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Chapter 1
“Wow,” I breathed as the box fell open. A small dragon was grinning toothily up at me from its cardboard enclosure, its teeth made of toothpick ends, its body of soda can tabs melded together in a cage-like fashion. The eyes were shiny marbles; I recognized one that I had lost in a game a few months ago.
I looked over to Burt, his chubby face shining with happiness and a slight sheen of sweat. Burt Lang had been my best friend for years, ever since he’d rescued my favorite Barbie from the clutches of a very curious squirrel. That had been seven years ago, and I was now officially thirteen.
Carefully, I lifted the dragon from the box. A set of wings, wired from paper clips twisted in an intricate design, were folded downward under its belly.
“I had to do that so it would fit,” Burt explained. He showed me how the wings folded back up so that the dragon was now flying. Tiny bells were attached to the tips of the wings, and they tinkled softly as I placed my gift on the table. For a moment I studied it, Burt’s newest invention. I had a whole collection of these types of gifts upstairs in my room, a shelf dedicated to them. But this one seemed more complex than any of them.
“Burt, it’s awesome,” I said. I gently touched the tip of my finger to its delicate teeth, saw a little pink tongue made of rubber. The marble eyes glinted at me.
Burt bent down next to me. “It took me two months of drinking soda to get enough tabs,” he said proudly. “And my fingers got blisters from working on the wings.” He held up his bandaged hands. “But it’s my best one yet.”
I grinned and looked at him. “I agree. Want to go put it with the others?”
Instantly he was on his feet, and we both rushed up to my room, dragon carefully cradled in my hands. I switched the little sign on my doorknob to “Do Not Enter” before closing the door.
My room was exactly how I liked it: cluttered and disorganized, random trinkets that I’d collected over the years burying my bureaus and desk. You could barely see the floor under all my clothes. On the wall straight across from the door was my bed, and next to my bed was a large shelf, its purpose solely for Burt’s creations. It was the only organized part of the room, with each object placed in a special spot.
We waded across my floor and stood in front of the shelf, studied everything on it. They were mostly animals, and they all had wings. “I don’t like things that can’t fly,” Burt always said, and I would laugh. There was a hummingbird, its long beak an elegant curve of shell that Burt told me he’d found on a trip to a beach in Maine. A dragonfly with popsicle stick wings covered in fake diamonds. A snowy owl with real white feathers and two huge, black button eyes. Butterfly, fairy, Pegasus, swan, even a pig with wings because I’d joked that they could fly if they wanted to. There was also an airplane, and you could see little faces of people peeking out the windows.
I placed the dragon between the Pegasus and the fairy, deciding that it would be most at home there. The bells on the wings jingled ever so slightly, the sound almost non-existent, and I moved my ear closer to hear it.
Burt pointed to the butterfly. “That’s the first one I made for you,” he recalled. “I messed up about thirty times before I decided it was good enough.”
He picked it up, looked it over. “These wings are horrible. I could redo them and they’d be a lot better.”
Shaking my head, I took the butterfly from him, placed it back on the shelf. A couple of the beads on the wings were loose.
“I want it just like it was the first day you gave it to me,” I told him. “It’s perfect.”
Burt grinned at me, his one dimple flickering at the corner of his mouth. He had extremely straight teeth, very white. I always joked that he should be in a toothpaste commercial.
“Nothing’s perfect, Piper,” he said. “Especially not what I make.”
I touched the dragon, its carefully molded wings. “It’s close enough,” I said. Then I turned to him. “Come on, dad said the hotdogs would be ready soon. They should be done by now.”
The rest of my thirteenth birthday passed quickly. I got a camera from my parents, my only present because it was digital and expensive. I didn’t complain, and the first picture I took was one of Burt sitting at our picnic table outside making a flying fish out of twigs and leaves. We ate cake and ice cream, both chocolate. I beat him at a jumping contest from the tire swing in my backyard. As dusk was gathering we sat on my front porch swing, pushing the ground with our feet to make it move, and watched the lights up and down the street come on. I leaned my head against the cool bar of the swing and looked at Burt, his face in shadows. He was picking at a piece of thread on his pants, which were a little too small for him.
