Today, I have the continuation to a story I started last time that came about based on votes from you, as well as an update and some recommendations.
To refresh your memory, feel free to take a look at I Will Teach the Pigeons Tricks and read on for the continuation of the story that received the most votes.
The winning ending was Option #3:
The boy borrows a pair of pigeons from a man he meets at the park, whom the boy happened upon while climbing a tree. The man says he lives in the trees with the birds, and so of course he has “a few” birds he can lend to a wanting child. The boy, so consumed by the idea of having pigeons if only for a while, does not find the man peculiar or creepy. The man comes through, sort of, in the sense that he provides two pigeons in a waterlogged cardboard box he clearly dug out of the recycling bin, but he requests the boy return them as soon as the talent show is over “or else.” The boy accepts the pigeons and takes them to school, without the knowledge of his parents. Will the pigeons escape inside the school? Will the pigeons actually be fantastic, amicable creatures, ready to perform for this third grader and win him all the fame he could want? Will one of the pigeons be drawn to cello music? Or does the creepy tree man set off a flock of revenge pigeons to collect the ones he lent out?
And here it is:
My son Sam wore a watch that allowed me to text him important pieces of information, like, “Go to school,” and “Get on the bus,” and “Where are you? Did you get off the bus?” Often, my son used the watch to ask Siri questions, usually regarding birds or bird care or sometimes how much time we have left on Earth. Most days, he came home talking to the watch, having a conversation with Siri in which she answered, “Sorry, I don’t know that,” or “Sorry, I can’t answer that right now.” On this afternoon, I listened for my child to stumble into the mudroom, oblivious to shoes and doors but intent on confusing Siri with another tough question. “Siri, how many nanoseconds does it take for a black eagle racing homer pigeon to eat millet?” or “Siri, will my bird automatically mate with another bird if there is another one in its cage?” or “Siri, what day is my birthday in four years?” But this afternoon, he did not fall indoors at the usual time. I checked my Find My app. His avatar smiled at me from the park. I texted him. “Did you get off at the wrong stop again?” “No,” he texted. “Where are you?” “In the tree.” Of course. “Can you get out of the tree?” “Yes.” I spent a minute or two dumping out the smashed raspberries from my daughter’s lunch and eating a perfectly decent plain, room-temperature turkey sandwich that she didn’t appear to have considered. I looked at my phone. Sam remained at the park. “Are you out of the tree?” I learned long ago that, with Sam, we should take things one step at a time. “No.” “What?” “No.” I pictured him dictating to his wrist, hanging by one arm from a tree at the edge of the park. “Can you get out of the tree?” “Yes.” Smartass. “Will you?” I chewed some carrots and considered walking to meet him. “I’m talking to Neil.” I didn’t recognize that name. “Who is Neil?” “He’s got birds.” I found my shoes and alerted my husband. He could wrangle the rabid toddler for a few minutes. “You need to come home,” I texted Sam. “He’s got so many birds.” I hurried. The park was two blocks away. I expected to find my son in the little tree just after the tennis courts. He was not much of a climber, and that tree was good for lounging. When I saw the tree empty, my stomach clenched. Little kids laughed and bawled on the playground, busy learning how to squash their desires in order to be polite in a group. I scanned the trees until I saw my son’s foot dangling from branches out by the rec center. A busy place this time of day, I wondered what birds would be settling in this particular tree. “Hey!” I yelled as I approached. Before I saw Sam’s face, I heard his voice. “Sh! The birds!” His shoelaces were entirely untied. I did not see his backpack or any of his usual school-day belongings. “What are you doing?” “I told you. I’m talking to Neil. He has birds.” “Sam?” I hugged the tree trunk and looked up. My son was wrapped around two branches and peering high into the tree. I saw two worn leather boots wedged between smaller branches. I followed even higher and noticed what looked like a coat, somewhat long, brown, and ragged, and one white hand clinging to the tree. I didn’t see the rest of the person, but clearly my child was conversing with this stranger. In a tree. “Hey bud,” I said, “We have to go home. Dad’s supposed to be working, and I left the little dude with him.” “This is Neil,” Sam said. I wound my head under different branches, but I still could not see the man’s face. “Yeah, hello up there. We’re getting out of the tree now.” I reached for my son’s ankle. “Aren’t we?” I tugged. I didn’t hear anything from the stranger in the tree, but my child said in his direction, “This is my mom. I have to go. But yeah, two weeks.” “Two weeks what, baby?” “The talent show. His birds do tricks.” The fact that he was telling a tree-dwelling stranger information about his whereabouts unsettled me, but at least he was making his way out of the tree now. As he jumped to the ground, he called up, “Bye!” There was enough of a breeze that I could not hear whether the strange man said anything, but my son seemed satisfied. He trotted to the water fountain where I now saw his stuff, and as he struggled to put his backpack over his shoulders, he couldn’t stop talking. “So Mom, I was on the bus, and you know how you can just get off at random stops if you want, you just have to tell the driver? So I was watching out the window and I saw some pigeons on the roof, you know, and since I know how to get home from the park, I thought I’d get off there and then I’d look at the pigeons and then I’d walk home.” I looked back at the tree as we walked through