Ten Kids, No Pets

  When the twins returned to the farmyard, Dinnie handed Faustine the bird. They hadn’t even reached the house when Mrs. Rosso called from the back door, “Gardenia, where is your sweat shirt?”

  “It’s right here,” Faustine replied for Dinnie, pointing. “Mom, we found a bird with a broken wing.”

  Mrs. Rosso stepped outside and peered into the depths of Dinnie’s sweat shirt. “Oh, girls,” she groaned.

  “We know how you feel about pets,” said Faustine, “but all we want to do is make the bird well.”

  “What’s that?” asked Bainbridge, striding out the back door.

  Dinnie showed him. “Can you help us set the wing?” she asked.

  Bainbridge looked at his mother with raised eyebrows.

  Mrs. Rosso sighed. “Oh, go ahead,” she said, waving the bird away. She marched back into the house.

  The twins giggled. “Groode!” exclaimed Dinnie.

  “Bainbridge, do you know how to set the wing?” asked Faustine.

  “Uh … sure,” he replied. “I’ve seen it done on TV. We’ll make a splint for it out of popsicle sticks, and then bind the wing to the body. We’ll let him — or her — use the other wing…. I wonder if this is a girl or a boy.”

  A half hour later the bird was settled into the corner of a carton that had once held cans of condensed milk. Its wing was set and bandaged. It had squawked horribly during the procedure but now was quiet.

  Bainbridge looked very proud of himself. “Maybe I’ll become a vet,” he said importantly.

  Faustine managed to persuade her mother to let the bird stay in the twins’ room. “See how quiet it is now? It won’t be any trouble.”

  She and Dinnie lined the box with rags and put a dish of water and some leaves and grass and birdseed and even an insect in the box. They weren’t sure what grackles ate, but they thought the birdseed should do for a few days. All birds ate birdseed, didn’t they?

  Then they decided to name the bird. “Let’s pick the plainest, nicest name we know,” said Faustine, rocking back on her heels and looking at her sister.

  “Girl’s name or boy’s name?” asked Dinnie.

  “Girl’s. I think it’s a girl, don’t you?”

  Dinnie nodded. “How about Patricia?”

  “That’s not plain. How about Cynthia?”

  “That’s not plain either.”

  The twins considered Jennifer, Sarah, Emily, and Mandy and finally decided on Sally.

  “Plainest of plain,” said Faustine.

  * * *

  By bedtime that night, all of the Rosso kids had spent time in the twins’ room, leaning over the box and cooing at Sally, or talking to her, or trying to stroke the top of her shiny head.

  “She’s awful quiet,” Hannah observed.

  “I think she’s had too much excitement,” said Faustine. “We should leave her alone for awhile.”

  “Right,” said Dinnie. “She hasn’t eaten a thing. She hasn’t even moved out of that corner.”

  The twins were worried about Sally, but neither wanted to admit it. Instead they asked Hannah to leave the room. Then Dinnie hung a No Visitors sign on the bedroom door.

  “I think we should check on Sally all night,” said Faustine as she and Dinnie were putting their pajamas on.

  “Okay,” agreed Dinnie.

  “Let’s see. It’s nine thirty now. I’ll check on her at midnight, you check on her at three, and I’ll check on her again at six.”

  That was the plan, and the twins stuck to it nicely at first. When the alarm went off at midnight, Faustine looked in on Sally, who appeared to be sleeping. She moved some of the birdseed closer to her. Sally stirred, but didn’t try to eat it. Faustine reset the alarm for three. At three o’clock Dinnie sleepily peered in at Sally and offered her some water, but Sally wasn’t interested. Dinnie reset the alarm for six. At six o’clock Faustine turned off the alarm, but she didn’t get out of bed. She just couldn’t. She was much too tired. “I’ll see you when we get up,” she murmured to Sally from the coziness of her covers. “I hope you feel better, then.”

  But when the twins arose at eight thirty, Sally was dead. She was lying stiffly on her side in the corner of the condensed milk box.

  “Oh, no!” cried Faustine. “This is all my fault! I should have checked on her at six, but instead I went back to sleep. It’s my fault for being lazy. Now we don’t even have an injured pet.”

