She doesn’t smile back. “How clean are you?”
“I scrub the grout in my shower with a toothbrush.”
She gathers some mucus in the back of her throat and makes a clearing sound. She rolls her neck around until it pops. I’m already thinking of where I’m going to apply next when she says, “Can you start this afternoon?”
“Are you serious?”
The crags in her face momentarily recede into a smile. “You can start wavin’ your tail feathers as soon as you can get the suit on.”
She opens a cabinet behind her and extracts the chicken suit. It was probably nice when she bought it a century ago. The giant yellow feathers droop with grunge. The sight of it makes me quiver.
“Is there any way to disinfect it?” I ask.
She shakes her head and narrows her gaze. “Might ruffle the feathers.”
I tell myself that when I stand on the lava shores of the Galápagos Islands, I will be glad I subjected my pride and my immune system to this deep-fried torture. I take the suit and head for the bathroom. None of the inmates behind the counter looks at me. It’s lunch rush. Time to sell some chicken.
Before I get dressed I make a quick phone call from my cheap-ola cell phone to my house and get Carson. Surprisingly my phone works. This phone isn’t designed to do much more than call the person next door. I say, “Listen, buddy, can you tell Mom I got a job so I won’t be home for a while?”
“How long until you’re home?” says Carson.
“What’s wrong?”
“Danny fell off his bike.”
“Is he okay?”
Melyssa comes on the phone. “Hello.” She sounds irritated. “Where are you?”
“Is Danny hurt?”
“He’s fine.”
“What happened?”
“He hit his head. Mom freaked ’cause he wasn’t wearing his helmet. But he’s fine.”
My chest gets tight. “He has to wear a helmet. He crashes.”
“Wow. Is there an echo in here? Everyone acts like I’ve never taken care of a kid before. Did you get a job?”
“I’m starting right now.”
“Aren’t you a go-getter? Where at?”
It’s no use. Let the mocking begin. “The Chicken Little Drive-Thru.”
“Sweet Mother of Grease.”
I stare at the suit, hanging before me in all its foul splendor. I may have to tell my family I work here, but I don’t have to tell them what I do. “It’s a job.”
“You have no shame,” says Mel.
Mel’s ashamed of me. The irony of my life is unending.
I hang up and reach for the suit. When I unzip it and look inside a spider climbs out. I stand paralyzed for a minute. Not by the spider, but by the idea that I’m about to put something on my body, and over my head, that has been a spider’s home. Maybe there are even eggs in the suit. In all likelihood there are fleas or lice or skin-eating viruses in the flaps and folds of this death bag.
It comes down to this: How bad do I want out of this town?
Bad enough. I put on the suit.
13
Epigamic Display:
When a bird dresses up and shakes its feathers to get another bird’s attention.
I tie my head on and grab my sign. I walk past my busy coworkers and the few people who have come to eat inside. Luckily I don’t recognize anyone from school. I nod my beak in greeting. Except that it’s filthy, the suit is comforting, like having a big, sweaty secret identity. Instead of Wonder Woman, I’m Chicken Little.
Galápagos,
I silently chant to myself,
Galápagos
.
When I get out onto the street, the wind gusts through my beak and into the opening at my neck. I just have to humiliate myself by dancing around, jiggling a sign that says BEST-LOOKING CHICKS IN TOWN. I look through my peephole at the cars passing. People honk at me. I wave. The cold feels good. No one knows who I am. I’m getting paid.
I realize pretty quickly that I’m going to have to think of ways to entertain myself and keep my feet moving if I’m going to do this for hours. To get my mind off the spider eggs, I try to remember a few routines I did for my brothers when they were all little. I start slow, with a soft shoe that I made up for Andrew. I have to change it up a bit—a claw to the left and a claw to the right. A few more cars honk. I sway a little bigger, kicking my legs up just enough to look like I’m dancing. After a few more honks, a car with guys my age passes. One brown head hangs out the window and yells, “Nice breasts!”
The funny thing is that instead of shrinking into my three-toed boots, I’m fine. I even give a little wing in response. Inside the costume I can be as weird as I want. A few more cars go by, and then one pulls into the drive-in and parks. As they get out of the car, the middle-age couple gives me a thumbs-up. I feel so proud. I’ve recruited eaters! For the worst job in the world, this one isn’t half bad. Okay, maybe it’s half bad. But the other half is almost fun.
Around dusk I see a white truck pass out of the corner of my eye. I whirl around. It’s not Erik. Maybe it is. I swear everyone in this town drives a white truck. There is too much traffic to see the head of the driver. The passenger is definitely a redhead. I tilt my beak so I can see better, but it’s too late. The truck is gone.
I stand there on the street corner in my bird costume feeling ridiculous. I don’t know if I can finish my shift. I want to sit down. I want to go to sleep.
It’s not that Erik could have recognized me, if that was Erik. It’s because someday soon Erik will be a stranger to me. I won’t know anything about him except gossip. This person I planned my life around will plan his life around some other girl—someone who isn’t a space-sucker or a giant chicken.
The street is quiet for a few minutes. A dusty wind filters in through the costume. No more soft shoeing. I’m me again, in a gross suit. I stand stiffly holding the sign. Nobody honks. I should quit.
But I need the job.... I need the money.... Why should I let Erik keep me from making money? From writing a proposal for the contest? I start waving the sign a little. So what if I’m a loser. I’m not going to get fired today.
Galápagos,
I chant to myself.
Galápagos
.
As I’m waving the sign I remember how I used to love dancing when I was little. I did it to entertain my brothers but also because I loved doing it. Just because I’ve turned into this pathetic flightless cormorant doesn’t mean I have to stay one. I can evolve. Adapt. Change. Today I can be a great flightless chicken instead. Not a huge improvement. But chickens travel.
