Call Me Alastair Read online

  Fiona had a lot to say about Grandpa too. That was another thing I never knew. I didn’t know Fiona was still so sad, and that sometimes it’s hard for her to make friends because she’s scared she’s going to lose them. She’s scared of her heart hurting. Mrs Plopky said you don’t throw out a cherry because you know there’s a pit. She said that you take the pits as they come, and not before. I liked that.

  Mrs Plopky took us on a tour. She’s got a pool, a ballroom to dance in, a library, and nice gardens all around. And we met lots of her friends. A few pinched my cheek and said, “What a nice young man!” but I didn’t mind. I even met Mrs Plopky’s doctor. He showed me her hip X-rays and gave me a book on shingles since he had an extra copy.

  It was like the best day ever.

  Signed: Doc Feldman

  CHAPTER 34

  That night after they get back, Fritz and Fiona scurry back and forth, gathering sheets and blankets to set up a tent in Fiona’s room. Fritz brings a textbook to study how to set a broken hip and another for Fiona on geriatric exercise regimens.

  Fiona’s thinking of starting a water-aerobics class at the Pines.

  I’ve got my ears pricked for talk of Bertie, but I get nothing. I listen to them read off interesting facts from their books and tell old Grandpa stories, like the time a giraffe at the zoo licked an ice-cream cone right out of his hand. They laugh into the deepest hours of morning.

  When it gets quiet, and I’m certain they’ve drifted off, I tiptoe out of my hiding spot.

  This is it. It has to be. Time to say goodbye.

  Aggie pipes up from her cage. “Cherry for your thoughts.”

  I didn’t realize she was still awake.

  Her voice sounds sleepy and sad. “Well, except I don’t have a cherry … I could give you a cashew, though.”

  I manage a half smile and scrabble through the handful of grimy, tea-coloured socks Fritz has left on the floor for Aggie. Aggie, who loves to throw Fritz’s dirty socks in her basket. Aggie, who’s said she’s just a little tired lately and will get to it later. Aggie, who’s lost a few feathers, looked a little ill, said nothing of her hungry belly, and given me more than half of her food now for weeks. That Aggie. My sister.

  I climb the rungs of the cage until the two of us are face-to-face.

  “I’m no good at looking out for you,” I tell her. I feel the shame rise in my cheeks. Even parrots blush.

  “That’s not true!” Aggie says.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Aggie gets quiet. After a little while, she clears her throat. “I know,” she says, not unkindly. “But you’re a great brother.”

  “You would’ve been better off with a gerbil.”

  Aggie looks shocked. “Oh, but you are! You just didn’t know we couldn’t do it on our own—”

  “Ag –” I don’t want to talk about all the ways I didn’t take care of her. “Ag, I’m sorry. For stealing your food, for trying to make you escape – for everything. I’m going to fix it. Here, Fritz – he’s your home, Aggie. This is how I take care of you.”

  “This?”

  “Leaving.” My breath catches. “I’m leaving, Aggie. A home is all I ever wanted for you, and you’ve got one, and – and maybe I did too, but – well – I can leave you here, and you’ll be OK. You’ll be safe. Fritz will take care of you just like Bertie took care of me, and—”

  “Leaving?” Her eyes widen. “But you can’t leave! Where would you go? How will I see you?”

  “I don’t know, Ag. But I can’t stay here. You need to eat, and – and you know Fritz wouldn’t keep me. He’d try taking me back or someth—”

  “Yes. Oh, yes! That’s it, Alastair!” Aggie’s face softens.

  “What’s it?”

  “You can go back to Bertie!”

  Oh, my sister. My sweet sister. She’ll never stop looking for that good spot on a bad apple.

  Even if it’s mouldered to the core.

  I think I’m going to miss that most.

  “Aggie, I’m not going back to Bertie.”

  She shakes her head, hard. “No. What do you mean, Alastair? Of course you are. You have to! She’s your rara avis. A true friend is a rare bird, remember? You need her!”

