When My Heart Joins the Thousand(8)

“What happened to that bird, anyway?”

The familiar, nasally voice grates like sandpaper on my brain. I turn to see Toby—a newly hired part-timer—standing with a can of grape soda in one hand. His long face is speckled with acne, and a few straggly strands of brown hair hang out from under his cap. “He was injured in the wild,” I reply. “Probably by a coyote or a fox. His wing was badly broken and had to be amputated.”

Toby raises his soda can and takes a long slurp. “That sucks,” he says. “Nothing more depressing than a bird that can’t fly.”

“I can think of a few things more depressing than that. The Holocaust, for instance.”

Toby laughs, loud enough to make me flinch. “True.” He takes another swig and wipes the back of one hand across his mouth. “Hey, can I feed him?”

I bristle. Toby mostly works the concession stand and changes the garbage bags; he’s not qualified to deal with the animals. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s not used to you.”

“So what? It’s not that complicated, is it?” Toby knocks on the cage bars. “Hey! Hey, birdy!”

Chance shrinks away.

I tense. “Don’t do that. He perceives sudden movements as a threat.”

Toby grins, showing a pair of oversized incisors. “Relax. I’m just messing with him. Don’t you have a sense of humor?”

I want to ask him how he’d feel if a noisy giant locked him in a cage and then started banging on the walls. Would he find that funny? “You should be working,” I say. “You’re not supposed to have beverages while you’re on the clock.”

“I’m on my lunch break.” He digs around in one ear with a pinkie, then glances at his watch. “Guess I should go clock back in. Be seeing you.” He walks away.

I breathe in slowly, then out. I doubt he’ll last another week. Ms. Nell has no patience for slackers; it’s one of her more admirable traits. I just have to wait until he gets fired.

I fetch another bag of dead mice from the storage shed and go to feed the snakes in the reptile house. On the way, I pass a young couple lingering near the hyena enclosure. Their arms are draped around each other. The boy whispers something into the girl’s ear, and she giggles and kisses him.

Watching people share affection with each other in public has always made me uncomfortable. But now, for some reason, I can’t look away. They both look so happy. They make it seem so easy, so natural.

The girl notices me staring, and the smile fades. Her lips form the word creep. She takes the boy’s hand and leads him away, and I’m left standing alone. A dull heat spreads over my forehead and the back of my neck, burning in my ears.

Creep.

The world falls away, and I am six years old, approaching a group of girls on the playground during recess. My heart skips, and there’s a hard little nut lodged somewhere behind my belly button. The girls are giggling and talking together. As I approach, they fall silent and turn to stare at me. Their smiles disappear.

My legs quiver. I twist my shirt and grip one braid, pulling until I feel the tingling pressure in my scalp. When I open my mouth, the words come out all in a rush: “Hi my name is Alvie Fitz can I play with you.”

The girls exchange glances. They’re talking without words, beaming silent messages with their eyes, something I have never learned how to do.

A blond girl turns to me with a wide smile. “Okay, let’s play a game. It’s called ‘puppy.’ Since you’re new, you can be the puppy.”

I keep pulling on my braid with one hand and twisting my shirt with the other. “How do you play.”

“Get down on your hands and knees and start barking.”

The tightness in my stomach loosens. That’s easy. I drop down to my hands and knees. “Ruff-ruff! Ruff-ruff-ruff!”

The girls giggle. I bark louder and faster, and they laugh harder. I pant and roll over, then I start to dig in the wood chips with my hands, and they practically squeal.

More kids are gathering now. Someone throws a stick and calls, “Fetch, girl!” I pick it up in my mouth. More laughter. Excitement flutters inside me. I never knew it would be so easy to make friends.

One girl looks at another, rolls her eyes, and twirls a finger around her temple.

I freeze. The stick falls from my mouth. I’ve seen people do that before. I know what it means.

A large group of children stands around me, staring, mouths open. My chest hurts. I’m breathing too fast, but I can’t stop.

Whispers echo in my ears. Weirdo. Freak.

I drop the stick and start to run. I run off the playground, away from the school, but I can still hear their voices, echoing over and over inside my head.

Back in my apartment, I grab a box of Cocoa Puffs from the kitchen, sit on the couch, and turn on the TV. I scoop out handfuls of dry cereal and eat them as I watch a rerun of Cosmos. My gaze strays to the laptop sitting on my coffee table.

Has Stanley sent me another email since last night?

I turn off the TV and sit, turning a Rubik’s Cube over in my hands. I twist the rows of color this way and that, not really trying to solve it, just focusing on the smooth plastic under my fingertips, the click as a section snaps into place. My gaze wanders, again, to my laptop.

Talking to someone online should be safe enough. As long as I’m careful about keeping my distance, confining the conversation to non-risky topics, what harm could it do?