CHAPTER ONE
           

Who was snickering?

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as if a spider had skittered over them. I frowned and glanced over my shoulder. The front row of students was red-faced with suppressed giggles. This was getting seriously weird. I turned to face the class, and the room erupted with laughter. Perspiration dampened my forehead. My cheeks burned.

            Putting my hands on my hips in what I hoped was an intimidating pose, I summoned up my sternest teacher-voice. “Would anyone like to tell me what’s so funny?”

The well-mannered girl sitting by the door bit back a smile and pointed at me. That’s when I caught my reflection in the classroom window. I was standing in front of a roomful of tenth graders, as naked as the loser in a strip poker marathon. I bolted for the door. My legs weren’t working, and I lost my balance.
             As the laughter rose to an unbearable shriek, my eyes snapped open. I was clutching my pillow, my legs entangled in bed sheets. I groaned and rolled over, waiting for my heart to stop thudding. The shrieking started again, and I pulled the pillow over my head. Not that it would do any good. 

“Brutus, be quiet,” I shouted, squinting at the glow of the digital clock on the bedside table. The green blur clarified into 6:51.

No—that can’t be right. I grabbed the clock and shook it, willing it to correct its mistake. When it refused, I flipped it over and saw that I hadn’t set the alarm.

            “Dammit!” I slammed the clock down and ran for the living room to pre-empt another outburst from my hungry parrot. As I rounded the corner, I stubbed my toe on the sofa.

             Pain knifed up to my knee. Spouting obscenities no macaw should ever hear, I hopped toward the big picture window where the birdcage stood, hoping none of my neighbors was out for an early morning walk. When I threw the cage cover onto the floor, Brutus cocked his blue-green head and fixed a beady eye on me.

            “Dammit,” he said. Note to self: Watch your language around the bird.

             “No time for small talk this morning. I’m late. Good thing you woke me.” I limped over to the refrigerator and pulled out some grapes. Brutus’s impatient screech made my dental fillings vibrate. 

            “Give me a break, buddy,” I said. “I’m moving as fast as I can.”

He ruffled his feathers and gave a shake. When I poked a grape through the bars of his cage, he grasped it with his enormous black beak, transferred it to his claw, and took a bite.
       “Mmmmmmmmm,” he crooned.                                                                   

“Enjoy.” I tossed two more grapes into his food dish, stuffed the rest into my mouth, and rushed off to shower and dress for work. It was the first day of school, and I’d planned to get there early. Time for Plan B.

            I was struggling with the zipper on the back of my dress when Brutus started screeching again. I rushed out of the bedroom, my hair still damp, and darted over to his cage to unlatch the big double locks that kept him from escaping. Macaws can reduce wooden furniture to toothpicks. I’d learned that the hard way.

           
            I inherited Brutus from my Nana Bianchi, along with her house—a package deal. Nana had acquired Brutus shortly after my grandfather died. Grandpop Bianchi was a real talker, and the silence was driving my grandmother crazy. She figured a parrot would be a good substitute. As it turned out, Brutus was a small, feathered version of Grandpop—lovable, boisterous, messy, and an incurably early riser. And, like Grandpop, he fell in love with Nana the moment he laid his little round eyes on her. For some strange reason, Brutus developed an affinity for me. Maybe it was because of my resemblance to Nana. She always said that I looked like a younger version of her. Anyway, I was one of the few people Brutus didn’t try to bite. Whenever I came to visit, he would whistle and squawk until I took him out of the cage and let him ride on my shoulder. He loved to play with my hair, pulling the dark curls out straight and letting them spring back. He also learned to mimic the sound of my voice. Nana used to joke that it was like having me with her all the time.

            When Nana died of a stroke shortly after my college graduation, I learned that she had left me her house—with the provision that I adopt Brutus and care for him there until he joined her in that great parrot jungle in the sky. Which, given the life span of macaws, could be another fifty years. I moved in soon afterward and became Brutus’s housemate.