the playground. I did not see anyone hop or even fall out. I could not see the man’s boots from there, either. “And so I got off and I was standing there kinda by the water fountain and I was looking at the pigeons, Mom, and then Neil started talking! From the tree!” I shivered. “And I didn’t know it was Neil yet, you know, because I hadn’t seen him yet, but I heard him sorta say stuff, like, ‘Pigeons are really smart, you know,’ and ‘The really smart ones are the ones downtown,’ and stuff like that, so I told him that yes, of course I know that pigeons are really smart, and that in fact, I am going to get a black eagle racing homer pigeon soon and I will teach it to fly home from this park, and –” “Wait,” I stopped. “Did you tell that man where we live? Where home is?” My son looked insulted. “No, Mom. I just said I’d have Cooster fly home from here.” “But did you, like, point, or anything? Indicate?” He considered. “Well, I guess when Neil was like, ‘Yeah, the pigeon can fly home, but it’s gotta be a straight shot, and if you’re just starting to teach it, you shouldn’t take it too far away,’ I did point toward home and was like, to Neil, ‘I know, Neil, I live two blocks that way,’ and then I said something like, ‘Of course I wouldn’t take Cooster too far away. I live so close that this is a great training distance,’ and then Neil seemed to believe me.” On this hot day at the end of the school year, I felt very cold. “Honey, did you tell that guy who lives in a tree – this guy you just met – where we live?” Again, he looked insulted. “No. I just told you. I pointed.” Words failed me. We walked home, and I listened to my son’s training scheme yet again. I rejoined my toddler who was at this point naked, jumping on the kitchen trampoline. We’ve learned to set up more than one jumping apparatus around the house, and this one fit just between some cabinets. I stepped over him to get to the refrigerator and pulled out some milk for Sam. My daughter wandered into the kitchen when she heard us get home. “What is there to eat, Mother?” I handed the milk to my son and grabbed my daughter’s backpack. “You hardly touched your lunch,” I said, upset at myself for already eating what she didn’t. I hung the backpack on a hook by the mudroom. “I didn’t have time,” she said. “You didn’t have time to eat your lunch?” “I didn’t have time!” “At lunch time? You didn’t have time to eat your lunch at lunch time?” “Right!” The toddler jumped faster. The springs wheezed with his effort. “What were you doing at lunch time that kept you from eating?” “I was on the table.” This made even the toddler pause. “On the table?” “I was Miss Trunchbull.” “On the table? At lunch?” “Everyone else was Matilda.” I looked at the toddler. He laughed at his sister. “You mean, everyone else was Matilda, eating their lunches.” “Yes, and I was yelling at them to stop.” “You were telling your classmates to stop eating their lunches at lunch.” “In my accent.” “Sure.” “On the table.” Sometimes, I remember to take a moment to breathe. I put one hand on my chest and shut my eyes. Whispering over the punching noise of a trampoline at my feet, I said, “For how long were you on top of the table?” “That’s the thing, Mother,” my now-English daughter said. “Not long enough. They left a note.” “Pardon?” “There’s a note, Mother. In my bag.” At this, she must have forgotten her hunger, because she slid out of the kitchen and away to her room. I unhooked the bag. Damp and folded at the bottom was a bright yellow paper. “Dear Parent: Your child ALICE has been DISRUPTIVE in the LUNCH ROOM and has been warned as many as THREE TIMES in THREE DAYS but continues to behave in such a way that needs further intervention. I will be in contact with you shortly to determine next steps. Yours truly, Principal N.” “Neat,” I said. The toddler giggled. “Can I have some more milk?” Sam said. “And can I go back to the park?” “Yes. No.” “Why!” “You asked for more milk.” “Neil might be gone already!” “How long were you talking to him?” “He said he was going to catch the bus back downtown.” I took the empty cup from Sam and stepped over my toddler again. “You can’t go back right now.” “I can ride my bike. I just can’t remember where he said to meet his pigeons.” I poured milk. “What’s this?” “He has like four or five that he can lend me.” “Come again?” I spilled milk on my hand. The toddler climbed the cabinet using the handlebar of the trampoline to brace against as he scaled the doors like the rock climber he will become. “I have to give them back.” Sam drank the milk as fast as he could, staring at me with pleading eyes the whole time. He swallowed the last drop and said, “I only get them for like a day. Then they have to go home again.” He turned in the general direction of the sink and launched the cup toward it. The cup bounced off yet another cup resting among the dirty dishes and rolled up onto the counter. He left it. “No, Sam, you may not go back to the park right now. You have to –” and then my phone rang. The principal. I heard Alice singing in her room. I tucked an arm around the toddler, trying to discourage him from leaping from the counter onto the trampoline. Sam sped to the bathroom to wash himself up. As I answered the phone, Sam had already found his shoes. “Hello?” I said to the principal on the phone. Sam swept open the door and left.
To be continued…
Also!
I am one of the new co-editors of the Literary Mama Blog, a literary journal that I have followed for years. I look forward to working with all the other talented writer mamas.
And, I’m a new staff writer for Erato Magazine, where I’ll be writing on a regular basis. Do follow them both.
Three reading recommendations for you
Plagues, a story by Madeline Cash, published in Electric Literature
Tiny Little Goat, a story by Jasmine Sawers, published in Fractured Lit
Thin Mints, a story by Francine Witte, published in SmokeLong Quarterly
Thank you for reading. I’ll be back soon.
Love it!