After Zero Page 10

  I’m back at the Karneys’ in no time.

  When I pull into the driveway, Conn is reading under a tree in the front yard. He looks up, and I wait for him to ask where I snuck off to. Instead, he closes his book and stands. “Ready for your tour?”

  • • •

  Conn’s binoculars bounce against his chest as he walks, but so far he hasn’t used them. This convinces me even more that they’re for show. “Here’s our peach and nectarine grove,” he says, leading me past row after row of trees. “No fruit this time of year, but see the pinkish buds? They’re getting ready to blossom. And the rest from here to the end are apple trees. They’ll blossom next month.” He gestures at the orchard like a museum tour guide. I hope he doesn’t expect a tip. Any money I had is Dónal’s now.

  “My parents planted the first ones before I was born. They had to wait years for the trees to bear fruit.” He shakes his head. “All that waiting must have been torture.”

  Torture. He uses the word so freely. I guess torture is different for everyone. For him, waiting is torture. For me, sitting at a table full of people is torture. A class discussion is torture. Lunch in the cafeteria is torture. When I think of those things, waiting for a tree to bear fruit doesn’t seem bad at all. And when I think of the day my fruit will come—my birthday—I smile a little. My fruit will be worth the wait. My brothers will be worth the wait.

  We emerge from the orchard, and Conn nods at a red barn ahead of us. “That’s where our cider press is.”

  White letters loom across the front of the barn: KING KARNEY’S ORCHARD & CIDER MILL.

  I stop, shading my eyes in the sun. King Karney apple cider? All the grocery stores around here sell it. My mother buys it sometimes. I didn’t realize Fin and Conn were those Karneys.

  “There’s a bunch of boring machinery inside,” Conn says. “And controlled-atmosphere storage rooms. They preserve apples practically year-round so we can keep making cider. At least, my dad and Dónal work in there. Fin and I prefer to be out in the orchard, pruning or spraying or what have you.”

  A shape flutters above us. I glance up, my heart fluttering too. But it’s just a small, bluish-gray bird. I don’t know what I was expecting.

  Conn halts. His hands fly to his binoculars, and his binoculars to the bridge of his nose. “What do we have here?” After a moment, he pulls a small book out of his pocket and flips through it, stopping somewhere in the middle. “Here we go. White-breasted nuthatch. Yep, that’s definitely it. How cool.”

  He holds the binoculars out to me, his face all bright. I worry he might take offense if I don’t indulge him, so I take the binoculars and peer through them.

  “See him? There in that tree next to the mill. He’s got the male coloring.”

  Scanning, I find a bird perched in the crook of a tree branch. His face and underside are white, but a black streak runs over his head and down the nape of his neck toward his blue-gray back and wings.

  I lower the binoculars, but Conn waves them back. “Keep watching.”

  I find the bird again and wonder how long I’ll have to watch until Conn is satisfied. I don’t want to insult him.

  The bird starts to climb up the tree trunk, pecking at the bark a few times. Then he does a one-eighty and descends down the trunk headfirst. I raise my eyebrows in spite of myself.

  “Impressive, right?” Conn says. “Nuthatches are known for climbing down trees like that.”

  I watch the bird move up the underside of a branch before turning back around. He pauses halfway and curves his head to look upward, like an upside-down wolf howling at the moon. His feet must be clinging to that bark for dear life, but he shows no concern. He’s confident; I’ll give him that. And cute. After he goes up and down a few more times, I hand the binoculars back to Conn.

  “They’re quite the little acrobats.” He drops his book on the ground. “Let me see if I can get a better look.”

  He wanders off, and I pick up the book: Pocket Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. The cover is creased down the middle, the corners frayed. I flip through the sections: “Kingfishers and Trogons.” “Swifts and Swallows.” “Hummingbirds.” “Pigeons and Doves.” Each page shows an image of a bird and a short description. “Cuckoos, Anis, and Roadrunners.” “Shorebirds.” “Ducks, Geese, and Swans.”

