A/N WE'RE REDOING IT... PLEASE GIVE A LITTLE BIT <3
I am sitting on my bench at the marina when I meet Mr.Koppinger. The old man walks up to me, wielding a permit.
"Hello, miss VanTaraden." I look at the man standing before me. He has salt-and-pepper hair, and is wearing a fishing hat and suspenders.
"How may I help you, sir?" I ask.
"Well, I got this permit from your dad a while back and I'm just wondering if I can park my boat around here." he says kindly."Is that alright, Kestrel?"
"How do you know my name?" I ask, aghast.
"Your grandfather and I knew each other way, way back." he replies.
I used to spend every Sunday with Grandpappy. We were very close and he understood me very well.
"I-" I start, but I choke. Tears start to stream from my
eyes, and he sits down beside me and pats my back.
"I know you two were close, Kestrel. I miss him too."
"it's Birdie. Not Kestrel" I stare intently at the man. "I don't use that name"
"Okay. My name is Leon Koppinger, But I'd prefer if you called me Leon. Nice to meet you" the man smiles, stretching his hand out. I take it grudgingly and we shake.
"So, where can I bring in my yacht?" my jaw drops at his words.
Mr.Koppinger hauls the monstrous boat to the shore where he can launch it. I watch practically all of the men in town lower the yacht into the bay. Leon drives it to the final station at the dock and ties his boat up with a length of strong rope.
Mr.Koppinger comes down to the marina every day at noon to eat his lunch on the deck of his giant yacht. It fills up almost half of the long dock, and all of the townspeople who pass by gawk at the luxury boat. Leon and I make some small talk, but I mostly leave him alone.
A week after our first encounter, the man yells down to me after finishing eating a sandwich.
"Hey, Birdie! My grandson who is about your age will be visiting throughout the summer. I hope you keep him company!" he calls, licking mayonnaise from his fingers. I look up, shielding my face from the sun.
“I’d love to, but I’m not too good at befriending people” I confide.
“I’m sure you can do it.” Leon smiles happily.
I return home earlier than usual that night, because I'd been nursing a giant burn across my shoulders and back for the past
few days. Lesson learned: do not fall asleep on the job. Ever. I touch my tender skin and flinch under the pain. Slowly, I rub aloe vera gel over the fried parts. I cringe, but it isn't as bad as some burns I've had. I sit on my creaky bed, wondering what Leon's grandson would be like. I silently hope that he's polite, since rudeness is my pet peeve. I also wish that he's hot. I
probably wouldn't be able to talk to him, though, so I mentally scratch the idea. An hour later, Papa returns.
"Papa!" I run out of my room and into the kitchen to hug him.
"Hey there, little bird" he says. "Your back keeps getting worse, sweetheart. You'd better go put on another layer of aloe" I
leave, slap some more gel on my back and gingerly rub it in. Running into the kitchen once again, I smile at my papa.
"Dinner?"
"I picked up some stuff from Redman's" He says, lifting a plastic bag from our trusty town supermarket. Laying our purchases down on the wooden table, I smile because all I see is our usual frozen food; neither my dad nor I can cook even the simplest things. I place a pizza in the oven and wait until the whole room smells of melted cheese and tomato sauce. I pull out the crispy pie and chop it into eight sections (my only skill in the kitchen is cutting things up. Figures.) once I'm done, Papa and I indulge. I spit out my mangled and chewed piece of pizza and Pa does the same.
"What the HECK is in here?" I gargle, rinsing the disgusting taste from my mouth into the sink and holding up the soggy cardboard box the pizza came in. "Vegan pizza? Really, papa?" I snort, looking at my father sternly.
"We keep eating the bacon ones! I've heard that a balanced diet is healthy!" he says, laughing at the gross look on my face.
"Yeah, like tofurkey is good for you” I grin at pa snarkily and dump the whole rest of the pie in the garbage.
''Ice cream?" he asks after looking through the whole fridge, and hauls a bucket from inside the freezer.
''who wouldn't turn that down?'' I giggle, grabbing two shiny spoons. Papa and I end up finishing the whole bucket, and are left with bloated stomachs and a taste of bile in our mouths.
''I don't think I'll ever be able to eat ice cream ever again!'' I moan. He smiles at me and we lean back
down into our chairs. Suddenly, the phone rings. I waddle over to pick it up.