“I’m not ready for high school,” he suddenly said. I sat up straight.
“Why not? We’re finally graduating; we’re going to meet new people.”
I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear the frown in his voice. “I know. That’s what I’m not ready for.”
“What do you mean?” I edged closer to him so that I could see his face.
“Well…this probably sounds stupid. But…well, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. And I just…I don’t want anything to change. You know?”
I looked at Burt closely, his curly, dark brown hair that needed to be cut badly, his big dark eyes with long eyelashes. For as long as I’d known him, he’d been on the chubby side, and his face was very round. His mom had just told him that he needed glasses, which he was now always complaining about.
“I’ll look like a tomato with glasses,” he said, alluding to the fact that his face was always turning red due to too much exertion or embarrassment. Burt became embarrassed very easily, which wasn’t helped by the fact that many kids in our school made fun of his too small clothes and his inability to run fast in gym class.
I nudged his ankle with my foot. “Things aren’t going to change, Burt. We’ll stay close, like always. And you’ll take that art class you’ve always wanted, and when you win an award I can brag about knowing you.”
Burt smiled, his flash of teeth bright in the growing darkness. “Once again, Piper, you’ve managed to make things sound too perfect.”
“I didn’t say it would be perfect. I just said it will be better than you think.” I looked down at my hands and studied the creases in the skin of my fingers. “We can try and get some of the same classes.”
Burt sighed, looked up towards the roof of the porch. “Mom said she’s going to take me shopping for some new clothes.”
“That’s great!” I exclaimed, looking up from my hands. “When are you going?”
Burt and his mom lived alone together; she worked two jobs to put food on the table and pay all the bills. Most of the time Burt’s clothes didn’t fit properly simply because times were tight. My parents would have loved to help out, but Mrs. Langs was not a woman to accept charity. Burt was a lot like his mom in that way. It was why he loved to make things with his hands. He didn’t need a lot of money, he could just use things around the house. He was dependent on himself.
“In a couple weeks I guess,” he said. “Mom’s waiting for the next paycheck.”
I nodded and pushed the swing with my foot. The rusty bars creaked and groaned, reminding me of how my grandfather sounded when he stood up from his favorite chair.
I bit my lower lip, thinking about my friendship with Burt. He had always been there for me. Ever since we met at the park seven years ago we’d been inseparable, always at each other’s house after school, studying together, squabbling over movies (he liked documentaries, I liked anything with action), eating candy corn and sweet pickles as a snack. I knew all about his family problems, how his father had left when Burt was four, that his older brother was a drug addict and caused his mother all sorts of difficulties. I knew that Burt was afraid of water, that he was allergic to cats and hated the color orange. That he wanted to fly.
And Burt knew me just as well. He knew I was quiet, that I preferred silence to mindless chatter. He knew that my parents were talking about divorce, that my mom wanted to move across the country and start her own business. I listened to country music when I was depressed and the blues when I was happy. The smell of apple pie made me gag, I loved horses but was afraid of heights, and I couldn’t sleep unless there was a ticking clock in the room. I hated the shape of my feet. Empty rooms made me nervous.
Would things change in high school? I didn’t like to think so; I wanted to be confident in what I had told Burt. Yet I couldn’t help wonder how it was going to affect us. Other kids our age had always looked at us in confusion when they saw us walking into school together, Burt with his short pants, me long and gangly with stringy brown hair and too many freckles. We never cared. But high school was a new place, with new people. I wasn’t naïve. I’d heard stories about bullying, tough kids who hated anyone different than themselves. Where would Burt and I fit in?
