Love Over Matter (2 page)

Ian snaps the shovel into being and
takes a thunking stab at the ground.

“
Hell
-o!” Clive coos, as if he’s wooing a pretty lady.

“
That’s it,” I say. Until I
need good ol’ Clivey—
if
I need him at all—he’s going
undercover.

Despite the rain and even
the cold, I unzip my hoodie and slip it off. Then I rezip it around
Clive’s cage, stretching the fabric until it’s as tense as an
overblown balloon.
Poor George,
I think.
Look at what
I’ve done to his most cherished possession.
If I had the guts, I’d try to shrink the thing back into shape
with an overdose of fabric softener and a spin through the dryer on
permanent press. But the chances of that happening are next to
nil.

Ian chips away at the dirt one measly
shovelful at a time, prompting Opal to ask, “Can I
help?”

“
Nah,” he answers. “Maybe
when I get tired.”

Opal shrugs, marches in
place like she’s a toy soldier from
The
Nutcracker
.

“
I think I hear something,”
I whisper, straining an ear toward the cottage.

But it’s already too late.

“
Hold it right there!” a
gruff voice barks, stopping my lungs midbreath.

I disobey, swivel toward the source of
the command. Haley and Opal stiffen to attention at each other’s
sides.

“
What do you think you’re
doing?” comes the voice again, booming like a conga
drum.

“
Nothing,” claims Ian, his
hands suddenly still, the shovel balanced against his boot, his
gaze fixed on the cottage’s rickety porch.

A shadowy figure steps into view.
“Looks like you’re up to no good.”

We
are so
up to good!
I think.
We’re trying to
save a sick old man’s life!
I risk a step
toward the silhouette. “He used to live here,” I say, throwing an
elbow at Ian, “in the summers. You know, the Smiths? Maybe you
remember them?”

The shadow advances on us. Finally, I
make out a guy my father’s age with a scraggly beard, lips the
color of new plums, and the coal-black eyes of a snowman. Oh, and a
shotgun aimed, generally speaking, at our heads. “’Fraid not,” he
mutters.

“
We can leave now,” Haley
offers, her voice quavering. “It’s no problem.”

Don’t run, Sis,
I tell her telepathically.
He won’t need any other reason to shoot you.

“
Let’s just—” I start to
say.

“
Not until we get a few
things straight,” the man interrupts, lowering the gun.

My pulse switches from quadruple time
to time and a half. “Like what?” I inquire softly.

It’s muffled, thank God,
but Clive lets out another garbled, “
Hell
-o!”

The man raises his gun, sidles up to
Clive’s cage and pokes at George’s hoodie with the muzzle. “Whatcha
got here?”

Please don’t let him be a
hunter,
I pray. But, of course, he is. I
can just tell. “Oh, that’s my bird, Clive,” I explain. “He’s a
rescue crow.”

The shotgun muzzle, by way of the
stranger’s unusually long forearms, pries half of George’s hoodie
from the cage. “He rescues people?” he asks with
astonishment.

I shouldn’t laugh,
but . . . “Uh, no,” I say with a nervous chuckle.
“
I
rescued
him.
His mate died in a
car accident.”

A curious look comes over the man’s
face. “Take him out.”

“
I’m cold,” says Opal. When
I glance her way, it’s clear she’s serious, her bony body racked by
an all-out shake.

Ian studies Opal too. “We’ve gotta get
going,” he says, sounding as if he’s trying to talk himself into
the idea.

“
Take him out,” the man
repeats.

Don’t kill my bird,
I want to say.
He didn’t
do anything to you.
But instead I fidget
with the zipper of George’s hoodie until it comes loose, then
unlatch Clive’s cage and shove my hand inside. “Here,
baby.”

The bird doesn’t know any better. He
really doesn’t. I feel the soft pinch of his claws on my wrist and
the heft of his body balanced over my hand. “Okay,” I say,
withdrawing my arm, “here we go.”

