The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney (5 page)

Chapter 6

I
went inside and tossed the bills on the kitchen table. My mother was sitting there, sipping a cup of tea and talking to the ghost of Mr. Tillman, a local farmer who had Crossed Over in April.

“I don't think you have to worry anymore about Eddie,” she was saying calmly. “I was at Rita's house just the other day, and he's doing fine. Back to eating table scraps and running all over the lawn.”

I carefully didn't look in his direction. “Mr. Tillman?” I mouthed at my mother. She nodded yes, then took another sip of tea as she listened. Mr. Tillman was a burly, red-faced man who wore faded overalls and a constantly doleful expression. The latter was due to the fact that, as my mother said, he just Could Not Let Go. For the last six months they had covered everything from whether the chickens were laying to how the old barn was holding up. His current fixation was a pig named Eddie, who, I gathered, had been much more than a pig. More like a member of the family.

“I don't trust that Rita,” Mr. Tillman said. “I don't know why Frank married her. And she never liked Eddie. I wouldn't put it past her to have him butchered!” He added darkly, “That woman craves pork chops, you know.”

My mother glanced through the mail as she said,

“Oh, no, she knows how much he always meant to you.” She shook her head at the bills and then absent-mindedly stuffed them in a cracked sugar bowl.

“Well, if you say so.” Mr. Tillman didn't sound too convinced. “Maybe you'd let her know that Eddie loves potato peelings in his dinner—”

I ran up one flight of stairs and heard doors banging and voices yelling, sure signs that at least two of my sisters were already home. I dashed up another flight, darted into the sanctuary of my bedroom, and closed the door with a sigh of relief. As I walked over to open a window, I caught a brief glimpse of myself in the tarnished dresser mirror.

I stopped and looked more closely. In the last year or so I've found myself doing that more and more often, frowning into mirrors, turning my head this way and that, trying to answer an imponderable question: What do I really look like to other people?

My mother says that I'm pretty, but she has to say that; it's her job as a mother. I'm afraid to ask my sisters. Some of them (Oriole, Wren, Dove) would reassure me, but I would suspect that they were just being kind and then I would sink into a depression at the thought that I was really ugly but no one wanted to tell me. Others (Raven, Lark, Linnet) would laugh and joke or make some sarcastic comment that would make me both angry and insecure, and then I would sink into a depression at the thought, etc. etc.

The weird thing is that sometimes I think I look, well, maybe not
pretty
pretty, but pretty enough. On good days I like my eyes because they're large and fringed with dark lashes and an unusual color (gray), and I like my dark brown hair (even though I wish it were curly, instead of straight as string), and I like my pale complexion. But on bad days I think I look like a troll: pasty-faced from living in some underground cave, with googly alien eyes and lank hair in a particularly boring shade of brown.

Obviously, both propositions can't be true at the same time. One must be true, and one must be false. But how to know which is which?

Normally I can spend hours contemplating this philosophical problem, but today I had other things to think about. I threw myself on my bed and looked around my room, gloating (for the hundredth time) about the sweet deal I'd made last year when I moved to the attic.

Before that I had a room on the second floor, along with all my sisters. After one too many nights spent listening to the endless family drama—shouting, tears, graphic threats of death and dismemberment—that echoed through the halls on any given night, I'd grabbed my pillow, sheets, and quilt and traipsed up the stairs. Now I was farther away from our one bathroom, and I had another flight of stairs to climb every night, but that was a small price to pay for being able to live in solitary splendor, high under the eaves of our rambling old house.

There was enough room for a huge oak bed and dresser, an old rocker, a wall of bookshelves, and a castoff kitchen table that I use as a desk. True, none of the walls is exactly square, it's drafty in winter, and there's an eccentric alcove to the right of the closet door that serves absolutely no purpose, but I love it.

The very best part, though, are the two large windows that look out over the backyard. Our house has a double-decker porch that runs around two sides of the house. Soon after I had moved into the attic, I discovered that I could crawl out onto the roof of the second-story porch. From this lofty perch I could survey the houses and yards and streets for blocks in each direction.

The sky was darkening already, and I had a lot to think about, so I grabbed my dad's binoculars and slipped out the window. I raised the glasses and focused on the evening star.

