Hummingbird, page 4
Mama nodded sadly. “I just don’t think the timing is right. Not yet.”
“Then it never will be,” I said. Frustration rang out like a soft explosion in my soul. “Something happened inside me at church today, when that lady prayed for me.”
“Bacon! I knew it!” Mama’s fork made a loud clanging sound when it hit the plate. “I knew that lady got you spun up.”
“What lady?” asked Jupiter.
“Tell you later,” Mama and I said at the same time.
“Do you know how often I hear people say that I’m fragile?” I asked. “It’s a lot. And it’s true, I get it. But that’s all anybody knows about me: that I was born broken, that I’m fragile, that I’m small, and that I have a great sense of style. Sometimes,” I said honestly, “I think even you all get stuck on the fragile part.”
“What?” Mama and Jupiter said at the same time. “No!”
“Olive!” Now Mama was saying my name like a hallelujah again. “We think everything about you is wonderful as you are! You’re smart and kind and so creative.”
“You’re a natural birder,” Jupiter added. “Just like your grandparents.”
Hatch’s head snapped up suddenly. “Are you really, Olive?” He stared at me with an eager sparkle in his eyes, like I was about to give him a birthday present. Which I wasn’t. His birthday’s not until December twenty-fifth. (He gets double presents, of course.)
“I’m good at spotting birds,” I said with a shrug. “I learned from the best. But I wasn’t asking for affirmation. I just want to try out middle school!”
I sat up taller. I took a deep, steadying yoga breath. “Mama. Jupiter. You can’t control every environment I’m in. Not forever. I think, if this is my body, I should get a say-so on where it rolls. I think it’s time to find my wings. Like, figure out what I’m good at. What inspires me. I think Macklemore is the place that happens.”
Uncle Dash nodded. His eyes were shiny with proud-uncle tears. “I agree!”
“I’m really proud of you for saying all this, Olive,” Jupiter said. “But I’m really terrified about you attending school. It didn’t go so well the first time.”
“You’ve tried it before?” Coach Malone asked.
I nodded. “One day of kindergarten. I fell and broke my leg. It was traumatic for all of us. Mama and Jupiter didn’t want me to go back.”
“I think y’all should let her try again,” said Uncle Dash. “Even if it doesn’t work out, it’d be good to try.”
“Thank you!” I said.
The room settled into an uncomfy silence. But I tried not to let the quiet get me down. At least quiet wasn’t a no! Then Mama and Jupiter and Uncle Dash started talking at the same time about public school: Why it was a good idea. Why it wasn’t a good idea. Why it was dangerous. Why it was awesome.
Coach Malone clapped his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Hatch, would you help Olive if she went to Macklemore?”
Hatch’s face scrunched up like he’d just sniffed a bag of rotten potatoes. “Help her … how?”
“Just look out for her?” Coach Malone said. “You’d be in the same class. Help her get oriented, maybe.”
“I don’t know …” Hatch said. “I’m kind of busy when I’m at school.” And even though he didn’t say it in a mean way, my heart sank like a concrete block. Was he that embarrassed to be seen with me? Was it because of the wheelchair? Because I was annoying to him? What was his problem?
Hatch pushed his hand through his thick black hair and said, “I don’t get why she’s making such a big deal, anyway. Macklemore’s just a school.”
The sudden urge to fling a handful of spaghetti at Hatch Malone’s face overwhelmed me. And I might have done it, if Coach Mo hadn’t given Hatch the Look. I thought only Mama gave me the Look. But apparently, the Look is something lots of parents occasionally give their offspring. The Look means stop being rude. Or stop talking. Or just stop. The Look says a thousand things even though zero words are spoken.
“Okay, fine,” Hatch finally mumbled. “I’ll help if she needs it. Whatever.”
Coach Malone clapped his hands together. “So there we go. Hatch will be near Olive most of the day. The school will have no problem providing an aide. And I’ll be close, too, if she ever needs me.”
Mama and Jupiter looked a little stunned by the direction spaghetti Sunday had taken.