That night, after Burt had left, I got into my pajamas and climbed right into bed. I left the lamp on my nightstand on so that I could look at all of Burt’s creations. The dragon especially stood out, with its miniscule teeth and marble eyes, its complicated wings throwing a weird shadow on the wall behind it. It really looked as if it could fly off the shelf any second, take flight through the window and never come back. I knew that was why Burt loved the idea of flying, because you could take off at a moment’s notice and go anywhere. The idea attracted me as well, but I had learned that life gave you certain abilities that you had to work with, and you had to deal with it. Sometimes you were just stuck in one place, and it was where you stayed.
How do I describe that first day? Panic, confusion, so many new faces that I was instantly overwhelmed. A speaker in the auditorium told us that the next four years would be vital to our future, that we should take advantage of all the curriculum had to offer, ignore the drama, stay away from drugs, get involved at school. Walking through the halls I was pushed against a locker because there were too many bodies. Burt and I didn’t have any classes together, so I had nobody to sit with. In my first class, the teacher said, “I won’t take any shit from punks who think they’re above the system,” and glared at a boy who was sitting next to me scribbling on his desk, headphones in his ears. The most appetizing food at lunch was soup, so I decided to bring my own meal from then on. I looked for Burt but couldn’t find him.
By last class I was utterly exhausted and wanted nothing more but to go home and collapse on my bed, sleep for eternity. I walked into the classroom and chose a seat towards the back. As more students entered the room, the seats around me remained empty until two minutes before class started. That was when this girl walked in, and it was as if all male heads in the room lifted up at once. A boy next to me dropped his notebook, scattering papers, and didn’t bend down to pick them up.
She had long blonde hair that was up in a messy bun, and wisps of stray hairs framed her face in a manner that made me think each piece was placed specifically where it was supposed to be. Her skin was perfectly smooth and tan, the hard work of a summer at the beach or a tanning salon. The clothes she wore were obviously fashionable: skinny jeans that fit her curves perfectly, a low-cut shirt that showed off her cleavage, red shoes with heels. She was smiling as she nodded at the teacher, looked around to find an empty seat, saw a couple in front next to some boys who were practically jumping up and down to get her attention. Then her eyes moved to the seats near me, all empty, all in the back. She headed over.
I tried not to stare at her as she approached, this girl who was everything I wasn’t. My jeans were new, but they were twenty dollars from JC Penny, on sale. My t-shirt was plain green and hid my practically non-existent breasts. I had on ratty old sneakers, my hair was down and did absolutely nothing to enhance my features. There was a zit on my forehead that wouldn’t go away.
As she drew closer, she stopped to say hi to a couple people who she clearly knew. I got a whiff of fruity perfume as she finally sat down in front of me, flashing me a smile as she did so. She placed her notebooks neatly on the corner of her desk, opened her purse and took out a pen. There were three rings on her left hand, and they glinted cheerfully as she snapped her purse shut and placed it on the floor next to the desk. Then she turned around.
“Hey, do you have any gum?” she asked.
For a moment I was struck dumb, and I’m sure it showed on my face because her eyebrows furrowed and a tiny smile appeared on her heavily glossed lips. It was as if she knew I was surprised to hear her talking to me.
“Gum?” I repeated stupidly.
She laughed. “Yeah, gum. You know, the kind you chew.”
It was interesting because even though the comment came out sarcastic, I didn’t get the feeling it was cruel or intentionally said to make me feel dumber than I already did.
Lowering my eyes to my hands, I shook my head. “No, sorry.”
She shrugged but didn’t turn back around. “So, are you a freshman?” she asked.
I looked up from picking at my nails and met her eyes. They were a soft brownish green, close to hazel. They connected to my face so strongly I felt embarrassed; I wasn’t used to actually having people like her give me their full attention.
“Yeah, this is my first year.” My voice sounded strange to me, like I was listening to a station on the radio that had too much static.
