Chasing Redbird

  “Take it back!” I shouted. I’m not sure whether I meant the puppy or what he said about my being a hard nut to crack. Maybe it was both. You might think that I would’ve been convinced by this puppy, that I’d believe that Jake really did like me and not May. But I wasn’t convinced. Tommy Salami had gone on giving me gifts for a long, long time. So had the others. You couldn’t trust boys, I had decided, no matter how nice they seemed, no matter how many gifts they shoved into your hands, no matter what they said. I guess you could say my mind was pretty much made up about Jake Boone and what he was up to.

  May was fit to be tied. “What’d he go and give you a dog for? What in the world are you up to, Zinny? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? You don’t have a lick of sense, Zinny. What you know would fit in a nutshell.” She yanked all her ribbons off her dresser and threw them on the floor. She was really piling on the agony.

  “Don’t see what you’re having such a conniption about,” I said. “I didn’t ask Jake to bring me these things—”

  May gathered up the ribbons. “Who said anything about Jake?”

  “You did—didn’t you?”

  “I never.” She threw the ribbons back on the floor and looked wildly around the room. I thought she was going to blow a gasket. “Look at that bed of yours—why, look at it! Why can’t you make up your bed like a normal human being?”

  At dinner, all anyone could talk about was the puppy, who was curled up on an old blanket in a corner of the kitchen. Everyone took turns jumping up to see if he was okay. We hadn’t had a dog for two years, not since our last one was hit by a truck. Dad said he didn’t mind having a dog around, but he wanted to know who was going to take care of it. Ben, Will, Sam, Gretchen, and Bonnie all assured him that they would.

  “What about you, Zinny?” he asked. “From what I can gather, this dog belongs to you.”

  May said, “I don’t think we should have a dog. It’ll just chew up everything. It’ll get into my stuff, I know it will.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll give it back.”

  “No, no, no!” My brothers wouldn’t hear of it. They fell all over themselves promising to take care of it.

  That night, after my sisters were asleep, I crept down to the kitchen and rescued the puppy from his lonely corner. I took him back to bed with me, petted him until he fell asleep, and gave him a name: Bingo. The name reminded me of Aunt Jessie leaning down to pick up her wonders and saying, “Bingo!”

  Two days later, when I was in Mrs. Flint’s store, I asked her if she had any specials.

  “What do you mean, ‘specials’?” she said.

  “You know, special prices—or a free bag of cookies—”

  “Well, doesn’t that beat all creation!” she said. “A free bag of cookies! I’m trying to make a living here—which one are you?”

  “Zinny.”

  “I’m trying to make a living here, Zinny. Free bag of cookies! Whatever next—?”

  On my way out, I saw this sign on the notice board:

  LOST: 2-MONTH-OLD BEAGLE PUPPY.

  ANSWERS TO NAME OF GOBBLER.

  PLEASE PHONE 266-3554. ASK FOR

  BILL BUTLER. HIDDLE FARM, MORLEY ROAD,

  JUST PAST THE METHODIST CHURCH.

  When I got home, the puppy was sleeping on the blanket in the kitchen. “Gobbler,” I called. “Gobbler—” His ears perked up, his eyes opened, and he ran toward me.

  CHAPTER 14

  GOBBLER

  By mid-May, the days were getting longer, but I had less time to work on my trail. It was harder to get up there after school because the cleared section of the trail was nearly two miles long, and by the time I got up to where I had left off, it was time to turn back for supper. I couldn’t wait for school to be out in three weeks, so I could make some headway on my trail. I was getting frantic, afraid that I’d never be able to finish it, and I’d be doomed.

  The tomato plants had taken hold in the field and in our squirt gardens, and I’d crushed up eggshells to surround my plants. That’s what Aunt Jessie used to do to keep the slugs and snails away. When the aphids came, I boiled up Aunt Jessie’s secret brew: mashed-up marigolds, cigarettes (you could always find a few butts behind the barn where Uncle Nate would sneak his smokes), and onion skins, all boiled up into a stinking brew and sprayed on the plants.

  I’d seen Poke twice at the creek, and he wasn’t alone.

  He’d found a mate, and the two of them often sunned on an old log. Once Ben and I saw Uncle Nate down by the creek, digging for worms. “Going fishing?” Ben asked him.

