Birdie For Now (9 page)

“This isn't about Dad!” Dickon said desperately. “You have to meet Birdie. You have to come over there with me now, before somebody else takes her.”

“You're forgetting how afraid I am.”

He just looked at her and she faltered. Then she changed tack.

“You might be allergic …”

He dashed past her into the kitchen and snatched up the teddy bear cup. She followed.

“You know I'm not. And you know I'm too old for teddy bear cups too.” He dropped it into the garbage bin.

“Oh, don't,” she sniffled.

“Blow your nose, Mum,” said her son. He stood still, studying her, and then he astonished her and himself by leaning forward and kissing her wet cheek. He must have grown a lot since school let out. He hardly had to stretch up at all.

“Come on. Come with me to meet Birdie.”

He turned his back and marched out the door. After a moment, to his amazed delight, he heard his mother stumbling after him.

The kids and Sally Croft had gone, but the door swung open under Dickon's eager hand.

“Birdie, wait …” his mother called, her voice breathless. He pretended not to hear. Leslie glanced up from cleaning up cookie crumbs and spills of juice. Her eyes widened at Dickon and then widened even more as his mother came in.

“Dickon, did you forget something?” she said.

“This is my mother,” he burst out, ignoring the question. “My real name is Dickon Fielding. Jody got it wrong by mistake and I never told her. Mum's name is Julie Fielding. We've come to see Birdie.”

“You mean …”

“I want Mum to meet her. She has to understand why we have to take her home.”

He thought it best to hide his doubts. Leslie hesitated, staring at his mother as though she did not believe such a woebegone-looking woman would be a good person to adopt a dog. She hesitated.

“Please, Leslie,” Dickon begged. “Let me show her.”

“All right, Dickon,” she said then. “This way, Mrs. Fielding.”

She led them back to the room where the dogs were kept. Julie Fielding got as far as the door and froze. But her son did not see her. He un-latched Birdie's cage and the little dog
came to him, putting her tiny paws up around his neck. He scooped her into his arms and held her close.

“Isn't she beautiful, Mum?” he said, stroking the small dog lovingly. “Isn't she perfect?”

Julie Fielding was amazed at how small and dainty Dickon's dog was. Her ears seemed to be sending signals to her boy's mother. Little flips of greeting that almost made Julie smile in spite of herself.

“I thought she was a stray,” she said. “She looks like a rare breed.”

“She is,” Leslie Hawkin said. “Papillons are getting better known, though. They go way back in history. Marie Antoinette had one.”

Something in Julie Fielding's expression made hope stir in Dickon's heart. The decision wasn't made yet, though. Leslie had questions to ask. So did Dickon's mother.

“Is the dog housebroken?”

“Yes,” Leslie said firmly. “Birdie is beautifully behaved or she will be when she settles. Often dogs make mistakes
just at first in a new home because they don't know what is expected of them. They get tense. When she first arrived, she leaked when anyone looked at her, but she's so much happier now. Dickon has convinced her that the world is a friendly place.”

She smiled at Dickon. He tried to smile back, but his lips felt wooden. He was too nervous to pretend to be calm. His eyes darted from one face to the other and back again. Who was this Marie?

“Birdie was badly abused by her previous owners,” Leslie added. “At first, she was frightened of everyone. But your son has worked wonders with her. You should be proud of him.”

Even though she was saying good things, Dickon wished she wouldn't keep on and on. He almost interrupted to tell them to hurry up. Then he saw how much calmer his mother was growing as she listened to the story of how he and Birdie had come together. He clamped his lips shut. As the minutes crawled past, the set look left her face.

He wanted to hug her. The next instant, he wanted to clap his hand over her mouth.

“My Dickon is a special needs child,” she blurted out. He braced himself.

His mother went on, “He takes medication daily and that helps, but he has trouble concentrating …”

“ADHD? My brother Jeremy has the same trouble,” Leslie said matter-of-factly, startling them both. “Dickon put me in mind of Jeremy from the start. He's going to a community college now, with special help, of course. Your son did seem pretty wild and woolly at first, but working with Birdie made a huge difference in him. He had to stay focussed, you see, and he knew he must not frighten her. After all, she's a special needs dog.”

Dickon longed to race around the room in dizzy circles, but with an enormous effort he stayed still and tried to look modest. Leslie chuckled. Even his mother smiled.

Silence fell, a silence filled with waiting. Dickon thought he would burst before his mother spoke at last.

“Well, maybe we could take her over the weekend as a trial,” Julie Fielding said faintly. She sounded scared and Dickon knew he should comfort her. Instead he leaped into the air and gave a whoop of delight. The little dog clutched to his chest began to tremble violently. He pulled himself together fast before Mum changed her mind.

When they left the Humane Society, he led Birdie on a leash and Julie Fielding carried her papers and enough food to keep her supplied for a couple of days. Neither spoke during the short walk. They reached the small, crowded house.

Mrs. Nelson was just turning away from their front door.

“My heavens!” she gasped. “What have you two been up to while my back was turned?”

“We are the Fielding family, now complete with dog,” Dickon's mother said, a little stiffly. “She is called Birdie, as I suspect you know.”

“Two birdies in one house,” Amy Nelson said, grinning.

Then, she hugged her neighbor, dog food and all.

