Call Me Alastair Read online

  Her eyes flash, and she draws her feathers tight against her. “No! To escape.”

  Wait.

  Fritz is sleeping. Aggie’s here.

  He didn’t lock the cage.

  “Escape?” I ask. The word hangs in the air like a glass bubble, fragile, and ready to shatter with the slightest wrong move.

  Aggie cocks her head and looks at me with a funny expression on her face. “Yes, Alastair, escape! You know, the two of us? Get out of here like you’ve been planning, find that palm tree – I can decorate…” She turns and starts tottering towards the light just beyond the bed skirt. I swallow and find myself following, a little woozy all of a sudden.

  “Fritz is fast asleep. I can always tell when he’s sleeping deeply by the size of the puddle on his pillow,” Aggie calls over her shoulder. “It’s pretty big, so I think we’re safe.”

  I turn each word over in my mind – Fritz, asleep, puddle, safe – but I can’t seem to shake this sudden pother fuzzing up my brain. It’s possible a dust bunny got stuck up there.

  We tunnel through the books, Aggie in the lead. We take a left at the sneaker box and find our way to the boundary line of the box spring. Aggie bends over and picks up the corner of one of Fritz’s socks. It’s oddly lumpy. She dips under the bed skirt and starts pulling the sock across the room with her beak.

  “I packed us some food for the trip,” she says in a muffled voice. “Already raided the birdseed. I threw some of that papaya from breakfast in there too.” From a small hole in the sock, tiny seeds spill one by one on to the floor and roll away as Aggie pulls. “C’mon, Alastair! You coming?”

  The dotted line of birdseed snakes away, and I follow it, but carefully. If this is an escape, then Aggie’s unused to the careful attention needed in pulling one off. I pause to take a peek over at Fritz, now visible across the room. He’s indeed asleep. Big puddle. Porky and the missus are napping too. The window’s cracked open, the screen ripped wide and waiting, an inviting breeze just beyond.

  “You coming, Alastair?” Aggie asks again.

  I look down at the line of birdseed. And suddenly the dust bunnies clear.

  That line. It’s like a line on a treasure map. It points to freedom. To the future I’ve always wanted for Aggie. The future I’ve been planning almost my entire life. Since … since that other baby bird voice.

  I shudder. Aggie’s waiting. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I’m coming. Of course.”

  I catch up to her at the spot just below the window, and we survey the climb. It’s not too far to the ledge, and there’s a chair we can use to get there. I look down at the sock.

  Hm.

  Aggie places a foot on the chair, catches a bit of sock in her beak, and yanks. It slides, but as soon as she attempts to lift it, the sock doesn’t budge. “Might need to lose the papaya,” she says.

  I hold my breath, and I try to nudge it with my beak, but the sock’s too heavy. Would be with even a small amount of seed. “I don’t think we can—”

  “No, no, we can do it, Alastair! Just need a little more beak muscle. Here, try to get your whole head into it.”

  I let Aggie direct me this way, that way, just a little to the left, but the sock is planted. All the tugging has widened the small hole to something less small. A hailstorm of seed scatters the sock’s contents in every direction.

  “It’s OK, Ag,” I say. “We can get along without it.”

  Aggie frowns. “I just wanted to be prepared, just in case. We’ve been so hungry. I didn’t want to—” She shakes her head. “No, you’re right. You’re always right. You know how to take care of us.” She looks at me and smiles.

  I find I have to force one in return.

  Without the sock, we quickly climb the rungs of the chair and clamber to the window sill.

  “One more look, OK?” Aggie asks when we get to the top. Her eyes drift over my shoulder towards the bed. “He’s so cute when he sleeps, isn’t he?” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I sure am gonna miss him—”

  “Hey, watch your step.”

  Aggie’s on the edge of the sill. A toe dangles off. She stumbles a little but secures a few claws in the wood. “Oh – oh, yeah. Watch the step.”

  She turns back towards the window where the mouth of the screen is stretched wide, and the blue sky is brilliant and rushing off in every direction for as far as the eye can see. “It’s periwinkle-powder-bright, remember?”

