Roll Read online

  Sutton’s hair.

  Feeling like a trespasser (which, technically, I am), I lope up her driveway. As I hit the edge of the tree line, I veer off, heading for the field. I make it to the edge of the clearing just in time to see Sutton fiddling with a little door on the side of the shed. She swings it open, revealing a hole in the side of the shed about six inches wide. The hole is lined with thin, metal bars, almost like a tiny jail cell.

  Sutton steps back.

  Pigeons surge forward, pressing their heads against the bottom of the metal bars, which swing outward in response. The birds flap upward out of the hole in a confusion of gray and white wings. Sutton tilts her head back. She’s wearing a battered Nationals baseball cap. It’s too big, but I can see why she wears it. It’s bright out here. I bring my hand up, squinting against the early-morning glare.

  I’ll just watch for a minute, and then I’ll get back to my run.

  The birds swoop upward, circling one another in widening arcs. I stand hidden in the trees like some sort of hermit. Anthropophobia, I think. The fear of people.

  The birds are gathering closer to one another now, flying back and forth in a pack. Still, none of them are . . . rolling . . . yet. Maybe they don’t do it every time they fly. Maybe they’re just going to do laps today.

  But a second later, one of the pigeons tumbles backward, dropping through the sky. The others follow suit.

  Well, most of them, anyway.

  Not all of them actually roll at the same time. A few stragglers just kind of float around, waiting for the rest to catch up with them. Like maybe they think the others won’t notice.

  It’s a pretty good strategy. I’ve used it in gym class.

  I stare up at the birds, my eyes watering in the sunlight. Even though I know it’s coming, I still feel a little blip of excitement every time they roll. I wonder if this is what people who watch sports feel like every time someone scores a point.

  “I thought I was the only not sleeping in on summer vacation.”

  At the sound of Sutton’s voice, I guiltily drop my gaze from the birds. She waves pointedly at me.

  Great. So much for being hidden.

  I make my way toward the shed, my feet dragging a little. “Sorry,” I say, feeling stupid. “I didn’t mean to spy.”

  “Let me guess,” Sutton says, pointing toward my legs. “You were out running again?”

  I look down at my athletic shorts. They’re black, and knee-length, and kind of shiny. They make a strange whisking noise every time I move.

  “Um, yeah. I’m going out for cross-country in the fall.”

  As the birds launch into another roll, Sutton looks up over my shoulder, clicking away at her little tape measure thing. “You like to run?” she asks distractedly.

  I nudge the toe of my running shoe against a clod of dirt. “Yeah. I guess. I mean, I’m not really sure yet. It’s only been eight weeks.”

  Sutton looks dubious. “You’ve been doing it for eight weeks and you’re still not sure if you like it?”

  “I will like it,” I insist. “I just need to build up my endurance a little more.” And somehow figure out a way to make the actual running part less . . . terrible. Maybe I should start listening to audiobooks. I make a mental note to check out the library’s collection. “My dad was a cross-country coach for a long time,” I tell Sutton. “He says the secret to running is running.”

  Sutton’s grin is surprising, but in a good way. “My dad says the secret to rolling pigeons is luck. Hey, do you want an Oreo?” she asks suddenly. “I keep a bag in the coop.”

  I hesitate. I should say no. Get back to my run before my quad muscles stiffen and fall off, or whatever.

  “Sure,” I hear myself saying. “Thanks.”

  “No prob.” Sutton points toward a dilapidated lawn chair. As she disappears into the shed, I lower myself into the blue-and-white-striped chair.

  After all, I can always run later.

  CHAPTER 7

  SUTTON HOLDS THE package up. “Want any more?”

  I’ve already had eight. “Maybe just one,” I say, reaching for the bag. When you think about it, there are worse things in the world than too many cookies. Unless you’re diabetic, I guess.

  I love Oreos. Usually, I unscrew the top and lick the frosting out first, then kind of weld the two halves back together with spit before I eat them.

  Something tells me Sutton would be grossed out by this, though. Mom would call this “situational awareness.” Dad would just say “common sense.” Either way, I think I’ve made the right decision.