“You're a brick after all, Julie Fielding,” she said.

“I'm a lunatic,” said Dickon's mother weakly. “We're only trying this out over the weekend. No decisions have been made. Oh, the macaroni must be dried out.”

“I went in with my key and rescued it,” Amy Nelson said, blushing faintly.

“You were going to march in and give me a piece of your mind,” Julie Fielding said. “But my son saved you the trouble.”

She hadn't called him Birdie. He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. He had his dog. He could afford to give her time.

Dickon was so happy that once he had Birdie safely inside his own house he shot around the small rooms like a Catherine wheel. He yelped out cheers and fell to his knees to hug his new dog.

“Birdie,” his mother gasped. “What if you scare her? She may go for you. Do take care.”

Dickon laughed and twirled around
on his bottom for good measure.

“You won't go for me, Birdie, will you?” he sang out, grinning down at his new pet, his first pet, his one and only dog. “Her jaws are too delicate to take a chunk out of anybody. Besides, she's a lady.”

He was right. She did not go for him. In her fear, she squatted and let go a puddle of pee on the kitchen floor. Then her tail went between her legs and she whimpered, waiting to be punished. In one shamed second she seemed to forget all the weeks of loving and brushing and training. All she remembered was the man who had struck her and shouted at her.

“Oh, Birdie! Poor Birdie,” Dickon cried, stricken. “I'm sorry, girl. You didn't mean to do it. Mum, look at her trembling.”

His mother could not help but see. She saw the puddle, the frightened small dog and her son who was no longer all hers. Well, now he must see that she had been quite right about dogs dirtying up the place. He MUST see.

If Dickon saw Birdie's disgraceful
puddle, he clearly was not planning to clean it up at once. He sat next to his dog and pulled her onto his lap, crooning comforting things.

His nervous mother watched him with a look as loving as his for Birdie. Never before had she seen him so tender with anyone except herself. Never before had she seen him so grown-up. So normal.

She felt confused, her emotions flip-flopping back and forth between delight and resentment. What was happening to her baby bird?

Whatever it was, the puddle still waited. She sighed a little more loudly than she needed to and started to go for a cloth.

“I'll do it,” Dickon said, leaping up so fast that Birdie tumbled off his knees onto the hard floor. The little dog gave a startled yip, but the boy's attention stayed on the task. He grabbed the cloth and mopped up the floor. Then he stared at the cloth. His nose wrinkled up.

“What'll I do with it? Where should I throw it out?”

His mother looked at his disgusted expression and laughed.

“Rinse it out in the toilet and hang it out on the line for next time,” she said. “We don't have dozens of floor cloths.”

“In the … toilet?”

“That's right. Where do you think mothers rinse out diapers?”

“They don't,” Dickon said firmly. “They use disposables. I've seen them on TV.”

“Well, if you think this dog you prize so highly will wear a disposable diaper …” she said, grinning in spite of herself.

“Okay, okay.” He cut her off and vanished into the bathroom.

Birdie whimpered and then, bravely, stood up and went after him, making a big detour to get past Julie.

Boy and dog returned.

“Did you see that? She followed me,” Dickon boasted.

“I saw. You go fix up a bed for her. She'd better sleep in the kitchen.”

“She can sleep in my room.”

“No, she cannot. It isn't healthy. She'll be fine in the kitchen. And if you want her to stay, shouldn't you take off her leash?”

“Sorry, girl,” Dickon murmured and undid the clip.

Julie Fielding held her breath, ready for Birdie to fly away or leap at his throat. But the little dog stayed close to Dickon, sniffing at his laces.

He found an old clothes basket, put a thick towel into it and patted it down.

“Jump in, Birdie,” he said. “Come on, my sweet Birdie.”

She sniffed the outside of the basket and then leaped in, turned around twice and lay down.

“Brilliant Birdie. See how she likes it,” he began.

Before the words were out of his mouth, his dog had tipped the basket over, scrambling out, and set off to explore the rest of the small kitchen.

Julie soon realized that the kitchen was not going to work. Birdie made her too nervous underfoot like that. And the basket took up too much space.
The bathroom was even smaller.

“You win,” she told her son. “Move her bed into your room. But remember, you sleep in your bed and she sleeps in hers.”

“Of course,” Dickon said, his eyes gleaming.

He looked for his pup. Where was she? How did you keep track of a dog who only knew how to heel and stay and come when she was on her leash? How could he make her behave without Leslie's help?

He found her in his room, chewing up a piece of Lego. When he rushed to rescue it, she backed away and squatted.

“Oh, no!” he moaned.

During supper, she chewed up one of the sealskin moccasins his father had brought him after a trip to the Arctic. Dickon took what was left away from her and hid it deep in his wastebasket. He scolded her in an angry whisper. The confused little dog began to squat once more.

Dickon's mother shrieked and Dickon
grabbed the sinner and shot outside with her. She dribbled all the way.

“Oh, Birdie, NO,” her boy moaned.

Ten minutes later, much to her new master's surprise, she started barking at the door.

“Nobody's there,” he told her. The doorbell chimed.

Jody and Poppet stood outside.

“We heard the great news so we brought Birdie a homecoming present,” Jody said. She handed Dickon a chew toy and two old tennis balls. Poppet looked at the balls as though she knew they were hers.