The Amazing Life of Birds (7 page)

And I said: “Mom, Dad, I have a …”

And I'm not sure if I was going to say the word
problem
or
question
because right then the tennis player turned into something else and I shook my head to clear the image, which for some reason made my left foot slip through the crossbars on my kitchen stool and throw me off balance.

For a second I teetered, then I went down like a
mighty oak, dragging my full cereal bowl off the counter, splattering it
(splatter
was a big word for me lately) all over the counter, my mother's dress and the back of my father's pants.

“Way to go, Grace.” My sister hadn't gotten a drop on her but felt the need to comment. “Don't hurt yourself.”

My mother and father said: “Oh, Duane …”

Mom added, more softly, “What's the matter with you lately?”

“He's dumb,” my sister said. “You haven't noticed until now?”

And you know, as I lay on the floor, I had to agree.

And then, it was off to school, “looking with bright anticipation to what joyous things the day might bring.”

I read that in an old pamphlet I found at the library called: Jimmy's First Day at School

Note that it's not
Duane's First Day …

Even in pamphlets they don't name people Duane.

If only I'd been named Jimmy.

Home at four o'clock.

Nothing much to report today.

Unless you count what happened in the library: knocking over three bookcases, breaking the fish tank and scaring three gerbils and a guinea pig so badly that apparently hair loss will be an issue.

A humdrum kind of day.

The thing is, I actually had a plan this time.

I was going to go to school but limit my activity. I would walk straight to my locker, get what I needed for the next class, walk straight to class on my double-tied, carefully checked tennis shoes, sit down at the desk and stare straight ahead. Not talk to anybody. Just like a robot.

I really meant it. It was going to work this time. I was sure.

And for a while things went okay.

I got to my locker without hurting anybody. Rachel was down by her locker and she looked at me but didn't say anything. I kept my mouth shut, then turned cautiously, and carefully made my way down the hall to English class, where I sat still, listening.

I didn't take my pencil out.

Sharp object, you know.

Met Amber in the hall. Moved exactly two feet to the right, passed without a wreck.

Back to my locker.

Things going well. Opened the locker. Door stuck a little and I had to jerk it but I looked around and down at my feet—laces tied—before I tugged.

Came open without incident.

No books fell out.

I put my English books back, took out books for the next class, closed my locker carefully.

Checked my shoelaces again. Still tied.

Moved down the hallway through a sea of kids. Eyes straight ahead, step, step …

I was going to make it.

The next class was in the library.

Just for the record, I love the library. Some of my
best times are in that room. I wouldn't hurt a library for the world.

Through the door, past the guinea pig and gerbil cages, past the fish tanks, over to one of the study tables.

Sat down carefully.

Eyes straight ahead.

And that's where I began to deviate from my plan.

I had my back to the room, to avoid eye contact with anybody. That seemed to work.

Except that it made me face the bookcases, just five feet away.

The section in front of me was nonfiction, and right at eye level were the
P
s.

And directly in front of me was a red book with one word on the spine in large white block letters:
PUBERTY

I see the library as a place where you can go to learn things. Want to know anything, from how to track a moose to the correct spelling of Uranus or Lake Titicaca? You can find it in the library.

And here was a book on the very thing that seemed to be bothering me.

I forgot the plan.

Stood up and reached across the table, one foot on chair, fingers out, stretching my whole body out out until the mass was past the critical (and I do mean
critical
) point.

I fell forward, into the bookcase.

Which rocked away, came back, rocked away, then just gave up.

It fell into the next bookcase.

And the next.

Then the fish tank.

Which went into the gerbil cage.

Which went into the guinea pig cage.

You couldn't have done it better with a cruise missile. Books everywhere. Fish flopping, librarian grabbing them and throwing them into the other fish tank against the wall (where the golden carp woke up: feeding time!), guinea pig squeaking and running under tables, gerbil spinning in his wheel under a chair.

And me? The principal's office.

“Honestly, Duane, I don't understand this. You've always been a good student, but … is it drugs? I mean one day you're fine and the next you have ringworm and now vandalism.”

“I didn't have ringworm. It was all a mis—”

“You wreck the cafeteria.”

“That was an acci—”

“Duane, we must rule out drugs. You'd better take this container into the bathroom and give me a specimen.”

Like I said, just another boring day at school. Start well, end with a urine sample.

You gotta love my life.

Stupid dream last night.

I dreamed I was at a Puberty Anonymous meeting.

