Birdie For Now (2 page)

The townhouse echoed with emptiness after that.

“Where has he gone?” Dickon asked, bracing himself.

But she just said, “Calgary,” in a dead voice. They left it at that.

In those days, she came in after he did and she was often too tired to cook. They ate meals out of boxes and there were no more homemade cookies. She promised that soon things would change.

Now she had a full-time job at the bank where she had worked before she was married. It was in Riverside, a town near Guelph. Because Monday was Canada Day, her new job began on Tuesday morning. She had landed the job because she was a whiz on the computer.

“That's one favor your father did me,” she had told Dickon, “insisting I do the tax returns and family accounts and answer any E-mail we got. It made me mad sometimes, but I kept up my computer skills. They were impressed.”

Dickon dug a shirt out of a box of clothes. He was about to put it on when he saw it had a little gorilla on it with a balloon coming out of its mouth saying, “Aren't I a cute kid?”

“Yuck,” he grunted, shoving it out of sight. He hauled a plain blue one
over his head and jammed his bare feet into his runners. Mum hated it when he didn't put on socks. Then he pounded down the stairs to the kitchen.

Mum was thrusting used bedding into a garbage bag. For a second, he thought she had forgotten him. Then she said, half under her breath, “After today, it will be as if we'd never lived in these rooms, Bird.”

She fished out a Kleenex and blew her nose. He gave up the fight. He would stay at Hazel's, but he would not comfort his mother. He grabbed his backpack and made for the door.

“You mean you're all set?” Hazel said, grinning down at him as he nearly careened into her. “I'll bet you forgot your toothbrush.”

“I did not,” he told her, dodging past. “So long, Mum.”

“Birdie, you have to clean those glasses,” his mother called after him. “They're filthy.”

Pretending not to hear, he sprinted to the car, clambered in and buckled the belt. Through the car window, he
watched Hazel hugging his mother. Well, let her. She had not been counting on seeing the new house. His mother waved. He paused, but finally held his hand up in a stiff salute like the Queen.

Then they were off. As soon as they rounded the corner, Dickon relaxed. Hazel pulled into Jumbo Video and he chose three movies he knew his mother would not let him watch. Of all his babysitters, Hazel Henderson was the one he liked best because she did not try to make him keep all his mother's rules.

At Hazel's he shoved in the first video and settled down to watch.

Hazel slipped his glasses off his face and cleaned them on her shirt.

“Thanks,” he muttered as he put them back on his nose. He was surprised at how much better he saw through clean lenses. He never noticed until he was reminded.

“You are entirely welcome,” she said.

She went away and came back with a glass of juice and a peanut butter sandwich.

“Your mother said you had no breakfast,”
she said.

“Thanks,” he said again, not looking at her.

She sat down to watch with him. The violence in the videos comforted him somehow. When he threw shadow punches at the tough guys on the screen, Hazel laughed and applauded. She thought he was cute. She said so and he clowned around, making her laugh even harder.

Mum would not have laughed. Mum would have switched off the set and talked to him about how much she wanted him to be a “gentle man.” Not like his father was what she meant, he thought. After all, there was no chance he would turn out like one of the bad guys in the videos she hated. She must know that he just was not tough enough. If he only had been, the kids at school might have steered clear of him.

That night, he lay awake wondering if his mother had been sorry that she had left him behind. Probably not. She kept telling him, “You're all I have left.” She never seemed to notice that
she was all he had left too.

Shortly before eleven she came for him, a Cheshire cat smile pasted on her face. When her eyes were squinched up like that it always meant that her head ached.

“Come here, my son,” she said, stretching out her arms. “I need a hug.”

He let her hug him, but he didn't hug her back. Headache or no, she should have taken him with her. When he stepped back, he saw that she was hurt. He was sorry, but it was too late.

“Poor Julie,” Hazel said, giving her a quick kiss that landed in the air next to her ear. “You look beat.”

“Who me?” his mother said, rolling her eyes. The two women exchanged a grown-up look. He hated that.

“Let's GO, Mum,” he urged, heading for the car. “You said today's the real moving day, remember?”

He ran around and opened her car door for her.

“I remember,” Julie Fielding said, and her Cheshire cat smile warmed into a real grin. “And we're off, the two of
us, into the wild blue yonder to make a fabulous fresh start on life.”

As he slid into the car, he studied his mother. She did look tired. She was faking excitement for his sake, but her heart wasn't in it. She took a deep breath and burst into their theme song, “Side by Side.” He joined in, changing the words.

“We ain't got a nickel for spending …”

He hesitated and she made up the next line.

“And the world we are used to is ending. But we'll make it through…”

“Just me and you,” he added happily.

“Side by side,” they finished together.

“Oh, Birdie, you are such a comfort,” she said.

“I know it,” he told her. “Now step on the gas, Mum. I want my fresh start to start!”

“I have to stop by the pharmacy,” Mum said, “to get your pills and something for me.”

“Headache pills,” he said, wanting her to know that he was as smart as Hazel.

“How do you know my head aches?” she said.

“Psychic,” he shot back, grinning.

She parked in front of the drugstore and got out. Then she paused, peering in at him.

“Promise me you will not stir from this car,” she said.

“I promise,” he said, sounding as bored as he could.

She sped away. Dickon reached out to turn on the car radio, but his mother had the keys. He pulled off his glasses, folded them up and shoved them into the glove compartment. He yanked off his runners and wiggled his toes inside his striped socks. He bunched them up, stretched them wide apart and spoke kindly to them.

“Want a fresh start, toes?” he asked.