Clive flutters his wings, tosses his
head from side to side. The man simply stares. “He bite?” he asks,
nodding Clive’s way.

“
He might,” I admit, not
wanting to hold out false hope. “Not usually, though. He’s pretty
well tamed.”

The stranger cocks his head, moves in
on Clive and me. The birdbrain cocks his head right back. “Mind if
I pet him?”

Of course, I mind. “I dunno. I guess
you can if you want.”

Haley pipes up. “I wouldn’t.” I shoot
her a withering glare, but it doesn’t take. “I mean, sure, he’s
cool and everything,” she goes on, “but for all we know, he could
have the bird flu. It’s not like we’ve had him tested.”

The man rests his shotgun on the
ground beside the metal detector, which I’ve long since abandoned.
“I ain’t too worried about it,” he says. He reaches a thick, grungy
hand—replete with gruesome nicks and scrapes, calluses and ropelike
scars—at Clive’s face.

I swear to God, if this weirdo snaps
my bird’s neck or bites his head off like that sicko Ozzy Osbourne
used to do (not to Clive, obviously, but to his feathered friends),
I’m going to lose my marbles. “Go slow,” I caution as his fingers
make contact with Clive’s back, “and be gentle.”

My words of warning are unnecessary,
though, because he pets my bird with the delicacy of a chef trying
to crack an egg without breaching its yolk. “Good birdie,” he
whispers.

I can’t believe my eyes when Clive
takes a dancing leap from my hand to his.

And neither can Haley.
“Wow,” she says, “he’s
never
done that.”

What my sister means is that Clive is
skittish; I’m the only human allowed to touch him . . .
until now. “He likes you,” I say, the notion so shocking I’m having
trouble processing it.

A giddy expression comes over the
man’s face, and suddenly he looks more like a Chihuahua than a
Doberman. Clive inches up his arm and comes to rest on the round of
his shoulder. “Arrrgghh!” the man squeals, his lips curled into a
fiendish smile, an eye pinched shut as if he’s channeling a pirate.
He takes a couple of lurching steps, one foot clomping along
stiffly behind him as if attached to a wooden leg.

“
Not bad,” Ian remarks on
the performance.

“
So, uh, it’s getting
late,” Haley points out unnecessarily.

I line up shoulder to shoulder with
the man, encouraging Clive to make the leap back to me. As soon as
he does, I stuff him into his cage and secure George’s hoodie
around it once again.

“
You never answered me,”
the man says, the shotgun back in his hands, his hollow gaze pinned
on Ian’s forehead.

Opal’s voice is small.
“Huh?”

“
What exactly are you kids
doin’?”

Kids? Do we look like we rode our
tricycles here? “Listen,” I say, toying with the idea of spilling
the beans, “we don’t want any trouble. We’re just trying to find
something that belongs to my friend’s great-uncle.” I tip my head
in Ian’s direction. “His dad needs it real bad.”

The stranger lifts an
eyebrow. “Needs
what
real bad?”

“
A liver,” I say. “He’s got
a disease. If he doesn’t get a new one soon, he’s gonna
die.”

“
Sorry,” he says, “I ain’t
followin’.”

Fine. I guess it’s come down to this.
“There’s something buried here,” I clarify. “Money. Coins. My
friend’s dad needs them to pay for the operation.”

The man beams a gummy, gap-toothed
smile. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

chapter 2

We didn’t find the coins, even though
Crazy Shotgun Guy (he never did tell us his name) spent forty
minutes working up a sweat with a bona fide shovel, leaving a
hopscotch of disturbed earth in his wake.

“
Sorry,” I tell Ian as we
part ways in the still-dark street, half a block from my house.
“Maybe we can think of something else.” I scrunch my face into a
contemplative scowl. “A bake sale? Or a car wash? Oh, oh!” I
squeak, the perfect idea hitting me. “We could do a charity dinner.
Remember the one we had last year for the Angelos, when their house
burned down?”