''Hello, Kestrel VanTaraden here'' I say, cringing at my use of the hated name.
''Hi, Birdie!'' I smile at my brother's voice, remembering the stories of how the nickname first came to be. When I was born, Issac didn't understand why my name was Kestrel. After Mom and Papa explained to him that it was the name of a bird, he got it in his head that I was actually a feathered creature instead of being a baby girl.
''I have some good news! I've been sent an invitation to a university in New York!''
''When are you leaving? Are you still going to visit next week? What's the name of the university?'' I bombard him with questions.
''Slow down, Tweety bird! Sadly, I won't be given as many vacations as before, and I just called to inform you that I'm leaving tomorrow'' My eyes blur and I stuff my face into my free hand.
''But, Izzy, you can't go that far away! What if there's an accident like before and you need to help?'' I am full-on crying now. My father takes the phone calmly and I run towards my bedroom, bawling my eyes out. I wanted to prevent our family from breaking apart again; because, after all, that was the only thing that mattered to me.
I knock on the door for a third time before giving up and turning to leave.
“Birdie?” Mr.Koppinger waves to me from the garden running alongside his quaint little house.
“Hey, Mr.Koppinger. I just came for a visit, but if you’re busy I should probably leave…” I had been feeling especially lonely for the past few days and had needed something, anything, to get my mind of off of Izzy’s abandonment.
“Nonsense!” Leon cries, brushing his dirty hands on his shorts. “Come on in!”
I follow him up the steps and through the porch. The cabin is smaller than what I imagined for someone as
wealthy as Mr.Koppinger to have, but still very nice. Everywhere you look there’s some sort of knickknack, maybe a model boat or an ancient-looking picture.
“Wow.” I breathe, admiring the mismatched living room. I point to a painting of a young boy standing beside a stunning ocean, a whale barely visible through the mist. “That’s cool.”
Leon grins. “Thank you! I painted that myself, you know.”
“Really? That’s amazing!” I gush, stroking a soft fur thrown across the green couch.
Mr.Koppinger leads me to the kitchen. He opens the cupboards and searches through them, finally finding a packet of crackers and tossing them on the table.
“Sorry, I don’t have much food. I haven’t been able to go shopping lately.” he apologizes.I nibble on a stale cracker as Leon dashes outside and returns with a fresh cucumber. He cuts it into thin slices and puts it on the table beside the crackers.
“Your house is really neat.” I stare up at the numerous wind chimes dangling from the ceiling.
“Thanks. I’ve always been told I had a very unique decorating style.” He winks.
We sit in silence for a few moments, not a sound other than the grandfather clock in the hall ticking and the cucumbers being crushed between our teeth.
Leon leans forward and smiles at me. “So, Birdie, tell me about yourself.”
I snort. “Tell you what? I’m not a very interesting person.”
“Okay…” Mr.Koppinger cradles his head in his hand thoughtfully.
“Who’s your best friend?”
I shrug. “I don’t really have a best friend..." I think for a second. “I've never even had any friends before. You’re my closest friend.”
“Me?!” he chuckles. “Well, I am honoured. You’re my friend too, Birdie. To be honest, I too, don’t have many friends around here. I just don’t understand why people don’t like me that much.”
“I don’t know either.” I mumble, staring down at the wooden table. His words bring back a memory that I had tried hard to forget.
The children laughed cruelly as I screamed and thrashed.
“Please let me out!” I shrieked, tears streaming down my face. The net was tangled tightly around my legs and my feet
were turning numb and blue. “Please!” I would cry as the boy lowered the net closer to the water.
“Why should we let you out?” a tall girl named Claire asked, her hands on her hips as she sneered down at me.
“Because I’m a person!” I yelled, panicking as the water drew nearer.
“They wouldn’t actually do it, would they? They know I won’t be able to swim when I’m trapped in this net. They won’t do it.” I reassured myself silently. The net dropped lower into the water, soaking my clothes.
“You’re not a person. You’re too weird to be a person.” A boy hollered, bringing a chorus of laughter.
“Why don’t you like me?” I sobbed, dipping lower into the salty ocean. The black water grew higher and higher, the children’s vile expressions glowing in the moonlight. The water bubbled up to my neck, and soon I was completely submerged.
