Feather Brain (6 page)

“Sure,” Dad said, patting my shoulder. “Always glad to help with math.”

That was the problem. Dad was an engineer and Mom was an accountant, so they didn't understand a son who just didn't like math. And I didn't want Dad any more involved than he had to be. But maybe this would be worth it.

I left the beast in the kitchen while Dad finished up the dishes and I put away the gloves and washed my hands. Then I picked up the beast, and Dad and
I walked upstairs to my room. The beast was perfectly still, but I swear he was glaring at me while I carried him up the stairs.

As soon as I was in my room, I put him down in the closet and shut the doors. He glared at me as his room went dark.

Dad sat on the bed and said, “So what's the problem with math?” He glanced around my room—looking for math homework, I guess.

Of course I didn't have any this weekend. So I made the ultimate sacrifice. “I'm just so slow with my times tables,” I said, hoping he'd be too busy to care. No such luck. I should have asked Mom.

“Let's get out the flash cards and I'll help you practice.”

“I'm not sure where they are,” I said, hoping to get out of it.

Dad smiled. “Take a look, and if you can't find them, we'll make some more.”

I sighed and dug through my school stuff until I found the flash cards. I was awful. I'm always bad at times tables, but I was too worried about what to do with the beast to remember even the ones I usually knew.

“Wow, you really are struggling with this,” Dad said. “We'll have to make time to practice every night.”

No no no no no!!! Not Kyle and the beast and math flash cards!!!! When Dad left, I slowly pushed the chest of drawers back in front of the closet and sagged against it. What was I going to do?

Sunday I came up with a new plan. On Monday my class was going to the zoo, and I decided to take the beast with me. I figured that once we were around other people, he'd be quiet. I found my old red little-kid's backpack in the garage. I'd stuff him in it and put it inside my own backpack. Then I'd just leave him somewhere at the zoo. He could live wild there. If anyone came near him, he would look like a model, so he couldn't hurt anyone. I hoped.

Monday, Dad set out some chunks of beef to thaw for stew. When no one was looking I swiped three. They were frozen solid, so I popped them into the microwave on defrost for a minute before I slid them into a Baggie. I'd given the beast water but no food, so he'd be extra hungry.

One last time, I shoved aside my dresser. I laid my red backpack on the floor, stuffed in a layer of newspapers to line the bottom and dumped the raw meat inside. The beast smelled it, even through the shut closet doors, and started to roar.

I opened the doors a crack and pushed the top of the backpack inside. I tried to waft some of the smell of raw meat to the beast, but he just flung himself at the gap between the doors and clawed, trying to pry the doors apart. So I tugged the bag wide, opened the closet doors and let him out.

He hurled himself out of the closet. I jumped back and grabbed the duvet off my bed to protect myself. But he didn't go far before he started sniffing. He turned to the backpack lying near the closet and burrowed into it, searching for the meat. I held it open for him, and once he was eating, I closed the bag around him and zipped it up.

I could hear him devouring the meat while I finished getting ready. First I pulled some clean pants out of the closet, cleaned up the closet floor, fed Stegy and pulled out my own backpack. Then I emptied all the junk out of the bottom of my pack and stuffed in the beast in his bag. I slid my notebook and pencil case down beside the red backpack and set my lunch on top. With that, I was ready to go. At least I hoped I was.

My class met in front of the school. It was sunny but cool, with a sharp spring wind. Kyle stood to one side, arms crossed, looking bored but tough at the same time. No one went near him. No one came near me, either. When the yellow school bus pulled up, we all raced to it. Miss Dubois stood by the steps and ticked off our names on her clipboard as we climbed on.

Kyle hung back; he wasn't going to push through the crowd. But he'd get the back seat anyway. No one wanted to argue with him about that.

I asked Miss Dubois if I could sit with her. That way I'd be at the front of the bus, far from Kyle. She looked at me, surprised, until I said I wanted to tell her more about my dinosaur models. Then she smiled and patted my head. Sweet boy, her smile said. I flushed but stuck with it. Having her think I was sweet was better than sitting near Kyle.

I sat in the front seat by the door. Kyle sneered as he walked past me. When Miss Dubois had all the kids and volunteer parents seated and counted, she sat beside me with a sigh, clipboard on her lap. She wore black glasses, and her straight brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. When Mom first met her, she was shocked at how young Miss Dubois was. She seems pretty old to me, but she's nice.

We talked a little about making dinosaur models, but mostly she stayed busy keeping everyone quiet. I could hear Kyle bugging other kids, but he didn't bother me. I was in the only safe spot on the bus.

My stomach flipped every time the bus bumped over a pothole and I slid into my backpack, but the beast stayed quiet. I sat twitching with nervousness, praying my plan would work, terrified it wouldn't.

When I got really fidgety, Miss Dubois turned to me and smiled. “Excited?” she asked.

I smiled weakly. You have no idea, I thought. What I said was, “Oh, yeah. I love the zoo. Especially the dinosaur park. Are we going there?”

“We'll have some time after lunch to divide into groups and go to our favorite parts of the zoo,” she said. “You'll get there.”

I grinned. Yes! That's where I'd leave the beast!

When we got to the zoo, everyone gathered around the parent volunteers. Some kids stood near their parents, and their friends crowded close so they'd be in the same group. The rest of us stood around, looking awkward.

I could see Miss Dubois glancing from Kyle to me to the parents. I could tell she was planning on pairing us up. I took a quick look over the groups. Then I walked
over to Jenny, who was standing alone with her mom. “Can I be in your group?” I asked.

Jenny's really small. She looked up at me, her blond hair swinging back from her face. “Sure,” she said, looking surprised.

No one wanted to be with Jenny because she was the bossiest girl in the whole school. Kyle couldn't stand her. He didn't dare bug her, and he'd do anything to stay out of her group.