By “we” I mean my parents, mostly,
since they’re the proud owners of The Moondancer, Milbridge’s top
American eatery, pre-prom destination, and all-around good-time
hangout.

Haley scuffs down the sidewalk, her
legs wobbly, Clive’s cage bumping along the sloped lawn beside
her.

Ian gives a hopeless shrug. “I dunno.
It’s up to you.”

I lean in and deliver a shoulder
squeeze. “Done,” I say. “How about next Sunday?” I notice Haley
hobbling into the end of our driveway and holler, “Wait
up!”

She shimmies to a stop and sets Clive
in the grass.

“
Thanks, Cass,” Ian
whispers, his voice threatening to crack. “You’re the
best.”

I brush my fingers over his hand and
start jogging for Haley. Behind us in the street, the Love Machine
turns over with a whine, rumbles to life and vanishes in the
night.

By the time I clomp up
beside my sister, I wish I could disappear too. Because no sooner
do I dip a toe in our driveway than a light pops on inside the
house. The kitchen light, to be exact, signifying our father’s
bleary-eyed trek to the coffee machine.
We’re five minutes too late,
I
think.
Five lousy minutes.
And now we’re going to be caught.

“
I’ve got an idea,” I tell
Haley, whose eyes are so sleep deprived they’re puffed to
slits.

She simply groans.

I lock my arm around hers, snatch
Clive’s cage and hustle us toward the garage, where we slink in
through the back door.

“
What’re you doing?” Haley
mumbles, her head bobbing as I tug at the zipper of her hoodie. She
swats my arm.

“
Cut it out,” I say. I
twirl her sideways and pull the hoodie off. “We’ve gotta look right
when we go in there. You don’t want to be grounded ‘til graduation,
do you?”

She doesn’t bother
answering.

I usher her to a concrete sink, where
our father has been known to fillet a fish or suds the downspouts
of our numerous gutters. The knob grinds as I open the
faucet.

“
Here,” I say, flicking a
few droplets of water at her hairline. “You need to be sweaty.” Due
to my sister’s ebony dye job, though, my efforts are largely in
vain.

I drip a stream of water from my
temple to my ear, then repeat the process on the other side of my
head; meanwhile, Haley starts rocking on her heels as if she’s
about to tip over.

Which leaves me no choice,
really.

“
Ow!” she screeches as I
let loose a two-handed slapfest on her cheeks. I don’t stop until
I’m sure she’ll pass for a marathoner.

“
Okay, do me,” I say,
throwing my hands toward my face.

Her eyes crack open a bit wider. She
rubs her cheeks, which are now perfectly red and blotchy.
“Huh?”

“
Slap me.”

She squints. “Are you
nuts?”

“
Do you have a better
idea?” I ask with a huff.

“
Than . . . ?”

“
The track team,” I say.
“We’ll tell Dad we were practicing to try out.”

“
So we got up at
. . . whatever time it is, to go for a run?”

“
Yup.” I pull the ruffled
curtains away from the garage window and peer at the house, our
father’s square form dominating the near corner of the kitchen,
giant swaths of newsprint swaying open before him.

“
You can barely
walk
a mile,” argues
Haley.

I’m out of patience. “Whatever. It
doesn’t matter. Just follow my lead.” I grab her hand and yank.
Begrudgingly, she tails me out of the garage, up the steps and into
our bright, shiny mudroom.

Three more feet and we’ll be in the
kitchen (if our father doesn’t hear us and come checking first,
that is). I draw a breath, jog a few steps in place
and . . .

Sure enough, Dad makes an appearance,
the bulk of his bathrobe—not to mention his new potbelly—eclipsing
the doorway. “What . . . ?” is all he says, the
sight of us rendering him speechless.

Haley pushes him aside and prances by.
“I’m going to bed.”

I try to follow, but Dad
lunges into my path. “Where do you think
you’re
going?” he asks, trying to put
on a bad-cop voice.