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Everything’s falling. At least, that’s how it seems to April. Without Sandy’s tutoring, her grades are falling. After the last three strike outs, her batting average is falling too. The only thing good that is falling is Sandy’s sadness. It falls away today like sheets of rain at the end of a storm.
“These books weren’t there before. They suddenly appeared on my night table . . . like magic,” Sandy says. Sandy’s all blonde ponytail, skin and bones. She hoists her book bag by one strap and tries to make herself more comfortable with the load as she walks.
April stiffens visibly. This is the same line of talk Sandy subjected her to at lunch, but she is able to escape when the class bell rings. Finally, she stops being so depressed, April thinks.
When April had seen her friend in class or the hallways Sandy was uncharacteristically quiet. Now, she is starting to act like her old self again. She’s even given April some new stories she’d written. This is a very good sign.
You know, my Aunt Melissa used to do the same thing; write stories, April thinks. She’d always be telling me strange things about it too .Magic is very present, Aunt Melissa would tell me.
April shakes her head. Aunt Melissa said many a confusing thing about nonsensical stuff, like Magic. Even Sandy would say weird stuff, like writing is very Magical.
April and Sandy are passing a grove of beach rose bushes. That’s her father’s name for the wild roses that grow on the sand dunes. The school gardener calls them Rosa Rugosa, a funny name that sticks with April.
Odd, I don’t remember these bushes being here, April thinks. Closed flower buds are on their branches. After they pass the bushes, April looks back. The bushes are gone, like they were never there. Suddenly April’s senses feel sharper. The sun seems brighter and Sandy’s voice seems a lot louder. She feels a slight Tingling sensation in her fingertips that she’s never felt before. April brings her thoughts out of the past and fully into the present. She tries to listen to her friend.
Sandy continues to speak endlessly to April about these scrapbooks she inherited from Aunt Penny. Sandy’s non-stop chatter is very animated.
I’m glad she’s talking again ,but I just wish she’d stop talking about those damn books, April thinks.
“I’m serious, April. I think these scrapbooks are more than just books. I think they’re guides to Magic.”
“Cut it out Sandy! The way you talk it sounds like witchcraft.” April shudders.
“OK, we’ll talk about something else, but hear me out first. It’s not as weird as you think.”
It’s the first time we’ve walked home together since Sandy’s Aunt Penny died, April thinks.
“Are you listening April?”
“Huh? Oh yeah . . . sure,” April says.
Sandy starts rambling on again. Sandy waves her arms as she talks. Sandy’s arms and both her hands are swallowed up in this humungous oversized gray sweatshirt to ward off the approaching evening coolness. Both girls are wearing their backpacks. It’s late spring and the evening air is still quite crisp, especially with the wind blowing off the ocean.
A cold spring is the price for a warm fall, April thinks. This is something her father often told her. She looks at Sandy happily babbling about something. One of Sandy’s eyes looks funny to April. The area around her eye seems to Glow. April rubs her own eyes with her fists, blinks and tries to look at Sandy again.
Before she can focus on Sandy, one of her arms is gripped in pain. April reflexively grasps it with her unhurt arm. It feels like the arm’s gone to sleep; like when you accidentally cut the circulation off from your arm by sleeping on it.
April looks down at the numb arm. She clenches and unclenches her fist to try and encourage blood flow. On the second unclenching, crushed beach rose flower petals appear in her hand. They blow away on the next gust of wind.
I wonder where those came from, April thinks.
Suddenly April realizes two things; she is not hearing a word that Sandy has said for the last ten minutes and Sandy is no longer walking along side her. Concerned about Sandy, April forgets about the pain in her arm.
Looking behind her, April sees Sandy bending down on one knee to look at something. Sandy is bracing herself with the outstretched fingers of one hand. April turns back and joins her friend. On the ground is a nestling; an almost featherless very young baby bird.
April studies the bird more closely. It’s a robin. Without the protection of a full set of feathers the poor thing is shivering from the increasingly chilly air. The baby bird appears to be suffering from exposure and is lying at a weird angle. April fears that it may have been injured from its fall. It appears to be near death. She looks up to find the source of the frantic bird calls. Mother bird is calling down from her nest in distress.
“Hurry!” Sandy entreats. “We have to recite a poem from my aunt’s scrapbook.”
April weighs the bird’s options. Norman Bird Sanctuary is not that far away. If the baby bird isn’t too badly exposed, someone there will probably be able to save its life. It’s too late, she thinks.
“Look Sandy, this baby bird’s close to death. There’s not a lot we can do for it.”
Sandy appears to be ignoring her friend. Her eyes are scrunched shut in concentration, as if she is trying to remember something.
“April, just find some dead twigs and um…”Sandy is concentrating hard on what she needs.
“Let’s get going Sandy. There’s nothing we can do.” April adjusts the load of her backpack on her shoulder.
