First Came the Owl (12 page)

“I don't know how much you want to know about the Coast Guard Loran station,” he said. “But I can tell you a little bit about growing mangoes.”

By Sunday night, the house was ready. Now Mom's place really seemed empty, but Nita didn't want to worry Dad by talking about it. She was glad when Monday came, with school and rehearsals. Even the dread report was shaping up.

The class worked so hard rehearsing and creating the set for the first four days of that week that Mrs. Sommers called them the “Famous Amy Bradley Two-Week Special.” “You should hire yourself out,” said Mrs. Sommers to Amy on Friday afternoon. “I really didn't think you could do this in two weeks, but you've proved me wrong.” They stood in the kindergarten room and admired the dwarfs' house, the Huntsman's costume, complete with ax, and the cutout birds that Anne and Nita were arranging on a tree branch in what was usually the flag holder.

“It's because we make the script just like an outline,” said Amy. “You don't have to memorize.”

“I don't know why it is,” said Mrs. Sommers. “But I think it's magic.”

As Nita looked around the kindergarten room, it did seem like magic. A fairy-tale world had appeared right there in the old wood-paneled schoolroom.

“And tonight's the showdown!” shouted Henry.

“You mean the performance,” said Amy. “We're almost there.”

“Two hours, forty-five minutes, and twenty-nine seconds,” said Nita. She knew exactly the amount of time she had left until she had to get up in front of all those people.

Twenty-one

T
HAT EVENING
, as Nita came in from the cold, dark outside, she didn't look at the stage, but hurried into the first-grade room, which was the dressing room. She took off her ski jacket and uncovered Anne's white angora sweater, which she wore over the skirt Henry's mother had fixed for her. A makeup mother rushed over, painted her mouth with red lipstick, and combed her black hair.

“There you go,” said the makeup mother. “White as snow, black as ebony, and red as blood. Perfect.”

The kindergarten room looked like a real theater. A tentlike blue canopy covered the back of the platform. Stars shone on the blue, making a glittering backdrop for the action on stage. A black tree with twisted branches loomed overhead; when the Mirror danced in, it had exactly the same kind of twisted wood for a frame.

Nita felt she was sliding into a dream. Now that she had on her costume, she
was
Snow White. As she drifted around the room, no one spoke to her. They could see she was in the play already, and they couldn't talk to her because they weren't there yet.

Acting is so great, Nita thought. You can be anyone—a princess, a deep-sea diver, probably you could even
fly.
That would be nice.

Henry brought her down to earth. “Hey, Nita,” he said, “Want to see something?”

If I didn't know him, thought Nita, I might even think he was handsome. Henry wore a blue velvet jacket, jodhpurs, and boots.

“You're the one who likes birds so much. Want to see something?” he repeated.

“I guess so,” she said cautiously.

Henry pulled a tattered photo out of his pocket. “This is a really good bird. He oughta be in this play, because he can
talk!
”

Nita looked at the gray parrot with red tail feathers. It was a nice-looking parrot, but what really caught her attention was the boy with the Asian face who held the parrot on his arm. “Who's that?” she asked.

“Oh, that's my friend Paul, he only comes here in the summer. But that's his great parrot, Sultry, that can
talk.
He says ‘Birds don't talk.' Get it? His
bird
says ‘Birds don't talk.' Get it?”

“I get it. What else does he say?”

“He makes a sound like a bomb dropping, and a sound like water filling up,
glug-glug-glug,
and he sings ‘When it's springtime in the Rockies.'”

But Nita was studying the face that looked like hers in the photo. “Do you tell Paul he looks like a monkey?” she asked.

“Sure. I call him ‘monk' and he calls me ‘klutz' because I'm always tripping over things. Now I've gotta go get my sword. See ya!” Henry grinned and ran off.

I'll
never
understand Henry, thought Nita.

Voices rose louder and louder. The audience was arriving in the kindergarten room.

Dwarfs were everywhere. Brown jackets and red caps wove in and out of the crowded dressing room and hall. Nita smiled when she saw Bill Stillwater struggling through a bunch of dwarfs to get to his seat.

“Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's time to start the show,” sang Anne. She danced around Nita.

Brenda was not smiling. “This stupid fingernail,” she hissed. “It broke! I glued it back together with Super Glue and it better not break again.”

“Quiet, please,” said Amy. “Five minutes to curtain.”

Two dwarfs got ready to pull the front panels of starry blue fabric to the sides of the room and loop them up so the audience could see the Queen's bedroom. Later Snow White would be lost in the woods in front of the curtains, and the dwarfs' house would be set up where the Queen's bedroom was now.

The audience quieted down. Anne and the dwarf named Silly went through the hall to the kindergarten room. “Tonight we would like to present to you
Snow White and the Dwarfs,
” came Anne's high, clear voice.

When Nita heard Brenda's first lines they seemed to come from far, far away. Then Snow White was out in the dark woods with the Huntsman.

The play went without a hitch. Nita was so far into her part that she didn't even feel afraid when the dwarfs lifted her into the coffin. Her body felt lifeless.