I struggled to kick, but the fishing net just wound itself tighter around my body. Each second was an eternity as my lungs exploded and I swallowed in a mouthful of disgusting seawater. Black spots dotted my vision. My muscles were weak and my head spun.
Then, the water was below me again. I sputtered and coughed, gasping in a huge lungful of the cool air.
“Birdie.” A voice called. “Birdie, are you okay?”
Papa and Izzy stood on the bobbing boat, expressions of horror on their faces. Izzy dropped the net to the boat and my father untangled me. Once free, he hugged me close and carried me back home.
“Oh, Papa.” I whispered, hanging onto his neck. “I just don’t understand why they don’t like me…”
“Birdie? Birdie, are you okay? Kestrel?” Leon calls.
I blink, staring down at my white knuckles that are grasping the edge of the table.
“Yes, I’m fine.” I assure him, shaking my hands to get the blood flowing.
“Okay, good.” He breathes a sigh of relief. “Anyways, what else can you tell me about
yourself? What do you like to do for fun?”
“Um, I work at the marina?” I reply, studying the sunlight pouring from the dusty window onto the kitchen floor.
“Yeah, but in your free time? What do you like?" Mr.Koppinger presses on.
“I like… I like to…” I think hard. “I like to draw sometimes.”
“That’s nice. What do you like to draw?”
“The ocean and like, boats and fish and stuff.”
“Wow.” Leon beams. “I’d love to see some of your drawings sometime.”
“Oh, no.” I wave my hand in the air like I’m brushing away the idea. “They’re not very good.”
He leans forwards and shakes his head.
“Don’t ever put yourself down, Birdie.” He taps on the table. “One thing that I’ve learned in life is that you’re almost always better than you think you are.”
“Uh, I don’t think so.” I sigh, thinking about the sketches scattered across my bedroom.
Mr.Koppinger winks again. “You’d be surprised.”
That night I flip through my drawings, trying to see if they are any good or not. They're just as terrible as before.
“Crazy old man.” I mutter to myself before turning off the light and flopping down on the bed.
He might be a little goofy, but I definitely like him. I pull out the dusty sketch pad from between my sagging box spring and mattress.
“But, maybe I can get better if I try” I pick up a stick of charcoal and begin to form a vast lake with waves the height of a Leon’s yacht. I imagine giant cliffs in the distance and rumbling clouds filling the sky. I shake my head and crumple the page into the smallest ball I can manage. Suddenly, Papa walks in and sits next to me, beckoning my body towards his.
“What’s wrong, Birdie?” My father delicately rubs the salty tears from my cheeks.
“When I was at Mr.Koppinger’s house, I remembered the time that you saved me from drowning. I’m so pathetic”
My shoulders are racked with sobs. “I deserved to die that day. I am not good enough for all of the kind people in my life”
“What?” Papa hugs me tight. “Don’t you ever think like that, young lady” He kisses my cheek before standing
up and leaving me alone to cry. A few minutes later, I grab the door handle and get myself together. Quietly, I tiptoe towards the kitchen and peer around the corner, noticing that Pa has left for the marina. I snag half a bagel and leave my home to search for my secret treehouse from when I was younger. I climb up the fraying rope and haul myself onto the small platform where I had once spent almost all of my time. There is a limp bean chair in one corner and a stack of old magazines in the other. I flop down into the sagging chair and randomly pick a
book. I had stolen the magazines from my mom when she was still living with us, and the memory is still as vivid as the present.
She had actually found me trying to carry the whole pile out of the room. Wrenside had recently been rocked by a small hurricane and the floor planks were a bit uneven. I had not been able to see where I was stepping because of the magazines, and tripped, dropping them all over the hallway. I scrambled to gather the books, but my mom had heard the crash and came to investigate. She knelt down beside me and started to help me pile her magazines back up. I had looked up towards her, and heard her words.
“Kestrel, you need to remember that I love you. Whatever happens, I will still be with you in here” my mother jabs the space
where I would find my heart and pushes the stack towards me.
The day after was when she deserted my family.
I flip the first page open and see the butchered faces of cosmetic models.
“Right” I laugh to myself, remembering how upset I was that next morning. I had run outside to my newly-built fort in the pouring rain, grabbed a scrap piece of wood and stabbed the faces of all of the women in the magazines.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” I screamed the most banned word I could think of. “I HATE HER!” I mumbled, throwing my face into the bean-bag chair I was given for my 6th birthday.