“That’s cool. My name’s Kamryn; I’m a freshman, too, but I’ve known most of the assholes in this class for my whole life.” She turned slightly in her seat, pointed at a boy seated in the middle of the room. “That’s Travis Ames, we went out last year. He’s a dickhead, we don’t talk anymore. That’s Lisa Enwood.” She pointed at a girl in the very front. “She’s the smartest girl ever, always the teacher’s pet.”
Sure enough, the girl called Lisa was already taking notes on what the teacher was writing on the board.
Kamryn turned back to me. “I could give you a profile for pretty much everyone, but I’m sure you’ll figure everything out. So, what’s your name?”
It was a strange concept, this profile. I wondered what profile she was already making for me.
“Piper,” I answered, hating how the name sounded as it rolled off my tongue.
“Piper,” she repeated, looking confused. “I’ve never heard that name before.”
Then she smiled. “It’s awesome. Why’d your parents name you Piper?”
It was a question I was used to answering, so I said quickly, “My mom didn’t know what to name me, so she just opened a book of names and put her finger on a random name…so I’m Piper.”
Kamryn laughed, throwing her whole head back to do so. “Oh my god, that’s so awesome! I’m named after my grandmother or something stupid like that. You’re so lucky.”
To my surprise, I found myself smiling along with her. I’d always hated my name. I had always wished I was named Katie or Melissa, something normal. Burt loved my name because he said it reminded me of a bird called a sandpiper. He showed me a picture once. It was a small bird, dull brown with long legs. I had scowled when I saw it, because it reminded me of exactly how I looked.
“Well, Piper,” Kamryn was saying. “I’m going to hang out with some friends after school. Do you want to come?”
I doubt I would have said yes even if Burt wasn’t at the front of my mind. I didn’t know Kamryn, even if she was being nice to me. So I shook my head and said, “Thanks, but no. I’m actually going to see a friend right after this.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, the offer stands anytime you want.” She smiled at me again, and I noticed that one of her front teeth slightly crossed the one next to it. It actually managed to embellish her looks rather than diminish them.
“Thanks,” I said again, and she smiled one more time before turning around.
When the bell finally rang for the end of school, I gathered up my books and made a dash for the door. Kamryn, laughing, followed me out.
“What are you running from?” she asked, keeping up with me even in her heels. I could hear them clicking over the yells of students as they called to friends. Quite a few called to Kamryn, and she waved but didn’t stop following me out of school.
“I’m looking for someone,” I told her. “My friend.”
“The one you’re hanging out with?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
We headed to the parking lot where parents and buses picked up the kids. I kept my eyes open for Burt the whole time, searching for his head of curly hair, his new glasses with black frames.
“His name is Burt.”
“Oh, it’s a guy! Is he cute?”
I stopped walking once we reached the parking lot. A group of girls caught sight of Kamryn and called out to her. They were all dressed the same as she was, in tight jeans and tops.
“Well…” I stuttered. How was I supposed to answer a question like that? I’d had crushes on guys before, but never on Burt. And I knew that a girl like Kamryn would never be attracted to him. Burt was…well, he was Burt.
“I…I don’t know,” was what I left it at. Two of the girls from the group were walking over to where Kamryn and I stood.
“Oh, come on,” Kamryn urged. “Is he tall?”
“Not…not really.”
The girls stopped in front of us.
“Kamryn!” one of them exclaimed. I winced inwardly at the high pitch her voice was able to hit. “You’ll never guess who’s in my Algebra class.”
“Darren Brown,” Kamryn answered. She winked at me and grinned as I looked on obliviously.
“Yes! Shit, he must have been working out over the summer, because his arms were not that nice in eighth grade.”
The girl with the high voice hadn’t looked at me once, but I was busy studying her. She was extremely short and was wearing some high black boots with a short skirt to make up for it. Her black hair was also short but with so much body and so many curls that I wondered if the reason she talked so loudly was because she couldn’t hear anything.