His toes were too hot to chat. They drooped. He stripped off the socks and put his hot, sweaty feet on the dash-board to air. His toes liked that. They frisked like excited tadpoles.

His mother was taking FOREVER.

Then he saw a lady walking her dog. Snapping open the glove compartment, he fished out his glasses for a better look. How he longed for a dog of
his very own! He'd never get one if his mother had any say in the matter.

“A dog attacked me when I was three,” she said whenever the subject came up. Dickon had seen the tiny scar on her little finger where the dog had nipped her. She still shuddered at the memory of the brute beast.

But that was silly. His mother had not been three for a long, long time, and he had much bigger scars. He had a huge one on his leg from catching it on a nail when he was climbing a fence. He was not afraid of nails. Or fences.

The lady was walking an Old English sheepdog puppy. It bounced and bumbled around her feet, almost tripping her. She was laughing out loud. He opened the door a crack to listen.

“Stop it, Ebeneezer, you daft creature,” he heard her say.

The puppy sat down with a bump and gazed up at her, his head cocked a little on one side. He looked more cuddly than a stuffed toy. Then he bounced up and romped ahead, tugging his mistress along. When they passed
close by, Dickon longed to jump out and ask to pat Ebeneezer. He opened the door wider. It would only take five seconds.

With one bare foot halfway out, he remembered his promise. His moment of happiness blew away like a helium balloon. Glowering, he pulled his foot back in and shut the car door.

Then he spotted Jim and Jason Bridgeman across the street and his mother coming back from the pharmacy. He ducked down. What if Jim yelled, “Hiya, Dizzy Dick,” or “What's new, Twitchy?”?

Dickon had never told his mother about the teasing. Now they were moving away. If Jim didn't spot him, she need never know.

Twitch. Spacey. Dizzy Dick. Boy Jerky.

Jim's jeers sounded again inside Dickon's head as he crouched low, keeping his head turned to hide his face. The names were as hard to brush aside as black flies in June. They stung like fly bites too.

The teacher had called him Mr.
Fidget twice, but the twins hadn't heard. When she brought a jumping bean home from a trip to Mexico, though, Jim had called him Beano for days.

“Here I am at last,” his mother said, sliding in next to him. “That store is so crowded. Are you all right, Bird?”

“Sure. Are we leaving now?” he asked, twisting to see if the boys were out of sight. Tension sharpened his voice.

“We are leaving this minute,” she said. “Please, Birdie, forgive me for yesterday and cheer up. Today should be fun.”

Her hand, reaching to insert the ignition key, shook. He scowled. She made such a big deal out of everything. His glasses had slipped down. He shoved them back so fiercely that the nosepiece dug into him. She was waiting for an apology. If he didn't give it, she'd start in at him again. Just in time, he muttered, “Sorry.”

She swallowed and said, “Me too. Are you hungry?”

“Nope,” he said.

Once he had taken his medication,
he wouldn't be hungry for hours. Then, all of a sudden, he'd be ravenous. Why didn't she remember?

“Okay. Forget I mentioned it,” she said in her Poor Me voice.

As the car merged with the highway traffic, it dawned on him that she might be hungry even if he were not. Feeling ashamed, he bent and put his shoes back on without any socks. Before she could notice, he kicked the socks under the seat. She'd like him to tell her, “You ought to eat something. Go ahead and stop,” but the words stuck in his throat. She was the grown-up, not him.

“Are you excited, Bird?” she asked, trying once again to make the day a glad one.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, sure.”

Maybe he really was excited. After all, the two of them were getting away from the city where Dad had left them. Nobody knew anything about them in Riverside. The people at the bank knew his mother, but his father had never once been there.

Even more important, he would never again have to watch out for the Bridge-man brothers. The kids in the new place had not known him before he started taking his pills. Maybe they wouldn't throw names at him. Before he got the medication, he had been a bit hyper. He still was sometimes. He kind of liked it once in a while, going wild and screeching and bouncing off the furniture.

“Wired,” the doctor called it.

“Off the wall,” his mother said.

“Zoo boy,” the girl next door had said once.

“Just being an active child,” his dad had said, but he had been wrong. Gregory in his class was an active boy, good at sports, a born sprinter. He, Dickon, was hyperactive. The doctor had said so.

“How far is it now?” he burst out, the words exploding out of him like corn popping. “How far? How long? When will we be there? What's the house like? Is my room big?”

“Settle down, Birdie,” she said, her voice tired but half-laughing. “You
sound like a cap gun. I've told you all that stuff. Quit winding yourself up.”

Probably she had told him. He half-knew bits and pieces but he needed to hear it all more than once. Why couldn't she just tell him?

Drumming his fingertips on the edge of the window, he peered out at the busy highway.

“Can you get me some Kleenex out of my purse?” she asked.

He reached back, swung her bag up off the floor, found a little package of tissues and handed it over. Then he dropped the unzipped purse back with a thud.

His mother blew her nose. Then she answered his questions, all but one.

“You didn't say what the house is like,” he prompted when she stopped speaking.

“Wait and see,” she told him. “It won't be long now. Remember, even if it isn't a palace, it is ours. It was the only place I could find for the money I had that was all ready to move into. I am no good at fixing things.”

Dad could fix anything. Both of them thought of him, but neither said so.

Dickon put his glasses in their case and slumped down, letting his eyelids plop shut. Quietly, so she wouldn't notice, he dug his knuckles into his closed eyes and watched the colors swirl and float and pinwheel around like those in his old kaleidoscope. Blue, purple, flashes of green, bursts of yellow. He loved the whirling rainbow colors. They were so much brighter, more vivid, than anything in his real world. They soothed him, smoothing down the spikes of prickly tension.