If only Mrs. Winkle wasn't always so
vague
. Her sudden backyard vision had raised more questions than it had answered.

Like, for example, who was the young man who was pointing out the right direction for me? The first person I thought of was the ghost that had mysteriously appeared in the midst of an otherwise ordinary history class.

Then I had another thought that wasn't quite so cheerful. What if the young man was my father? That would mean my father had actually—I forced myself to think the unthinkable—died. The fact that Mrs. Winkle said he was young didn't mean anything. First, everyone under the age of fifty looked young to her, and second, many spiritualists swore that in the afterlife you got to return to the age when you were happiest in this life.

And it would make a horrible kind of sense that my father had been happiest when he was young, before he got married and had seven daughters.

I shivered. The air was getting chilly, and my thoughts weren't exactly warming. I scooted back inside and flopped down on my bed. Staring at the ceiling, I tried to turn my mind to more cheerful topics, but it was no use. All the old tapes about my father's disappearance started playing in my head with tedious monotony.

It happened when I was very young, so I can't swear to his motives, but this is how the story was told to me: He was an amateur naturalist (people often wonder why my sisters and I are all named after birds; that's one mystery solved). He was lured out west by a roaming band of graduate students from a nearby university. They had a grant, they told him; they wanted to study a rare ornithological species rumored to be nesting in Colorado or Wyoming; they needed someone to help them take notes, drive the pickup, and cook their dinners by the campfire. Would he join them?

He packed his suitcase in five minutes. As he ran out the door, he called good-bye to us all and promised to write. Eight postcards, with barely legible but cheerful scrawls on the back, came that first year. Three postcards, even less legible and perhaps a touch more desperate, arrived in year two. One more postcard, postmarked Paraguay and stained with what looked like either blood or cherry cough syrup, arrived the next year. And then nothing.

I asked my mother to tell me that story so many times that sometimes I think that I can actually remember it all happening. My own memories of him can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I remember that he was a lanky man with smiling blue eyes and a bald spot on the back of his head.

I remember that he used to carry me piggyback up to bed, taking the stairs at a run so that I squealed and laughed.

I remember that he loved roaming through the woods, searching for leaves, twigs, and berries to make a foul-smelling tea, which he claimed cured a dozen ailments from the common cold to absentmindedness.

I remember that he was mild-mannered on the surface and incredibly stubborn down deep, where it really matters. When he was asked to do something he didn't want to do (and I have a feeling that he was badgered on an hourly basis, based on personal experience of living in this family), he would at first simply say no.

If the petitioner continued trying to convince him that really, if he only thought about it, he actually
did
want to adopt five homeless cats or fix the sagging front porch step or build an elaborate treehouse in the backyard during a late-summer heat wave, he would then say, “I would Rather Not.” Somehow he managed to capitalize those last two words just by making his voice a little frostier, and his listener would be unable to utter another word of protest or persuasion. End of argument. No further discussion needed. Case closed.

Now that I'm older, I think about what the days must have been like for him, living in a huge rickety house with nine females, not to mention all the ghosts, which, even if he couldn't see them, still managed to make their presence felt. All in all, I can understand why he might run.

A few years after he left, well-meaning friends and neighbors began to suggest that we should conduct a special reading to see if he had gone to Summerland. My mother refused all offers with a vague smile.

“Oh, I'm sure he's still among us,” she would say. “I would feel it if he were no longer walking this earth.”

Of course, that's what I wanted to believe, too. But sometimes I wonder. If he had died, surely he would contact me? Surely Sparrow Delaney, who sees everybody else's loved ones on a far too regular basis, would get a visit from her own father? The fact that I haven't seen his spirit makes me feel both hopeful and depressed.

Hopeful, because that meant he was probably still alive.

Depressed, because if he's still alive, why hasn't he come back?

Hopeful, because maybe he just hasn't come back
yet
. Maybe he wants to return, dreams of it even, but he's been imprisoned in a South American jail or icebound in the Antarctic or shipwrecked on an atoll in the Pacific.

Depressed, because the worst thing would be to know that he has died and still chooses not to come back for one last message.