  Dinnie didn’t say anything. She couldn’t help thinking that her sister was right.

  But Mrs. Rosso had a different opinion. “I think Sally might have died no matter what. We don’t know how she broke her wing. Maybe she had other injuries, too. You girls did the very best you could.”

  Faustine felt only a tiny bit better.

  It was Ira who suggested holding a funeral for Sally.

  “A funeral,” repeated Faustine thoughtfully. Maybe she would feel better after a funeral.

  The other kids liked the idea, and they began to make plans.

  * * *

  Sally’s funeral began at two o’clock that afternoon. In preparation Faustine had fixed up a shoe box and placed Sally in it, splint and all, and Bainbridge had dug a shoe-box-size hole in the ground near the oak tree, behind the house.

  The Rossos gathered there, and Bainbridge placed the box in the hole while Woody played his harmonica. He had to play “Home on the Range” because that was the only song he knew.

  Then Faustine and Dinnie delivered the eulogy. They each said some kind things about Sally. Their eulogy was very nice, except that it was constantly interrupted by loud cheeping from somewhere nearby.

  “Be quiet, you birds,” Ira hissed. He wanted Sally’s funeral to be perfect.

  The cheeping continued as Bainbridge buried the shoe box and Dinnie placed a rock on the spot as a gravestone.

  “Birds! Shh!” Ira commanded.

  It continued while Faustine placed a bunch of violets next to the gravestone. Then the funeral was over.

  “What is all that noise?” exclaimed Abbie.

  “Let’s go see,” said Jan. She was already heading for a nearby tree, a low one with lots of branches, and she began to climb up.

  “Are you sure the noise is coming from that tree?” asked Hannah.

  “Yup,” replied Jan. And she was right. “Ooh,” she said softly, a few moments later. “Look what I found.”

  “What?” cried the others from below.

  “Bird babies. A whole nest of them.”

  “Well, come down right now,” Faustine ordered. “If the mother comes back and smells a human, she won’t go near her babies.”

  “Really?” asked Jan, astonished. She climbed out of the tree as fast as she could, jumping the last few feet to the ground.

  The Rossos found a spot several yards away where they could see the nest, and they stood there for over an hour, waiting for the mother to return and feed them.

  But no bird even flew near to the tree. The cheeping became more insistent.

  Hardy ran inside and found a pair of binoculars and a pair of opera glasses. The watching continued, but no mother (or father) appeared.

  “Maybe Sally was their mother!” Jan exclaimed.

  “Maybe,” said Faustine, “but I don’t think so. We found her awfully far away from here. And we’ve had her for an entire day now. Twenty-four hours. I don’t think the babies could go that long without food.”

  By suppertime no big bird had arrived at the nest, and the cheeping was quieting down.

  “It sounds like the babies have given up,” said Ira sadly.

  Even Mrs. Rosso seemed concerned about the baby birds. “I do think we ought to do something about them,” she said while they were eating dinner. “I’d hate to see them die.”

  A window was open in the dining room, and every now and then a feeble chirp could be heard.

  “Baby birds need to eat all the time,” Dinnie pointed out.

  The Rossos held a discussion, and Mr. Rosso was elect
ed to phone Mr. Pritchard and find out what vet he used. Then Faustine was elected to phone the vet, Dr. Benardi, and find out what to do for the birds.

  An hour later the nest, babies and all, had been taken out of the tree and placed in a big box lined with rags. Abbie, Candy, Dinnie, and Faustine were each feeding one of the four baby birds with an eye dropper. The babies were going to need frequent feedings, and the Rossos had worked out a schedule that allowed two of them to be up with the babies every hour that night. Even Mrs. Rosso was going to help with the feedings, although she said more than once, “I thought I was finished with two o’clock feedings after Janthina outgrew them.”

  The next morning Faustine woke up groggily. She’d gotten up twice during the night to feed the birds. The second time, which had been at five a.m., the birds had eaten hungrily and chirped excitedly. Even so, Faustine couldn’t help being afraid that she would now find the babies dead, as she had found Sally dead the day before.