When I looked at the second girl, who was taller than I was, I realized that I was being studied as well. Her eyes were narrowed and her nose was wrinkled as if she couldn’t decide whether I smelled good or bad. I quickly looked away.
“Guys, this is Piper. She’s in my history class,” Kamryn said, putting her hand on my shoulder. I stiffened slightly, unsure of what I was supposed to do.
The girl with all the curls raised her eyebrows. “Piper? That’s a sweet name. I’m Carley.”
She held out her hand for me to shake it and I noticed bright red nailpolish on bitten nails. Her grip was strong for such a small girl, and I flexed my fingers after shaking her hand.
The other girl looked at me hard before saying “Mona,” and holding out her hand. I was surprised to hear that her voice was quite deep and a little raspy, a contradiction to her refined face with its high cheekbones and pale skin. Her lips were thin and had no liner to fake plumpness. In fact, she had no makeup whatsoever on, yet her dark eyes were well-defined and sharp. Dark brown hair pulled back into a sever ponytail, she reminded me of a high class model who was bored with life. She didn’t look like a freshman at all.
Unlike Carley, Mona barely even touched my hand to shake it. From the way she stared at me, I guessed that she had decided that I smelled bad.
“We’re going to Roberto’s,” Kamryn said, naming a popular hangout just five minutes away. “Carley’s mom is driving us. You sure you don’t want to come, Piper?”
I nodded, wondering where Burt was. While on the phone the other night we had decided to meet right after school since we didn’t have any classes together, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
“Okay,” Kamryn said, leaving my side for the first time since the end of class. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, Piper.”
“Nice meeting you!” Carley called as the three of them walked away. Mona didn’t say anything, just threw me another glance that made me want to crawl under a rock.
I looked at my watch. It was almost time for me to get on my bus, and Burt still wasn’t there. All around me, kids were milling about and laughing, and I stood in the middle of all of them, a skinny twig with nothing but my backpack.
I waited five more minutes, then ran to catch my bus. I figured that I’d call Burt when I got home.
He was already there when I got off the bus, a jar of sweet pickles and a bag of candy corn out on the table in my kitchen. I threw my bag down and grabbed a handful of each, relishing the way the two tastes seemed to complement each other.
“So where were you?” I asked after I had swallowed. I grabbed another pickle.
“I went home early.” Burt was looking down at his hands as if ashamed. “I had Phys Ed today, and we had to run for ten minutes. I blacked out…you know I can’t run that long. All the other guys kept laughing.”
I started biting my bottom lip. “You shouldn’t have pushed yourself so hard.”
“I know, but I just wanted to keep up with the other guys. They were able to run the whole time.”
“Burt, you don’t have to be like them. I don’t want you to be like them.”
He reached for some candy corn, decided against it, pulled his hand back. “I wasn’t trying to be like them, I just wanted them to notice me.” He scowled and continued, “But it doesn’t matter. What about you? Did anything exciting happen?”
I frowned. Something about his story didn’t seem right to me, but I brushed it off for the moment. I thought about Kamryn, the way she’d taken an interest in me for reasons beyond my comprehension.
“Not really. All my classes seem really boring. And the food in the cafeteria was crap.”
Burt laughed and shook his head. “You should be like me and bring your own lunch.”
“That’s what I’m going to do from now on.”
I stood up to put the pickles away and Burt rolled up the bag of candy corn. I wanted to talk more about his bad day, but I knew that he would avoid the subject easily. It worried me that he had pushed himself too hard in order to be liked. Burt was usually the one who told me not to change myself for others. It just wasn’t like him to do that sort of thing.
That’s what was wrong with his story, I thought. Burt doesn’t care about what others think. He’d never push himself that hard just to get some guys to like him…but why would he lie?
Neither of us had any homework so we sat down to watch a movie. I let Burt choose a documentary on eagles without complaining. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his smile as we watched the bird take off in flight, swoop down and easily grab a fish out of the water. And I knew he was imagining that feeling, that freedom. It was the only thing he really wanted.