“JUST DO IT!” Sandy’s eyes bore intently into April’s.
April’s stunned. Sandy is bookish and more passive. It’s April who is the aggressive, athletic one. Being a year older at sixteen, and physically stronger, April has no reason to take this from Sandy. For some reason, April feels strangely compelled to comply. She begins to hunt for twigs and promptly finds a few along the roadside.
“First page of poetry. . . first page,” Sandy mutters to herself as she scans the ground. “Dead sticks, live flowers. . .” Sandy spies a dandelion and crouches down to pick it. She stops. “No . . . that’s not right.” Standing again, her face points skyward and with closed eyes, Sandy concentrates again.
“Red as beach tea, “Sandy says quizzically. “Red as beach tea,” she repeats. “OH, the wild roses. They grow on beach dunes. “Sandy looks crushed. The dunes at Sachuest Beach or even Easton’s Beach are at least a twenty-minute run from where they are.
April looks to where she thought she had seen beach rose bushes. The ground is barren.
“Stay here, I’ll find some, “April says; touched by her friend’s grief. April rushes down the lane, and then realizes, where am I going to find a beach rose bush?
She breaks free of the woods and happens to come upon the first house built on this road. There, on the corner of the lot, is a beach rose bush in full bloom. It’s large, beautiful, and fragrant flowers appear a dusky red in the setting sun. Almost poppy-like, the flowers’ wide-open petals are a red contrast to the green mint-like leaves on the rest of the plant.
Beach rose bushes, along with the beach grasses, are important plants for anchoring the sand dunes of the local beaches. April quickly harvests a flower, feverishly hoping that the owner, old man McGill, would not see her. There’d be hell to pay if he catches me picking his flowers. That man was born miserable, April thinks.
Running back to Sandy, April lays the blossoms on the pile of sticks. Then she kneels down, next to Sandy.
Sandy picks up the dying baby bird and lays it upon the soft bed of flowers. She kneels back down, next to the baby bird. Sandy again closes her eyes, as if she is trying to remember something. April is perplexed. Sandy’s got a photographic memory and never struggles to remember anything, no matter how mundane. Sandy begins to recite a poem.
TWO FRIENDS OF THE CIRCLE.
A Circle of Friends
Forms from Two.
Mends a Life
Of a baby so New.
Dead Sticks
Live Flowers
Red As beach Tea.
Join poetry’s Powers
To keep a bird Free.
Allow unbelieving Maeve
And her friend of crushed Stone.
A life they both Save
Joins two Friends,
Never Alone.
Deflection #1
Protects Two.
From the Evil
They Undo.
Nothing happens. Sandy is devastated. “It has to work, it has to work, “she moans. The mother bird’s frantic calls wither to a resigned mourning.
“Maybe you need to say it with me? “Sandy questions.
April is about to say ‘no way’ when she sees the look in Sandy’s eyes. April mentally shrugs and thinks, What’s it going to hurt.
“OK, Sandy.” They join hands instinctively. April tries to repeat the words. They feel foreign in her mouth. She especially stumbles over the name ‘Maeve’. It slurs around her tongue and past her lips to escape into the cool late afternoon air.
At the end of the poem, nothing happens. Sandy is crushed. She sinks her head down close to her knees and begins to cry; tears wetting her jeans.
April feels awful. She reaches out a hand to touch her friend’s back, but before she can make contact a brilliant flash of light knocks both friends into the air and onto their backs and elbows.
April’s eyes overload .She can hear some excited chirping from the mother bird and what sounds like chirping is coming from the baby bird. As her vision begins to clear, she sees Sandy on her knees.
Sandy gently cups the bird in her hands and slowly begins to stand. She turns and raises the baby bird back into the nest with its mother and siblings.
Two miracles occur this day, April thinks. The first miracle is saving the baby bird’s life, and the second is mother bird’s acceptance of the baby touched by human hands.
Sandy knows better. Saving the baby bird’s life is the only miracle to her. A part-time birdwatcher, she knows from her readings that the rejection of a human-touched baby bird is an old wives tale. Most birds have a very poor sense of smell. They do become upset by the presence of people near their babies. This mother bird seems grateful, though, and accepts her baby back.
April stands up in a daze. Both girls’ backsides are covered with the dust from the dirt along the roadside. It has to be a dream, April thinks. Both look up at the nest. Sandy turns to April. She’s crying again.
April is pretty sure that they aren’t tears of sadness. How can they be? We just saved a baby bird’s life, April thinks.
Sandy opens her mouth as if to say something, but no words come out. Without warning, she bolts down the road, towards home.
April is stunned. She doesn’t know what to do. She picks up the backpack Sandy’s forgotten, tries to dust herself off, and begins to head home. On the way home, April realizes something. My own middle name is Maeve! A shudder ran up her back. April sprints the rest of the way home.
GO TO CHAPTER 2
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