Wish bone snap

We took it onto the roof of Lisa’s garage. Did we think it would survive better nearer the sky, or did we secretly believe it wasn’t of this earth, with its bug-black eyes? Maybe we believed it could ‘phone home’ more easily from there? I climbed up with the deft and precision that comes with a summer spent out from morning ‘til dusk, my legs a rainbow of bruises, my arms and face browned to the colour of freckled toast. On my belly I leant over the edge, holding out my flattened hand, the life line muddied and splintered. Lisa tipped it onto my palm as she balanced on the thin rim of the water butt, before jamming her toe into the side of the drainpipe and springing herself over like a sleek black cat. She took it back, even though it was me that had found it. She said I wasn’t holding it right.

“It needs worms to eat,” I said, crouching over its sticky angles in the middle of Lisa’s smooth, pink palm. She had this way with animals. It made me cross when Norah’s dog, Ratty, ran back to her on our walks to the River Lea. Sometimes I would carry a bit of left over sandwich in my pocket – cheese worked better than jam – and Ratty would fuss over me, but all Lisa had to do was click her tongue and Ratty would be licking her face like she was made of cheese. “Let me hold it,” I said. “You go and get it some worms.”

She fondled its see-through head. It opened its beak, like the end of a rubber balloon losing air.  

“You get the worms,” she said, her dark curls ruffling in the breeze. “I need to keep this little fella warm.” She cupped her other hand over it and settled back on her haunches. A car was coming up the road fast. Its tyres screeched. I pictured Mum clutching a bottle of wine, as if it were the baby sister I never got. Gritty wind from a faraway desert stung my eyes. The baby bird remained hidden inside Lisa’s huge hands.

“But I found it. Give it back.” I tugged at her fingers.

“Don’t,” she said, twisting away from me so she nearly toppled off the roof. I scooted back from the edge as he sprung from the car. When Mum first said he drives me to drink, I thought she really meant it and that he wasn’t here for me, but to drive Mum somewhere so she would come home mushy eyed with red stained lips and a thick, slurried voice.

We need to make it a nest,” I said and crossed my arms as I surveyed the grey wrinkled surface like the back of a really old person’s hand. “Then we can put it in there and get the worms together.” I scrabbled over to the corner of the roof that met the wall of my house, keeping back from the edge that overlooked my front door. “This moss will make a good bed,” I said, tugging at it, but it wouldn’t budge. The front door bell chimed. My chest itched. I rubbed it hard with a closed fist.

Lisa stood up. “S’okay, I‘ve made a nest.” She turned round triumphantly, stroking the pocket in the front of her dungarees, squeezed out of shape by her new breasts.

“That’s not fair,” I said, trying to stop the tears because she would call me a baby and remind me of how my breasts were flat like a boy.

“It’s like I’m pregnant,” she said.  

 “It’s my baby bird,” I repeated and stomped over. “Give it back.” I reached out, my fingers eager to grasp the alien form I’d been too scared to touch when I first found it. She scooped it from her pocket and closed her hands around it. From here I could see the top of his head and the small pink swirl of skin in the centre. Mum used to joke he was going bald and he would chase her and me around the kitchen until I thought I would puke with the fear and the giggles.  

“Give it back,” I said, and grabbed for her hand.

“Don’t. You’ll crush it.” She threw her arms to the left. Her body followed and she wobbled over the edge before righting herself.

My heart fluttered and flapped as if it was trapped inside her hands. “It’s mine. I want it…”

Mum’s voice cut through the air like a police siren. “It’s always someone else’s fault. You’ve always got a reason for why you fucked up. Well you are not going to fuck her up. You are not going to turn up two hours late and think that’s OK. I can tell you it’s fucking not OK. I won’t have it and you won’t have her until you fucking grow up and take some responsibility.”

My tummy hurt and my head was hot and buzzy. “Just give it me!” This time I lunged for Lisa’s hands before she could whip them away.

“You’ll hurt it,” she repeated, as my fingers picked at the join of hers.

“Chloe?” Mum said. “What are you doing up there. Get down at once!” I looked over the edge. Dad was looking up with his head tilted to one side.

“You’re crushing it,” Lisa said, trying to pull her hands free from mine.

“Get down now!” Mum shouted, pushing Dad out of the way. There were drops of red wine down her white t-shirt.

Lisa’s Mum appeared, a tea-towel slung over her shoulder. Her curly hair twisted up on top of her head, held in place by a silver clip. “Lisa, what have I told you. Get down at once. And you Chloe. Both of you get down this minute.”

“That’s done it,” Lisa said under her breath staring at me, her cheeks puffed up and red.

“I’m not going anywhere until you give it to me,” I snarled, tightening my grip. Lisa stepped back, her heels hovered in mid-air.

“Get away from the edge, hon,” Dad said. His voice was deep and warm and full of concern, like it always was when he was late or had forgotten and phoned me to say sorry. Mum said he was incapable of feeling love. I didn’t believe her. He was busy. His job was important. It wasn’t his fault. He jostled Mum to the side and stood directly below us, arms open. “And you call me irresponsible... Girls, please come down now, before one of you is hurt.”

I remembered the rough-softness of his suit against my cheek and the smell of his aftershave after a day at work, when I would run into his arms and he would lift me up and call me his ‘Chloe dumpling’. With all my might, I swung Lisa around so we swapped places and my heels hung over the edge. I dug my fingertips hard into the side of her hand, wishing I didn’t chew my nails until they ached and looked like I’d spent too long in the bath.

“Ouch! You’re hurting me.” She opened her hands and I grabbed for a crumple of skin and bone. For a brief moment it held us together. Its skin stretched like the deflated balloon we’d hung between the rose bushes to make a hammock for our Barbie dolls. Its bug eyes popped.

A wish bone snap.

A tearing of tissue paper.

A fine spray bathed my face.

Like a startled new-born, I fell to earth.