  I slow, scanning the pages. “Trumpeter Swan.” “Bewick’s Swan.” “Whistling Swan.” I stop on a page near the end of the section. “Mute Swan. Species: Cygnus olor.” There’s a picture of a swan wholly white in plumage, with an orange bill and a black knob above it. Just like the illustration in my now-lost notebook.

  “Swans, huh?”

  I jump. Conn is peering over my shoulder. “It’s a misnomer, you know. ‘Mute swan.’”

  I resume flipping so as not to seem interested in any one page.

  “They’re not actually mute. They’re capable of making sounds. Just less vocal than other swans.”

  I close the book and hold it out to Conn.

  “Nah, you keep it.” He taps his temple. “It’s all up here anyway.”

  He meanders off again, and I raise an eyebrow at his back. What is he, some kind of bird expert? As he follows a new bird with his binoculars, I turn back to the page I folded down—the picture of an elegant neck and white feathers and a black mark reaching from each eye toward the bill. The mark, I realize, looks a little like eyebrows that almost meet in the middle. I trace it with my finger. Capable of making sounds…less vocal… I smile. If I were to have a Patronus like in Harry Potter, or a dæmon like in His Dark Materials, maybe it would take the form of a mute swan.

  I start to close Conn’s book, but my fingers linger, thumbing the pages. Something makes me flip a little further.

  Owls. Hawks and Vultures. Jays, Crows, and Allies. Blue Jay…Magpie…American Crow…

  Common Raven. Species: Corvus corax.

  As I land on an image of a stately black bird, its beady eyes seem to be staring straight at me. I snap the book shut and hurry after Conn.

  Chapter 15

  Call me the feather queen.

  I’ve been wearing the feather in my hair all morning. I get strange looks as I walk the halls of Green Pasture, even more than I did before, but that’s to be expected. No one likes being left out of a secret. It’s nice having a secret, a mission no one here knows about. My mission will succeed, and if that means I have to take certain measures, then so be it. Mr. Gankle, for example, is making everyone give a research presentation, and I was due to present during second period, so I spent the hour reading in a bathroom stall. Some people might call that cutting class. I call it keeping my promise.

  In the library now, I scratch tally marks into my new notebook. I’m not counting words anymore because there are none to count. The tallies stand for something different: a countdown to my birthday, the number of days left. Current count, including today: five tally marks. Four vertical lines with one line across them. There’ll be satisfaction in writing fewer marks every day, just like with my old tally.

  Even though so much has changed over the weekend, nothing has changed at school. There’s still nothing green-pasturey about Green Pasture. The walls in the hallways are still burnt orange, and the fluorescent lights still induce headaches. Bernard Billows and the librarian are still the only other people in the library at lunch. They don’t bother me. The three of us have an understanding, I think. Neither of them asks why I’m “quiet,” and I don’t ask why Bernard Billows never washes his hair, or why the librarian—I still don’t know her name—has a Peter Pan tattoo on her arm. We let each other be. I wish the lunch hour would never end.

  It always does.

  I leave the library and head to English class, tripping and almost falling when I see Beady on Miss Looping’s desk.

  I was wrong; one thing has changed at Green Pasture.

 
“First, thank you to whoever returned Beady,” Miss Looping says. “It would be nice if you could replace my mug too. But I’ll take what I can get.”

  I peer at Beady through my eyelashes. There are twenty other students in this room, and yet his stare fixes on me. He doesn’t move a feather. He thinks he’s fooling everyone, but not me. Any doubts I had about what happened that day, after I slammed my book shut and ran off, are gone. He wasn’t stolen.

  Why did he come back to school? Why today?

  I wished Granny P would send me something—a message, a confirmation. Could this be it? I think of the raven on Granny P’s shoulder. Is he here to keep an eye on me, to make sure I don’t forget my promise?

