Bird by Crystal Chan

Author:Crystal Chan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV013000, JUV039060, JUV039030
ISBN: 9781922148704
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2014-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE next day, the clouds split open and rain poured down. It was one of those all-day kinds of rains, the kind that sinks into everything, good and deep. I couldn’t mow the lawn like I was supposed to on account of the rain, and I didn’t want to be stuck inside thinking about Grandpa on the other side of my wall, so I slipped on my shoes and headed outside.

I had decided not to say anything to my parents about how Grandpa had grabbed me. They’d probably scold me for going into his room. And they would be right: What was I thinking? Grandpa clearly didn’t want to have anything to do with me. He never had.

I felt better as I walked down our long, gravel driveway and deeper into the countryside and the soft fall of rain. The raindrops were warm and nice and fat, the kind that splatter when they hit your skin. Dad says that rain walks water your soul, just like the rain waters the plants and the rivers. Although Mom shakes her head when he says that, she always has towels by the kitchen door for me when I return.

It’s something special to go to the cliff when it rains. My circle of stones sits there, quiet and patient and dark-dripping, and the boulder, like an ancient friend, watches the clouds crossing the horizon. Sometimes, if you look hard enough and long enough, you can watch the grasses turn from brittle brown to green, right in front of your eyes. And my buried pebbles—well, it’s just nice to think that they’re being watered too and that they’re turning into dirt again, drop by drop.

As I made my way along the wet road, toward the cliff, my mind wandered back to John. Eugene. Maybe, just maybe, by giving himself another name, John was attracting the attention of a duppy and didn’t realize it. Just like Grandpa attracted a duppy for Bird. Just like there was maybe a duppy in our house. My pulse started racing thinking about all that.

I bent down to pick up some pieces of gravel from the road so I could bury those worries at the cliff when I spied a deer path cutting through the grasses. It was a faint, fresh path that the deer made last night. Before I knew it, I was trudging along, excited. Maybe I would see a deer nest, I thought. Finding sleeping animals brings good luck. That’s what Dad says. It wouldn’t take more than a moment or two, and right now a little luck wouldn’t hurt.

The long grasses were bent slightly where the deer had walked, and I stepped on the slippery path as carefully and quietly as I could, my eyes open and ears straining as if I were a deer myself. Rain dripped from the sky and turned the horizon into a soft, gray mist. The path turned a curve before widening, revealing a small pond.

My breath caught when I saw Grandpa.

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