  “Maybe so.”

  Later, we saw Poke and his mate sitting on the log, feasting on that fresh pile of worms.

  Dad once told me that when May was a toddler, someone had given her a turtle. She tired of it after a few weeks, but Aunt Jessie took a shine to it, feeding it raspberries and worms. As winter neared and the turtle stopped eating, Aunt Jessie put it in a box in her closet, and the following spring she brought it out again.

  “Was it alive?” I asked.

  “Sure it was. Alive and raring to go.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “She decided it was lonely and took it down to the creek.”

  “Did she visit it?” I asked.

  “Nearly every day. She took it raspberries and worms.”

  The cricket had made its home on the tree outside my bedroom window, and nearly every night it told me the temperature. And the puppy—well, the puppy was gone.

  The day after I’d seen the notice on Mrs. Flint’s bulletin board, Bingo and I went for a walk. By the time we got to Bybanks, his fur was matted with briars and leaves, his paws caked with mud, and his nose swollen from a bee sting. When I saw Jake’s truck parked at Mrs. Flint’s store, we took a detour across the field, over the creek and back to the road. By this time, I was carrying Bingo, who had run out of steam and was looking bedraggled. He slept in my arms as we passed the Methodist Church and headed up Morley Road.

  I’d been to the Hiddle Farm so many times when Sal lived there that I could’ve walked there blindfolded. I’d only met the new renters, the Butlers, once. Bill Butler, who worked with my dad at the county airport, was a nice man, and I’d say most people liked him and his wife pretty well, but his mother—Old Mrs. Butler, as she was known—was definitely off her rocker.

  Old Mrs. Butler thought she was six years old. She wore blue ribbons in her hair and a little yellow sunbonnet that didn’t fit and sat like a crumpled handkerchief on top of her head. Her hair ran all the way down her back like thin gray rat tails. My Dad and I found her one day playing in a mud hole behind the gas station, and we took her home. That was the only time I’d been to the Hiddle Farm since Sal left.

  Now, as I walked along Morley Road, I got cold feet. I didn’t want to take the puppy back. He was curled up in my arms so peacefully, nuzzling his nose up my sleeve. He was so much like a dog Sal used to have, Moody Blue. I sat down beneath a maple tree to think this over.

  Maybe this wasn’t the missing beagle. Maybe his name wasn’t really Gobbler—although he leaped to that name each time I’d tried it on him. Finally, I decided I had to find out if Bingo was Gobbler, and I went up the road to Hiddle Farm, and all the way up the road I kept expecting to see Sal running toward me.

  Old Mrs. Butler was sitting on the side porch, stringing beans. She wore her scrunched bonnet and blue ribbons. At her feet was a grown-up beagle, who leaped up and howled. Bingo woke with a start and squiggled from my arms, falling clumsily to my feet. He sniffed once, howled in answer, and took off.

  The two dogs met each other in the yard. The older one sniffed Bingo protectively, and Bingo leaped up, nuzzling her. Old Mrs. Butler clapped her hands, squealed, grabbed a broom, and headed toward me. “Shoo, shoo—” she said, waving her broom. She wasn’t shooing the dogs. She was talking to me. “Go on. Shoo. Get away—”

  Old Mrs. Butler let out a high-pitched giggle, an awful, frightening sound if ever I heard one. It
sounded like the whinny of a mad horse. “Gobbler, Gobbler, my Gobbler,” she called. Bingo ran straight for her and jumped against her legs, pawing at her thick stockings, which had been rolled down to her ankles.

  I tried to explain who I was, but she kept swishing her broom at me. Then I decided maybe it was better if she didn’t know who I was, so I said I’d heard they’d lost a puppy and this one had appeared at our house. It wasn’t a complete lie. I just didn’t mention how it had appeared or who had brought it.

  “Shoo, go on, get away—”

  “But is it yours?” I asked. “Is this the dog you lost?” It was a needless question. From the way Bingo was behaving, it was obvious that he had come home and was as happy as could be.

  “Lost?” Old Mrs. Butler said. “Get on out of here. Shoo—you thief.” She chased me down the drive, and as I ran off down the road I could hear that terrible whinnying giggle.

  At home, Ben was already in a fit. “Zinny, where’s Bingo? Have you seen him? He’s gone!”