  Miss Looping finishes writing something on the board and turns. Ghazal. She taps the word with her finger, smudging the chalk. “Each of you will write a ghazal.”

  “Uh…” Arty Pilger raises his hand, screwing in his invisible light bulb. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It was in your reading last night.” Miss Looping surveys the blank stares around the room and sighs. “Look it up. It’s a type of poem with at least five couplets. It will be a graded assignment and considered for the Green Pasture poetry contest.”

  Others groan, but I have no complaints. Anything that’s not a class presentation or a group project is fine by me.

  “And you’ll read it aloud to the class.”

  My jaw tightens. Is she joking? I thought she was on my side.

  I was wrong; two things have changed at Green Pasture. I sit clenching my teeth for the rest of class. Why is she doing this to me? Does she think I’m the one who “borrowed” Beady and broke her mug?

  When the bell rings, I’m torn between storming out and lingering until everyone leaves, to see if Beady will do anything. If he’ll drop the pretense. But the thought of being alone with him puts butterflies in my stomach. What if he does move? What if he flies out the window again? Miss Looping really needs to start closing it. It doesn’t matter anyway because one kid is staying behind to make up a quiz, and Miss Looping is talking to another student at her desk. I take my books and hurry past them and Beady.

  In the hall, I turn the corner toward my locker and bump into someone with neon-green streaks in her hair. I keep my eyes down and try to scoot by. But then there are more people, more shades of the rainbow. I look up. The girl with green hair stares at me.

  “Hi.”

  Mel?

  Matching green eye shadow draws out the green in her eyes, which flit over my new hair accessory. This is the first time I’ve seen her wear makeup.

  Make that three things that have changed.

  “Nice feather,” Sylvia says behind her, sporting hot-pink hair streaks and eye shadow. She glances in amusement above my right ear, where I’ve fastened the feather with a barrette.

  And just like that, it’s back to reality. Back to Sylvia’s insults masquerading as compliments, going strong since that second day of school when she called a poem of mine “cute.” When I was naive enough to think she was being nice. When I was discovering how it feels to be around Mel’s friends. It still feels that way, except now everyone’s hair and eyelids look different. Theresa’s are purple and Nellie’s orange. I glance down and notice their nails have been painted their respective colors and manicured—not bitten to uneven lengths like mine.

  “Too bad you missed the sleepover Saturday.” Sylvia flips her pink locks with her pink fingers. “It was a ton of fun. We gave each other makeovers.”

  I glance at Mel, but she walks past me. I catch a whiff of chemicals—nail polish, cosmetic fumes, a stranger’s scent. Sylvia and the others move with her like a flock of tropical birds, passing before I have to worry about evading a response.

  I turn and pull my books closer to my chest. It’s going to be a long five days.

  • • •

  Please be a dear

  Leave your shoes here

  The doormat in the Karneys’ foyer welcomes me after track practice. I do its bidding and take off my sneakers, my body buzzing with a sense of achievement. I did it. A whole school day without a word. If I were doing my old tally, this would be a big deal. Of course, now it won’t be enough—I have a more important zero to get to, the one that will mean I can see my brothers. Still, it’s a small victory.

  I don’t hear any activity in the house, but I err on the side of caution and steal down the hall and up the stairs as quickly and soundlessly as possible. That’s a tricky task with these floors, which groan in certain places, but I’ve had years of practice in light-footedness at my house. Even though the Karney house is probably as old as mine, the air smells different—like clean laundry. I can’t help noticing the lack of mustiness. I step on a Lego piece at the top of the stairs and wince. There’s no lack of toys, though.

  En route to the spare room, I hear Conn and Mrs. Karney talking in Conn’s room.

  “I think she should stay with someone else.”

  “What? I thought you were fine with her staying till her mom gets back. It’s only a few more days.”

  I pause and press my ear to the door.

  “There’s something… I don’t know… She rubs me the wrong way. Never laughs. Never says thank you.”