  But when she tiptoed into the den, where the heat had been turned up for the birds’ sake, she found her mother bent over the box with an eyedropper, and four eager beaks opening and closing.

  “Oh, they’re all alive,” whispered Faustine.

  “Very much so,” replied Mrs. Rosso with a smile.

  * * *

  Over the next few weeks the birds grew rapidly. They were not, as it turned out, Sally’s babies, since they were sparrows, not grackles. Much of the feeding of the birds fell to Mrs. Rosso, who was the only one at home during school days, but Faustine and her brothers and sisters took over whenever they could. They were glad to see Mrs. Rosso pitching in, though. She actually seemed to like caring for the birds.

  “Maybe, when they’re all grown up, we can keep them,” Faustine said hopefully to Dinnie one day.

  “Or at least one of them,” Dinnie replied.

  But that conversation took place before the babies began learning to fly. Until then they had stayed safely in the box (the nest was gone), hopping from corner to corner and side to side, with no danger of getting out. The Rossos didn’t even have to cover the box.

  Then one day Candy was playing with the birds, and she perched one on the edge of the carton. To her surprise it fluttered its wings and flopped to the floor outside the box. After that, whenever one of the birds was anywhere above ground, it tried out its wings. None of the babies had much success at first, but they were getting better, and finally the Rossos had to cover the box with a screen if they weren’t going to be near the birds.

  As the weather grew even warmer, Faustine and Dinnie began carrying the box outside after school. Then they would take the babies out one by one to play in the farmyard.

  “Remember what Dr. Benardi said to do next,” Faustine reminded her sister.

  “Right. The babies have to learn to find their own food.”

  The babies had no trouble with this. They were much better than the girls at spotting insects and grubs. Just in case, though, the twins showed them where the bird feeder was.

  Finally, it became difficult to contain the birds in their box. “They’re getting to be champion flyers,” said Faustine, feeling both proud and sad. And at last came the day when Mrs. Rosso announced: “It’s time to set the birds free.”

  “All of them?” asked Faustine.

  “Yes, all of them,” replied her mother firmly.

  “Couldn’t we keep just one?”

  It was breakfast time on a Saturday morning, and Faustine looked pleadingly at her brothers and sisters, who in turn looked pleadingly at both of their parents.

  “Kids,” said Mr. Rosso, “the birds are wild things, just like the fawn was. They deserve their freedom.”

  So that morning, the bird box was carried outdoors for the last time, and, one by one, the babies were tossed into the air. Each flew steadily to a nearby tree.

  “Good-bye, birds,” whispered Faustine.

  For a long time afterward, whenever she saw a sparrow on the property, Faustine wondered if it was one of “hers.” Maybe next year, she thought, Mom will change her mind and let us keep a bird.

  Bainbridge could hardly believe that summer vacation had finally arrived. He loved summertime, and he’d been looking forward to the end of school for months, but what, he wondered, would he and his brothers and sisters do on the farm for seventy-four days, which was exactly how long summer vacation would last?

  In the beginning they had found plenty of things to do — all the things they hadn’t had enough time for while they were in school. But after two weeks they’d had their fill of exploring and catching up on soap operas and playing statue outdoors in the cool gray twilight that followed supper.

  For the first time ever, they began to feel isolated on their farm.

  “I wish we could get ice-cream cones somewhere,” said Jan one day. “Remember in New York? We could walk right to Safari Sundae, and sometimes Mr. Softee would drive by.”

  “I wish we could go to Bloomingdale’s and shop for summer clothes,” said Abbie wistfully.

  “I wish we could go to the Last Wound-Up for those great wind-up toys,” added Woody.

  They didn’t even get to go into the little town very often because Mrs. Rosso hadn’t been feeling well lately. Once Bainbridge had ridden to the town on his bicycle, but it had taken forever, and he’d sworn he wouldn’t do it again.

  Every time Bainbridge or one of the other kids asked about a trip into town, their mother complained that the summer heat was making her too tired. She began ordering groceries over the phone and having them delivered to the farm, even though that was more expensive. And she spent most of every day lying on the couch in the living room with a cloth over her eyes. She couldn’t eat a thing.