  “So what’s your story?” Sutton asks. She takes off her baseball cap, scratching the top of her head. Her strange-colored hair ripples over her shoulders.

  Ripples over her shoulders. I’m a real poet today.

  I pull my eyes away. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t really have a story.”

  “You know, like, what do your parents do? How long have you lived here? Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Sutton asks, rattling the questions off rapid-fire.

  “Um, my mom’s a vet, and my dad works in construction. We used to live in town, but we just moved into my grandma’s old house. And no, I’m an only child.”

  “Me, too,” Sutton says. “It’s great, right?”

  “Being an only child?”

  “Yeah. I mean, can you imagine having to share your room with someone? Although maybe if I had brothers and sisters my parents would be more relaxed. Like, whenever I screw up, they act like it’s some huge tragedy, or a cry for help, or something. Like everyone hasn’t gotten detention before.”

  I shift uncomfortably in my chair. Partially because the chair is uncomfortable, but mainly because I’ve never had detention. I’ve never even been close.

  Sutton catches my expression. “It wasn’t a big deal,” she says hurriedly. “This kid at my old school was being a jerk. Grabbing my phone, and stuff. I was just taking it back, and he fell. He told everyone I shoved him.”

  I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “But you didn’t?”

  She grins. Two huge dimples appear on either side of her cheeks. They’re very symmetrical.

  “Maybe just a little,” she confesses. “But he totally deserved it. Anyway, that’s when my dad got the idea for the pigeons. I think he read some article about the importance of parent–child bonding, or something.”

  I glance around the clearing. One chair, one water bottle . . . For something that’s supposed to be a bonding activity, Sutton seems to spend a lot of time doing it by herself. “So does he work mornings then? Your dad?”

  “No. He’s in the hospital. Mayo.”

  I blink. The Mayo Clinic is in Rochester. It’s kind of famous, as far as hospitals go.

  “Is he . . .” I trail off. I don’t really know what I’m asking.

  “He was in a car accident. Right after we got here. His legs are pretty screwed up,” Sutton says matter-of-factly. Her voice sounds totally normal. Like we’re chitchatting about the weather.

  The Oreos feel heavy in my stomach all of a sudden.

  “So he’s going to be okay? How long does he have to stay in the hospital?”

  Sutton shrugs. “They don’t know. At least another couple of weeks, while he starts rehab, and then we’ll go from there. He’ll be in a wheelchair, so we’ll need to put in ramps, and stuff, too,” she says, looking up toward the house. “My mom’s pretty stressed.”

  I search through the corners of my brain, looking for the right thing to say.

  Whatever it is, I can’t seem to find it.

  Sutton grins a little, obviously amused by the look on my face. “Look, do me a favor and don’t get all weird about it, okay? He’s going to be fine.”

  “Okay,” I say, relieved.

  “Cool,” Sutton says. “Thanks.”

  It feels like a good time to change the subject. I stand up, Oreo crumbs raining to the ground. “Can I see inside the shed?”

  “The coo
p?” Sutton shrugs. “Yeah, if you want. It’s not that interesting.”

  The shed, or coop, as it’s apparently called, looks like your standard eight-by-ten gardening shed. Mom would call it “a soothing shade of taupe.” Dad would say it was brown.

  I point toward the flat roof of the coop, where the separate, smaller wire cage is sitting. There are two pigeons inside. “Why are they in there?” I ask. “Did they do something wrong?”

  Sutton grins again. “What, like pigeon jail? No, the guy we buy our supplies from, in Rochester, is a fancier, too. He knows Dad and I are just getting started, so the last time we were there he gave me a couple of squeakers. It was really nice of him.”

  “Fancier? Squeaker?” I have no idea what Sutton is talking about. “Is there some sort of secret pigeon code I don’t know about?” I ask.

  She laughs.

  “Fanciers are people who raise pigeons. It sounds ridiculous, I know. I think it’s from, like, the eighteen-hundreds. And squeakers are just young birds,” she clarifies. “I’m letting them settle in before I start flying them. They’ve been watching the rest of the kit fly, so they should know what to do.” She looks worried. “At least I hope so.”