  “Doesn’t matter—”

  “It does!” Aggie is angry; I can see it. “She’ll take care of you! She—”

  “She doesn’t want me! I broke her! She’s in the Prickly Pines because of me! And I almost broke you.” I pat my sister with a stubby, still painful, still bent wing. “I’ve got to go, Ag. Please, just say goodbye. I love you, but please – just say goodbye.”

  Aggie’s crying now. “But Bertie’s OK now! And you didn’t break me! I’m fine! I’m not too hungry! Stay! I love you. We can find a way. Love can do a great many things – just, please, just stay, we’ll figure it out.”

  “It’s not enough,” I say.

  And at that very moment, as if the Fates have a venomous sense of humour, Aggie’s belly growls. Our eyes meet.

  “See?” I say. “You can’t eat love.”

  I turn and begin clambering down the cage to the floor.

  “Please! Alastair!”

  “Hey, yeah, Alastair,” Porky interjects. He’s obviously been listening. “Don’t go. You two got love!”

  But I am resolute. As always. As ever. Parrot-man of the wiser African grey sort. And this? It’s the only wise thing I know.

  This is it.

  “Alastair!”

  I walk across the room towards the gaping screen and its jagged teeth. As I get near, I find papers scattered on the floor beneath the chair. I step on one and realize it’s Bertie’s letter. Without thinking, I pick it up and taste it.

  I should go. I need to go.

  But that taste…

  I can’t help myself. (It’s that self-control thing. Mine’s always been lacking.)

  I begin to rip and shred, tear and eat. Words fill my taste buds. Flavours deepen. Sentences and thoughts find their way to my head.

  They burn a hole in my heart…

  My dear boy, it’s just as I told you: Life is like a pie. And it’s true. Life has got its main ingredients, its flavours, its spice. You can’t go spoiling your pie because you missed a step or got the wrong ingredient. Too much of anything turns your pie into a pickle.

  And in the end, if you got your recipe right, you get a mighty good dish out of it. And that’s true too. And it’s a good story. But I think I got one better.

  It’s like the old song goes:

  “The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned…

  Life is just a bowl of cherries.”

  That’s something Alastair showed me, believe it or not. Life is a bowl of cherries, and you enjoy every last one while you got ’em there in front of you. But one more thing –

  You leave the pits.

  Pits? They’re all those things you don’t like, all the things you can’t control. Sometimes you got to set those pits aside.

  And oh, dear boy, there are days it feels like everything is pits, that all you got is pits. And, Fritz? Sometimes that’s closer to the truth than you might want to think about.

  My life was all pits when my Everett died. Felt like pits when Henry moved away and I didn’t get to talk to him every day. The years are full of pits. Sometimes you just got one, and sometimes you got a mouthful.

  And it’s OK to hang on to those pits for a while. Some take a while to work through. You got to chew on them a good bit before you can even think about doing something else. But don’t you worry about it. Anything that’s worth anything takes a bit of time, and some teeth.

  Me? I’ve been chewing my pits for a long time. Some of them, maybe too long. Should’ve been remembering the taste of cherry, not cracking a tooth on the pit. Because, you know what I realized?

  Pits are seeds.

  Seeds can become trees.

  Trees can fill your bowl and a hundred others with new cherries – different cherries – but sweet ones. But y
ou got to spit.

  So, eat your cherries, young Fritz.

  And as best as you can, you sow those pits.

  I’ve sown a few now. I never forgot that strange night I went to the pet shop not so long ago and walked out with a dead bird. A dead baby bird! Now that I think of it, it was right about the time our Alastair and Aggie were born. Could’ve been a relative, for all I know. I buried that little thing, and I remember thinking it was like burying a seed. I realize now, that’s exactly what it was, because I went home wishing for some company, and sometime later, that seed found me living with an unsightly imp of a parrot who ended up bringing me a joy I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  When he flew off, I sowed my broken hip in the Prickly Pines. And, oh, I wasn’t pleased to do so. Matter of fact, I didn’t have a choice. That pit was sown for me.

  I could have dug it back up. I could have taken my hip right out of there soon as the doctors gave me the go. Could’ve popped that pit back in my mouth and given it a good chew. But I didn’t.

