Call Me Alastair Read online

  SOLI DEO GLORIA

  Contents

  Cover

  A Fish Bird Story

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part II

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part III

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part IV

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  A Fish Bird Story

  “Call me Ishmael.”1

  I ate that sentence once

  in a thick steak of a novel.

  It wasn’t my usual diet of

  Frost, Whitman, Keats,

  but it tasted all right anyway,

  a little salty maybe, a smidge

  fishy, but good.

  I prefer the poetry, though.

  Always have.

  Since the first time I wrapped my

  beak around the meat of a

  Norton Anthology,2 I was a

  fish on a line – hooked.

  When all your tongue has known

  has been the blandness of

  phone books, the sour snack of

  tax forms, the cardboard-y flavour of

  cardboard, that first bite of Shakespeare

  is nectar, I tell you. Almost makes

  a fella forget there are other books

  to chew, the way it satisfies long.

  And the act of remembering,

  regurgitating – it fills the taste buds once more…

  “Call me Ishmael.”

  I ate that sentence once and knew

  it would come back to me to be savoured again

  if ever I set out to write my story.

  And it has.

  Just like the poems, it’s come back,

  filled my beak, taken flavours

  old and new, same and

  different.

  I am a bird.

  These are my poems.

  This is my story.

  Call me Alastair.

  1. “Call me Ishmael”: famous first line of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick

  2. Norton Anthology: a particularly delectable book of poems

  PART I

  A Tale of Two Parrots

  – or –

  Gone With the Wing

  CHAPTER 1

  You’re born blind, so at first you only hear things. The crack of your shell. The whirring lullaby of the air around you. The muffled pips and peeps inside the two eggs nearby. In the dark, you manage by a series of guesses those first few days. You’re forced to get by on a little faith. And without much else to go on, it’s the things you hear that stick with you.

  It wasn’t a few hours before I heard my first whopper of a tale – my first fish story.

  “Alastair – that’s you. Psittacus erithacus erithacus. Bird.

  “And I’m Fritz. Homo sapiens. That’s Latin for ‘wise man’. It just means I have a bigger brain … and I’m top of the food chain.”

  Right.

  Apparently, I was born an African grey. A parrot. A bird of small brains.

  Doesn’t sound suspicious at all.

  But it wasn’t the Latin lesson or being told I was different that I remember most about that first evening. It wasn’t the shock of cold air rushing inside my shell or the terrible task of scrabbling my way out. It wasn’t even that first thrilling sensation when one moment you’re curled tight as a pencil shaving, and the next you’re free as a bird (if you’ll pardon the pun), and the world is closer, louder, at your very wingtips.

  No.

  What I remember most about that first day is that I was tired. Even as I listened to the two tiny voices calling for help inside those two other shells, I fell asleep.

  And by the time I woke up, one of those voices was gone.

  Fritz Feldman’s Official Medical Logbook

  Medical Log, May 6

  Today in English, Mrs Cuthbert said that if I wanted to become a doctor someday, I should start writing like one, and oh Mylanta, I thought that was a GREAT idea, so here starts my “Official Medical Log”.

  •Age: 11 years 10 months

  •Weight: 55.5 kg

  •Height: 135 cm (if I measured right)

  •Current status: 1 ingrown toenail, 2 spider bites, 1 possible heart palpitation, questionable lump

  I think that about covers the medical stuff.

  I guess I should write a little bit about myself. There are probably only two really important things to know.

  1. I am going to be a medical practitioner when I grow up. (That’s a doctor, in regular terms.)

  My dad’s an accountant at a big hospital with all kinds of doctors – brain surgeons, heart doctors … I’m not quite sure what field I’ll specialize in, but right now I’m thinking podiatry.

  2. I’m the only almost-twelve-year-old I know who has a job.

  I work at Pete’s Pet (and Parrot!) Shack every Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school. It’s not exactly legal, but Mom said it was OK since she works late and Grandpa isn’t there to let me in after I get home from school any more. She worries I’ll get locked out again, like that time the neighbour’s dog was sniffing around our rhododendron bush and ate the hidden key. (PS. Did you know you can get frostbite in just thirty minutes? It’s true. I mean, I didn’t actually get frostbite because it wasn’t too cold, but anything’s possible.) At least at the shop Mom knows where I am. And if anyone asks I tell them Pete’s technically my childcare technician. (Pete says not to mention the five bucks he gives me every day.)

  It’s a good job. I mostly sweep and stock shelves, but sometimes it’s exciting. Like when I get to take a sick guinea pig to the back and put him in the Infirmary to get better.

  Or when a shipment of twenty-four tarantulas comes in, and I have to show Pete that his handwriting on the order really DOES look like a 24 and not a 2. That’s why I get to fill out all the orders now.

  Or like today, when I got to watch a baby African grey parrot hatch. I was the very first person in the whole world to welcome him to earth. That’s a big responsibility, I think. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just introduced myself, and I kind of gave him a name. And just to keep him company, I told him about his genus and species and the differences between primates and birds (thumbs, for example) – stuff like that.