Across the street I see the flickering of light. The traffic light glazes the asphalt in red, yellow, and green. A silhouette in a sweatshirt stands at the crosswalk, looks over at me, and leans up against the light. I turn my back and keep dancing.
I think of a video I saw on YouTube once with Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. I’m Tina, hoochie coochie-ing on those amazing legs. Then I’m Mick for a while, flapping my wings. Cars pass and honk. In my head I hear “Brown Sugar” playing. Not the dance of a space-sucker. Not the dance of Erik’s invisible girlfriend. Not the dance of a bird resigned to her fate. I don’t have to take millions of years to evolve. I can do it in the blink of a headlight.
Right in the middle of my crazed chicken routine, two cars race past, running the red at the intersection. They are honking at each other, windows down in spite of the cold. Luckily no one is coming so they don’t kill anyone. Kids race all the time around here. There isn’t all that much to do on a February night after the basketball game is over and the movies have all started. I keep dancing and flipping my sign.
Just as they pass me I hear brakes. One of the cars stops and a guy gets out. Then he runs. At me. Into me. I fly backward. My head hits the ground, but it bounces instead of splitting open because of the costume.
I go numb. Everything spins. Except the weight on top of me.
I can’t see him very well—just a patch of blond hair tied in a red bandanna. A jean jacket. He jumps up and laughs. It’s a forced laugh. He doesn’t think this is funny either. He’s just a wannabe banger trying to be cool for his loser friends. Then he’s gone. And I’m flat on my back seeing stars through my peepholes. Millions of lightless stars.
Stella shows up in my peepholes a few seconds later. There are other people too.
They take off my head.
“Myra!”
In the midst of the mob of chicken workers staring at me, there is a face that shouldn’t be there. I see Jonathon Hempilmeyer’s nose ring. He’s wearing a white sweatshirt. He was the kid on the street corner watching me. “Myra,” he says, coming close. He’s holding his camera, filming me on the ground.
“Jonathon?”
Jonathon shuts off his camera and stares at me with that wide-eyed stoner look he gets. “I’m sorry. It all happened so fast. I didn’t know it was you.”
Everything is still spinning. But the last few minutes are all coming back to me and I’m not dead. I look at his camera. “Don’t you dare post that.”
Jonathon sputters. “Yeah. No. I won’t.”
Stella ignores Jonathon and helps me stand up. She says, “You aren’t hurt. You’re fine. Just walk it off. Do you want some ice cream?”
I go back into the restaurant and sit in a booth. Jonathon doesn’t come in, and I’m glad because I’m almost coherent enough to tell him what a jerk he is for standing there and filming me getting knocked down. Even if he didn’t know it was me. I put my chicken head on the table. I’m done evolving for the day. I drink ice water from a paper cup. One of the workers asks Stella if he should call the police.
“Of course not. She’s not bleeding, is she?” She looks at me again. “You aren’t bleeding, are you?”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Of course you are,” says Stella.
I’m going to be fine. I just need to go home. Right after I quit this job, kill Jonathon, and go back to my pathetic, flightless life.
14
Keel:
The bone that holds muscles together at the front of a bird so it can fly. Flightless cormorants have a stunted keel.
“So are you going to stay in bed all day?” says Dad.
I look at him through the slanted light of the basement windows.
“I don’t feel so good,” I say.
“This sulking has to stop, Myra. It’s starting to upset the whole family.”
“Sorry, I’m just tired,” I say. I stay under my sleeping bag because I don’t know if I have bruises from last night. I don’t think I talked to anyone. All I remember is that I somehow made it home, put the greasy money Stella paid me in my pencil-box bank, and fell asleep in my clothes. I’m still in a semiconscious state this morning, but I know enough not to tell my dad I was tackled by a wannabe gang member.
“I know you’ve had some bad breaks,” he says.
“Yep,” I say, hoping he’s not literally right.
“But we have to move on. Roll with the punches.”
“I’m trying,” I say. “Really.”
“Did you get a job?”
“It wasn’t a good job,” I say.
“Honest work is good work, Myra.”
I wish he wouldn’t use that word. Honesty isn’t this family’s strong suit. But there does seem to be plenty of rolling with the punches.
“We’re going for a drive. Melyssa’s even going to come.... She had another fight with Zeke last night, and we need to get her out today.”
My dad is a big fan of Sunday drives. Everyone else in our neighborhood goes to church, so I think he feels like we need our own ritual. We drive out of town. Which is a pretty good ritual if you ask me. But lately the boys fight the whole time, and if they’re quiet I can hear my parents not talking. So it makes it hard to care about the scenery.
“So what about it?” he says.
“I think I’ll sleep a little more,” I say. I would go if I could stand up without giving the whole battered chicken thing away. And I really do have to study.
“The boys will be disappointed,” he says roughly. “We were all looking forward to doing something together as a family today.” He marches up the stairs with heavy feet.
That engineer dad of mine. He knows right where to dig.
By the time they get home from the drive, I’ve made spaghetti with meatballs and fixed Carson’s dinosaur lagoon. I’ve also swallowed enough ibuprofen to burn a hole in my stomach. And I’ve scoured the Internet and seen no sign of Jonathon making my shame viral. At least I won’t have to live that down on Monday.
No one talks much at dinner except to tell me that the trip was a big downer because Melyssa threw up three times, once in the car. Melyssa stays in her room while we eat.
After dinner it’s late, and the boys and I lie around on the floor in the family room. Mel is out on the porch with Zeke, so we try to be quiet. Not that we want Mel and Zeke to get back together necessarily. But if they wanted to, it would be okay.