  I let it grow.

  And that seed? It’s becoming a tree for me.

  Now, instead of travelling all over creation to visit my friends or make a thousand phone calls like I used to, Janet, Melly and Joan, and a whole place full of new people are just a door away. I got a company of sweetness around me – even Henry’s talking about visiting more to keep an eye on me.

  Since I got here, I haven’t once eaten supper alone.

  It took one nasty pit, but now? My bowl of cherries feels like it’s filling up. Who knows? Might even run over.

  Because, who says bad things have to stay bad for ever?

  Who says bad times can never get good?

  Yesterday isn’t always, and neither is today, and if a little time and warmth and light can turn an ugly, old pit into a tree, who’s to say time can’t do the same for you? For me? I know what I’m betting on.

  I’m betting on trees.

  And that’s what I hope for you, my boy. That your pits – all those worries about not being well-liked or worries about your health, embarrassment at having interests different from the other kids around you, feeling lonely and missing that father and grandfather of yours – that those pits will, in time, turn into trees for you. I can’t promise it, but I hope they will. I hope they produce fruit, lots.

  I pray you have more cherries than you know what to do with.

  It’s what I hope for that stubborn bird, too, wherever he is. I hope he finds that bowl of cherries he was looking for, and if not, well, I’ve got mine to share if he ever makes his way back. Spitting pits is a lot nicer when you’ve got someone to do it with.

  You and Aggie and Fiona come visit me now. There’s a pretty bench in the garden I got picked out for a picnic.

  I’ll bring the cherries.

  Love,

  Bertie Plopky

  Bertie’s letter, it’s a poem, an epistle.

  It tastes bitter and sweet. Tastes like sorrow and forgiveness. It has the acid taste of guilt and sadness, but I taste hope, too. And a relief that could only come from knowing where that little voice ended up, and how. I taste cherries and fruits I can’t put my wingtip on, fruits I can only imagine.

  It tastes the way I feel about Aggie.

  I pray you have more cherries than you know what to do with.

  It tastes like love.

  True, some of it’s a little suspect. I’m never going to believe something as perfect as a cherry tree exists. But still.

  It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

  “Aggie?”

  “Yeah?” she answers, a hitch in her voice.

  “I think I’m going back to Bertie…” I say slowly. I turn and look at her. “Turns out, well, I guess you can eat love, after all. It’s just a different kind of food.”

  She sniffles. “Like Letizia Tortelloni makes?”

  I shake my head. “It’s like a food. Just doesn’t fill your stomach.”

  “It fills your heart?”

  A lump gathers in my throat and threatens to choke off my words. I let them tumble out before they’re lost. “Yeah. It fills your heart. Get some sleep, Ag. Big day ahead.”

  We say our goodnights, and I find my spot under Fritz’s bed. Again.

  Only, this time I don’t stay hidden. I stay just under the edge, where I can get a glimpse of my sister.

  A cupful of moonlight spills across the wall above her cage and throws light over her feathers. She’s already snoring.

  Some things never change.

  For now, I’ll watch over her. I’ll keep my eyes open for as long as I can.

  I can sleep some other time.

  CHAPTER 35

  The sun pops its head over the horizon. I hear the purple martins and the sparrows cheer. Fritz comes to the room, lets Aggie out of her cage, and drops in a few crickets for Charles. Porky grunts happily as Fritz scratches him behind the ears, while Aggie makes her way under the bed, where I’m waiting.

  “Do you have a plan?” she asks.

  “I’m flying the coop,” I say, an attempt at a joke.

  “What?” There’s fear in Aggie’s eyes.

  “Just escaping the bed, Ag. That’s all.”

  She still looks worried. “But what made you change your mind?”

  My eyes find the old partner poster, tacked above Fritz’s desk. (Fritz must’ve bought two, because I distinctly remember eating it.) “It’s you and Fritz. A bird and her boy.” I clear my throat. “And Bertie needs me.”

  Aggie looks down at the floor and nods her head. “And you need Bertie, too, right?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Well, nothing,” Aggie says. “It’s true. You need Bertie just as much as she needs you. As much as I need Fritz.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t believe I’m going to say I need a human.”