As always when I think about my father, I turn my head to stare at my bedroom walls. Soon after moving in, I papered the walls with old maps from the local junk store. They're interestingly faded and discolored and look particularly nice in the golden glow of my bedside lamp. When I stare at the tapestry of small towns and hidden back roads, I try to sense my father's presence somewhere in the wide, wide world.

On good nights I imagine him traipsing through the southwestern desert or sitting in the piney woods up north, peering through his new binoculars. After a moment he lowers the binoculars, a faraway look on his face as he suddenly realizes that he misses us. He grabs his gear and heads for his battered pickup, determined to drive night and day until he gets back home.

On bad nights I imagine him sitting in front of a small campfire in a tropical jungle clearing, sipping a cup of herbal tea, and thinking about the family he left behind. Weighing the pros and cons, perhaps, of returning. And somehow, every night, deciding that when it comes to a joyous homecoming, he would Rather Not.

Chapter 7

By
noon the next day I was already down five points for getting lost on the way to French, up two for a fast sprint that got me to class just as the late bell rang, then down three for discovering that I had forgotten everything about how French people use the past imperfect tense in conversation (or, indeed, why they would want to).

After struggling through an hour of
le français
, I walked to my locker. Jack was leaning against the wall. He was wearing his army jacket again, despite the heat, and surveying the passing crowd like a scornful prince deciding which commoner should be thrown into the dungeon. He spotted me and raised one eyebrow in recognition; other than that he didn't move a muscle.

“Hey,” he finally said.

“Oh, hi!” That was terrible. Too bright, too enthusiastic, too head cheerleader for words. Dial it down a bit, I told myself, even as I felt myself hold out my hand like a glad-handing businessman and heard myself say, “I'm Sparrow.”

Jack looked down at my hand, then glanced up at me with an ironic smile. He took my hand and shook it solemnly.

“Yeah, I know. You sit one row over in history, remember? But it's nice to meet you
formally
.”

I blushed and pulled my hand away. “Yeah, me you too,” I muttered idiotically.

Jack's smile widened. “It's okay. I don't bite.”

“What's that mean?” I snapped defensively.

“Nothing. You just seem nervous, that's all.”

“I'm not nervous!” Even more defensive, even more snappish, and now I sounded shrill too. This was going
so well
.

“My mistake. You're cool as a cucumber.” He seemed ready to change the subject. “Look, I thought we'd better get together and talk about our history project.“

“Yes, good idea,” I said, my entire being focused on nodding intelligently and looking bright and interested.

I smelled autumn leaves and woodsmoke. Behind

Jack's left shoulder a shape flickered, then solidified into the ghost of room 12B. He winked. I frowned and pointedly turned my attention back to Jack . . .

. . . Who had moved on to complaining about our history project. “We only have a few more days to get the topic approved, and then there's all the research Grimes wants us to do,” he was saying. “Ten sources, footnotes, a bibliography! He must think his class is the only one we're taking!”

Behind his back the ghost was watching me intently. At least he wasn't trying to talk to me. But somehow I found his steady, silent gaze even more unnerving. In fact he looked as if he were taking my measure in some way.

“Mmm,” I murmured, trying to sound suitably outraged while keeping my eyes firmly fixed on Jack's face. “Well, I was thinking maybe we could research the Seneca. You know, the Indian tribe that used to live in this area . . .”

My voice trailed off in the face of his disbelieving stare.

“Don't you think that's a little, I don't know, fourth grade?” he asked. “What are we going to do, make a diorama out of modeling clay and Popsicle sticks?”

I clenched my hands, willing myself to remain unflustered. (This was especially hard because my mind had immediately flashed back to my own wobbly model of a Native American longhouse that I had, indeed, made in fourth grade.)

He seemed to read my mind. “Don't tell me.” He grinned.

“It was papier-mâché, not Popsicle sticks, and I got an A, for your information,” I said. He laughed. I bit my lip to keep from smiling, but it didn't work.

“Okay, scratch that idea. Maybe something with politics? I think there was a congressional debate held around here back in the 1800s, I'm not sure of the exact date, we could look it up—”

“Too obscure.”