She lay in the coffin and watched the bird shadows above her. The cutout owl, raven, and dove made by the props committee seemed alive. Their shadows quivered on the wall and the dwarfs wailed in sorrow, bemoaning. Nita closed her eyes. She heard Henry's voice. She felt the coffin shift, then lift, and she bumped around a little as the dwarfs stomped around singing.

Finally, Snow White was sprung from her deathlike sleep by the bumping of the coffin, which shook loose the poison apple. Prince Henry yanked her hand so she nearly fell over as he tried to help her out of the plastic box, but she kept her balance, and the spotlights burst with light as she rose to her feet. The audience applauded madly. Nita felt dazed, like an astronaut suddenly arriving home from outer space.

“Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to church we go,” sang the dwarfs. And so Snow White married the Prince. The audience clapped again.

They cheered when the Queen tap-danced in her red tap shoes as red crepe-paper flames of hell burned and waved around her.

Under cover of the clapping and cheering, Nita jerked her hand out of Henry's. “Now I'm going back to live in the woods with the dwarfs,” Nita told him.

“Yes, let's,” he answered. “That'll be awesome.”

“Not
you.
You have to go back to your castle.”

“What?” bellowed Henry. The applause was very loud. He grinned at Nita. It was too noisy to make him understand.

When they were on their third curtain call, Henry grabbed Nita's hand again and dragged her out of the row of actors to take a special bow just for the two of them.

There was Dad, and there was Captain Pudge, and, could it really be? There was Mom! Suddenly Nita felt her flying feeling, as if she had lifted off and floated over the audience for just a minute. Then the applause ended and the audience crowded up around the actors.

Nita pushed through the crowd and hugged her mother tight, forgetting that she was fragile and not strong. Ma-jah hugged her back and laughed. “Why didn't you say you were coming?” said Nita. “Why didn't you
tell
me?”

Dad answered. “We hoped, but we didn't want to disappoint you, Nita.” He put one arm around Mom and one around Nita and squeezed.

Ma-jah smiled. “It gave me something to look forward to,” she murmured in Nita's ear.

Mrs. S. rushed over and kissed Nita's cheek. “I had no idea you could act like that,” she said, looking at Nita with pride, as if somehow she belonged a little bit to her. “You're such a small person, but large and amazing on the stage.”

Captain Pudge gave her a thumbs-up sign, and then Dad waved his camera. “Let's get a good shot now,” he said. “Even I believed you were Snow White for a while there, kiddo. Get over here, Henry!”

Nita looked around and saw all her classmates and their parents. “The play was great,” she said. “The sets were terrific, and acting is fun. Everything is wonderful!” She whirled around and punched Henry in the shoulder. “Even
you
are not so bad,” she said.

Henry laughed. This was the kind of joke he could understand. He ran into the back hall and hung on the bell rope.
Clang, clang! Clang, clang!
The news of their triumph sounded out in the frosty air of Maushope's Landing.

Twenty-two

A
FEW DAYS
later, Nita pressed her face against the window and cupped her hands by her eyes to shield them from the late afternoon sun. Two blue jays squabbled on the bird feeder and the driveway glistened where the brownish snow melted and ran down in a tiny river.

Behind Nita, Ma-jah stirred something on the stove. “Maybe he's gone north,” said Ma-jah. “With this January thaw, it'll be too warm for him here.”

“I wanted you to see him,” said Nita. She had been searching the sky every day this week. “I wanted you to see him, so you can see he is a good spirit.”

“Suppose you were a mouse,” said Ma-jah. “Then what would you think?” But she smiled as she said this. Since she had come back to her newly painted living room, the orchid window, which flooded the room with light, and her glowing sun quilt, Ma-jah's spirits seemed to be rekindled.

A painting by Anne of the two quarreling children that looked like her and Petrova hung up on the wall. It was Anne's contribution to the Roots Committee. Nita's Thailand report lay on the table, marked with a red A-.

Nita still worried. True, the snow had thawed, but there was February to come, with more snow and ice, more dark and cold. Nita searched the curve of the beach, the dunes and the sky. A bank of fog was creeping in across the water from the east. Soon the afternoon would be over. If she could see the owl one more time, and if Ma-jah could see it …

“Look!” she shouted. “Come quick!” She almost couldn't believe it, but, yes, there was the flash of white on the beach.

Ma-jah ran to the window. “Oh, Nita,” she murmured, “you were right. When I was sick it seemed I was in a long, dark tunnel, until one day, I saw a tiny speck of light at the end. But maybe it wasn't daylight, maybe it was your beautiful owl.”

Nita and her mother watched as the white owl soared over the beach, catching the last rays of the sun.

Then the big light came on in the lighthouse next door. Flash! And then dark. Flash! And then dark.

The foghorn moaned; it had a safe, comforting sound. The owl was gone.

Henry Holt and Company, Inc.,
Publishers since 1866

115 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011

Henry Holt is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

Copyright © 1996 by Judith Benét Richardson

All rights reserved.

Published in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd.,

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ISBN 0-8050-4547-3

First Edition—1996

eISBN 9781466883338

First eBook edition: September 2014