Call Me Alastair Read online

  You might break a parrot’s wing.

  Or a person could be sitting next to you. You’re getting some practice filling out a medical chart, and he’s talking to you about the time he was flipping burgers and a squirrel ran right up and got caught in his trouser leg. And you tell yourself he’s probably just tired and needs a nap, because he can’t even talk right. But later, you watch from your window as a bunch of paramedics load him into an ambulance and drive away.

  Sometimes it’s the bad things that happen. My stomach hurts just thinking about it.

  I tried explaining all this to Fiona. But she just handed me one of those little slips of paper you get in fortune cookies that said He who worries best changes nothing.

  I mean, I sorta get what the fortune means. I get that there’s no use worrying about something that might never happen. But it doesn’t make me feel better.

  I think I’ll try to swing by the shop with some healthy food for Aggie later. I’ll just tell Pete I’m buying some crickets for Charles.

  I’m pretty sure I can stuff a pack of blueberries in my shorts.

  Signed: Francis Feldman, MD

  PS. If I were Fiona, I would’ve traded someone for a different fortune. I like the ones that predict an egg roll in your future.

  Update: cargo shorts hold two packs of blueberries.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Order! Come to order! Hey! You rabbits – quit your yakking! We’re trying to have a meeting here!”

  Part of our new normal on the sales floor has been nightly meetings after the OPEN sign on the shop’s door is turned over and Pete’s gone home. Hamsters’ wheels are silenced; skinks and salamanders press up against their glass enclosures to take a gander at the goings-on; birds pop their heads through cage bars. Porky presides.

  “Hey – Babs!” he shouts. “We’re talking adoptions over here! You’d do well to listen up!”

  “Porky,” groans Babs through a mouthful of rabbit pellets. She eyes her nails. “I’m not looking all sweet any more. I’ve had eighty-four kids. It takes a toll on a rabbit’s figure.”

  Porky rolls his eyes and sighs. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: if you wanna get adopted, you gotta look cute and cuddly. Big eyes. Puff out those cheeks. Remember the saying: ‘Skin and bone? You get no home.’ Spunky and chunky is how folks like their pets! Look at your fur! You look … clumpy.” He points in the direction of a cluster of rabbits lounging in a corner and twirling their ears. “And so do you, Gloria; you too, Harriet! If you didn’t spend so much time shootin’ the breeze, you might have some time to clean up a little. You got week-old carrot in your coat.”

  “What’s ‘shootin’ the breeze’ mean?” whispers Harriet. Gloria shrugs.

  “Nothing! Never mind. The rest of you, listen up!” Porky bangs a petrified carrot stick on the edge of his food dish. “We got six weeks to Christmas, runts, and you know what that means! Best time to get purchased. We got lots of those parents coming into the shop looking for little Johnny’s puppy present and Susie’s three-toed box turtle. Fluff that fur! Shine those shells! Smile! We gotta look our best, act our best, and hope for the best!”

  “HURRAH!” shout the lot of them, except for the fish, who stare blankly, and the puppies, who have the attention span of a houseplant. Non-existent. Puppies have nothing to worry about, anyway. Customers seem to think they’re nothing but cute, even while they take turns sniffing one another’s butts.

  The rest of the shop begins exchanging advice and demonstrating things like eye batting. I keep silent and pretend my toe skin is in need of some serious attention. The topics vary from how to refresh a wilted piece of spinach to ten tips on looking and smelling your buy-worthy best (tip number one: curb your turds!).

  You can see why my toe skin holds appeal.

  Aggie, however, raises a timid wing when there’s a call for questions, but quickly slips it back down.

  “What’s up?” I ask her.

  “Do you think I – I mean – well, am I looking my buy-worthy best?” she asks me.

  I was waiting for this question.

  I hate to say it, but Aggie is looking a bit ratty these days. She was fine for a while, excited to be together, live in a big cage, but as Fritz’s hours dwindled and the days wore on, she stopped expecting every day would be the day Fritz would take her home. He keeps her hopes up with promises, but I’m starting to think I might be worrying about him for nothing. I’ve seen kids in the shop. They never have cash. That’s why they’re always asking for a quarter to buy a bubblegum from the machine next to Pete’s register.