Coming to a conclusion, I stand up and lower myself out of the treehouse, being careful on the ladder. I run towards Mr.Koppinger’s for the second time in the day, and rap on the door. It doesn’t take long before he answers, and I am ushered to the green chesterfield I had noticed earlier.
“Your father just visited. Are you alright, Birdie? He said that you’d been gone for hours” I look out the grimy window and realize that the sky has already begun to darken.
“Wasn’t he working at the marina?” I gasp.
“Actually, he was just going out for groceries.” Leon explains. “Your dad was really worried about you. Maybe you should give him a call, the phone’s in the corner.”
I pick up the receiver and dial Papa’s cell phone, because our home phone hasn’t worked for years.
“Hello?” he answers, anxiety in his voice.
“Papa? Papa, it’s Birdie.” I say.The line is silent for a moment, then my father whispers, relief in his tone, “Oh, thank god.”
“I’m sorry, Pa, please don’t be mad…” I beg into the phone. “I just needed a little break. I’m alright.”
“You had me so worried, Kestrel.”My heart sinks when I hear my real name. He only ever uses it when he’s upset.
“I’m coming home now.” I say, my throat clenching and the tears threaten to overflow. His disappointment crushes me and I feel guilty for making him worry the entire walk back home. I trudge up the back steps, dreading my punishment for running off. Opening up the front door, I brace for the scolding, but when my father looks up from the couch, I don’t see anger in his features. He gets up and comes towards me, wrapping me in a tight hug. I am shocked when I see his eyes watering.
“Oh, Papa…” I whisper into his strong shoulder.
“How could you scare me like that, Birdie?” he says gently, hurt in his voice. “You talk about deserving to die, then run off for hours. I can’t take that. It’s too much for your old Papa.”
“I’m sorry, Papa.” I’m crying too now, my hands digging into his back.I don’t know how long we stand there, hugging and sobbing, but once we pull away, Pa leads me to my room and tucks me in under the covers like he used to when I was a little girl. He kisses my cheek and then turns out the light. He stands in the doorway and just as I’m drifting off to sleep, I hear him murmur something in a loving sigh.
“What would I ever do without my little Bird?”
A/N ugh.. it's so bad. KAY BYE!
I am sitting on my bench at the marina when I meet Mr.Koppinger. The old man walks up to me, wielding a permit.
"Hello, miss VanTaraden." I look at the man standing before me. He has salt-and-pepper hair, and is wearing a fishing hat and suspenders.
"How may I help you, sir?" I ask.
"Well, I got this permit from your dad a while back and I'm just wondering if I can park my boat around here." he says kindly."Is that alright, Kestrel?"
"How do you know my name?" I ask, aghast.
"Your grandfather and I knew each other way, way back." he replies.
I used to spend every Sunday with Grandpappy. We were very close and he understood me very well.
"I-" I start, but I choke. Tears start to stream from my
eyes, and he sits down beside me and pats my back.
"I know you two were close, Kestrel. I miss him too."
"it's Birdie. Not Kestrel" I stare intently at the man. "I don't use that name"
"Okay. My name is Leon Koppinger, But I'd prefer if you called me Leon. Nice to meet you" the man smiles, stretching his hand out. I take it grudgingly and we shake.
"So, where can I bring in my yacht?" my jaw drops at his words.
Mr.Koppinger hauls the monstrous boat to the shore where he can launch it. I watch practically all of the men in town lower the yacht into the bay. Leon drives it to the final station at the dock and ties his boat up with a length of strong rope.
Mr.Koppinger comes down to the marina every day at noon to eat his lunch on the deck of his giant yacht. It fills up almost half of the long dock, and all of the townspeople who pass by gawk at the luxury boat. Leon and I make some small talk, but I mostly leave him alone.
A week after our first encounter, the man yells down to me after finishing eating a sandwich.
"Hey, Birdie! My grandson who is about your age will be visiting throughout the summer. I hope you keep him company!" he calls, licking mayonnaise from his fingers. I look up, shielding my face from the sun.
“I’d love to, but I’m not too good at befriending people” I confide.
“I’m sure you can do it.” Leon smiles happily.