  “What is?”

  “The sky, silly! Remember?” She coughs and steps through the screen and out onto the narrow ledge. “We know this sky! And we know trees, and foraging…” Aggie flutters her wings and holds her head high.

  I step out too and nod my head slowly. “Yeah – yes,” I say. My heart is beating like a drum in my ear holes. I feel my skin tingle, sparking with electricity. The feathers at the back of my neck – the ones I can’t reach – lift and quiver.

  “And the bluer the sky is, the closer you are to home. That’s what you said, right, Alastair? We’ll know home when we find it.”

  I nod my head. This is what we need. This is how my sister stays safe. This is how nothing bad ever happens again.

  “Well, then – jumpin’ gingiva, this is swell!” Aggie smiles and puffs her feathers. “Now what?”

  I clear my throat. The problem with someone else hatching a plan is that you’re left, well … winging it.

  “Now we climb down this trellis,” I say. “And then I – I – just have to check…”

  I take in the placement of the vines, the strength of the lattice. I make sure I spot the rotted slats so we can avoid them on the way down. I check wind speed. I hurry up and calculate rental fees for our palm tree. (I hadn’t thought about how many cherries per month seemed like an appropriate amount to charge those carrier pigeons.)

  Meanwhile, Aggie’s got her nose in the morning glories.

  “Would you look at that! Look how fluttery these flowers are! I think I’ll grab a few to decorate with. It’ll feel just like home, don’t you think? I mean, like Fritz’s home.” She coughs again and dips into the trellis below to pick a particularly delicate-looking specimen. “Ooh, this one’s nice. Do you think we’ll have a guest room? I always wanted a guest room. For when Porky, Tuna and Fritz come visit – ooh, look at that one!”

  “Careful, Aggie,” I warn as she plucks another bloom. “Don’t lose your balance – you don’t know how to fly yet. Just – just give me a second – I’m – I just need to—”

  To figure out where I saw a palm tree.

  But Aggie’s still eyeing the vine. “Don’t worry, Alastair. I’ll be careful. Besides, you already climbed this once. It’s safe.”

  I’m about to argue, but before I can—

  “Just one more,” Aggie says, and leans over.

  “Aggie, I mean it!”

  “It’s safe!”

  All it takes is…

  One tiny breath of wind.

  A small stagger.

  A bit of vine gives way.

  I reach out to grab her –

  I watch as she flaps

  feathers catch

  wings find air, claws find anchor.

  But I lose balance.

  And fall. Grasp at leaves. Get a few.

  I dangle … a second.

  But the branch lets go.

  CHAPTER 32

  They say your life flashes before your eyes in the final moments before you die.

  And it does.

  At least I think.

  I mean, I nearly died. I fell a good two storeys, and that’s plenty of time to think.

  To think about that sky, and how you thought you knew it, but once it was right there in front of you, it looked different than you thought. Bigger. Wider. More frightening. You never saw a blue more wild.

  To think about home, and what that is, and who it’s with. And where.

  To think about your sister, and how she said you knew how to take care of her, but how every time you tried, things didn’t
turn out the way you expected – how your provision seemed more like hunger, and your protection more like harm. And how the moment you stepped out on that ledge you realized you didn’t even know where that palm tree was, and even if you did, could you climb it? Because without a feather, it’s hard to fly.

  You think about that tiny voice. The one you’ve tried so hard to forget. And how all along you’ve known:

  There are some things you will always be powerless to save.

  You think about these things as you’re falling to your death.

  But then…

  You land in a kiddie pool Fiona’s using for her current Choreography of a Tadpole project.

  And you live.

  I climb the trellis to Fritz’s room for the second time in weeks, this time a little dazed and badly bruised.

  It’s different this time, and it’s not just the bruises.

  In fact, it’s all different now.

  The first time I climbed to try to break my sister out.

  This time I climb to try to make her stay.

  CHAPTER 33

  It was a tiresome process. Climbing was one thing. But answering Aggie’s questions as she shouted them from the window sill was another.

