Prairie Ostrich (9 page)

Yes.

In the darkness of the barn, Egg holds Tetsuwan in her hand. The ostriches coo in their pens.

This is perfect.

Silently, she makes her way back up the ladder and sits in front of the Ouiji board with her offering.

She takes a deep breath, gazing at the wavering flame and the shadow dance. As she places her fingertips on the planchette, she whispers, “Albert.”

The wind slithers through the gaps in the rooftop as the long beams creak and groan. Below her, the ostriches scrape and stamp, their wings twirling and blustery, with a flurry of chirps from the hatchlings.

Egg takes a shallow breath. “How do I make things right?”

An eerie calm washes over the barn. The hairs on her arms stand on end as her back stiffens. The planchette trembles. Egg's breath catches as she watches the shadows dart across the ceiling. The wind sounds a low moan across the roof before the shutters blast open, flooding the loft with a piercing cold. Egg shrieks, her knees slam the Ouiji board, knocking over the candle. The fluttering pages of the
TV Guide
feel the lick of flame and erupt in a burst of light. Egg stamps the fire — out out out — and the embers float harmlessly to ashes.

Out.

Egg holds her breath but her father does not wake. He turns with a groan on the cot, the ancient springs squeaking their protest as he shifts his weight and pulls his blanket over his head.

Egg climbs out the window, slides down the roof of the side shed, almost tumbling down the ladder. Across the gravel, to the house, up the stairs, into her warm bed, she tucks under her covers without even taking off her shoes.

Her heart thunders, she is panting so loudly. She has dabbled in the Occult, sent a message into the spirit world. She wonders, what would Mrs. MacDonnell say?

She asked. And Albert answered with fire.

November

The last light of day slips away from the barren fields. The downfall wind that rolls east of the Rockies bristles and snaps, roaring unimpeded across the foothills. The seasons can change in one hour, a lazy drizzle that lashes into flurries. Early winter storm. Egg, with her chin on the window pane, watches the snow whip and whirl. She blows against the fogging glass. Her breath, captured by the pane, whitens and freezes. She looks to the barn, the silver outline of frost, a pencil-thin sheen that glistens against the dark. As she leans forward, she feels the magnifying glass in her back pocket.

She's a detective now, even if Kathy won't let her watch
Columbo
. She is looking for clues. Ever since the Ouiji board on Halloween, she knows that Albert is helping her, he is showing her the way from Heaven.

She slides down the hall in her slippery socks and places her ear on Mama's door. Mama's breathing is deep and even. She is asleep and Kathy is out with the truck, no doubt with Stacey, so the coast is clear. Egg skips down to the kitchen and pulls out the magnifying glass and turns to the cellar.

The tall, grey cellar door, scarred and warped with many seasons, stands beside the pantry. A long rough gouge scores the wood across the bottom length. A black stain mars the upper corner. Egg can feel the icy draft rushing through the gap over the threshold, the eerie whistle that it makes. It breathes, she thinks, quelling the twist in her stomach. She grasps the knob, feels the shock of cold metal against her palm, and pushes the door open. A wave of frigid air washes over her. In the darkness of the stairwell, she gropes for the cord —
click
— the bald electric blub flickers on.

She raises the magnifying glass with a flourish. “Begone all monsters!” she wants to shout but it only comes out in a squeak.

Nothing.

A centipede scurries across the wall and Egg almost screams. It's all those legs. It scares her so much that she even pees a little.

Cautiously she makes her way down, hand on the dusty, wooden banister. With every step the stairway seems to lengthen. Every creak is an announcement that she is here, an intruder in this sunken realm of darkness, of silent creeping things. Her skin crawls against the damp, the seeping, insinuating chill. She stumbles and throws her hand against the wall — feels the crumbling red granules of the brick — and she rubs her palm against her shirt to get rid of that tacky, clinging grit. There is a peculiar smell of root cellars and rough woven sacks, of musty dark corners and things best left forgotten.

A crate of Mama's whiskey sits by the bottom of the stairs between a bag of rotting onions and a box of sprouting potatoes. Strange tools clutter the space — a sickle, a long saw, a scythe, the rusting wheels of a broken baler. In the far corner of the basement, there is what looks like a table, covered with a ragged sheet.

She need only take a few steps and the table will be within her reach. Stories of mummies with their brains picked out through their noses and the Curse of King Tut's Tomb run through her head. Then she thinks of Marie Curie from her
Young Reader's Guide to Science
. Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and the theory of radioactivity. She won two Noble Prizes but she paid the ultimate price. Egg thinks of the bravery of Marie Curie, so she reaches out her hand and steps forward.

