The Last House on Needless Street(12)

The next day Mommy set up the bird tables in the yard. She put up six wire feeders to attract the smaller birds. She hung them high from poles so the squirrels couldn’t steal. She put out cheese for the ground feeders, wooden hutches filled with grain, plastic tubes to dispense sunflower seeds, balls of fat dangling from string, a block of rock salt.

‘Birds are the descendants of giants,’ Mommy said. ‘Once they ruled the earth. When things got bad they made themselves small and agile and learned to live in treetops. The birds are a lesson in endurance. These are real, wild animals, Teddy – better than a key ring.’

At first I was afraid to feed or watch them. ‘Are you going to take them away from me?’ I asked her.

She said, surprised, ‘How could I? They do not belong to you.’ I saw that she was showing me something that was safe to love.

All that was before the thing with the mouse, of course – before Mommy began to be afraid of me. Now the Murderer has taken the birds away, even though Mommy said that it couldn’t be done.

I had to stop because I’m getting upset.

All that happened fifteen years before Little Girl With Popsicle disappeared from that same beach on the lake. The lake, Little Girl With Popsicle, the Bird Murderer. I don’t like to think that all these things are connected, but events have a way of echoing through. Maybe there are secrets in that story after all. No more recording memories. I didn’t like that.





Dee





It happened on the second day of vacation. Dad took a couple of wrong turns on the drive up from Portland, but when they smelled water in the air they knew they were back on track.

Dee remembers the fine details best; the popsicle in Lulu’s hand leaking sticky green onto her fingers, the drag of the wooden stick on her own purple tongue. There was sand in her shoes, and sand in her shorts, which she didn’t like. There was another girl on a neighbouring blanket of about her age and they caught one another’s eye. The other girl rolled her eyes and stuck a finger down her throat, gagging. Dee giggled. Families were so embarrassing.

Lulu came to Dee. The straps on her white flip-flops were twisted up. ‘Please help, Dee Dee.’ Both sisters had their mother’s eyes; brown, shot through with muddy green, wide and black-lashed. Dee felt the familiar, helpless recognition, on looking into Lulu’s eyes. She knew herself to be the lesser version.

‘Sure,’ Dee said. ‘You big baby.’

Lulu squawked and hit her on the head, but Dee untwisted the straps and put the white flip-flops on her feet anyway, and made the moose face, and then they were friends again. Dee took her to the water fountain to drink, but Lulu didn’t like it because the water tasted like pencils.

‘Let’s read minds,’ Lulu said. It was her new thing that summer. Last year it had been ponies.

‘Fine,’ Dee said.

Lulu took ten steps away, out of whispering range. She kept her eyes fixed on Dee and made a cup of her hands. She murmured into them passionately. ‘What did I say?’ she asked. ‘Did you hear anything?’

Dee thought. ‘I think I did,’ she said slowly.

‘What, Dee Dee?’ Lulu almost vibrated with yearning.

‘It was so weird. I was just standing here, minding my own business, and then I heard your voice saying right in my ear, “I am such a pain and my big sister Dee is the best.”’

‘No! I never said that!’

‘Weird,’ said Dee. ‘That’s exactly what I heard.’

‘That’s not right!’ Lulu was on the verge of tears. ‘You have to do it properly, Dee Dee.’

Dee held her. She felt the shape of her sister, her small bones, her soft skin warmed by the sun. The nape of her exposed neck, soft dark hair as short as a boy’s. Lulu hated her head to get hot. This summer she had wanted to shave it off. Their mother had only narrowly won that battle.

Dee was sorry she had teased. ‘I’m just being silly,’ she said. ‘Let’s try again.’ Dee cupped her hands over her mouth. She felt her own warm breath fill her palms. ‘I like my new dungarees, that I bought in the sale,’ she whispered. ‘But I can’t wear them until the fall, because it’s too hot for dungarees.’ Dee imagined the words travelling to her sister’s ear. She tried to do it properly.

‘You’re thinking of dancing school,’ Lulu said. ‘You dream about it and you think Mom and Dad are mean.’

Dee lowered her hands. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said slowly.

‘I read your mind,’ said Lulu. ‘Whisper me something else, Dee Dee.’

Dee lowered her lips into the warm cup of her palms.

‘You’re thinking about Greg in homeroom,’ Lulu says. ‘You want to French kiss with him.’

‘I knew it,’ Dee said with rising fury. ‘You’ve been reading my diary. You little snoop.’ If Lulu told Mom and Dad about the Greg thing, they would be mad. They might even reconsider the conservatory. Dee was due to start at Pacific in September. But she had to prove she could behave herself. That meant no boys, good grades, keeping to curfew and looking after her little sister.

‘Don’t, DeeDee,’ Lulu said. ‘You’re not supposed to yell at me.’ Her voice had gone up an octave and she sounded much younger. She knew that she had gone too far.