  “Who’d have thought you’d admit you weren’t one?”

  Good point.

  “I think it’s still up for debate—”

  “Me,” Aggie interrupts. “I knew. I knew from the beginning. You’re the best and strongest bird I’ve ever known.”

  “Oh, Aggie,” I say with a sigh. “Always seeing the peaches in a dish full of pellets.”

  I’m definitely going to miss that most.

  We step out into a little spotlight of sun: Aggie, feathered and as beautiful as I’ve ever seen her; me, plucked and naked as the day I was born. I make the sound of Bertie’s old oven timer to get Fritz’s attention. “Tick, tick, tick – DING.”

  Fritz turns, expecting to see what, I don’t know, but his eyes fall on me. “What in the blue bunions—” He claps a hand over his mouth, stunned, and blinks a few times. Without warning, he begins to giggle uncontrollably.

  Aggie throws a wing over my back and squeezes me close. I look at her, and she smiles.

  “Well, shiver me blisters,” says Fritz when he’s finally got a hold of himself. “It’s Alastair.”

  That afternoon, the four of us – me, Aggie, Fritz, and Fiona – walk up the stone path to the tree-canopied bench Bertie’s picked out as her favourite spot on the Prickly Pines’ grounds. A silver walker waits beside her, ready to help.

  “We’ve brought you a surprise, Mrs Plopky!” Fritz calls as we get near.

  “Oh? Have you, dear?” Bertie replies, shading her eyes and squinting in the light. “Well, what is it? A pony? You know my eyes are bad.”

  Fritz pushes me forward and sets me in Bertie’s lap. Bertie looks down and grins.

  “Why, there you are!” she says when she sees me.

  As if she was waiting on me all along.

  FROM THE DESK OF ALBERTINA PLOPKY

  Dear Delores,

  You make a fine casserole.

  I do a mean pie.

  What do you say we start over.

  Shall we say dinner at 4:30?

  I’ll wear my boa.

  Got you one too.

  Your friend,

  Albertina K. Plopky,
/>   1955 Susquehanna Prize-Pie-Baking Champion

  PS. I forgot how bad your eyes are till just now, and look how small I wrote up there. Well, just have Betty or Florence read this letter to you.

  Unless you can find your magnifying glass.

  CHAPTER 36

  Bertie plunks herself on the bench. Two large pots of geraniums with a few stray dandelions squat in the sun nearby. I scoot from my perch on Bertie’s walker on to the bench back, and a grassy breeze ruffles the fairly respectable coat of feathers I’ve managed to sprout since coming here ten months ago.

  “Lovely, isn’t it, Alastair?”

  I squawk and flap my good wing.

  “It’s lovelier with you,” says Bertie. She closes her eyes, and I close mine too. We’ve spent many an afternoon after tea soaking in the sunshine, listening to the chanting of the loppy crogs, and napping. A little afternoon snooze in the spotty sun is good for mending broken hips and growing feathers … or so Fritz says.

  I’ve just drifted off when something bops me on the head. I startle and look to see what it is, and to my utter shock I see a cherry rolling down the stone pavers. I look around quickly.

  Aggie and Fritz?

  I scan the horizon. There’s nothing in sight but for a lone garter snake warming himself a little way off.

  He couldn’t have thrown it. Snakes lack arms, of course.

  I shake my head and close my eyes. Maybe it was my imagination. Or maybe Bertie had that cherry in her pocket, and it fell out.

  Must’ve been a bug that ran into my head and flew off. A big one.

  BOP.

  Again! I open my eyes to see another cherry, this time coming to a stop in the pool of Bertie’s skirt, its gleaming flesh fiery in the sun.

  I look around again. The snake’s not even there to blame it on this time. Nothing stirs, not for miles. Only the wind. And the flower petals. And the leaves …

  … in the trees.

  I swallow. I pinch my lids shut and tilt my head towards the sky.

  I say a silent prayer…

  And open my eyes.

  More cherries than I know what to do with.

  Medical Log, June 28

  •Age: 22 years 11 months