  I wanted to tell the truth, I really did, but I didn’t want to get Jake in trouble. If he had stolen that dog, and it certainly seemed he had, I didn’t want anyone to know it. I didn’t know if I was trying to protect Jake or save myself from a load of embarrassment. “I took Bingo for a walk,” I said.

  Will grabbed my arm. “Then where is he?”

  “Got loose—”

  They were beside themselves. “Then let’s go after him! Where did he get loose?” They formed a search party and made me show them where I’d lost Bingo.

  I led them down the drive and turned in the opposite direction from the way I’d gone with Bingo. About a hundred yards down the road, I stopped. “He went through that thicket there—I’ve already looked. I searched and searched—” It was awful to lie. I hated it. But more than hating the lie, I was beginning to hate Jake for bringing the puppy in the first place. We looked for a long time, but of course there was no sign of Bingo, and we returned home, a sad, disappointed group.

  I was desperate to get back to my trail, but at home everything was a mess. All through dinner that night, Bonnie, Gretchen, Will, Sam, and Ben moaned and whined and nearly drove me out of my mind about poor lost Bingo. Dad said, “Zinny? I haven’t heard too much from you about this. It was your dog, after all. You don’t seem very upset.”

  Ben said, “Didn’t you like him, Zinny?”

  “Sure did. Sure, I’m upset.” I tried to show it. I frowned, sniffled, and looked as forlorn as a half-dead mule. I was pretty sure I was going to get zapped by lightning, too, for continuing this lie. I wanted to blurt out the truth, but I couldn’t.

  “Well, shoot a bug!” Uncle Nate said. “Then go and get the dag-blasted dog! Don’t just sit here twiddling your thumbs.”

  Dad suggested I put up a lost-dog notice in Mrs. Flint’s store, and Bonnie said, “Maybe you should call Jake—”

  “What for?” I asked, my heart thudding in my chest.

  “He’d help,” Bonnie said. “I know he would—”

  “Don’t anybody tell Jake yet, okay?” I said.

  “Why not?”

  Mom said, “Maybe Zinny doesn’t want him to know she lost his present. Right, Zinny?”

  “Right,” I said. “That’s it.” I wanted to crawl under the porch and stay there for a year or two.

  All that evening, they pelted me with questions. Had I done the notice yet? Did I want any help? In the midst of this, Bonnie said, “Wait a minute! If Zinny puts up that notice at Mrs. Flint’s store, then Jake will see it because he works there, and Zinny doesn’t want Jake to know—”

  I could have kissed her. Instead, I had to pretend that this was a puzzling problem. “Now what can I do?” I wailed. “I can’t put the sign up at Mrs. Flint’s—darn, darn, darn.” I felt such plunking relief, but found that it was almost too easy to pretend the opposite. Zinnia Taylor: professional liar.

  My relief didn’t last long, because everyone quickly decided that I would have to tell Jake. I owed it to him, they insisted. He would understand, they said. Gretchen was firm about it. “It’s settled. You put the sign up tomorrow and then tell Jake. He’ll want to help us find Bingo.”

  I made a quick decision. I’d make a sign and pretend to take it to Mrs. Flint’s. “Here,” I said, dashing off a notice. “How’s this?”

  LOST: BEAGLE PUPPY. ANSWERS TO NAME OF

  BINGO. PLEASE PHONE Z. TAYLOR.

  “You forgot to put our phone number on there,” Gretchen said. “And the address. Here, I’ll do it.” She sat down at the computer and spent an hour devising a sign that was, in my opinion, too bold and too prominent. “There!” she said. “Much, much better!”

  CHAPTER 15

  LOST AND FOUND

  The next day was Saturday, and after breakfast I slipped out of the house. “I’m going to Mrs. Flint’s to put up the notice,” I called behind me.

  “Zinny! Wait!” Bonnie shouted. “Mom needs some milk. She gave me the money—”

  “Okay, I’ll get it.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said.

  I nearly choked. “I can do it, Bonnie.”

  “I know you can do it, Zinny. Don’t be a goof. I just want to come, that’s all.”

  My brain was galloping as Bonnie chattered. “Maybe Bingo is sniffing his way home right now. Dogs can do that, you know. I heard about a family who gave away their dog before they moved all the way across the country, two thousand miles, and do you know what that dog did, Zinny?”