When it was time for my last class I walked into the room to find Kamryn already seated in the same spot as the other day. A boy was sitting next to her as well, but my seat was still empty. Kamryn saw me and waved me over before I could decide whether or not to choose a new place to sit.
“Piper!” she greeted me gladly. “I want you to meet Andrew. Andrew, this is Piper.”
Andrew leaned forward to shake my hand. “Sick name. How’d you get it?”
Unsure of exactly what was happening, I mumbled the same story I’d told Kamryn before. Andrew laughed, and I once again found myself smiling despite any insecurity I had.
Like Kamryn, Andrew actually seemed to be interested in what I had to say, and he asked a lot of questions about what I liked, where I’d gone to school…those types of things. I answered easily, and I realized that Andrew was the first boy besides Burt who didn’t make me uncomfortable. My impression was that most boys were loud and boasting, eager to make sarcastic comments, but Andrew was actually pleasant. He was also quite good looking in a non-conventional kind of way, with black dreadlocks, a strong chin, an easy smile, and green eyes set a bit close together. He had a tiny gold hoop in one of his ears.
“Andrew’s coming with us to Roberto’s today,” Kamryn told me. “Are you interested?”
“How about it, Piper?” Andrew joined in, leaning towards me, and I noted how green his eyes really were. “Pizza, coke, lots of laughs, my good looks…how can you resist?”
I smiled but shook my head. “No, thanks. I always hang out with my friend after school.”
Kamryn clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, yeah! Burt!” She lowered her hand, eyes twinkling. “You never told me if he’s cute.”
Andrew groaned and leaned back. “Oh, here we go.”
Kamryn hit him in the arm. “Shut up. You were the one who sat over here, you deal with the girly conversation.”
Looking at me Andrew said, “I’ll give you five dollars if you don’t answer her. She’ll never shut her mouth if you get her started.”
I was blushing profusely by then, uncomfortable with this “girly conversation.” I’d never had anybody to share information about my crushes with, and Burt had certainly never been one of those crushes.
Kamryn rolled her eyes. “That’s okay, Piper. You don’t have to tell me. How about you bring Burt along and I can see for myself?”
Biting my lower lip, I thought about it. Maybe it would be good if I could get Burt to meet these guys. It would be a way of having both of us meet new people together.
“Maybe,” I said. “Probably not today, though.”
“Good enough,” Kamryn said. “But I’m going to meet him at some point.” She turned around just as the teacher walked in, and the conversation was over.
After class I headed for the parking lot, Kamryn and Andrew at my side.
“We’re getting anchovies on half of it,” he was telling Kamryn as we reached our destination. “Nobody ever lets me get anchovies.”
“That’s because they’re disgusting,” she answered. She had taken a compact mirror out of her purse and was fixing her lip gloss, and her eyes met mine in the mirror. “Tell him it’s gross, Piper. Would you want fish on your pizza?”
Andrew looked at me with wide eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Well…” I said slowly. “I’ve never tried it before, so I can’t answer that question.”
“There,” Andrew said triumphantly, “is a girl after my own heart. Don’t kill it til’ you know it’s guilty.”
Kamryn snorted. “That’s the worst line I’ve ever heard, and we’re still not getting fish on our pizza. Buy your own if you want that shit.”
“Maybe I’ll just go hang out with you and Burt today, Piper,” Andrew said, stepping closer to me. “Obviously I’m not wanted anywhere else.”
“Andrew!” That high voice again. “Andrew! I haven’t seen you since graduation!”
Carley, appearing out of nowhere, barreled herself at Andrew and kissed his cheek. “You wore those Christmas boxers under your gown!”
“And my Santa Claus was very happy when it saw that snazzy dress you were wearing, Carley,” Andrew stated with a grin. She giggled and hit his arm, but she didn’t blush at all. My own face was a little red, and the comment hadn’t even been aimed at me.