  “I told you she’s shy.”

  “Shy?” I hear Mrs. Karney’s pregnant shuffle. “That’s more than shy. She has a tongue, doesn’t she? She never uses it. Just sits there all silent and secretive, like she’s hiding something. For all we know, she could be plotting to—”

  “Oh, come on. Does she look like an ax murderer to you?”

  “Of course she doesn’t look like one. They don’t always look like one. And it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”

  I thought Dónal was the Karney I had to worry about, but maybe I should add Mrs. Karney to the list.

  “She never gets in anyone’s way. What about all that stuff they tell you in church? Love thy neighbor or whatever. I thought you were all for that.”

  Mrs. Karney snorts. “Don’t preach to me. You’re the last person who should be talking about church. You and your sister. You should hear them at Mass. ‘Where are Conn and Finola today?’ I have to make excuses for you, week after week. It’s embarrassing. And now that you’ve wrangled your way into public school…”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  Mrs. Karney huffs. “All right, listen, I don’t want to be the bad guy here. I’m a Good Samaritan. Elise can stay if she wants to. I trust my children, so I trust who they trust.”

  I step back from the door and slip into the spare room just as I hear Conn’s door screech open. Then creaks on the stairs. Then, below me, the simultaneous slams of the kitchen door and the back door. I move to the window and watch Conn walk across the backyard to the tire swing, where Fin is swinging. He says something that makes her laugh and stick out her tongue.

  Mrs. Karney is right. Neither of them has any reason to trust me or stick up for me. But they do anyway. Relief mingles with guilt. And gratefulness.

  They talk for a bit, and I try to read their lips and hand gestures, but I can’t decipher their conversation. I suspect it has to do with me, or maybe Mrs. Karney.

  Mrs. Karney, who’s nothing like my mother, but at the same time, nothing like Mel’s mother. I spent years watching Mrs. Asimakos coddle Mel, hardly ever seeing them butt heads, but it turns out not all other mothers act like that. It turns out I’m not the only kid who can’t seem to click with mine.

  But Fin and Conn at least have each other.

  After a few minutes, they play catch. I lie down, stare at the ceiling, and wish myself to Friday, to my birthday, and to even further beyond that. To a day when Eustace and Emerson and I might be lounging in a field somewhere, having a picnic or playing cards and joking around, commiserating about our mother and how she abandoned us—my brothers
physically, and me in every other sense. Because the more time I spend at the Karneys, the more I can’t wait to be with my brothers. The more I see that siblings can transcend all the other stuff and give each other something a kid can’t always find with a parent.

  But since my birthday is still days away, all I can do for now is close my eyes and go back to the yellow cottage in the woods. I go over the details of it in my head—the laughter, the music, my brothers, Granny P—so they won’t slip away. So they won’t become fuzzier and fuzzier, like other memories have always done. Because right now they’re all I have. I just have to get to Friday.

  But I have a feeling Mrs. Karney won’t make that easy.

  Chapter 16

  It all comes down to the first thing you think of when you wake up. That first image or idea before the filtering of conscious thought takes over, while you’re still in between. Whatever you think of, that’s the reason you get up in the first place. That’s the reason you get out of bed, into your clothes, into your shoes, and out the door.

  This morning, the first thing I think of is them. Their two faces. Their wheelchairs. Their laughter. Their music. What they must have suffered through—the accident, the pain, my mother’s abandonment. I keep racking my brain for possible reasons why my mother would disown her sons. And I keep coming back to my initial suspicion: that she didn’t want the burden, the expense of disabled children. Maybe at first in her fragile state of mourning my father and trying to nurse a new baby, she truly couldn’t handle caring for them, and Granny P had agreed to take them in the meantime. And maybe it was only supposed to be a temporary arrangement, but then my mother, for whatever selfish reason, never took my brothers back—refused to. I know I shouldn’t think the worst of people, but my mother has never shown me her best.