I return home earlier than usual that night, because I'd been nursing a giant burn across my shoulders and back for the past
few days. Lesson learned: do not fall asleep on the job. Ever. I touch my tender skin and flinch under the pain. Slowly, I rub aloe vera gel over the fried parts. I cringe, but it isn't as bad as some burns I've had. I sit on my creaky bed, wondering what Leon's grandson would be like. I silently hope that he's polite, since rudeness is my pet peeve. I also wish that he's hot. I
probably wouldn't be able to talk to him, though, so I mentally scratch the idea. An hour later, Papa returns.
"Papa!" I run out of my room and into the kitchen to hug him.
"Hey there, little bird" he says. "Your back keeps getting worse, sweetheart. You'd better go put on another layer of aloe" I
leave, slap some more gel on my back and gingerly rub it in. Running into the kitchen once again, I smile at my papa.
"Dinner?"
"I picked up some stuff from Redman's" He says, lifting a plastic bag from our trusty town supermarket. Laying our purchases down on the wooden table, I smile because all I see is our usual frozen food; neither my dad nor I can cook even the simplest things. I place a pizza in the oven and wait until the whole room smells of melted cheese and tomato sauce. I pull out the crispy pie and chop it into eight sections (my only skill in the kitchen is cutting things up. Figures.) once I'm done, Papa and I indulge. I spit out my mangled and chewed piece of pizza and Pa does the same.
"What the HECK is in here?" I gargle, rinsing the disgusting taste from my mouth into the sink and holding up the soggy cardboard box the pizza came in. "Vegan pizza? Really, papa?" I snort, looking at my father sternly.
"We keep eating the bacon ones! I've heard that a balanced diet is healthy!" he says, laughing at the gross look on my face.
"Yeah, like tofurkey is good for you” I grin at pa snarkily and dump the whole rest of the pie in the garbage.
''Ice cream?" he asks after looking through the whole fridge, and hauls a bucket from inside the freezer.
''who wouldn't turn that down?'' I giggle, grabbing two shiny spoons. Papa and I end up finishing the whole bucket, and are left with bloated stomachs and a taste of bile in our mouths.
''I don't think I'll ever be able to eat ice cream ever again!'' I moan. He smiles at me and we lean back
down into our chairs. Suddenly, the phone rings. I waddle over to pick it up.
''Hello, Kestrel VanTaraden here'' I say, cringing at my use of the hated name.
''Hi, Birdie!'' I smile at my brother's voice, remembering the stories of how the nickname first came to be. When I was born, Issac didn't understand why my name was Kestrel. After Mom and Papa explained to him that it was the name of a bird, he got it in his head that I was actually a feathered creature instead of being a baby girl.
''I have some good news! I've been sent an invitation to a university in New York!''
''When are you leaving? Are you still going to visit next week? What's the name of the university?'' I bombard him with questions.
''Slow down, Tweety bird! Sadly, I won't be given as many vacations as before, and I just called to inform you that I'm leaving tomorrow'' My eyes blur and I stuff my face into my free hand.
''But, Izzy, you can't go that far away! What if there's an accident like before and you need to help?'' I am full-on crying now. My father takes the phone calmly and I run towards my bedroom, bawling my eyes out. I wanted to prevent our family from breaking apart again; because, after all, that was the only thing that mattered to me.
I knock on the door for a third time before giving up and turning to leave.
“Birdie?” Mr.Koppinger waves to me from the garden running alongside his quaint little house.
“Hey, Mr.Koppinger. I just came for a visit, but if you’re busy I should probably leave…” I had been feeling especially lonely for the past few days and had needed something, anything, to get my mind of off of Izzy’s abandonment.
“Nonsense!” Leon cries, brushing his dirty hands on his shorts. “Come on in!”
I follow him up the steps and through the porch. The cabin is smaller than what I imagined for someone as
wealthy as Mr.Koppinger to have, but still very nice. Everywhere you look there’s some sort of knickknack, maybe a model boat or an ancient-looking picture.
“Wow.” I breathe, admiring the mismatched living room. I point to a painting of a young boy standing beside a stunning ocean, a whale barely visible through the mist. “That’s cool.”
Leon grins. “Thank you! I painted that myself, you know.”
“Really? That’s amazing!” I gush, stroking a soft fur thrown across the green couch.
Mr.Koppinger leads me to the kitchen. He opens the cupboards and searches through them, finally finding a packet of crackers and tossing them on the table.