  But later, when I was cleaning out litter boxes in the back, I noticed one of the other eggs didn’t look right. A tiny bird was halfway out of his shell, and he wasn’t alive. I didn’t touch him at all, but I could see that he hadn’t absorbed his yolk sac, and when that’s the case, there’s just nothing you can do. I looked it up.

  Pete wasn’t happy. He told me to take the baby bird out and feed it to the snakes. Don’t worry – I didn’t do it. But I did notice the egg incubator was at 36.2 degrees. A whole degree too low! That’s a big deal when you’re hatching chicks. I fixe
d it and added water to increase the humidity, so hopefully the last egg will hatch all right.

  I’ll check on Alastair and the other egg when I go back in on Wednesday and let you know what happens.

  Signed: Dr Francis Fitzpatrick Feldman, MD ← (I think I’m going to use this as my future professional name.)

  PS. I just realized I forgot to bring the dead bird home.

  I was going to bury him.

  PPS. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but during lunch today, I found a dollar in the school library’s Latin dictionary. I didn’t want to be sneaky, so I gave it to Mr Hall, the librarian, and as I was leaving, this little old lady who was helping him put books on the shelf waved her feather scarf at me and shouted, “Ah! Rara avis! Farewell!” It was kind of weird.

  (Note to self: remember to look up what “rara avis” means.)

  FROM THE DESK OF ALBERTINA PLOPKY

  Dear Everett,

  I bought a feather boa the other day. A lovely red one. I know you’ll think I’m a birdbrain, but I truly needed it. I wore it to the post office. I wore it while getting my hair set. I liked that boa so much I wore it to church! Betty, Joan – all the girls loved it. Delores Greenbush thought it was scandalous, but I told her, “Delores, if the good Lord made a cardinal, he obviously had no problem with red feathers.”

  That shut her up.

  Anyhoo, I took my boa to the market today. I’d just got my oatmeal and two bananas, when somewhere around the canned peas, that cell phone Henry gave me started ringing. It was the school, looking for help in the library for a few hours, so I quick bought my things and skedaddled on over there.

  Well, I’ll be darned, it wasn’t until my curlers hit the pillow later that night that I realized I’d forgotten to buy food for the fish!

  I didn’t bother changing out of my nightdress, just threw on my coat and boa and headed on down to the pet shop since it’s close. Peter was just locking up when I got there, but you know me. I got my ways.

  And there I was, waiting for my fish flakes, when next thing I know, doesn’t he come out of the back room, throwing a fine fit over a dead bird! Said he’d told his stock boy to get rid of it earlier. Went on and on about it.

  Out of nowhere I said, “Peter, you go on and get me a box, and I’ll take care of it!”

  He did it. He boxed it up.

  And I walked out carrying my fish flakes and an expired bird.

  Well, I wasn’t about to bring the poor thing home where Tiger could get to it. It deserved a proper burial.

  A burial at sea was too dramatic. The dumpster behind the building just wasn’t kind. I thought about burying it in your flower boxes, but that seemed crowded. And I couldn’t go digging up a spot in the park, on property I don’t own! I did all I could think of.

  You guessed it. I went to the cemetery.

  It was closed when I got there, but I marched myself right past those NO TRESPASSING signs and buried it there on the only piece of land I got.

  It almost felt right, too, like a cemetery was the proper place for a bird. Who knows if the little twittering ghost of the thing won’t be singing over the flowers, building nests in the crooks of the stones, and making friends with all our dearly departed. Animals do have a way of keeping people company, I told myself. And then I had a thought.

  What if I planned my own little get-together. You know, with some older folks – and some animals! I could make a flyer. I’ll invite the gals!

  (Not Delores. She’s a pest.)

  I think that could catch on, don’t you?

  Oh, would you look at me, I’ve been rambling away here! I was only meaning to give you an update on Henry. Tried calling the other day, but he was working late again. I told his machine that if he can spare a minute, he should give his old mother a ring. For all he knows, I’ve been carted off to jail for trespassing.

  You know what they say.

  There’s no end to the mischief an eighty-year-old woman can get into when wearing a red feather boa.

  Love,

  Your glamorous criminal of a wife

  PS. Forgot to mention, while I was volunteering in the school library today, I took the opportunity to hide a few dollars in books, just like I used to do when Henry was little. (It got that little penny-pincher to read, remember?) Well, one very honest young man found one of the notes and turned it in. I thought it was real respectable. A rare thing these days.

  I bet he calls his mother all the time.

  CHAPTER 2

  Pete blows into the back room of the pet shop, makes a beeline for the line of glass cases across the way, and dumps an exceedingly large rabbit into an empty one.

  “Babs,” grunts the guinea pig next door.

  “Porky,” answers the rabbit in a throaty voice. “Back here in the Infirmary again? I was hoping you got sold this time.”

  “Sold? And leave you?” Porky’s eyes twinkle mischievously. “You couldn’t live without me, Babs.”