I was standing up in front of a room of pimple-faced gawky boys and there were a lectern and a microphone and I was saying: “Hi. My name is Duane Homer Leech and I am going through puberty.”

Some boys said: “Hi, Duane.”

And then we talked about pimples and ELBOWS and falling down a lot, all of us with voices that sounded like broken accordions, until my sister came crashing into the back of the room throwing boxes of cereal at everybody, screaming that we were all on drugs and had to pee in little jars….

I woke up lying on the floor hugging the pillow. My mother yelled from downstairs: “Come on, Duane. You're going to be late for school!”

To the mirror. I'm not even counting zits now. They come, sometimes disappear and come back in a different place. I'm sure they are the same zits, just moving around.

I have a little fuzz growing where I cut the bald spot, growing up and out like the cowlick. Oh well.

I went to the window to check on the bird and this simple act saved me. Or I think it did. It might be too soon to tell.

I witnessed the miracle of flight.

Well, first I witnessed the miracle of Gorm trying the limb-to-the-windowsill death-defying leap again, and his plummet to the ground.

Then the miracle of the baby bird hopping on the edge of his nest while he watched Gorm go.

Then the miracle of puberty kicking in and the baby bird's stumbling over the edge of the nest and off the windowsill. Heading directly at Gorm, like a falling meat snack, wings every which way.

Gorm looked up, got set, and I'm thinking, Goodbye, bird. There was no way I could get outside and down there in time to help him.

And
then
the miracle. Above Gorm's mouth the bird got his wings out to the side and, like a plane's,
like an eagle's, they caught the air and he soared up and over the cat to land in a tree across the yard.

Well, he didn't exactly soar. There was flapping and some feathers floating in all directions with both parents frantically zipping around him as he more or less staggered up to a limb of the elm tree and hung there like someone'd thrown mud against the bark.

But he flew.

First he tripped.

Then he fell.

And just before certain death: He flew.

And saved me.

Well, not just yet. First I went down to breakfast and there was a new cereal box. This time with some kind of cartoon character on the front and I won't even
say
what that turned into except to perhaps mention I'll never watch
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
again and perhaps ELBOWS aren't so bad….

Father at sink. Mother eating toast. Sister studying hair.

My father took a sip of coffee. “The principal called last night. He said there was some incident in the library but not to worry, that your urine test came back negative.”

“Oh. Good.”

“What,” my mother asked in that occasional
mother-voice that makes you think of cobras with their hoods extended, “urine sample?”

“The one that proves he's not human.” My sister held a strand of hair up to the light. “That he came from another world and was left on a rock and hatched by the heat from the sun.”

“I had an accident in the library,” I said, “and the principal wanted to make sure it wasn't caused by drugs. So I peed in a jar.” I shrugged. “No big thing. I just fell and a couple of bookcases tipped over.”

“Oh, Duane …”

Then, to school.

I've got to say that there was something different going on in my head. I couldn't place it at first, but there was some new feeling—not positive or negative.

Just different.

At first everything seemed pretty much the same. I tripped going through the front door of school and tore down a poster.

spring fling dance …

Was all I saw as I went down in torn paper and poster paint.

Then my locker door jammed and when I jerked it the door slammed into my face and gave me a nose-bleed.

I held my head up and back and went to the bathroom, which was just tempting fate—me looking up
while trying to run—and God knows how many kids I trampled or bounced off of before I got paper towels to stop the blood.

Then to class with wadded toilet tissue in each nostril.

Same old Doo-Doo.

But still, something different. Some new feeling. And I got through English all right, and the library class—although when I walked in, I saw the librarian wince and go stand in front of the fish tank (where the carp looked fatter).

But—safe through that class as well. And then gym, where the teacher excused me from volleyball and let me do exercises because of my nosebleed.

No falling. No damage.

But then—drumroll—

The cafeteria.

That morning at home I had toyed with the idea of not buying lunch at all. I thought I could brown-bag it. Make a really good peanut butter and jelly sandwich …

But everybody was in a big rush and I forgot to do it.

I got into line all right.

Checked my shoelaces. Tied.

The cafeteria was doing sloppy joes and that made me pause. Adding the word
sloppy
to my current rhythms might be pushing the envelope.

But I
was
hungry.

I picked up my tray. The woman behind the counter plopped a pile of sloppy onto the bun. I took back the tray and then looked down.

All by itself, the shoelace on my right foot had come untied. It was lying out to the side like a snake.

Waiting.

For some reason I looked up and saw the stage at the end of the cafeteria and on the stage was a microphone.