  She leads the way around the side of the coop, unlatching a small metal hook. Pulling open the plywood door, she pushes another, inner screen door to the side with her foot. “Home sweet home,” she tells me, stepping inside.

  I follow her into the shed, blinking a little at the dimness. Sutton reaches out, and the room fills with light. “Batteries,” she explains, tapping the touch light mounted to the wall. “There’s no electricity out here. Obviously.”

  The inside of the coop smells warm, and dusty, and somehow . . . alive. The shed is divided into two small rooms, separated by a wire wall with a built-in door. The part we’re standing in looks like a storeroom. Several clipboards full of paperwork are tacked up on the wall, and a shelf hangs to my right, its racks jumbled full of half-empty bottles, pens, and, for some reason, bingo daubers. I recognize the fat, colored marker thingies from when we used to visit Grandma at the retirement home.

  She was strangely good at bingo. Almost too good. Like she’d somehow figured out a way to cheat, or something.

  “We make our own feed,” Sutton says, gesturing to the heavy-duty paper bags leaning up against the wall on my other side. “Field peas, wheat, safflower, and milo,” she tells me, ticking off each bag with her finger. “You should see what they put in store-bought pigeon feed. It’s like junk food.”

  I step closer to the wire partition. I assume the birds live on the other side, when they’re not out flying. Small boxes for the pigeons to sleep in line the far wall. A false floor made of wire sits about an inch above the real floor, which is made of wood.

  It’s entirely covered in poop.

  White poop, gray poop, brown poop . . . I’ve never seen so much poop before in my life.

  I’m oddly impressed.

  You’d think all that poop would make the coop smell, well . . . terrible . . . but for some reason, it doesn’t. In fact, it’s kind of a pleasant smell, in a way.

  It’s hard to explain.

  “The floor pulls out,” Sutton tells me. “It makes it easier to clean. Here, let me show you.” Leading the way outside, she crouches down and tugs at a piece of plywood protruding from the bottom of the shed. It slides out easily, like a baking sheet from an oven.

  Maybe that’s not the best analogy.

  “So you’re training the pigeons by yourself?” I ask. “While your dad’s . . . gone?”

  “Yeah. He owes me big-time.”

  “So when’s the World Cup?” I ask. “That’s the big competition, right?”

  Sutton looks up at me suspiciously. “How do you know about the World Cup?”

  I don’t blush, exactly. There is, however, the distinct possibility that my cheeks feel slightly warmer than usual. “I kind of looked some stuff up on the internet,” I admit. Great. Now she probably thinks I’m some sort of weird internet stalker.

  Wait. Am I a weird internet stalker?

  “It’s not until April,” Sutton tells me. “But the National Championship Fly is only three and a half weeks away.”

  “The National Championship Fly?”

  “It’s an NBRC thing. The National Birmingham Roller Club,” she explains. “It’s kind of a big deal. Dad thinks we might even be able to place in the Regionals. There’s not a lot of people who fly around here.”

  I’m just opening my mouth to ask Sutton how they shipped the pigeons all the way from Washington, DC, when I hear a strange, low-pitched trilling noise. I’ve never heard anything like it before. Kind of like an old-fashioned telephone (a really old one, not just our landline), but muffled with a pillow.

  I look up.

  The kit is circling lower and lower, a few of the birds almost grazing the top of the shed with their wings. I tense as I’m surrounded by birds. I was expecting them to glide smoothly down to the little landing platform just inside the coop’s door, like planes on a runway, but they come in fast, awkwardly flapping their wings as they bank hard above the coop, first one way, and then another.

  Sutton steps forward, shooing the birds inside with a practiced flick of her hands. As the last bird stumbles to a stop on the platform, she scoops it up. Cradling her hands together, she uses her fingers to support its weight, trapping its feet still between her middle and ring fingers, and pinning its wings to its back with her thumbs.

  “Do you want to hold it?” She thrusts the pigeon in my direction.

  I swallow.

  Up close, the pigeon is smaller than I’d expected, a banana with feathers. Its head and tail are white, and its body is a hodgepodge of pale gray and white.