Mona arrived behind Carley. Her gaze flickered to me and then away quickly. I noticed that her hair was in the exact same ponytail as the day before and she still had no makeup on, yet her white skin glowed without blemish. Even Kamryn’s skin wasn’t that clear.
“Mona, my best buddy from freshman science!” Andrew exclaimed. “I just saw you two hours ago, and you refused to be my lab partner.”
“That’s because you hate doing anything remotely resembling work, asshole,” Mona sighed in her low voice. “Now are we going to Roberto’s or not? I have shit to do tonight.”
“Yeah, we’re going,” Kamryn told her. She turned to me. “Have fun with Burt, Piper. Don’t forget, I’m going to meet him.”
“See you later, Piper,” Andrew said. “When you finally come with us we can split an anchovy pizza since these other guys are losers.”
“Bye, Piper,” Carley called quickly as they walked away. Mona didn’t say anything.
Burt was waiting at my house again when I got off the bus. This time my mom was in the kitchen talking with him, most likely asking about how his mother was doing.
“How was school, honey?” she asked as I put my bag down by the door.
“Fine.”
“Have you met any new friends?”
“Kind of.”
“Do you have any homework?”
“A little.”
That was how conversations with my mom always went. We had never been close, had never tried to be. I loved her because she was my mother, but it was a love that didn’t need to be showed by mother-daughter talks and shopping sprees. It just was.
She squeezed Burt’s shoulder before she left and gave him a motherly, worried look.
I sat down at the table, watching my mom’s retreating back. “What was that about?” I asked Burt.
He shrugged, but in his eyes I could see something wasn’t right.
“Burt, what’s going on? I didn’t see you at all today. Not at lunch, not after school like we’d planned. I don’t get it.”
“Piper…” he began, only to trail off. His eyes met mine then flickered over to the sink, to the fridge, the floor. Now I knew something was definitely wrong if he wasn’t meeting my eyes. Burt never broke eye contact when you had his attention.
“What?”
“Piper,” he said again. “I…I haven’t been going to school.”
Silence filled the air for about ten seconds before I could think of something to say.
“Why?”
He sighed and took off his round glasses to wipe them on his shirt, and he was the same exact Burt who had given me the dragon on my thirteenth birthday five months ago. Then he put the glasses back on and he was Burt who was telling me that he wasn’t going to school.
“My brother’s been giving my mom a lot of…trouble lately. Last week she had to call the cops because he broke into our house and stole money out of our savings jar.”
I nodded. This story wasn’t very new. Burt’s brother, Mike, had always been heavy in drugs and caused their mom all sorts of problems. I felt bad, but Burt wouldn’t accept sympathy, so I always just listened when he told me what was going on.
“Well, when mom got off the phone he started yelling at her and swearing, throwing things…he broke the glass to that china cabinet that was from my grandma, and mom started crying…”
He paused, looked up at the ceiling, and I realized that Burt was trying not to cry. That fact, more than the story, made me nervous about what he was about to say. I traced my finger along the outline of a flower on the tablecloth, trying to keep my eyes focused on something, anything other than my best friend who had never cried before, hold back tears.
“He threatened her, said he could force her to give him the money. He told her that he has a gun at his apartment. When the cops came to get him, mom told them that she wanted a restraining order. They aren’t sure whether we can get one yet, and my mom’s really upset right now, so…”
Here he stopped again, and I didn’t say anything. I had never felt a silence that heavy, as if I was in a room with absolutely nothing in it and yet my voice wouldn’t echo no matter how loud I yelled. My head was pounding, I knew what was coming, I tried to hold my thoughts in but they threatened to flood out of my ears and spill out onto the ugly tablecloth under my hands.
“Piper, mom called my dad. He’s living in Kentucky right now…I guess he has a good job at the racetracks. He said he’d be happy to have me go live with him for awhile…until things settle down. Mom just doesn’t…doesn’t want me around right now…you know?”