I twisted my hands together in front of me to try and keep calm. But I could feel my heartbeat fluttering again beneath my fingertips. I kept looking back and forth between their faces, waiting for another no.
But hoping for a yes.
To my great shock, Mama decreed: “Maybe it’s time.”
“What?!” Jupiter and I shouted at the same time.
“I really trust Hatch to look out for her,” Mama said. “He’s so thoughtful and observant. And he has all his soccer team friends—”
“I’m also president of the Comic Book Club,” Hatch said. “It takes up a lot of time.”
“I guess with Hatch and Coach Malone there …” said Jupiter, his words trailing off into a thoughtful silence. I sat up extra straight. He sounded like he might be changing his mind! “I’d be okay with Olive trying it.”
“So it’s a yes?” I asked.
Mama looked at Jupiter and nodded. He sighed but nodded right back. “Yes,” he said. “If you’ll be careful.”
In books, there are always magical words, words like abracadabra that open locked doors or wake sleeping dragons or turn oceans to ice. But in real life, maybe there’s no word more magical than a plain, straightforward, spoken from your parents Y-E-S.
“YES!” I shouted.
In an effort to communicate his excitement, Felix slammed into the kitchen window. This is nothing to be concerned about, friend: Felix always crash-lands. He shook his head and bounced around on the grass as usual. But he managed to turn our attention toward the outside world.
Where something was happening.
Something wild and white.
Gusts of white feather-snow swirled past the glass.
“It’s really happening,” Hatch whispered, rising slowly out of his seat to stare. The rest of us were too stunned to speak. We watched the feathers land on the window, then tremble for a heartbeat before they faded to dust. In the seconds before they disappeared, they were beautiful: sparkling and icy-white, delicate as butterfly bones on the glass.
Over the next few days, feather-flakes gusted through the Piney Woods in fluffy spurts and bundles. Wednesday morning was when they fell the heaviest—hard as rain and silent as snow. But I didn’t have time to consider the weather, or the birds that might be causing it, or even my future Academy Award.
I woke up thinking about elastic-waist pants. Because Wednesday was the day I finally got to go to Macklemore.
I’m guessing that elastic-waist pants probably aren’t the hottest trend in middle school. But I’d be using my wheelchair, Dolly, all day there, so it made a little more sense. When you sit all day, a button toggle digging in above your belly button gets annoying real fast. On the bright side, my pants looked like real jeans.
On the even brighter side, I was actually headed to my dream school!
Coach Mo got the process started on Monday morning. Then Jupiter and Mama toured the school and figured out my schedule. Then the three of them made me promise to be extra careful at least a billion times. They told me to only use my wheelchair at Macklemore, which I’d already promised to do anyway. And that I’d have an aide named Ms. Pigeon who would “help me out”—whatever that meant.
Here’s what mattered to me: Wednesday was here, and so was change!
After I got dressed, I pushed my window open wide and said good morning to Felix. Then I prayed along with the birds who were singing good morning to God.
I prayed that God would help me find my future BFF. That I would feel smart and confident, in a good way. Not a cocky way. I prayed for a big adventure. And then I prayed God would open my eyes to anybody lonely who needed a friend, too. Which is something Grandpa Goad always prays.
Prayers sound extra beautiful wrapped inside my grandpa’s deep voice. I wished he was there for my first day. I’d tried calling him for a few days now, but reception is spotty up on Mount LeConte. That’s where he was presently searching for birds. I couldn’t wait to try again when I got home, though. Telling him about my Macklemore victory was the big reason I needed to chat. But I also wanted his opinion on the feather-flakes.
“Change is on the wind,” Uncle Dash said as he helped me load into the van that morning. “What’d I tell ya?”
“Maybe what’s changing is me!” I said this a little too loudly. I always talk too much and too loud when I get nervous.
“Maybe,” he agreed. He held up his tattooed hand, which I clapped with a double high five.
