Free Forget Me Not by Carolee Dean Page A

alone.”
    “Go talk to the Bird Man.”
    He points to a boy standing
    on the circle in the center
    of the quad. He’s yelling
    at the kids who pass.
    “The seniors are gonna beat him up
    if they see him stepping on the Raptor,” I say.
    “Not if they can’t see him.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He’s dead.”
    I shudder as I look at the boy wearing the school
    gym uniform. I wouldn’t be caught dead in that outfit,
    and I certainly can’t imagine spending eternity in it.
    I’d rather do extra credit than dress up for PE for even a day.
    “What happened to him?” I ask.
    “Struck by lightning on the soccer field.
    Go talk to him. He won’t hurt you. His bark
    is worse than his bite.”
    So I go out to the quad to talk to a dead guy,
    because I can’t stand the thought of going back
    into the Humanities building. But all the time
    I’m out there, I know there are eight eyes
    watching me from the H Hall.

HELLO
    As I approach the dead guy
    I see him yelling at a group
    of boys walking into the gym.
    “That’s right, keep moving, and stay away
    from Ronnie if you know what’s good for you.”
    “Hello,” I say.
    He turns around. “Are you talking to me?” he asks,
    even though we’re the only two people left on the quad.
    “Is it okay if I hang here for a while?”
    He strides across the circle until he’s standing
    nose to nose with me. “You’re not dead.”
    “No,” I say, and the fact that he realizes this
    makes me feel strangely relieved.
    “But you’re not alive, either.” He sizes me up.
    “I guess you can’t hurt anything. Come on in.”
    He moves aside so I can enter the circle. I step
    on the tail feathers of the huge black bird and look around to
    make sure there isn’t a senior waiting
    in the wings to beat me up.
    “I don’t get many visitors. Sorry the place is such
    a mess.” He tries to kick a Coke can off the circle,
    but it doesn’t budge. “Damn freshmen. Someone
    needs to teach them some school respect.”
    “How long have you been here?” I ask him.
    “Since 1985.
    I used to stash my weed out on the far side of the track.
    Was going to smoke some after PE,
    before heading to the locker room,
    but then a storm came up.
    Have you ever been electrocuted?”
    “No.”
    “I don’t recommend it.
    I was going to be
    in the first class
    to graduate from
    Raven Valley High.
    It happened a week before finals.
    My grandparents were coming
    all the way from Boise and had
    already bought plane tickets.
    They used them for the funeral.”
    A thin little kid carrying
    a hall pass comes out onto the quad,
    sees the Raptor, and decides to
    walk across it while no one is looking.
    The Bird Man runs to the edge
    of the circle and screams,
    “If you touch Ronnie,
    I’m gonna rearrange your face.”
    The kid jumps back, like he’s been hit,
    and runs in fear in the opposite direction.
    “Who’s Ronnie?” I ask.
    He points at the painted bird.
    Then he points
    at the sky where a black bird
    is circling the school.
    “That’s Raptor Ron.
    The official school mascot.”
    “He’s bigger than the others.
    I’ve never seen him before.”
    “Been dead for ten years.
    Got old and
    the hawks ate him.”
    “That’s disgusting.”
    “That’s high school.
    Survival of the fittest.”

GODS AND DEMONS
    I wonder if the two black birds
    who circle the school
    are descendants
    of Raptor Ron’s.
    Ms. Lane calls them
    Hugin and Munin,
    Observation and Memory,
    after the two ravens who
    belonged to Odin,
    the Norse god
    of death and poetry.
    Their job was to travel the earth
    and report what they saw.
    “Exactly what a writer does,”
    she told me.
    I asked her if they represented
    all memories,
    or just the stuff
    you’d rather forget.
    She said mostly the latter,
    but the birds weren’t all bad.
    When a group of settlers
    got stuck in the valley
    during one long winter,
    ravens helped keep them alive
    by bringing them dead pigeons to eat,
    which is how the town
    got its