After the girl left, Thomas went back inside, and picked up the feather from where he had hidden it. Although it didn’t shift in his eyesight, the way the girl did, it still had a shimmer about it.
Somewhere, a clock sounded out the hour. He glanced out his window, but it being summer, he had no idea what time of day it was. He could hear his Nan downstairs, probably making breakfast. He tucked the feather in between the pages of his sketch book, and went downstairs.
He pondered what to do next, his thoughts about the girl when his Nan said. “I wouldn’t bother.”
“What?” he asked. He had no idea what she was saying, or why.
“The feather,” his Nan said with a sigh, as though she was going to say more, but thought not to, as though it was too much of a bother. “Don’t bother looking for the…bird. Won’t find it. Not worth it.” She was muttering, almost to her self when she said. “Break your heart, she will.” But her back was turned at that point, and he wouldn’t be sure if that was what she had said, and not something about breakfast.
She put a plate of bacon on the table next to the eggs that she had already put there. She turned back to the cooker, still muttering under her break. Her back still to him, staring at the kettle.
“Nan,” Thomas finally asked. ”Who is she?”
“Who?” his Nan said, now not seeming to know about the girl. Had he imagined what he had heard. The kettle boiled and she poured it into the teapot to steep. She plopped herself down, and picked up the paper, as though Thomas wasn’t there, but she had done so much more than his mother had ever done for breakfast in a long time he didn’t feel neglected. If anything, this was more attention, more breakfast in fact, than he had had in a long time.
Still reading her paper, she poured her tea, then looked up from the paper. “Still have the feather?” she asked.
Thomas nodded, his mouth full of egg, and cold toast.
She put her hand out, and he opened his sketchbook and handed it over. She held it for a moment, then gave it back. “The raven is not a pretty bird,” she said. “But they are very smart. You would be surprised. Don’t let them trick you.”
“You make it sound like a leprechaun, or something,” Thomas said. “Like it’s going to lead me to a pot of gold.”
His Nan gave him that look that he knew from his mother so well, which meant something like ‘you have no idea what you are talking about.’ He felt stupid for a moment, but then she said. “I know you don’t like quoting, or your mum never did, but sometimes quotes say it all ‘There are more things in heaven and earth…’” She took a sip of her tea. “She’ll send the bird first.” She looked up. “Did she do that yet?”
“Yeah, this morning.”
His Nan nodded. She reached out for Thomas and took his hand. He did not pull away. She looked him in the eye, something he hated. He hated it when anyone did it to him. Her eyes, he noticed were blue, a gray-blue, not unlike his mother’s. He remembered suddenly, that though she wasn’t around that much, he still missed her. He wondered if she would email or call, before too long. He lost track of what his Nan was saying.
“…sly and cunning, but beautiful. That is all I’m saying. I was young once too.”
Was she talking about something else now? He was confused.
He thanked her, and slipped his hand out of her hand, and went back to eating his breakfast, which was now quite cold. His Nan sipped her tea, the clock in the hall chimed the half hour, and clicked softly to itself. Tim, the cat, tried to get on the table, but was shoed off. The kitchen was dark, and small. The drawing room, beyond, was filled with the light of summer, as it looked out on the back garden. At that moment, he just wanted to go outside, and think and draw. If he had been home, he would have jumped on his computer, and chatted with his friends, but ever since he had moved here, none of his friends wanted to talk, They were busy with other things, as though he had died, and they didn’t want to be bothered with him.
He knew, he just knew, that at some point someone, perhaps his mother, or his Nan would nag him about going out to play and make friends, but they hadn’t, though he had been here nearly a fortnight. Was it that they didn’t care, or that they did care.
He picked up his plate and took it to the sink; his Nan did not have a dishwasher, and as she had done every meal, she instructed him to just leave it in the sink and she would get to it. Would he ever feel like more than a guest here? When was he going home? Or would this be home?
It was that rare time of year when it was summer. Not just the season, as that lasted three months, but actually summer-time temps. The kind of days you think about when you say summer. Not the drizzly rain, but the bright, almost cloudless warm days, that everyone complained about, but loved just the same. He took his sketch pad out to the back garden, and just sat, for a moment, and started trying to draw, again, the bird girl. Tim, who was outside again, circled around him, as though he were a bird, then finally gave up, and went off to sleep in the sun.
Why couldn’t he draw her? He was so annoyed. He kept drawing an erasing, getting more frustrated by the moment, until the sun felt far too hot, and the sky far too bright. He finally threw his book down, picked it up again, and went back into the house. ”Bye Nan,” he said, and he went out into the town. The house was just too closed in, and he didn’t want to spend the day thinking about the bird girl.
The tourists were out in force, the coaches crowding the street. He went, once more, to the beach, which seemed to be free of tourist, and there, he hoped, no one would ask him what he was up to, or why he was there, or what was the way to the shops, or anything
It is so hard to be alone around people. Much harder than anything he could think of, including going to a new school, because at least there, you have something in common with everyone. Here, he was just another kid, either to be suspect, or to be avoided, or to be ignored.
Whatever.