We’d all decided it was smartest for Uncle Dash to drive me to school. Mama and Jupiter were proud of me, they said, but they were a big bundle of tangled emotions. And while I believe crying is a perfectly fine and natural way to express a person’s heart, I didn’t really want my parents in tears while I rolled into school. That’s an awkward way to make a first impression. And first impressions are a big deal. They’re why it took hours for me to decide on my first-day outfit.
“That jacket’s so sparkly I’m gonna need my sunglasses,” Dash said with a smile in his voice.
“Mama helped me do it,” I told him as I buckled my seat belt. I ran my fingers down the flickery sequins of my front lapel. There’s no dress code at Macklemore. But every student is given a school jacket they’re allowed to personalize however they choose. I decided to make a statement on my first day. So late last night, Mama helped me sew shiny gold sequins all over the arms and down the front. Then Jupiter helped me decide on a seashell necklace and heart-shaped earrings for accessories. That’s when I knew my parents really were proud of me, even if they were afraid. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that it’s possible to feel both at once.
It’s possible to feel a thousand things at once.
I waved to them as we drove away, smiling bright enough for them to see. I wanted them to feel the joy-kabooms in my soul.
“I can’t believe they’re letting me do this,” I said to Dash.
“I can’t, either,” he admitted.
“I can’t remember the last time I was this freaked out. Or excited. I’m freak-cited.”
“You’ll do great, Olive. You’ve got a hobbit-heart. You’re made for adventure.” He said all this like a promise, and I tucked it deep in my heart.
The town of Wildwood is probably the same as most mountain nooks: We’ve got several little shops, a cupcakery, a town library, and a post office with a spray-tan room in the back. Lampposts flicker on the sidewalks when the sun goes down. Magnolias bloom starry-white in the summer. And all year, in every season, birds of all feathers rest on the rooftops and build their nests in the Lonesome Oak on the town square. It’s a peaceful place. A pretty place.
Sometimes, it feels like a magical place.
“Ah!” Dash shouted as the van squealed to a stop at the red light. Now I was the one jumping like a stale piece of bread out of a toaster. Dash never yells about anything. He didn’t even yell the time he saw a mouse scamper across the kitchen floor with a Cheeto in its mouth. “I knew something was happening, Olive. Look over there. Do you know who that is?”
At the end of Main Street sat a little restaurant with a copper roof called the Ragged Apple Cafe. It was owned and operated by a fancy baker-lady named Nester Tuberose. Ms. Tuberose was basically a legend all her own at this point. She stayed at her orchard, mostly. If she was at the cafe, she was only there very early baking her famous apple pies. I’d seen her maybe three times in my entire life.
But today she stood outside, staring up into the treetops. She wore a long, flowy blue dress covered by a flour-dusted apron. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, poofy to a point like a gray volcano. She had a pinched face and a small pair of glasses perched on her nose. And she kept her fists propped on her hips, like she had business to do with the pines.
“I wonder what she’s looking for?” I asked my uncle.
“I bet she can feel change on the wind,” he said. “The Tuberose family can tell the future, you know. It’s on account of one of their apple trees. The legend says there’s an apple tree up on Grave Hill that will tell your future in a single bite.”
“That’s really cool if it’s true,” I said to Uncle Dash as we drove away. “She could just be excited, ya know. Some change is good.”
“She didn’t look excited,” he pointed out.
(Admittedly, he was right.)
A voice on the radio snagged my attention.
“… the feather-flakes are only temporary.”
We reached to turn up the volume at the same time, and heard the gravelly voice of our town mayor. “They’re nothing to get worked up over. Now, you’ll hear all kinds of things about these, uh … feather-flakes … in the coming days. Everybody loves a legend, don’t they? But rest assured, this is just some fancy-pants version of rain or sleet. And yes, I know a blue moon is coming—it’s all coincidence! Nobody panic!”
The mayor laughed nervously.
“Why would anybody be afraid?” I asked Dash. “Also, what’s a blue moon?”
“Pretty sure it’s the second full moon in a calendar month,” Uncle Dash explained. “I’m telling you, Olive—people can feel something in the air right now.”
“People in this town are also wildly superstitious,” I reminded him. “So it could be just that.”
