Canary in the Coal Mine by Madelyn Rosenberg

Author:Madelyn Rosenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2013-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Bitty slept the restless sleep that comes from being in a strange place. He dreamed he was in the coal mine, only this time, he wasn’t in a cage. He was free to zip through the tunnels, a blurry speck of yellow in a black world. As he flew, the miners slapped at him the way he’d seen Jamie slap mosquitoes.

“I’m free,” Bitty told them, though of course none of them spoke Bird. “Mountainy Liberty. I mean, monetary library. Montani Semper Liberi. Leave me alone. I’m free.”

The tips of the Gap-Toothed Man’s pudgy fingers flicked Bitty on the head.

Thwack.

There they were again.

Bitty opened his eyes and saw not the miner’s fingers, but Clarence peering down at him.

Peck. Clarence poked Bitty in the head for the third time. “Come on, sleepyhead, get up. My mom says if I work this morning, I can show you around this afternoon. You can help.”

“What time is it?” Despite years of waking up before the sun, this morning, the sun had beaten him.

“It’s six-thirty, so we’ve got to move. Old humans wake up earlier than the rest.”

Sure enough, Mrs. Gillespie was already sitting on a bench.

Bitty took a bath in the creek to make sure he looked and smelled his best for the legislators—and Clarence’s clients. Then he joined the pigeon near Mrs. Gillespie. Her hands were curled like claws, but she dropped a piece of a sticky bun on the ground by her feet.

“Come on,” Clarence called. “She doesn’t bite.”

Bitty looked again at the curled hands, then tried a taste of sticky bun.

“Why, hello, pretty,” Mrs. Gillespie said.

“She means you,” Clarence told him. “She calls me ‘precious.’ ”

“Girls are pretty,” Bitty said.

“She’s a little gushy. But you get used to it.”

For a full hour they sat with Mrs. Gillespie, who went back and forth between cooing at them in baby talk that was more sugary than the sticky buns and railing about President Hoover.

Their next client blew his nose like an elephant. Instead of calling Bitty “pretty,” he went with “Serinus canaria domestica,” which made him sound as formal as Eck. He didn’t offer them any bread, though, so they moved on to Hobo Pete.

“I need to get to the courthouse,” Bitty said.

“But Pete’s the best. You’ve gotta meet him.”

They approached a bench and found a tall, scruffy man with newspaper draped over his legs like a blanket. Bitty tried to read some of the stories, but the news was old and the words were too wrinkled to read.

“I’m surprised you found enough stuff for your nest with him around,” Clarence said. “Hobo Pete is the best scrap finder in the city.” The man’s enormous shoes were laced with brown twine. He had patched the soles with newspaper and masking tape. The birds waited as he pulled a crumpled paper bag from his belongings. He reached inside and came up with some bread crumbs for them. Then he leaned back and shook the rest of the bag’s contents into his mouth.

When his throat

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