“Sorry, I don’t have much food. I haven’t been able to go shopping lately.” he apologizes.I nibble on a stale cracker as Leon dashes outside and returns with a fresh cucumber. He cuts it into thin slices and puts it on the table beside the crackers.
“Your house is really neat.” I stare up at the numerous wind chimes dangling from the ceiling.
“Thanks. I’ve always been told I had a very unique decorating style.” He winks.
We sit in silence for a few moments, not a sound other than the grandfather clock in the hall ticking and the cucumbers being crushed between our teeth.
Leon leans forward and smiles at me. “So, Birdie, tell me about yourself.”
I snort. “Tell you what? I’m not a very interesting person.”
“Okay…” Mr.Koppinger cradles his head in his hand thoughtfully.
“Who’s your best friend?”
I shrug. “I don’t really have a best friend..." I think for a second. “I've never even had any friends before. You’re my closest friend.”
“Me?!” he chuckles. “Well, I am honoured. You’re my friend too, Birdie. To be honest, I too, don’t have many friends around here. I just don’t understand why people don’t like me that much.”
“I don’t know either.” I mumble, staring down at the wooden table. His words bring back a memory that I had tried hard to forget.
The children laughed cruelly as I screamed and thrashed.
“Please let me out!” I shrieked, tears streaming down my face. The net was tangled tightly around my legs and my feet
were turning numb and blue. “Please!” I would cry as the boy lowered the net closer to the water.
“Why should we let you out?” a tall girl named Claire asked, her hands on her hips as she sneered down at me.
“Because I’m a person!” I yelled, panicking as the water drew nearer.
“They wouldn’t actually do it, would they? They know I won’t be able to swim when I’m trapped in this net. They won’t do it.” I reassured myself silently. The net dropped lower into the water, soaking my clothes.
“You’re not a person. You’re too weird to be a person.” A boy hollered, bringing a chorus of laughter.
“Why don’t you like me?” I sobbed, dipping lower into the salty ocean. The black water grew higher and higher, the children’s vile expressions glowing in the moonlight. The water bubbled up to my neck, and soon I was completely submerged.
I struggled to kick, but the fishing net just wound itself tighter around my body. Each second was an eternity as my lungs exploded and I swallowed in a mouthful of disgusting seawater. Black spots dotted my vision. My muscles were weak and my head spun.
Then, the water was below me again. I sputtered and coughed, gasping in a huge lungful of the cool air.
“Birdie.” A voice called. “Birdie, are you okay?”
Papa and Izzy stood on the bobbing boat, expressions of horror on their faces. Izzy dropped the net to the boat and my father untangled me. Once free, he hugged me close and carried me back home.
“Oh, Papa.” I whispered, hanging onto his neck. “I just don’t understand why they don’t like me…”
“Birdie? Birdie, are you okay? Kestrel?” Leon calls.
I blink, staring down at my white knuckles that are grasping the edge of the table.
“Yes, I’m fine.” I assure him, shaking my hands to get the blood flowing.
“Okay, good.” He breathes a sigh of relief. “Anyways, what else can you tell me about
yourself? What do you like to do for fun?”
“Um, I work at the marina?” I reply, studying the sunlight pouring from the dusty window onto the kitchen floor.
“Yeah, but in your free time? What do you like?" Mr.Koppinger presses on.
“I like… I like to…” I think hard. “I like to draw sometimes.”
“That’s nice. What do you like to draw?”
“The ocean and like, boats and fish and stuff.”
“Wow.” Leon beams. “I’d love to see some of your drawings sometime.”
“Oh, no.” I wave my hand in the air like I’m brushing away the idea. “They’re not very good.”
He leans forwards and shakes his head.
“Don’t ever put yourself down, Birdie.” He taps on the table. “One thing that I’ve learned in life is that you’re almost always better than you think you are.”
“Uh, I don’t think so.” I sigh, thinking about the sketches scattered across my bedroom.
Mr.Koppinger winks again. “You’d be surprised.”
That night I flip through my drawings, trying to see if they are any good or not. They're just as terrible as before.
“Crazy old man.” I mutter to myself before turning off the light and flopping down on the bed.
He might be a little goofy, but I definitely like him. I pull out the dusty sketch pad from between my sagging box spring and mattress.
