“I didn’t realize—” Mom starts to speak, and my dad’s hand falls to her shoulder. He grips it, pats her back a few times. Squeezes again. All with a smile on his face. But there’s white tension in his knuckles, and a look that crosses Mom’s face. He’s hurting her.
“Yeah, well, what can you do? You win some bids, you lose some bids. That’s the job,” Dad says.
Juniper and Campbell sit forward in their seats.
Juniper’s eyes stay fixed on Mom, like she’s watching for a signal from her. How do we react? Do we smile and nod?
We do.
We smile.
We nod.
We say pleasant goodbyes.
But the milk in my coffee tastes curdled, and the sugar turns to salt on my tongue, and I’m bolting from the table, barely making it to the diner restroom before I throw up flour and sugar and salt and grief.
Chapter Fifteen
JUNIPER AND I ARE SPRAWLED ON a blanket in our backyard. There is a slight chill this early in the morning, but it will warm by the afternoon. I’m eager for the crispness of Pennsylvania autumns, but this year summer refuses to loosen her hold.
Campbell loves this weather. Bike-riding season is extended, and that’s where she is now. Mom almost called an early end to it after she learned about the rosebush accident, but I convinced her to let Campbell ride while she can. She needs her wolf pack on bicycles.
Juniper brought her book outside, and I’m alternating between calculus homework and newspaper research. I’ve brought my art folder out, too, but mostly so I can glare at it occasionally and wish it would spontaneously combust. I’m very terrible at it, and regret registering for the “easy” elective.
For a while we work quietly—or at least, we are quiet. There are crows all around us, and they make themselves known. The cawing of crows is the new Auburn Township soundtrack.
I finish up my calc work and reach for my crow research. I found out that this has happened before in other towns. In New York and Oregon. Even another little town in Pennsylvania.
“Experts estimate the murder of crows has reached fifty thousand or more,” I read to Juniper from that other town’s local paper. “Birds are still arriving by the thousands as they migrate south from Canada.”
“Fifty thousand?” Juniper yells. “How many are here?”
“No clue,” I say. “Not that many. Not yet, anyway.”
I turn over the Auburn Gazette, our local paper, which is barely more than a penny flyer. Front-page news this week is our football team’s win last night.
“Weird,” I say.
“What is?” Junie asks.
“Just our football team. They’re . . . winning. They’ve won every game so far this year, actually.” I would wonder if the headline was a prank, but Auburn takes football too seriously for that.
There are crows lining our fence, and I pull a box of raisins from my backpack and start to chuck them across the lawn.
“That’s against the rules,” Juniper says. “You said so in your paper.”
“You read my column, Junie?” I always bring home a paper copy for my writing binder, but the paper mostly exists online. I didn’t realize Juniper even had access to it.
“Yeah, Campbell always prints out your articles, and she lets me read them first.”
I like watching the crows flutter off the fence and land near us to snatch up the raisins. I like how they hop around. And honestly, I like breaking a rule for once. I’ll break the hell out of Auburn Township Ordinance 3417. I’m a rebel with a cause. Filling up Corvidae bellies, one raisin at a time.
“Here, Junie. Give it a try.” I hand her a few raisins, but then notice her bare wrist. The three of us always wear the leather cuffs Grandpa gave us, but hers is gone. “Hey, your bracelet is off.”
She looks guilty. “I lost it. I’m so sorry. I thought it would be at home in my room, but I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it will turn up. I’ll look for it later, okay?”
I turn back to the pages in front of me. “It says here that this town hired wildlife experts to try to scare them off,” I say, mostly to distract her. I shouldn’t have said anything about the missing cuff.
“Scare them how?” she asks. She throws an entire handful of raisins at once, and a bunch of crows swoop down from a nearby tree.
“Flares, loud noises. They brought in falconers to haze the crows. With live hawks. They also opened up a crow-hunting season for several weeks.”
“Like a bird-killing spree?” Juniper takes the box from me and throws a raisin as high as she can. A crow catches it in midair.
“Pretty much,” I say. Hunting is popular around here. We even get off school when deer season starts. It’s never really bothered me, but I feel a weird twinge at the thought of the crows being shot. Juniper figures out the feeling before I do.
“I hope they don’t do that here,” she says. “The crows aren’t that bad. And I’d be so worried about Joe.”
“Joe’s pretty smart,” I tell her, pushing aside my own discomfort. “Besides, there aren’t nearly as many crows here. It says that there were so many crows in this other town that they blocked out the sun. We don’t have that many crows. Don’t worry.”
Juniper turns onto her back, looking up at the clouds like she’s imagining the sky filled with black birds. I don’t want her to be anxious about Joe, so I change the subject.
“What are you reading?” I ask. She passes me the book without taking her eyes off the sky.
It’s a young reader’s collection of fairy tales and fables.
“This was mine,” I say, paging through it. “I loved these stories.”
“They’re really good,” Junie says, turning to face me. Now I’ve got her attention. “I can’t believe it’s just been sitting on your shelf all wonderful and unread for years.”
She makes me laugh.
“Sorry, Juniper. It’s all yours now.”
“Really? Thanks.”
She opens up the front flap of the hardcover, where a faded scene of trees, flowers, and woodland creatures is printed.
“Can I borrow a pen?” she asks.
“Um, sure.”
She grabs my pen and puts a line under my name, which I must have scrawled into the book a decade ago, and then adds her name underneath it. “There, now it’s official.”
“Well done.”
“Can I have a piece of paper, too?” she asks.
I tear her a sheet out of my notebook.
I catch sight of the first two words she writes at the top of the page: Dear Joe.
“Writing to Joe?” I ask.
“Yeah, well, the animals in these stories are really smart, and I think Joe is smart, too, so I’ve been writing him letters.”
“Are you expecting a response?” I ask. If I could catch her leaving the letters, I could write responses for her. It would be a little lie—like the tooth fairy, but with crows.
“That’s stupid, Leighton. Birds can’t write.”
Oh, well, never mind the letter plan.
“But he might leave more gifts.”
“What?” I turn on my side to face her, curious.