Miss Dubois put a couple of other kids with us, quiet kids who wouldn't argue with Jenny. She bossed us all day. But I didn't care. Being bossed by Jenny was infinitely better than being bullied by Kyle.

Our day started with a lecture on animal care. Then we watched the elephants having a bath. We finished the morning making treats for the gorillas in the loft above the otters. Miss Dubois pulled out a bag filled with toilet paper tubes we'd collected. I grabbed a tube and sat down near the end of a long table. I checked on the beast; he was still quiet, still motionless. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I looked up, straight at Kyle staring at me from across the table.

We blocked one end of our tubes with cardboard and edible glue and filled the tubes with popcorn and spices. I couldn't figure out why gorillas would like all
those strong spices, but I wasn't about to ask. I just kept my head down and worked, trying to ignore Kyle.

He didn't like being ignored. “Hey, Lucas,” he whispered as soon as Miss Dubois was at another table. “Maybe we can feed you to the gorillas. Except they'd probably throw you back.” Then he paused, made a face and said, in a squeaky voice, “Eww—red hair? I'm not eating that!”

While the kids around us laughed, I stuffed my tube full and covered the top end with cardboard. Don't react, just don't react, I repeated to myself.

We ate lunch in the loft. I sat on the floor against the wall, leaving Kyle at the table cracking jokes. When I pulled out my lunch bag, I could feel the beast shifting around.

After lunch, we took our gorilla snacks to the gorilla enclosure. It's huge, with lots of places for the gorillas to climb and play, and walkways for people to watch from. We took turns tossing the snacks off the top pathway down to the gorillas. Then we raced down the steps to watch the gorillas fight over them. One smart girl gorilla found two snacks, but some older boys stole them from her. Just like Kyle, I thought. Bullies everywhere.

Finally we had a free hour to explore our favorite spots. I joined the kids going to the dinosaur park.
Jenny wanted to see the kangaroos, but Kyle joined my group. Miss Dubois looked pleased; she was determined for us to be friends.

Some people think it's weird to have a dinosaur park in a zoo. After all, a zoo is supposed to be about live animals. But it's my favorite part. It's landscaped to look like southern Alberta did when dinosaurs lived here, with primitive plants and weird rock formations. All through it, dinosaur models graze and wade in the pond and loom over the pathways. It's the coolest place in Calgary and my second-favorite place in the world. My absolute number one favorite is the dinosaur museum in Drumheller—the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. But we only get out there a few times a year, so the zoo was a close second.

Our volunteer said we could go anywhere we wanted as long as we stayed in the dinosaur park and met her in exactly one hour. That worked for me.

I stood in the center of the dinosaur park, on a high spot overlooking the small lake. A few last patches of snow gleamed white in shady spots; green sprouted up in the gardens. I had trouble imagining dinosaurs surrounded by snow and surviving on tiny spring shoots. But it was the best time to see the dinosaurs, as they
loomed over the bare gardens. By late summer, they would be hidden in the plants.

Now if I could just stay away from Kyle and get rid of the beast, my day would be perfect. I looked around for someplace to leave the bag. There's a sort of cave I thought would be a good spot to hide it. I pretended I really was in a land of dinosaurs as I followed the path around the volcano and slipped into the cave. I waited until I was alone. Then I opened my backpack. Checking over my shoulder to make sure no one was coming, I pulled the little red backpack out of my backpack and set it on a ledge. The beast was quiet—still gorged on meat, I hoped. I shoved the bag far back into a corner, gave it a little pat goodbye and slipped out.

The rest of the hour in the dinosaur park was so much fun. Whenever I spotted Kyle, I avoided him like he was a tyrannosaurus and I was a smaller and much more clever dinosaur. I checked out every dinosaur in the park and imagined what I would create if I was hired to make more. When it was finally time to leave, we gathered just inside the gates while Miss Dubois checked us off on her clipboard. I stood listening to Jenny insisting that we stay together and not climb on the rocks.

I was ignoring her, imagining making more dinosaur models, when Kyle showed up. He was carrying my little red backpack. He held it like it was his, like he was trying not to draw attention to it, but Miss Dubois noticed right away. I drew back into the crowd of kids, hoping she wouldn't see me.

“What's that, Kyle?” she asked.

“Huh?” he said, trying to look casual. But she was already reaching for it.

“Oh, uh, I found this,” he said. “In the dinosaur park. I don't know who it belongs to.”

My heart stopped as she opened the bag. What if the beast attacked? I imagined him leaping up, claws ripping at her cheek. But when she lifted him out, he was just a model.

“This looks like one of Lucas's,” she said. She looked up and scanned the group of kids until she spotted me. “Lucas,” she called.

I sighed and stepped forward.

“Is this yours?” she asked.

I was about to deny it when Kyle smiled a fake smile and handed me the bag. I nodded and took the beast from Miss Dubois. “I must have put it down and forgotten it,” I said.

“Thanks, Kyle,” Miss Dubois said. “Why don't you two sit together on the way home?”

I looked at her, horrified. Then Jenny, of all people, saved me. “He's going to sit with me,” she said. “I want to learn how he makes dinosaurs.”

She glared at Kyle, daring him to complain. With her mom and Miss Dubois there, he couldn't say a thing. But he grinned at me as he walked away.
I couldn't do anything worse to you than a bus ride with Jenny
, his grin said.

As Kyle strode off in front of the class and Jenny bugged everyone to keep up, I slipped off to a garbage can and dropped the little red backpack into it.

“Goodbye, you monster,” I said as I walked away.

I had to run to catch up with the others. Jenny grabbed my arm and hurried me to the rest of the class, scolding all the way. I didn't care. Inside I was laughing.