Extraordinary October. Diana Wagman

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the puking kid from the nurse’s office riding his bike in our direction. “Him too?”

      “Chris Lee. Yes.”

      “You just took everybody who went to the nurse.”

      “Pretty much.” He smiled at me and stood up. “I need you all to have something in common.”

      “Luisa wasn’t even really sick. And I just had an itch. And this kid is too young for college. Plus he’s going to give us all the stomach flu.”

      “Trust me,” Walker said.

      I took a step away from him and crossed my arms in front of my chest, but he moved closer.

      “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “You are why we’re here.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “October.”

      “Yes?”

      “Answer a question?”

      “Is this finally part of the experiment?”

      He nodded, but I was not prepared for the question. He looked into my eyes and asked, “When you have your first kiss, what should it be like?”

      I blushed to my toes. Was it so flipping obvious that I’d never been kissed? How did he know? The itch was tingling, threatening to erupt again.

      “Tell me,” he said. “What do you want it to be?”

      His blue eyes had darkened into pools of inviting water. I could fall into them. I could fall in and never come up.

      “I don’t want much.” I shrugged, tried to laugh, tried to be so much cooler and experienced than I was. “When someone kisses me, I expect the earth to move.”

      “The earth to move,” he repeated. “Not much at all.” He didn’t smile.

      “Hey. Let’s get this party started.” It was Jeb.

      The connection between us broke and he turned to the others. I hoped no one noticed my red, embarrassed face. And then, worse, my stomach growled. I was flustered and suddenly I was starving and to top it off I had to pee. His experiment didn’t make any sense. What did first kisses have to do with going to college? I waved at Luisa and motioned I was going to the bathroom. Walker didn’t seem to notice as I walked away. He was busy shaking hands with Jed and little Chris, or Green, as I would forever think of him. I was cold and hurried over to the stucco park building. A gust of wind whipped my hair into my eyes blinding me.

      I stumbled over a rock and somehow startled two crows. They flapped up in front of me, squawking. “Hey!” I cried as they circled my head and landed right in front of the door to the women’s room. “Scram!” I waved my arms.

      They just cawed back at me and in my imagination I heard them teasing me, “we’re gonna get you.” Why would a crow want to get me? I thought of the crow in my yard, pecking at the dead cat. Crows are my least favorite bird, and one of the most common. They are everywhere in the United States. Corvus brachyrhynchos, a fancy Latin name for a flying rat. So black, so big, and they make that horrible noise. I know they steal the eggs from other birds and sometimes even kill and eat the young chicks. That makes them cannibals. Disgusting. But I was never afraid of a crow until the two in front of the bathroom. They stared at me, turning their heads this way and that to see me from each beady black eye. I stamped my feet. They didn’t move. I really had to go to the bathroom. They were just a couple of birds. I stepped toward them reaching for the door handle and they attacked. They flew at me, wings beating the air. One of them landed on my shoulder and then hopped up and got its talons caught in my hair. The other one clawed up my leg and pecked at my thigh. I spun and slapped at them, but they attacked my hands. All the while I could have sworn I heard them speaking to each other, cheering each other on.

      Then Walker was there, swinging at them with a tree branch. The birds backed off, but they didn’t leave. They circled me until Green and Jed ran forward shouting with big sticks and they and Walker chased the two crows across the park. Green took a straw out of his back pocket and blew something, a rock or a bead, at one of them. He hit it, the crow gave a little squeal, “that hurt!” and fled, the other one following, and Jed and Green high-fived each other.

      I put my head between my knees. I had imagined I could understand them. Not that it was difficult to figure out what a crow would say, but between that and the attack, the scratches and peck marks, I was dizzy.

      “Has that ever happened before?” Walker ran up to me.

      “Yeah, of course. Crows attack me all the time.”

      “You should have asked me to go with you.”

      “To the bathroom?”

      “Or take Luisa.”

      “Good idea,” I scoffed. “Luisa, who seems to have disappeared. Bet she’s hiding under a picnic table.”

      “Here I am.” Luisa came out of the bathroom with her ever-present Frisbee. “All clear,” she said to Walker.

      And then I screamed as she let her Frisbee fly. I ducked, turned and saw her Frisbee smack into a final crow coming my way. The crow squealed—as much as a crow can—and flew away fast. An impressive, perfect shot. I’d never seen a Frisbee used as a weapon before. Then again, I’d never been attacked by crows before either.

      Luisa trotted over to get her Frisbee. I looked from her to Walker to Green and Jed and back around again. They were all staring at me. Green cocked his head like a puppy, as if something about me was puzzling. He turned to Walker.

      “That was interesting.”

      Luisa said, “Your dad makes birdhouses, doesn’t he?”

      “He does. And I like birds too. Really.” On cue, two small birds tweeted above me. I looked up. “Cactus wrens, campylorhynchus brunneicapillus.”

      “Huh?” asked Jed.

      “My one skill. For some reason I remember all the Latin names.”

      The little birds were pretty with speckled bellies and darker stripes of brown on their wings. They looked at me one way and then the other.

      “We won’t let them hurt her,” said one.

      “Hate those crows,” said the other.

      “Me too. Me too. Me too.”

      I was sure I was losing my mind. “I have to go home.”

      “But we only just got here,” Green said.

      “You can’t go now,” Jeb echoed.

      “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Walker said. He gestured at the others. “We won’t.”

      I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe he and they could really truly take care of me. Mostly, I wanted to curl myself against his soft gray sweater and into his arms. My want was tangible; I felt it like the breeze on my skin, or my hunger, or my need to pee. I didn’t like the feeling. СКАЧАТЬ