Free Bird by Noy Holland Page A

says, it’s what she always says. “Maybe pinworms will do the trick. Something sneaky and easily broken. Friable, you like to say.”
    Bird goes back to the photo album, the bloody birth pictures, spooky, the baby still stricken and blue. Bird flips the page, going backwards, comes upon the murk that is her baby unborn, an image they make with sound.
    â€œHere you are,” Bird says, “waving. Here is the one of you sucking the pale peninsula of your thumb.”
    She is all spread apart, a tiny continent. A mass with migrating eyes. Little Whale, White Moon.
    The bodies toxic. Where had Bird seen that? They were rolling belugas in cellophane, men in gloves and suits. Disposing. The whole pod—the soon-to-be-dead, the living. Beached. Bodies gasping on the strand.
    You can quit the news but it finds you, some picture you didn’t mean to see. That little girl dead with her books in her lap. The illuminated page. Foot soldiers, somebody’s boy, creeping into the blast.
    There’s no way to live far enough from it. No matter the pact you make with yourself—it gets at you and eats.
    Somebody’s boy on the waterboard. Sounds okay to me.
    Says who?
    Say the fat cats, says the president. Folks, we are doing everything we can .
    Such a flocked-around helpless feeling, a rage, and Bird was chumped by it—she knew better: fat cats were making money making fear she couldn’t shake. Code orange, people, keep it calm. Now let’s bump her up to code red.
    You bet. Like ants, they were, sent to scurry. Snatching for beans and Sterno, a spade. Dig a hole. Hully up. Bring the Vizqueen.
    Sure, it passed. And when the worst of it passed you could slump back and live among the daily horrors. That was nice. The spectacle of smallpox. The war going peacably along. The icecap melted. Owright. The thing mutates, owright, but it’s a frog. Heck. It’s a elephant. It lives away off, it ain’t you.
    But it is, Bird thinks. It’s you. She thinks of an old movie she saw— mzungu in a pith helmet stepping out of a Cessna on the vast grassy savannah, not a chance in the world to hide.
    Do you say pod , as with whales, for the elephant? Pod , is it, or tribe ? A murder, a pride, a herd, Bird thinks.
    They’re all out there, big as elephants, big yellow African sky.
    I want that one, says the shitball, and shoots.
    The animal takes a long time falling. It gives itself up in stages against its mighty will. He turns to the next elephant and takes a shot at it, too.
    I want that one. And then I want that and that one then and her and her and her.
    Those girls.
    Columbine, pretty name, couple of quiet boys.
    Those are the ones to kill you. The sheriff calls you for dental records and your life goes black and gray.
    It is a day like any other, Bird thinks. Pretty place, mountains at your back, tough country. Home. Been knowing it all my life. Lives of mine before it.
    Simple lives, used to be. Homesteaders, sheepherders.
    School bus coming prettily—you can’t hear it yet—up the road. You scoot her out. Not a sign, no way in the world to stop it.
    But you’re the mother.
    You are the one who is supposed to know.
    The baby hooks Bird’s lip with her finger: the baby wants Bird to sing. So she sings: little snowflake, white shell, that one. And kisses all ten toes. Bird counts her lucky stars to eleven and quits. Thinks: quit while you can and hide them, woman. The gods are greedy, too.
    She cranks the music, dances the baby upstairs. It helps. A little sunshine helps. Dewfall soon. She ought to walk back out without shoes. Pass her toes through the early glittery wet, the grass with its sparky dew.
    Sparky —that’s her boy’s word.
    Count of three. Look both ways twice.
    Now move on.
    Take a picture.
    â€œHey, hey, Mama. Take a little one of me.”
    â€œIt’s a little bit, it’s a little bit, it’s a little bit hot,” her boy