  “You sure you’re OK?”

  “Do you see the twenty-seventh flower to your left? There’s a strong branch there!”

  “Should you take a break? Maybe stop and smell the morning glories?”

  Some things never change.

  I wish you could have more of a say in which ones did.

  Because it was the answers to the other questions she asked that I would have given anything to alter.

  “Why don’t I climb down?”

  “Aren’t we leaving anyway?”

  “Don’t you want me to come to you?”

  Want?

  I could eat a thousand dictionaries and never be able to explain this want to you.

  How do you leave?

  How do you say goodbye?

  How do you let go?

  I’m fairly certain there’s no parrot manual for it. And even if there were, could you trust what it said? Who can say how to break your own heart?

  This is what I’m thinking about as I reach the top.

  Aggie steals back through the screen, and I have one toe inside, when Fiona hurtles through Fritz’s door, waving an envelope. She is breathless and pale.

  “Fritzerola!” Fiona screeches. “Look! It’s your Mrs Plopky! She sent you a letter!”

  I freeze.

  Fritz startles out of sleep with a snort. “Mrs Plopky? Really?” He wipes a stream of drool from his chin. “I thought she was … I thought the worst!”

  Bertie.

  Aggie.

  Aggie, Bertie.

  My mind is a jumble, but somehow both Aggie and I have the sense in that moment to back away from the window so as not to be seen loitering around the escape hatch.

  “I can’t believe it!” I hear Fritz say as he tears the envelope and snaps open the pages. “Mrs Plopky – she’s OK.”

  I feel a small bud of hope take shape. Maybe…

  “Alastair got away, and she broke a hip!” Fritz cries.

  The bud shrivels.

  “Aggie?” I whisper.

  “Yeah?”

  “You need to get back to your cage now.”

  “But I can slip out as soon as their backs are turned. I can hold really still.”

  “No, Ag—”

  “No, but I can! Fritz and I play statues sometimes. I always win!”

  “No!” The word has more force than I intended. Inside, I hear Fritz scamper out of bed, hear the papers rustle. “No, Aggie,” I say again, soft as I can get it. “It – it’s too dangerous. You’re better off here. I won’t keep – the plan, it just didn’t work.”

  “But—”

  “Just get back to your cage. I won’t go before – just, get back in your cage.”

  “But—”

  “Go!”

  I’ve got a leaf in my ear, but I can see Fritz next to the bed. He can’t spot me. It helps that the pinky-grey-plucked-turkey shade of my skin matches the house’s siding. I cannot see my sister, but I listen as she slowly walks away.

  “Yes – here,” says Fritz. “She says Alastair got away, out the window! Oh Mylanta. She says she watched him go, but that she was going to go outside to keep an eye on him and make sure he was safe – so she’d be there if he wanted to come back. But she says she tripped over her footstall – oh no – oh, but that just slowed her down. She says she put on her shoes, but it took a while to find them because she didn’t have her glasses, and then she – oh! – she slipped on the tricky step and fell! She said it must have been right after I delivered her paper, because she’d seen hers outside her door, but when she – Fiona! She called my name! But I wasn’t there!”

  Fritz sinks to the mattress and groans. “I think,” he says, “I think I need my paper bag.”

  Fiona flings open a drawer in his desk and I watch as she rummages through it. “Here,” she says at last, and hands it over.

  Fritz puts the open bag to his mouth and breathes deeply a few times. “Thanks,” he says when finished. “I’m prone to hyperventilation in times like – like – I’m just so sad.”

  Fiona’s quiet. She sits on the bed next to Fritz. Their feet dangle off the edge. “Do you want me to read you the rest of your letter?” she asks.

  “No,” says Fritz. “I think I need to do this alone.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes,” he answers. “I’d like to read it alone.”

  Fiona leaves the room, and Fritz turns over the page. He is quiet. From time to time, he clears his throat and makes little whimpering sounds. Finally, I see him spread the letter on his comforter and lie back in the bed, springs wheezing with every movement.