  “Must be the flu,” said Bainbridge slowly, but he was more worried than he let on.

  * * *

  After a week of boredom Bainbridge became bored with being bored and decided to do something about it. His all-time favorite occupation was football, but he hadn’t had much opportunity to play since he’d moved to the farm. The middle school didn’t have a team, and he could rarely get enough friends together after school for a scrimmage. There was a league in town, but how many of the farm kids could get all the way into town for practice several times a week?

  “So I’m going to start my own team,” Bainbridge told Mrs. Rosso while keeping her company in the living room one day.

  “Your own team?” Mrs. Rosso repeated. Her eyes were covered with a damp cloth as usual, and her face was pale.

  “Yeah,” replied Bainbridge. “With all us farm kids out here. Getting together won’t be easy, but it’ll be easier than going into town. And there are a bunch of kids who’d be interested, I think. When we’re organized, maybe we can play the town league sometimes. At least we can keep in shape for football tryouts at high school this fall.”

  “That sounds good…. Who would you ask to join?” Mrs. Rosso was lying very still. She said she felt seasick and that any little motion would upset her. Bainbridge was sitting on the floor across the room so as not to bother her.

  “Well, there are about five boys from my grade,” he said. “And Mr. Pritchard’s grandson. He’s a year behind me. He lives down the road, next to the Pritchards. And Dana Benardi — he’s the vet’s son.”

  “Mmm,” murmured Mrs. Rosso. “Bainbridge, are you eating something? I smell … I don’t know … cauliflower or peanuts or something.”

  “No, Mom, honest. I’m not eating. I don’t think anyone is, but I’ll see if someone left food out in the kitchen.”

  Bainbridge rushed into the kitchen. He found an open jar of peanut butter, which he capped and put away. Food smells — almost any smell, for that matter — drove his mother wild these days.

  He returned to the living room. “It was peanut butter, Mom,” he announced. “But I put it away.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said Mrs. Rosso with a groan. “Peanut butter. Ugh.”

  At that moment Jan strolled through the living
room with a gigantic, gloppy peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

  “Oh,” cried Mrs. Rosso. “There’s that awful smell again!”

  “Jan, get that out of here!” exclaimed Bainbridge.

  But it was too late. His mother was already running for the bathroom.

  * * *

  Bainbridge did just what he’d told his mother he was going to do. Early the next morning, he hopped on his ten-speed bicycle and rode to Doug Pritchard’s farm. He found Doug and his father, who was old Mr. Pritchard’s son, sprawled under a tractor, surrounded by tools and greasy cloths.

  “Hey, Doug!” Bainbridge called, hopping expertly off his bike.

  “Hey!” Doug replied, grinning. He wiped his hands on his jeans, which were as greasy as the cloths, and got to his feet. “Dad?” he said. “This is Bainbridge Rosso. You know, one of the Rossos.”

  Bainbridge was used to such introductions.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Pritchard, sounding muffled under the tractor. “I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t — oof — get up.”

  “That’s okay,” said Bainbridge.

  “So what have you been doing this summer?” asked Doug.

  “Getting bored mostly,” replied Bainbridge. “There’s not much to do on our farm.” He gazed around at Doug Pritchard’s farm — a working farm — and saw just how much needed to be done. There was machinery to be repaired, and there were animals to be fed, crops to be tended, and a house and two barns to be cared for. A funny feeling crept into his stomach. How was someone like Doug going to have time for football? This farm was more than a job; it was his life. Bainbridge sensed that immediately.

  He shifted from one foot to the other. “I guess you’re pretty busy all summer,” he ventured. “With the farm and all.”

  “Yeah, pretty busy,” Doug agreed. “Hey, is something wrong?”

  “No, no,” replied Bainbridge quickly. “I had an idea, but I don’t think it was a very good one. Doesn’t matter, though.”

  “What was the idea?” asked Doug. “You gotta tell me. Don’t leave me hanging.”

  “We-ell,” said Bainbridge slowly, “I wanted to start a football team out here — you know, for all us farm kids.”