  “I’d manage,” she replies coolly.

  Behind me, Aggie’s voice chirps out from under a towel. “Alastair! You can count to ten now. I’ve got my hiding spot!”

  At Aggie’s insistence we’ve played about a hundred games of hide-and-seek over the last few weeks. Being that there are only two places to hide – under towel number one or under towel number two – it’s not very challenging. But I oblige. “All right, Ag. Here goes. One, two …”

  In the far corner of the room, Pete tears a box from the shelf and begins to untangle the mangled knot of leashes inside when there’s a rap on the storeroom door. He looks over his shoulder and frowns. “I may have mentioned this on the phone every day for the last five weeks, Mrs Plopky,” he shouts, “but you can’t take the expensive stuff! I’ll let you borrow some tarantulas for your little dance party – I’m up to my ears in tarantulas! But nothing else!”

  I continue to count. “… three, four …”

  “Now, Peter,” says a muffled voice from behind the door. “I’m not looking to give anybody a conniption with your spiders. Lord knows everyone signed up for my Polka with Puppies group is pushing a hundred. No, no. This is supposed to be a nice senior social hour – with animals.”

  “. . . five …”

  Pete slaps a hand over his face and groans. “Mrs Plopky, you’re a swell customer, but if I start letting you borrow pets for all your little shindigs, people are going to start coming in here with the same idea. Use one of your own animals! What about that cat I sold you?”

  “That cat—” The door bursts open, and the squat shape of an old woman with red feathers around her neck steps inside. She settles a fist on each hip and fixes a sprightly eye on Pete, who shrinks a little under her gaze. “That cat is no sweetheart. No, sir. I put puppies on the flyer because everybody likes puppies. If you won’t share ’em, then I at least need something cute and cuddly.”

  “Take the guinea pig,” offers Babs, and Porky shoots her a dirty look.

  I glance back at the Aggie-shaped lump under towel number two. With all the commotion, I can’t remember what number I’ve left off on.

  Pete sighs then and grabs another box from the shelf. “You want something to bring with you, something cute, take a parakeet,” he says. “They’re cheap.”

  Porky nods. “Take a parakeet. Pigs don’t polka. Barely got knees. Besides” – he coughs, unconvincingly – “think I got a touch of the swine flu.” A regular in the Infirmary, Porky’s forever faking an illness for what he calls “a trip to the sauna”. An incubator, his own food dish, and a few days away from the kids and customers, and Porky’s a new animal, or so he says. This particular trip, however, has been no spa visit. He had a run-in last week with a piece of plastic broccoli some kid threw in his cage. “Thought it tasted a little rubbery,” Porky said later.

  “Or what about this guy here?” Pete tries. He gestures to Porky. “See? That sounds fun, Mrs Plopky. Guinea Pig Polka or whatever you’re calling it. Or call it…” Pete looks thoughtful
. “Jig with a Guinea Pig?”

  Porky promptly chokes on a pellet. “Jig with – JIG? I’ll give you a jig!” He nabs a pellet from his bowl and heaves it in Pete’s direction. (It misses by five metres.)

  “You’re acting like a gerbil there, McPorkster,” Babs says, eyeing her nails.

  Porky takes a long look at her, sniffs, and returns to his food bowl. He grunts. “I got much more refinement than a gerbil.”

  Meanwhile, back in our incubator, Aggie’s given up on our game of hide-and-seek. “Who’s that?” she asks, joining me at the glass and nodding at the visitor. She gives a little cough, and I frown. That’s the fourth cough today.

  “I don’t know,” I answer slowly. “Never seen another human back here but Pete and that Fritz kid.”

  Aggie coughs again. “I like her feathers.”

  Mrs Plopky wanders past the glass boxes of the Infirmary. “Guinea pigs just don’t have that pizzazz,” she’s saying, tapping a finger against her chin.

  “Pigs got pizzazz,” Porky mutters from his case.

  Mrs Plopky turns and scans the room a final time, her finger tap-tap-tapping away. All at once, her eyes land – on me.

  “How about a parrot?”

  Pete leaps from the box of chew toys he’s half inside and smacks his head into the hanging lightbulb, sending it spinning in circles. It knocks his cap off, and the top of Pete’s head gleams like a beacon with every swing of the bulb.

  I scowl. Feather picker.

  “NO PARROTS!” shouts Pete. “Parrots are money in the bank! I hate parrots, but parrots pay the bills!”

  Aggie gasps.

  “He don’t mean it, hon,” says Babs.

  “He means it!” says Porky.

  “Then I’ll order a puppy,” says Mrs Plopky to Pete.

  “It’s OK,” I tell Aggie. “Pete just doesn’t want to give you up because he loves you so much.” It’s wholly untrue, but Aggie’s sensitive.

  “Oh.” Aggie brightens. “Oh, of course! Pete’s so funny like that.”

  “A real hoot,” I say through clenched beak.

  A snarly Pete scrambles to gather his hat from an open box of cat collars, and the light continues to sway over his bald patch. I scowl again.