  I haven’t breathed. Fritz’s words ring in my ears: Alastair got away … make sure he was safe … slipped … broke a hip.

  I feel one of my last feathers slip from my body and realize – I’m holding it in my beak. I tore it out.

  And I don’t even care.

  I’m a feather picker, OK? Through and through.

  “Fiona!” Fritz shouts all of a sudden. He leaps out of bed, and the springs howl. I hear him clatter about, fiddling with Aggie’s cage – she must have managed to slip back inside.

  “Fiona!” Fritz shouts again. “Get your flower-power flip-flops on! We’re going to see Mrs Plopky!”

  Aggie’s harness snaps.

  “Prickly Pines Rehabilitation and Retirement Village, here we come!”

  They leave in a flurry of papers and Ocean Air Armpit Spray. I watch as the leaves of Bertie’s letter flutter to the ground.

  When all is quiet, I creep back through the window. Fritz and Aggie are gone, but something makes me want to stay hidden, to crawl back into my dark under-bed lair and let it swallow me whole.

  “Hey there, buddy!”

  Porky’s been waiting. Of course he has.

  “Heck of a day, eh?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Seems we were taking a snoozer during all the commotion. Tuna heard about everything from the newt.”

  Porky whistles through his teeth. “Gee whiz. Couldn’t believe my ears just now when she said the two of you tried to escape. Looks as if it turned out all right in the end, though, didn’t it? Tucked in like a turtle! Safe and sound now, aren’t yeh?” He winks at me, his toothy smile bright.

  “Safe and sound,” I repeat. “Sure.”

  “Always comes right in the end! You did good, kid. It was right coming back like you did. We all need looking after here.”

  Little does he know I’ll still be leaving. Alone.

  Porky reclines in the corner of his aquarium and puts his feet up on the edge of his food bowl. “Yep – we all need a little looking after. Someone to scratch our backs. And Fritz – he ain’t too shabby! Heck of a back scratcher he is, heck of a back scratcher. A true friend, that one. A rare-a avish, or whate
ver he likes to say.”

  He trails off for a second as he eyes a bit of celery, sniffs it, and takes a bite. “There’s no use escaping, I always say, if you got an owner like that. The cedar shavings on the other side of the glass aren’t any cleaner, know what I mean?”

  Not so much.

  But Porky falls silent, and I make my way under the bed one last time, left to my thoughts. Only now, I’m thinking about cedar shavings.

  What will that other side of the glass look like? Not shavings. Pine needles? Palm fronds, if I can find them? Or will I be shacking up with an abandoned hedgehog or two living under someone’s back stairwell? I wonder. Where does a sisterless or ownerless soul go?

  Ownerless.

  Bertie.

  I can see Bertie flouncing across the apartment in her boa. Bertie at teatime. I think about the gift of Everett’s old poetry books and her cherry pie. I think of Bertie’s constant chatter and her laughter and remember the empty gymnasium and her tears. I think about a bowl filled with pits, and how she said nothing about it. Just filled it right back up with cherries and gave it to me.

  I think of the broken hip.

  There’s really nothing I don’t break.

  Medical Log, August 1

  •Everything: AMAZING!

  You’ll never believe it, Official Medical Log.

  Fiona and I went to see Mrs Plopky today.

  I didn’t think I was ever going to see her again, and KA-BLOOEY! Today I got a letter, and she’s OK after all.

  She’s been down at the Prickly Pines. I walked right past her window this morning and never even knew it! She never transferred her newspaper subscription because she didn’t feel like reading it for a while. She said she had some thinking to do before she saw me again and gave me any more advice. She saw me delivering papers once. But instead of saying hi, she just said a little prayer right there while she was soaking her teeth.

  Jiminy rickets, life is funny sometimes.

  Me and Fiona and Mrs Plopky, we talked for a while. We talked about Mrs Plopky’s hip and how it was the pits. About Aggie and Alastair. About her friend Irma looking after Mrs Plopky’s pets for her, and how Irma likes to put doll bonnets on the cat. We even talked about Grandpa.