She grabs the sheet. With one tug, it falls to the floor.

In front of her, there is a figure-eight rail with a roundabout and tunnel, even a country station stop. The forest is caught by a loop of track. Tiny figures stand on the platform, motionless, frozen in time. This is Albert's train set, Egg realizes, but he will never come for it now. It strikes her as sad, these patient figures, this abandoned track. As she runs her finger along the line of rail, she thinks of Albert's train by the railway trestle. Character is destiny. But Albert's train was an accident. Can destiny be an accident?

She thinks of Anne and her rescue. Kathy read it to her, of Anne in the last freight car, of the train hitch that came undone. Egg can almost imagine it, the thin black lines of the tracks against the white snow, the crystalline frost that had broken the link.

Ta-da! There are miracles after all.

Egg picks up a girl in a red dress, no bigger than her thumbnail, and places it in her palm, clenching it in her fist. She knows that Anne's escape was miraculous but so many got left behind. What happened to them? Kathy has told her that the Nazis “came to power” (how did they come to power?) and they persecuted the Jews, but then the war was won and it was happily ever after. Egg knows that bad things happen but how did something go so wrong — not just one wrong but a whole bunch of wrongs? What did all the good people do? Anne, all the way up in Amsterdam, had to go into hiding.

Egg plucks the toy station master from the platform and slips him into the freight car.

“What are you doing down here?”

Egg jumps.

Kathy stands at the foot of the stairs. Her glare could set the room on fire. “Where did you find this?”

Egg blinks. It was here all the time, she wants to say, but is that what Kathy is asking?

In this light, Kathy seems all edges. The naked electric bulb cuts shadows darkly and casts deep hollows under her eyes.

“It was Albert's, wasn't it?” Egg balances the freight car in one hand, with the steam engine in the other.

Kathy's mouth opens but she does not say a word.

Egg stuffs a small figure into the cargo car but Kathy snatches it from her. “What are you doing?” Kathy demands. She stares at the small toy in her hand and, just as suddenly, throws it back to Egg.

“There were so many people on the train with no food or water. I just wanted to see how many could fit in.” Egg holds out the boxcar. “It looks like Anne's train.”

Kathy stares at her sister, the figures, the train. Suddenly, Egg can see her shrinking, not like her big sister at all. Egg feels a plummet, like being thrown into the deep end of the pool, the sounds all crashing, close and yet so far, a strange and undefinable terror of all the things that she will never understand.

Kathy blurts, “Do the kids at school tell you, you stink like an ostrich?”

“I've been ostrichized.” Egg holds up a small figure. “You see, they had to wear yellow stars.”

Kathy steps back. Her voice is dry, as it splinters. “Go to bed, Egg.”

Egg tries to understand. “Are you mad because it's Albert's?”

“Go to bed, Goddamnit!”

Egg runs up the stairs. It's not fair. Just because Kathy is big-sister-bossy-the-cow does not mean she is right. Why is she so angry anyway?

Albert knows. He has left the clues. Why else the train track and this girl in the lonely dark?

Egg places the small figure of the girl in the red dress on her bedside table, in the golden light of her honeybee lamp. This one, she will be safe in the annex. This one, so small and fragile, just like Anne Frank.

…

In the library Egg sits below Ancient History with the
Oxford
on her lap. Today is an
S
day: silly, sappy, sacrosanct. Everyone needs an
S
day. Kathy has been having a whole slew of
S
days; her smile never leaves her face. Egg likes the word
spilth
.
Splosh
and
splutter
are also her favourites, even if you can only have one favourite.
S
makes the most sense in the alphabet. It is most like itself, that's why snakes begin with the letter
S
, why small
s
and capital
S
stay the same. Rivers meander into
s
's and eternity is two
s
's kissing. Egg calls it kissing even though they are lying down.

The opposite of
s
is
o
and that is why SOS is like that. When you need help.
O
you fall into.
O
is a surprise.
O
and zero equal each other.

X
is another story altogether.

Martin Fisken got into a fight with Ronald Grimchuk. Martin got hurt real bad. Egg gave him a candy from her lunch but he only stepped on it and kicked it away. Bullies are like that. Sometimes mad is all they got. Martin boasted that his name was called on
The Buck Shot Show
because he wrote in for his birthday. Only townies can see
The Buck Shot Show
during lunchtime. Egg doesn't know what the big deal is anyway.