  I’m more worried about the old lady.

  Still, Aggie’s convinced Fritz will buy her, and no one but Fritz. In the meantime, she hasn’t been eating, and she’s chewing on her feathers. She’s no feather picker, mind you, but she’s definitely doing a little anxious preening lately. And then there’s that cough that’s back.

  “It doesn’t matter, Aggie,” I assure her. “I’m getting us out of here, remember?”

  Out of the cloud of pet shop chatter, the nasally voice from the parakeet cage butts in again. “You’re not going anywhere on that chicken wing.”

  “Hey!” scolds Aggie, straightening herself up and frowning. “His wing’s gonna heal. And my brother can do anything he puts his mind to – you mind your own business.”

  “Get a load of these guys!” the parakeet shouts to his buddies. “They think they’re flying outta here!” Along the perch, forty parakeet heads bob with laughter.

  My claws curl into the wooden dowel beneath me, and heat flares in my cheeks as I close my eyes and imagine plucking these turkeys.

  Aggie turns back to me. “Don’t listen to them.” She clears her throat.

  “So?” she asks again. “Do you think I’m buy worthy?” She sidesteps along the perch towards me. I wince as her feathers graze my bad wing. I feel her thin bones underneath and shudder.

  “Alastair, you’re not answering me.”

  “You’re the most buy-worthy bird I’ve ever seen,” I respond, and I mean it.

  Outside, the wind picks up. Little by little, the voices of hamsters and hedgehogs drift off, and just past the window, the first haunting flakes of snow begin to fall. I shouldn’t know this is snow, but somehow I do.

  “Wow,” whispers Aggie. Her eyes spark with excitement for the first time in a long time. “Isn’t it spectacular?”

  “Sure is,” I reply.

  She sighs heavily, and the spark dims. “I wish Fritz were here to see this. He’d love it.”

  Another gust of wind sweeps down the street, worrying every speck of air. We watch as the frenzied snowflakes slow, then slip down once more. Like tears.

  Aggie coughs. “Alastair?” Her voice is pinched.

  “Yeah?”

  “He’ll have enough money soon, won’t he?”

  I shudder again, once. Twice.

  I know what my sister wants. She wants to hear that everything will turn out just the way she thinks it will. She’s got visions of cashews dancing in her head. Visions of her and Fritz and me.

  “Don’t worry, Aggie.”

  Her stomach growls, and she shivers. “He said he would…” Aggie walks over to her food bowl and steps into a patch of light. It illuminates every dull feather, puts a spotlight on her thinness. She looks at the seeds in her bowl.

  And walks away.

  I don’t want to say more.

  It’s not true – Fritz won’t come and rescue her. That’s my job. And I’m working on it, coming up with as many plans as I can. I just haven’t been successful yet. But I’m close, I know it. Like an instinct, I feel it in my bones.

  Aggie coughs again, and I look over at her but have to pinch my eyes shut.

  She needs all her troubles to fly off and perch somewhere else; I know this. She needs just a little crumb of hope.

  I manage to get words out – for Aggie’s sake. “If Fritz – if he said it, I’m sure he means it.” He mig
ht mean it, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

  Aggie smiles weakly. “Thanks, Alastair. You’re the best brother ever – you know that?” Her voice sounds small and far away. She coughs again, but this time she doesn’t stop. The seconds drag on; each cough sets another feather on edge.

  “Sorry about that,” she gasps once the spell is over. “I just get so cold sometimes. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  My skin weighs like iron; every plume feels out of place, sharp and biting. I shudder one last time as I pull my sister under my bad wing and try to push away this rock, this mountain of fear. It remains.

  Words crawl into my throat and threaten to wriggle their way out. I want to shove them back, squash them down.

  But I don’t.

  Though it’s the last thing I thought I’d ever say, I let the words fall from my beak. They come out strangled.

  “Aggie, you’ll be home soon – home with Fritz.”

