Three Bird Summer
Authors: Sara St. Antoine
HERE’S WHAT I KNOW
about girls. They like talking and combing their hair with their fingers, and they move in careful packs, like wolves. They smell like soap and bees. They speak at two volumes: megaphone loud and impossible-to-hear whisper. Even when they’re huddled together in hushed conversations, they keep their eyes trained outward, scoping the scene like Secret Service agents. I’m pretty sure they can communicate telepathically, too. They often dress exactly alike — showing up one day all in jean jackets and another day in ruffled skirts and flip-flops — as if they have access to the same secret dress code. In class, they keep their eyes on the teacher, but they can actually see in every direction. I’m sure of it. If you scratch your armpit or put your finger anywhere near your nose, you’ll set off a round of giggles. Girls shriek, and they laugh over the smallest things. Words, even.
Prune. Waddle. Unruly.
I hardly ever get what’s funny. Sometimes I’m not even sure they do.
On the first day of summer vacation, my mom and I were loading the car for our annual trip to my grandmother’s cabin when three girls from school rode by on their bikes. The moment they spotted me, they turned into the driveway with the precision of a team of Blue Angels and came to a stop inches from the car. Today’s dress code was short shorts and nail polish the color of root beer.
“Going someplace?” asked Emma. She always talked first.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Where?” asked Margaret, glancing skeptically at my hole-pocked sneakers.
“To see my grandma,” I said.
The girls laughed. As usual, I had no idea why.
I looked at my mom, but she was too focused on her perfect packing job to get involved. She shoved my duffel against the cooler, then realigned it for maximum efficiency. Next she scooped up two of her work bags and balanced them carefully on top.
“I think that’s everything but my purse,” she told me. “I’ll call Grandma and let her know we’re on our way. Don’t touch a thing.”
She nodded at the girls and headed into the house.
“Where does your grandmother live?” asked Annie, the smallest and the nicest of the three.
“She’s at her cabin up north in Minnesota,” I said. “On a lake. In the woods.”
“Cool,” Annie said.
Emma and Margaret were now peering into the back of the car, appraising its contents. Even though there was nothing in there out of the ordinary, I felt weirdly exposed, like they had X-ray vision and could see straight through the fabric of my duffel to my striped boxers, my robot pajamas.
“Are you staying all summer?” Margaret asked.
“Pretty much,” I said.
“Who’s going to water your roses?” asked Annie, leaning down to sniff our flower bushes.
I stared at her incredulously. Was she really wondering about that? Were all girls just moms waiting to get their promotions? I almost said, “My dad will come by sometimes,” but that would have invited a whole new set of questions. So instead I told her I didn’t know.
They looked at me like I was supposed to say something else. When I didn’t, they glanced at one another and exchanged a wordless message. Possible translation: “He’s boring. Let’s go to Dairy Queen and talk about penmanship.”
“Well, have fun!” said Emma, shoving off.
“Watch out for bears!” said Margaret.
Annie just waved.
I heard them laughing as they rode away.
When they turned the corner, I leaned against the car and gazed up at the sky. Sixteen starlings were perched on a set of telephone wires above the street, twitching and fidgeting in the morning air. They clung to the wires in an up-and-down pattern like notes on one of my trumpet scores.
“Brum, brum, barum,”
I hummed through my lips, imagining the tune.
“Brum brum brum barum.”
“I sure hope you won’t be making noises like that all the way to Minnesota,” my mom said, emerging from the house with her purse, a box of Kleenex, and a travel mug. She was wearing a linen skirt and gold sandals that looked right for Wilmette but would be completely out of place at the cabin. She bit her lip and tucked her things into the car. “How did Grandma sound when you two spoke last week?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Fine, I guess.”
“You think so?” She walked to the back of the car for one final inspection, then slammed the hatch. “Anyway, she had some news. Apparently there are new neighbors on the lake — where the Parkers used to live. They have a girl your age. Grandma says she’s darling.”
“Grandma actually used the word ‘darling’?” I asked. What I didn’t say was that the idea of a neighbor girl filled me with dread. Being at the cabin was my chance to get away from Emma, Margaret, Annie, and their kind. I’d be more comfortable encountering a real wolf on Grandma’s property than a stray member of the girl pack.
“Well, maybe she said ‘cute,’ ” Mom admitted.
“Which is a word she uses to describe earthworms,” I pointed out. “And featherless baby birds with those big bulging eyeballs.”
Mom ignored me. “I just thought it might be nice to have someone your age around. With your cousins away and all.”
“I don’t care about that,” I told her. This year, for the first time ever, it would just be me, Mom, and Grandma at the cabin. My parents had gotten divorced over the winter, and this meant that my dad and his side of the family wouldn’t be visiting. I hadn’t thought much about what it would be like to be the only kid, except that it would be a relief not to have my cousins flipping me out of the hammock in surprise attacks or challenging me to brutal games of chicken on Grandma’s canoe. No cousins also meant more pie . . . for me.
“Well, then forget what I said,” Mom told me. “It’s not like we see a lot of the neighbors when we’re up in Grandma’s little wilderness anyway.”
I slid into the passenger seat and pulled on my seat belt. I really hoped she was right.
THERE WAS A MOMENT
on the drive to Grandma’s cabin when you realized you were finally up north. After counting hay bales for mile after mile of flat farm fields, wondering how long it would take for somebody to invent human teleporting so you would never have to make this boring drive again, you’d suddenly see them: pine trees. Their triangular tops rose up over the horizon — a boundary, a front, a promise — like spindly giants in pointy hats, signaling the beginning of the great North.
Now, even in the near-darkness, I could see the familiar silhouette of the pines as we drove up the two-lane highway toward the town of Hubbard Falls. I rolled my window all the way down and let the night air rush against my face. Warm, then cool; sweet, then skunky.
We skirted the edge of town and followed one last mile of country road to get to Grandma’s property. Only a small mailbox on the right side of the road indicated the presence of any kind of human habitation to our left. The woods were dark, and the drive was just a narrow gap between the trees. Mom turned in and drove carefully with her high beams on. We steered around trees and bumped over roots and ruts for nearly half a mile until the cabin appeared, nestled on a rise, with just one exterior light on.
Mom parked our car beside Grandma’s old Ford station wagon, and we climbed out into the night. It was too dark to see anything except the small area illuminated by the light, but the smell of pines and damp earth was enough to know we’d made it. I loved arriving at night, when the property felt at its most mysterious, when crazy little bugs whipped through the air and unknown creatures snapped branches beneath the distant trees. But part of what I loved, too, was knowing that when I woke up, the curtain of darkness would be lifted and my summer world would be there, waiting for me.