This was after Martin showed his pen-is to the girls in the schoolyard. Egg called it a pen-is but he said it was called a pee-nis because pee comes out of it. Egg thinks that is gross, like swishing jello through your teeth, spitting it out, then drinking it. She knows that S - E - X is two people mashing up against each other and making babies. Egg thinks that something is wrong with Martin's pen-is. It's all wrinkly and ugly.

S - E - X is called Original Sin but Egg doesn't understand why it is a sin to make babies.

She thinks that if there are rules, people should tell you them, else you just get into trouble and it's really not your fault. How are you supposed to not talk about something if they don't tell you what to not talk about? Then Mrs. MacDonnell just starts turning red and it's out the door for you.

…

Time crawls in Mrs. Syms's afternoon class. It is after lunch and Egg's head feels heavy. Insects with exoskeletons, with the bones on the outside. Egg wonders how you can make insects boring.

There is a knock on the door and thirty-two heads look up.

A blond puffball that is Mrs. Jonas's head pops into the classroom. Behind her trails a shadow. At the blackboard, Mrs. Syms stiffens, the chalk snaps in her fingers, and she goes to the door.

The class is strangely silent, strangely still.

When Mrs. Syms turns, she holds a girl in front of her.

But oh, what a girl! She is so much bigger and older and from another country. Her skin is dark brown, like earth after rain, and she is wrapped up in orange and gold. The other girls in the class smirk and whisper — jealous, Egg thinks. But this one, she seems so soft, so warm that Egg wants to curl up beside her.

“Now. We have a guest. A late. Addition.” Mrs. Syms does not sound pleased. Mrs. Syms sounds as if she is swallowing a three-foot pickerel. “Tell them your name, child. Quickly, the class is waiting.”

The girl does not say a word.

Mrs. Syms huffs and puffs. “It's Kuldeep.” Egg can see Mrs. Syms's teeth when she says this.

The pickerel wriggles in Mrs. Syms's gullet and her talons are out as she pushes Kuldeep to the back of the class. The corner desk is pulled from the back corner, dragged beside Egg. Egg sits up, back straight, biting down on her lip. She could almost squeal with delight.

As Mrs. Syms turns away, Egg steals a glance at Kuldeep. Kuldeep's hands are folded over a copy of
Charlotte's Web
and two new notebooks. Egg scans Kuldeep's desk; there is no pencil case. Egg places her best HB yellow pencil (no bite marks) on the edge of Kuldeep's desk and slides it carefully towards Kuldeep's hands.

Kuldeep's eyes widen, her head dipping into the slightest bow.

Egg's stomach does cartwheels.

At recess Egg shows Kuldeep the girl's washroom, the water fountain, the glass doors to the library. As Egg chatters about the jungle gym, the school bus, and the lunchroom, the sound bounces off the cavernous walls of the hallway. She launches into how bats use echolocation in the dark, how the
Young Reader's Guide to Science
explains this. Kuldeep takes in the yard, the green, the long grey line of withering maples, all with her great brown eyes. She looks so lost and alone that Egg wants to take her hand and tell her everything will be okay. But Egg's words tumble faster and faster, about the bully gang and never to eat the Wednesday lunch special and how the
Mutual of Omaha
shows you that camouflage is the best defence. Egg tells her about the library and Anne Frank and the running speed of ostriches. Gravity is a force of nature and the speed of light is the fastest ever.

As Egg catches her breath, Martin and Chuckie run in front of them in their game of Cowboys and Indians. Bang bang and you're dead, and the sprawling hit and stagger that drags out across the playground. But the cowboys always get up again. Cowboys never lose because they are the good guys.

There is a chill in Egg's stomach. Kuldeep is an Indian and what does she make of this game? Bang bang and Egg can see that Kuldeep is sad. It's just a game, she wants to say, but something is wrong and she doesn't have the words. Charlotte saved Wilbur with letters spun from a spider's web, so surely Egg could so the same. Egg reaches out for Kuldeep's hand. Her fingers hesitate. They touch and the shock of Kuldeep's flesh rushes to Egg's core. Kuldeep's eyes are the warmest brown but Egg feels that Kuldeep does not fit into this washed-out, wind-scored desert. The light is harsh, the air unkind.

A ball hurls towards Kuldeep and without a thought, Egg steps out and smacks it away. Amazed, she stares at her hand, feels the sting against her palm, savours it. She blinks. Character is destiny.