like on a postcard, a Tupperware of something, and a bag of birdseed.

“For Mr. Tricks,” she say, and set everything on the extra bed in my room.

She crouched down to his cage on the floor to take a look. “How is he doing?” Then she poked her finger through the bars. Mr. Tricks first settled in his usual way and tilted his head and blinked, but then he got up and strutted across the cage to her finger.

“That means he likes me,” Meadow Lark say. “Has he done any tricks yet?”

“No, but I think his wing is better. When he ruffles himself, his bad wing come out a little more each time.”

She sat on her bed. “My other Mr. Tricks was a parakeet. I got him after I came out of the hospital for the fourth time. He rode all the way to Arizona with us. One time he got out of the cage and hopped around the car until my dad made me put him back in.”

This was the second time she talked about her operations, so this time I asked. “Why were you in the hospital?”

Meadow Lark put her finger up to the cage and looked at Mr. Tricks. “I don't really like to talk about that.”

“Sorry,” I say. “That was a bad start.”

“It's okay. I just don't like operations. And I hate hospitals.”

Then there was a long silence between us until I asked, “Did your parakeet poop in the car?”

At that she laughed and scrunched up her face. “He did! All down the back of my seat. My dad said he wouldn't drive another mile knowing
that
was in his car.”

Mr. Tricks shook his head in a blur.

“There's a trick,” she say. “He thinks we're talking about him.” She clicked her tongue at him, and he cooed back.

“We have to remember one thing, though—Mama doesn't like birds, so we need to keep him in here all the time.”

“She'll like Mr. Tricks. He grows on people.” Meadow Lark always sounded so confident.

Then she reached into her backpack and pulled out an envelope. “Before I forget, this is for your parents. But you can read it too. It's from my dad.”

Inside was a typewritten note on thin, crinkly paper. It read:

Dear Byrne family,

Thank you for letting my precious Meadow Lark stay with you while I'm working in the field. If you didn't, I could have lost my job. I should be gone only a few weeks. If anything happens, Meadow Lark knows how to contact me.

Yours truly,

Derek Frankenfield

“My dad has really bad handwriting, so he types everything,” Meadow Lark explained before I could ask her.

“Mama will want his phone number too.”

“I'll give it to her,” she say, and pulled a wad of clothes from her duffel bag. “Where can I put these?”

I opened the bottom drawer of my bureau for her. “And you can have some space in my closet.” Then I showed her the bathroom down the hall, and made room for her toothpaste, and showed her the towels I'd hung on the bar for her.

On our way back, she stopped in front of Theron's room and looked the door up and down. “Was this your brother's?”

“It
is
his room, but you can't go in. No one is allowed.”

“I don't want to go in—I just want to look. Can I look, just for a minute?” she asked, and turned the doorknob so slowly that it didn't make a noise.

“I guess so,” I whispered. “But be quiet.”

Meadow Lark nudged the door open. All the usual things of Theron—his trophy, the bed made up with two pillows, one on top of the other, and his picture of Shawna on the bureau, were still there. The sunlight glowed through the gauze curtains, and I knew that before the day was over, Mama would come in and close the draperies, just like Theron would do every night if he were here.

“This is it,” I say. “It's just like the day he left it.”

“Kind of like a shrine.” Meadow Lark took a few steps in. “Who is this?” she asked and reached for the picture of Shawna.

“Don't touch it! Come on, we have to get out.”

“I just wanted to see,” she say, but pulled her hand back. “Who is she?”

“That was his girlfriend. Well . . .” I wasn't even sure if she was. “He liked her.”

“Really? Do you ever see her now?”

I shook my head. Shawna never come to see us after Theron left, and she never called. I saw her downtown a few times with some other girls from the high school. And once I saw her on her bicycle, but I ducked into the deli so I wouldn't have to talk to her.

Then Meadow Lark went over to the bed and sat on it so hard that it creaked.

“Don't do that!” I whispered as loud as I could without yelling, but she ignored me and spread her hand along the dark blue comforter.

“So, was he really drunk when he had the wreck?

“If we don't get out now—”

“Tell me and I'll get out. I promise.” Then she leaned back on her arms, and for a second I thought she was going to lie down on Theron's pillows.

I crossed my arms over my chest and stood up straight and stiff. “Of course he wasn't drunk. Theron wouldn't do
anything
like that.”

Meadow Lark say nothing for what seemed like a long time. She just kept smoothing her hand over Theron's comforter. Finally she say, “Innocent people don't leave. Tell me what happened.”

My arms and legs felt like wet cardboard, so shaky that I had to sit down in Theron's desk chair.

“Theron used to get into trouble all the time. It was awful then. So Daddy told him he was ruining our family, and if he mess up one more time, he'd have to go. That was about two years ago, when he was sixteen. Theron must have wanted to stay here, because then all the trouble stopped, and Daddy say he straightened up. But then the wreck happen.”

I wanted to get that story out so fast that I didn't try to correct how I say it. But Meadow Lark never seemed to mind.

“And that was the one more time?”

I nodded. “Everyone say he was drunk. The night he crashed the car, he come right home. It was late and I was asleep, but I woke up when I heard Theron and Daddy arguing. They sound like they did before Theron straightened up. I couldn't hear all their words, but Daddy told him he had to go. He did not want Theron in this house anymore. He didn't yell it—he just sounded sad. And Theron say, ‘Fine, I'm leaving. But I'm never coming back, so don't look for me.'”

Meadow Lark stopped touching the comforter and put her hands in her lap. “Wow, no wonder you miss him.”

“So, you know about the wreck?” I asked.

Meadow Lark shook her head. “Not really. I just heard that he got drunk and drove into the river. Is there more?”

I nodded. I was just about to tell her about Daniel when Mama called up the stairs. “River, I need you girls to help me.”

I stood up. “We have to get out of this room,” I say to Meadow Lark.

But she kept sitting on Theron's bed. “Didn't anyone, like your mom and dad, go look for him?”

“He told them not to, so they didn't. Theron just turned eighteen, and Daddy say eighteen is an adult and you have to take responsibility for your own actions. And he say that if Theron ever did come back, there could be trouble with the law.”

“Well, what about the police—didn't any police come for him?”

I shook my head. “They come next morning, but Theron was gone by then. So Daddy wasn't lying when he say he didn't know where Theron was. And now they just don't talk about him.”

I didn't tell her that Mama cried for two weeks and stopped humming in the kitchen after Theron left us.

Finally, Meadow Lark got off the bed, as if she'd heard all the story she wanted. “Maybe they don't talk about him. But they haven't forgotten him. I'm sure of that,” she say.

Like me,
I thought.
I would never forget him.

As we tiptoed out to the hall, she turned around and say, “I have to tell you something very important. I walk in my sleep. If you see me do that, you can't wake me up.”