By now I could hear the tears in his voice, and I knew he must really be crying. I sat staring at those flowers under my hands. One had a spaghetti sauce stain on it, and I was angry at that stain, angry that it was making the tablecloth uglier than it already was. I suddenly had the urge to rip the whole flower out so that just a hole was left where it used to be. Mom would be able to sew it back up; it wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
“Piper?”
It was just a stupid tablecloth, anyway. Hell, we could buy a whole new one.
“Piper…”
We could buy a prettier one. One that people wouldn’t laugh at when they saw how badly it clashed with our kitchen.
“Piper!”
I finally looked up. Burt’s cheeks were wet with tears, and he was looking at me as if begging my forgiveness. I felt my own face and realized I wasn’t crying.
“When are you leaving?” I asked, staring at my dry hand as if I’d never seen it before.
“Saturday.”
Something in me snapped, and I slapped my palm down on the stained flower. “You’re leaving Saturday? You’re telling me this three days before you leave for Kentucky?”
“I know, Piper, and I wanted to tell you, but I was nervous! I didn’t know how…”
“You should have just told me! How long have you known?”
“I found out a couple days before school started.” He was crying again, and I found that I hated how his face looked when he cried…like a sweating tomato with glasses.
I stood up from the table, feeling like I was in some horrible movie that the director would yell “cut” in, that we had to do the scene over, the acting was too fake. I was angry with Burt for the first time in my life, and it scared me. But there was something burning in my chest, a roaring in my ears, and I couldn’t stop the words as they came out of my mouth.
“Well, you know what? I don’t care. Go to Kentucky. Go…go live with your dad at the racetracks. At least you get to fly there, don’t you? That’s what you’ve always wanted to do, fly away.”
“Piper, please…” He had pushed back his chair and was rising.
“Shut up! Just shut up! I never want to talk to you again, Burt! You were the one who said you didn’t want anything to change, and now you’re leaving me here, so just shut up!”
Then I was crying, and the tears made me even angrier. Burt reached out, trying to touch my arm, and I pushed his hand away. Then I ran from the kitchen, up the stairs to my room, slammed the door so hard that the shelf by my bed rattled insanely.
One of Burt’s creations, the butterfly, the first one he ever gave me, teetered on the edge of the shelf. I watched as it slowly tilted, back and forth, slow enough so that I could have run over and saved it. Instead, I just stood as it finally fell. Its wings did nothing to help it; it didn’t soar up and float in the air. It hit the ground without a struggle, and the beads of its wings scattered everywhere as they snapped.
I ran to the shelf and threw down the rest of them, the useless pieces of junk, scraps of garbage that I couldn’t believe had ever been precious to me. The fairy, her face adorned with a gentle smile, was the first to be thrown across the room. Then the hummingbird, the Pegasus, the owl, the pig with wings…I could almost hear the people in the airplane screaming as they plummeted through the air. Finally, the dragon. Its marble eyes watched me as I reached for it, its wings jingled merrily as if not caring what was about to happen. I threw it at my door.
One of the wings bent awkwardly as it hit but didn’t snap off. A bell rolled under my desk. Unlike all the other creatures that lay dispersed around my floor, the dragon remained mostly intact.
I walked over and bent down, picked the dragon up. Two of its tiny teeth were missing, but its eyes still glinted at me without sorrow, without anger. I wiped my nose on my sleeve; I could barely see because of the tears running down my face. I suddenly realized what I’d done.
Sitting on the floor, surrounded by pieces of the only things I’d had of Burt, I cried harder than I ever would again. Out of all the mistakes I would make in the years to come, this one would always be the worst. All I could taste was salt from my tears and some blood from where I bit my tongue. Sobs rocked me back and forth, and I don’t think that there were any thoughts in my mind. I just clutched the dragon to my heart, bent wings and all, one bell still ringing feebly.