“But, maybe I can get better if I try” I pick up a stick of charcoal and begin to form a vast lake with waves the height of a Leon’s yacht. I imagine giant cliffs in the distance and rumbling clouds filling the sky. I shake my head and crumple the page into the smallest ball I can manage. Suddenly, Papa walks in and sits next to me, beckoning my body towards his.
“What’s wrong, Birdie?” My father delicately rubs the salty tears from my cheeks.
“When I was at Mr.Koppinger’s house, I remembered the time that you saved me from drowning. I’m so pathetic”
My shoulders are racked with sobs. “I deserved to die that day. I am not good enough for all of the kind people in my life”
“What?” Papa hugs me tight. “Don’t you ever think like that, young lady” He kisses my cheek before standing
up and leaving me alone to cry. A few minutes later, I grab the door handle and get myself together. Quietly, I tiptoe towards the kitchen and peer around the corner, noticing that Pa has left for the marina. I snag half a bagel and leave my home to search for my secret treehouse from when I was younger. I climb up the fraying rope and haul myself onto the small platform where I had once spent almost all of my time. There is a limp bean chair in one corner and a stack of old magazines in the other. I flop down into the sagging chair and randomly pick a
book. I had stolen the magazines from my mom when she was still living with us, and the memory is still as vivid as the present.
She had actually found me trying to carry the whole pile out of the room. Wrenside had recently been rocked by a small hurricane and the floor planks were a bit uneven. I had not been able to see where I was stepping because of the magazines, and tripped, dropping them all over the hallway. I scrambled to gather the books, but my mom had heard the crash and came to investigate. She knelt down beside me and started to help me pile her magazines back up. I had looked up towards her, and heard her words.
“Kestrel, you need to remember that I love you. Whatever happens, I will still be with you in here” my mother jabs the space
where I would find my heart and pushes the stack towards me.
The day after was when she deserted my family.
I flip the first page open and see the butchered faces of cosmetic models.
“Right” I laugh to myself, remembering how upset I was that next morning. I had run outside to my newly-built fort in the pouring rain, grabbed a scrap piece of wood and stabbed the faces of all of the women in the magazines.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” I screamed the most banned word I could think of. “I HATE HER!” I mumbled, throwing my face into the bean-bag chair I was given for my 6th birthday.
Coming to a conclusion, I stand up and lower myself out of the treehouse, being careful on the ladder. I run towards Mr.Koppinger’s for the second time in the day, and rap on the door. It doesn’t take long before he answers, and I am ushered to the green chesterfield I had noticed earlier.
“Your father just visited. Are you alright, Birdie? He said that you’d been gone for hours” I look out the grimy window and realize that the sky has already begun to darken.
“Wasn’t he working at the marina?” I gasp.
“Actually, he was just going out for groceries.” Leon explains. “Your dad was really worried about you. Maybe you should give him a call, the phone’s in the corner.”
I pick up the receiver and dial Papa’s cell phone, because our home phone hasn’t worked for years.
“Hello?” he answers, anxiety in his voice.
“Papa? Papa, it’s Birdie.” I say.The line is silent for a moment, then my father whispers, relief in his tone, “Oh, thank god.”
“I’m sorry, Pa, please don’t be mad…” I beg into the phone. “I just needed a little break. I’m alright.”
“You had me so worried, Kestrel.”My heart sinks when I hear my real name. He only ever uses it when he’s upset.
“I’m coming home now.” I say, my throat clenching and the tears threaten to overflow. His disappointment crushes me and I feel guilty for making him worry the entire walk back home. I trudge up the back steps, dreading my punishment for running off. Opening up the front door, I brace for the scolding, but when my father looks up from the couch, I don’t see anger in his features. He gets up and comes towards me, wrapping me in a tight hug. I am shocked when I see his eyes watering.
“Oh, Papa…” I whisper into his strong shoulder.
“How could you scare me like that, Birdie?” he says gently, hurt in his voice. “You talk about deserving to die, then run off for hours. I can’t take that. It’s too much for your old Papa.”
“I’m sorry, Papa.” I’m crying too now, my hands digging into his back.I don’t know how long we stand there, hugging and sobbing, but once we pull away, Pa leads me to my room and tucks me in under the covers like he used to when I was a little girl. He kisses my cheek and then turns out the light. He stands in the doorway and just as I’m drifting off to sleep, I hear him murmur something in a loving sigh.
“What would I ever do without my little Bird?”
A/N ugh.. it's so bad. KAY BYE!