  To My Dear and Loving Sister1

  If ever two could stand, then surely we.

  If ever one could bear all strain, then thee.

  If ever bird had substance, it was you;

  ’Twas me who proved the weaker of the two.

  Let stars fall down and earth wring out her seas;

  Let mountains melt like wax before the heat;

  Though sun be dimmed, yet I’d know in the gloam2,

  The sky is bluest near us for we’re home.

  But bid me courage for this troubled day,

  To brave uncertain future, come what may.

  For soon I’d give thee up, bird of a feather,

  If keeping you here meant loss altogether.

  1. This concoction, inspired by Anne Bradstreet’s poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, boasts a distinct familial flavour and a bitter aftertaste.

  2. gloam: a delicious word for twilight

  CHAPTER 12

  Everyone has their moments of weakness, right?

  I blame it on a bad sunflower seed.

  Rest assured, I am back to my normal self. It might never have happened except for a little of what I like to call “bovine intervention”.

  Workers came in last week and clanked around in the ceiling for a few hours, and by the time they left, the puppies were raving lunatics and the ductwork from the lab renting the space above the pet shop was connected to ours.

  The lab’s name is Bio-Scents.

  They study the effects of cow manure on the human nose.

  You get the picture.

  It doesn’t help that while the workers were up there tinkering with the ventilation system, they broke the furnace. The shop’s been blazing at around thirty degrees for six days straight.

  Heat + cow manure fumes = no customers, angry Pete … and a Merry Christmas to me!

  The temperature outside hovers somewhere around the freezing mark, but Pete’s had all the doors and windows open trying to air the place out. He’s even donned a Santa suit (i.e., cotton-ball-trimmed shorts), plastered SALE! signs everywhere, and wished upon the Christmas star that customers will brave the stink long enough to purchase that tarantula on little Tommy and Katie’s Christmas list.

  So far, his plan hasn’t worked. Not only have no Mrs Plopkys been in the shop purchasing pet toys or parrots, but no one else has either. The gerbils have begun taking bets on how few cash register rings there will be (yesterday: two) and how long a customer will stay before they run out holding their nose. Only the gerbils place bets, of course. No one wants to risk being indebted to one. Everyone knows they’re in it for blood.

  But as much as the rest of the store seems to wither and retch in the heat and stench, it seems the essence of cow dung does wonders for me. Circumstances have allowed me to devise a simple, yet exceedingly clever, plan to get us out of this place and fly Aggie somewhere she’ll get better, for good.

  Simple, Yet Exceedingly Clever, Plan to Fly Out of Pete’s Pet (and Parrot!) Shack for Good: flap wings like crazy bird until Pete takes notice and remembers long-forgotten wing clipping. Wait for Pete to take Aggie and me out of cage for said wing clipping. Create diversion (biting has been known to work, yet this can backfire as we all know). During commotion, Aggie slips out open front door. Create second diversion large enough for Pete to forget about me. (Remember to think of second diversion.) Strut self out the front door into the hope and merriment of the December season.

  Sometimes I surprise even myself.

  The week before Christmas, the vents and heating are as broken as ever. Pete was well-nigh to busting a blood feather until customers started coming in anyway, braving the stink-oven to fill their stockings with dog bones and flea shampoo. Monster and Morris, two of the golden retriever puppies, left in hole-punched gift boxes, as did Fats the hamster, a boatload of hedgehogs, and kittens galore. Even Gloria found a home.

  Pete’s added a few chewed-up stockings to the checkout (the puppies got to them first) and a scrawny pink tree with blinking lights to the front window. Its branches are strung with leashes, collars and a muzzle or two for cheery effect, while the Santa suit now boasts a garland and a large tinsel snowflake. The atmosphere around here is almost jolly.

  “Deck the halls with fleas and fur balls, fa la la la la, la la la la! Got yer new aquarium right over here, Mr Neudall. On sale, too! One forty-nine ninety-nine!” Pete hoists a large box over his head, zigzags through the aisles, and nearly trips over a little girl with a turtle in her lap.