“Could be,” he said. “Or it could be a whole lot more.”
Friend, it was a whole lot more. But I was too focused on my own adventure to even sense it.
The brakes squealed again as Dash stopped the van in front of a tall, rusted gate. The gate was woven with iron roses and a tall golden M, matching the M on my jacket.
“We’re here,” I whispered. My heartbeat sounded louder than the words coming out of my mouth. But, as if those two tiny words I’d managed to squeak out were magic, the letter broke in half as the gate swung open. We drove down a long, rain-soaked road twisting over green fields and deep into the far-off woods. Fog looped around the tree trunks there like octopus arms—reaching for me.
Welcoming me.
“You can see the school spires from here,” said Uncle Dash. I rolled down the window to get a better look.
I already knew that Macklemore had two spires, just like a castle. The first spire is where the library is located. “What’s in the other spire?” I asked.
“Janitor’s closet,” said Uncle Dash. “Most of your classes will be on the first level. But there is an elevator, now, if you have classes on other floors. And there are ramps, too. I don’t think your parents realized how accessible Macklemore is. History is great, but we gotta improve on history. Especially in a school. That’s the point, right?”
“Totally,” I said with a very slight shake in my voice. My hope-bird heart was fluttering madly.
I heard the wet pavement swish beneath the tires as the van stopped at the front entrance. There, Hatch Malone stood waiting for me. Hatch always goes to school early with his dad so he can have some time alone to shoot hoops in the gym. They offered to bring me along, too, but I wanted some extra time for first-impression preparation.
“He looks thrilled to be here,” I joked to Uncle Dash. Really, Hatch looked kinda miserable. His blue hood was popped up over his head, and his hands were shoved deep in the front pockets. There was absolutely zero trace of a smile on his face.
Dash chuckled a little. “Hatch is a good kid, Olive.”
A perfect kid, I nearly pointed out. But I decided to focus on the moment at hand instead. The air smelled like roses, like rain, and a little bit like fresh apple pie. That had to be a good sign. If magic had a smell, surely it would be that!
“Ms. Pigeon will meet you in the office,” said Uncle Dash as he helped me transfer to Dolly. “She’ll help you to your classrooms so you don’t have to worry about people knocking into you.”
“I could probably do that part myself,” I said.
“Well, see how you feel about it after today,” Uncle Dash said reasonably. “She’ll also help you to the bathroom if you need her.”
I nodded quickly. “I remember.” I had no desire to talk about the bathroom situation around Hatch. It’s not like I needed help in the bathroom. But maybe Ms. Pigeon needed to push me there, for some reason.
“Okay,” said Uncle Dash. He stood back and took everything in. “Do you want me to help you through the door or—”
“I can do it myself from here,” I said. I adore my family and I’m grateful for their help, but I really can do most things by myself. And while I shouldn’t care what people think, a first impression is a big deal. It’s why I wore sequins!
“And yes, I’ll be careful,” I promised Dash, before he could remind me again. “And no, I won’t fall. If people get too close, I’ll scream, ‘I’m fragile! BE GONE!’ ”
“Great,” said Uncle Dash. “Maybe let Hatch push you over the door humps. They’re tricky.”
He leaned back against the van and shoved his hands into his pockets. Uncle Dash isn’t the type to hover, but I knew he’d wait to make sure we got inside okay.
Now it was just me and Hatch, who is still mostly a stranger to me. Who really didn’t want me to be there at all.
“Care to push me inside?” I asked. “Past the tricky door humps?”
Hatch’s hands gripped my wheelchair handles. “You sure you trust me to push you?”
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” Even though I was talking to Hatch, it looked like I was just talking to the empty air ahead of me. It’s always awkward trying to talk to the person pushing my wheelchair. If I look up, I’m looking up someone’s nose. If I speak out in front of me, I look like I’m talking to myself.
“I won’t hurt you, right?” he asked. I could have sworn I heard a nervous tremble in his voice, which kinda surprised me. Because if Hatch was nervous, did that mean he cared? Probably not. He probably just had a tickle in his throat.