Jack was still smiling. He seemed to be taking an evil delight in shooting down my ideas one by one. I should have just shut up. But one of my great personality flaws—according to Professor Trimble, who keeps a long and detailed list—is stubbornness.

So instead I suggested, a bit wildly, “Well, in the nineteenth century, one of the main industries around here was textiles. That could be kind of interesting—”

Even the ghost was shaking his head sadly at this.

Jack looked at me for a long moment, his expression blank. Then he said just one word. “Textiles?”

The delivery was so deadpan that I almost smiled again, but I caught myself in time. “Fine! You think of something then!”

“I already have. I heard about this place—”

The first bell rang. I glanced nervously at my watch. “We'd better get going.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “We wouldn't want to be
tardy
.” Jack gave the last word a sarcastic twist, as if he thought the only people who cared about being late were grade-grubbing, authority-obeying morons. He started moving in the direction of our classroom, but I think his pace could fairly be described as leisurely.

“So you heard about this place?” I prompted as I walked next to him, but just a little bit faster.

I could feel a deep chill as the ghost strolled companionably at my side. I tried to ignore it, but there's really nothing worse than the bone-numbing cold that spirits give off. It makes you feel as if all the air has been sucked out of your lungs and you'll never be able to breathe again.

“I think we should do a report on Spookyville.”

“Spooky—” I almost choked. Spookyville, of course, was what some people called Lily Dale. It was not an affectionate nickname.

“Yeah, everyone there says they can talk to ghosts,” Jack went on. “I think it sounds cool, in a freaky kind of way. And it's been around for more than a hundred years, so it's historical.”

My mind raced as I tried to think of an argument, any argument, to counter this reasoning.

“I'm not sure how
interesting
that would be,” I said weakly.

He gave me a look of utter disbelief. “Are you kidding? Everyone's interested in ghosts. Even my parents were talking about it last night. Within ten minutes a perfectly normal conversation became this huge argument—” He stopped in mid-sentence. I glanced over at him, but his gaze skittered off mine, and he seemed to develop an unnatural interest in a nearby poster that implored someone, anyone, to run for student council.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Now he was suddenly moving faster. Now, it seemed, he couldn't
wait
to get to class.

I sped up until I was practically double-timing it through the hall. “Why did they start arguing?”

He wouldn't meet my eyes. “Ah, my mother's more of a believer, I guess. My dad thinks that psychics are all con artists.”

“Why does he say that?” I tried not to sound indignant.

“He's read about all kinds of tricks they use to fool people,” Jack said. “Like, some psychics have friends who hang out with the audience before the show starts and listen to what they're saying about their dead relatives, then they give the psychic notes. The psychic goes onstage and miraculously has all the details, right down to what brand of dentures Grandpa used to wear.”

We stopped in front of the classroom door. His voice had been getting louder, and his face was a little flushed. “They make money off of people's grief,” he said, finishing up. “It's disgusting.”

He paused for a second, as if recalibrating his tone, dialing it back from unreasonably irate to offhandedly casual. “But even if it is all a con, it would be kinda cool, to figure out how they do it,” he said. “You know, like in that old movie
The Sting
, when Paul Newman and Robert Redford outcon the con men?”

“I never saw it.”

“My brother loves that movie—” Jack looked down at the floor and shook his head slightly. Then he looked back at me, his eyes shuttered. “You should watch it some time. It's on DVD.”

I didn't want to admit that we didn't even have a working TV, let alone a DVD player. I matched his voice. Cool for cool. “Oh, yeah, I'll check it out,” I said airily.

We went into class and sat down, with the ghost taking his usual seat behind Jack.

“All right, people, settle down,” Sergeant Grimes's voice boomed out.

Jack leaned forward and whispered, “I think we should start by visiting the Spookyville museum. I've got stuff to do this weekend, but maybe next Saturday?”

I stared at him. My mind was blank.

Then the ghost helpfully snapped his fingers in the air. I jumped and blurted out, “Yeah, sure. That sounds fine.”

The ghost nodded encouragingly just as Sergeant Grimes exclaimed, “Delaney! Dawson! Class is now in session!”

Jack slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes.

I blushed and turned to face the front of the room, but not before one last glance at the ghost. He gave me a wink and disappeared.