  It’s a snowy Saturday morning, and, so close to Christmas, the shop is packed. Kids are running laps around the store, hopped up on candy canes, and parents are sweating the thirty-degree heat and the price tags. The puppies haven’t stopped yapping all morning, and it seems every small rodent-type creature is scurrying, every bird chirping.

  A particularly wily-looking boy with sandy hair and candy cane goo smeared across his face steps close to our cage. Aggie’s napping – a worrisome thrice-a-day habit she’s picked up – but she startles out of it. She backs up as I step closer, closing the distance between boy and sister.

  “Hey, MOM! Look at this!” He pushes a thick finger between the bars of the cage and wiggles it around. There’s a thin slice of dirt under the nail. Still looks good enough to bite.

  “Mom! You see this bird? I learned about these birds in school. They can talk! Hey, bird! Say something! Say ‘dumb bird’! Come on … ‘dumb bird’!”

  A flock of children close in from every corner of the store and circle the cage like gerbils to prey. The call of the wild.

  “Pretty birdie!”

  “Dumb bird!”

  “Aye, matey!”

  “Hey, bird, look at me!”

  “Polly want a cracker?”

  “Say ‘butt’; say ‘butt’!”

  There are things that’ll make you crazy in here.

  Twenty minutes later … we’re still surrounded. I’m beginning to wonder if these kids have been forgotten or abandoned by their parents. There are twelve of them, by my count, spitting, making faces, and picking noses. Aggie’s riffling through her feathers with her beak, tugging and fussing with them, clearly upset.

  Seven more fingers poke themselves into our cage. They writhe like mealworms but look sweet as baby carrots. I’ve waited a long time to sample one of these sugary morsels, and I’m just about to decide which one looks tastiest when a single thought dawns on me.

  Don’t bite! Escape.

  Yes. Of course! I quickly survey the room and make sure the list of requirements is in place.

  Open door. Check. (Still stink-blazing hot in here.)

  No Fritz. Check.

  Ample distraction. Check. (Although, still not sure about that second diversion.)

  Unclipped wings. Quadruple check!

  “Aggie—” I say under my breath so only she can hear.

  “Yeah?” she whimpers.

  “This is it. I’m busting you out. You ready?”

  “Uh, um, I – I guess so. I – I’m not so keen on al
l these kids – one just said he wanted to squeeze me. I just wanna see Fr—”

  “All right.” I cut her off. There’s no time for dallying. “Then here goes nothing.”

  And I begin to beat my wings.

  CHAPTER 13

  African greys are not the largest of birds by any stretch of the imagination. But there is a certain amount of force a bird of my stature can create using only his wings and willpower.

  I flap. Feathers fly. A dish of seed overturns and cascades to the floor. I squawk using every ounce of breath in my lungs and can tell by the way the children are screaming that it looks like a gerbil-worthy battle’s going on. The puppies, unable to stay silent, join in. The whole shop is in an uproar.

  “Hey! Hey! What’s going on over here? You kids messing with the birds?” I hear Pete yell.

  The screaming continues, but I hear one little girl say, “No, mister! Honest! That bird just went bonkers! I think he’s trying to kill that ugly one!”

  I flap harder.

  “Gah!” Pete squeals. “Get her out! Get her out! That dang bird’s worth a fortune!” He lifts the latch and reaches inside to grab Aggie from where she’s cowering at the bottom of the cage.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as he carefully sets her down on the empty shelf behind him and turns back to figure out what to do with me.

  I let go of my perch so I’m half flying, half crashing around the cage. I feel feathers break off, feel the stab of pain in my wing, but I keep on.

  “Ack! If he breaks a blood feather, it’s gonna look like a murder scene around here! You! Kid! Grab that towel over there!”

  The whole pack of children turn and run down the aisle to grab towels from a stack. As they do, I see Aggie quietly climb down the shelf and slip herself under the low overhang at the bottom and begin to walk towards the door, half-hidden in shadow.

  Parents begin grabbing their offspring, yanking arms, giving stern lectures. Pete, towel in hand, is looking to grab me.