  I had a pretty good idea of what that dog did, but I wasn’t in the mood for guessing.

  “That dog followed that family’s trail all the way across the country. Two thousand miles! Isn’t that amazing? How do you think it did that, Zinny? I bet some of the family’s smell was on the car and the dog sniffed his way along. At least Bingo won’t have that far to sniff. Maybe he’s sniffing his way home right now, don’t you think, Zinny?”

  I was relieved to see that Jake’s truck was not at Mrs. Flint’s store. “Bonnie, you get the milk and I’ll put the notice up. I’m in a hurry to get back,” I said.

  “And which one are you?” Mrs. Flint asked Bonnie.

  “I’m Bonnie. And that one is Zinny. She’s putting up a notice on your board. Is that okay? Do we have to pay to do that?”

  “No, it’s a perfectly free service,” Mrs. Flint said.

  I tacked the notice to the board so that it was partially hidden by another one.

  “Do you want to know what we’re putting the notice up for?” Bonnie said to Mrs. Flint. “Zinny is very upset. She’s lost her dog.”

  I could have strangled her.

  “What a shame,” Mrs. Flint said.

  “It’s a little beagle puppy and his name is Bingo—”

  “A beagle? My, my, everyone seems to be losing their beagles these days.”

  I grabbed Bonnie’s arm. “Bonnie, please—”

  “Okay, okay, okay! I’m coming. You don’t have to pinch me. I want to see the notice. Zinny! No one can see it there!” She removed it and replaced it front and center. “There—much better!”

  “’Bye, now,” Mrs. Flint called. “I hope you find your puppy.”

  We were passing the school when Bill Butler drove by, honking his horn and waving at us. I turned back to see him pulling up in front of Mrs. Flint’s store. Please, please, please, I prayed, do not let him see that notice.

  “Bonnie! I forgot something. You go ahead. I’ll catch up.” I tore back to the store and dashed to the notice board.

  Bill Butler turned from where he was standing at the counter with Mrs. Flint. “Hi there—which one are you—?”

  “Zinny,” I mumbled, as I ripped the notice from the board.

  “Are you taking your notice down?” Mrs. Flint asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “We found what we were looking for.”

  “Already?” Mrs. Flint said. “Aren’t you the lucky one?

  And I understand you found your beagle, too, isn?
??t that right, Bill?”

  “‘Too’?” he said.

  “The Taylors lost a beagle, too, isn’t that right, Zinny?”

  I pretended I hadn’t heard her and headed for the door just as Bonnie entered, saying, “I almost forgot! Mom needs butter.”

  I slapped the notice back on the board as Bonnie went in search of butter. Please, I prayed, please do not let Mrs. Flint or Bill Butler say anything to Bonnie about the ‘newly found’ puppy. This one prayer, at least, was answered, for by the time Bonnie got to the counter, Mrs. Flint was busy telling Bill about her gall bladder. She interrupted herself only once, as Bonnie left. “’Bye there, Bonnie, and I’m real happy for you—”

  “Me, too,” Bill said.

  As soon as we were out the door, Bonnie said, “Why were they happy for me?”

  “Must have you confused with someone else.”

  “Maybe they found out I won the spelling contest,” Bonnie said.

  “Probably—”

  “How do you think they found out? Who do you think told them?”

  I wasn’t listening after that. All I could think about the rest of the way home was that notice sitting there on the board. What if Mrs. Flint saw it—after she’d seen me take it down and after I’d told her we found the puppy? What if Bill Butler saw it? What if Jake saw it?

  I was too miserable to think, and so I went up to the trail. For eight hours, I furiously pulled weeds and scraped stones. I plunged through nettles and thorns, pawing at the ground like a crazed badger. Two rain showers passed over me, soaking me to the skin, but I kept on going.

  I found one clump of mushrooms and gobbled them down, hoping they were poisonous and that my punishment would be swift and violent. I’d probably feel dizzy, gag, throw up, tremble violently and fall dead right there on the path. My family would send out a search party. They’d find me there on my trail and they’d feel terrible. They’d wonder if I’d been murdered. They’d carry my pitiful body down the hill and clean me up and buy me a white dress and lay me in a quilted coffin surrounded by red zinnias. I hoped they wouldn’t put me in the drawer.