            My first night alone in the house was strange on so many levels. I tiptoed through the rooms, feeling like a visitor in my grandparents’ home. It was weirdly empty without them. Memories materialized from the walls, so strong they were almost palpable. Grandpop bursting through the front door, the decibel level skyrocketing off the chart with his arrival. Nana in the cozy little kitchen, holding a tray of chocolate biscotti or pignoli cookies she’d made just for me. My younger brother, Anthony, playing fort with sofa cushions in the living room. Me, age five, snuggling on my grandmother’s lap while she read aloud from Dr. Seuss. The whole family gathered around the table on Sunday afternoons, stuffing ourselves with Nana’s homemade pasta. Christmases, Thanksgivings, Easters, birthdays—too many to count.

Sleep didn’t come easily, even though my familiar sleigh bed had been moved into the room where my grandparents slept for over fifty years. After a fitful night, I was startled awake by a loud whistle. I staggered into the living room to discover that Brutus had broken out of his cage. He was perched on the back of Nana’s Boston rocker and had chewed through four of the maple spindles. Later that morning, I visited Home Depot and returned with two large combination locks.

            As I fumbled with the locks, trying to keep my half-zipped dress from slipping off my shoulders, something moved in the bushes under the window. Picturing burglars in black ski masks, I glanced at the front door to confirm that the deadbolt was in place and reached for the baseball bat I kept for protection. I inched closer to the window, holding my breath. With the suddenness of a ninja, Yin-Yang, my neighbor’s Siamese and Brutus’s arch-nemesis, exploded from the azaleas and landed on the window ledge. Brutus and I let out identical, surprised screams, and I dropped the baseball bat on my sore toe. Ignoring my string of invectives, the cat sat down on her haunches and began washing her face with one paw.

“Scat, you little pest!” I pounded on the glass. Yin-Yang looked at me and blinked. Then she went back to her face-washing, flicking her tail in the cat equivalent of flipping me the bird.

As much as it bothered me to lose a cat fight to an actual cat, I had to finish getting dressed or I’d be late for sure. After nearly dislocating a shoulder trying to reach my zipper, I peeled off my dress and searched the closet for something zipper-free. Back zippers are one of the major disadvantages of living alone.

I pulled out a cotton wrap-around with splashy yellow flowers. It needed ironing, but since I was already way behind schedule, that wasn’t happening.

            “Too bad you can’t learn to work a zipper,” I told Brutus, as I rushed past his cage.

            He gave me a pitiful look and held up one claw. “Step up,” he pleaded.

            “Oh, sure. Pour on the guilt. Why should you care if I make it to school on time?” I opened the cage, and Brutus stepped onto my arm, digging in as I dashed to the kitchen. I set him on his perch, poured myself a glass of iced tea, and dropped two slices of cinnamon-raisin bread into the toaster. According to Nana’s Felix the Cat clock, it was almost seven-forty. My stomach knotted. I had twenty-five minutes to eat breakfast, get myself out the door, and drive the three miles to Morrison High. Doable, but not by much.

Felix’s watchful eyes shifted from side to side as his tail ticked away the seconds. That Nana would have a ticking cat within plain view of her beloved parrot was testament to her perverse sense of humor. But Brutus didn’t seem to mind. He watched silently as I smeared peanut butter on the toast. I lopped the crusts off one slice and handed it to him.

            “Here you go, just the way you like it. But you’ll have to hurry.” 

            “Cracker,” Brutus responded. Cracker is his word for anything edible.

            I set my glass and toast on the edge of the small kitchen table where class lists and seating charts were spread out in a colorless patchwork. As I wolfed down my breakfast, I wondered which of these faceless names would make me wish for June and which would make me sorry to see the year end. I said a silent prayer for more of the latter as I stuffed the papers into my “#1 Teacher” tote bag.

            “CRACKER.”

Brutus was licking peanut butter from his claw. All that remained of his toast was a small pile of crumbs, and he regarded me with suspicion when I held out my arm. I looked at the clock. Seven-fifty.

 “Come on, Big Guy. Step up. Mommy’s gotta go.” Brutus was unmoved. He only decided to cooperate when I threw a walnut into his food dish. Brutus never met a walnut he could resist. I whisked him onto the swing in his cage and snapped both locks shut.

            “See you later. Be a good boy, and guard the house. Now, where are my damn keys?”                        
             Brutus watched me ransack the living room until I found the keys under a pile of magazines. I heard a sad “Bye-bye” as I locked the front door. Then I raced to my car, praying to the traffic gods for green lights and no speed traps.