  It moves constantly, struggling to work its way out of Sutton’s grasp. Its hood-shaped head twists nearly all the way around, like a tiny Exorcist pigeon. Two small, perfectly black, perfectly round eyes are positioned on either side of its head.

  Between Sutton’s fingers, its pink, pronged feet are gnarly-looking. They could probably do some damage, if they wanted to.

  “Um . . .” I swallow again. “Maybe I could just look at it?”

  “Sure. Here.” Twisting her hand to accommodate the new grip, Sutton reaches out and spreads the pigeon’s wing, opening it as wide as she can. “It’s pretty, right?” Sutton asks. “It’s a lavender bald head.”

  The pigeon blinks up at me as I lean closer. Its neck feathers catch the sun, glinting purple, and teal, and green in the light. Like a prism, I think randomly. “Is it okay if I touch it?” I ask, surprising myself.

  “Yeah, of course.” She holds the bird closer.

  I reach out. For a second, I think the pigeon is going to peck at me with its beak, but it burrows its head into Sutton’s hand instead. I stroke the back of its neck, just barely brushing the feathers with the tips of my fingers.

  The feathers are soft. Really soft. Like the silk tablecloth Mom uses for Christmas, or when we have fancy company for dinner.

  I’ve never touched a bird before. We don’t have any pets, because Mom and Dad think I’m not ready for the responsibility yet. If we ever do get one, I’m sure it’ll be something normal, like a dog or a cat. Do people even have birds as pets anymore?

  The pigeon is quivering beneath my finger. It seems weird that it can be so freaked out by somebody touching its neck when, ten minutes ago, it was doing kamikaze backflips a mile up in the air.

  I can’t help wondering what it feels like to go for it like that. To just throw yourself backward through the air and roll.

  I jump a little as Sutton’s phone chimes, drawing away from the bird. Thrusting it into the coop, she pulls her cell out, making a face as she reads the text.

  “My mom. She’s big on eating breakfast together.”

  “What time is it?” I ask. Sutton holds up her phone for me to see.

  Seven fifteen. I should get back before Mom leaves for work.

  “I’
m going to head out,” I say. “Um, thanks for showing me the coop, though. And you know, the bird, and . . . everything. It was cool.”

  There’s an awkward pause for a second, but neither of us move to go.

  “Yeah, well.” Sutton twines a strand of bright red hair between her fingers. I think I’m finally starting to get used to the color. “I’m out here most mornings, if you ever get bored.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

  As I head down the driveway toward home, I wonder if Sutton and I are friends now.

  I hope so.

  CHAPTER 8

  MOM DOESN’T EVEN seem to notice how long I’ve been gone on my “run.” A quick smile, an even quicker kiss on the top of my head (which I do my best to dodge), and she’s out the door. I’m just about to grab a soda when her head pops back in.

  “Aiden’s dad is dropping him off, right?”

  I’d almost forgotten about Aiden coming over. “Yeah,” I tell Mom. “And his mom is going to take us to Three Men on her lunch break.”

  “Okay. You two behave. Good run?”

  I nod, feeling guilty. Mom smiles. Her front tooth sticks out just the tiniest bit. Not mine; perfect teeth, Dr. Sawyer says. I’m a meticulous flosser.

  After Mom leaves, I take a quick shower and then watch a couple of old episodes of Bananaman online. They’re not as good as the comic book, but they’re still pretty great. Especially the Nerks, these green, slimy aliens who are working with General Blight to take over the world.

  Aiden and I used to have this joke about the popular kids being Nerks who were trying to take over Westville. Only instead of laser blasters, they had iPhones.

  Mr. Sorenson drops Aiden off at nine, giving me his signature double honk and driver’s window wave. I wave back as Aiden gets out of the car, hitching a backpack up on his shoulder.

  “What’s in the bag?” I push open the world’s noisiest screen door, holding it for Aiden.

  He shrugs. “Just some stuff. Oh, and my mom sent cookies.”

  Mrs. Sorenson makes the most awesome chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had. Even my mom admits they’re the best.