First Came the Owl Read Free Page A

he felt she wouldn’t like being treated like a baby. Tonight Mom just shook her head.
    Nita tried again. “I saw something on my way to school—I think it was a big bird, and it wasn’t a seagull.”
    No one seemed to be listening. Nita felt a burst of anger in her chest, but she knew that wasn’t fair. Dad had explained to her about depression. She can’t help it, he said. But it would be so easy to just pick up that fork and eat! Nita knew Dad would be unhappy if she said that, so she stuffed her mouth with egg and finished her supper quickly.
    Then she took the phone into her room.
    â€œHello, is Anne there?” She hoped Dad wasn’t listening. He thought she should say, “Hello, this is Nita. May I please speak to Anne?” But no one said all that, especially when it was Anne’s sister Petrova who answered. Nita was sure Petrova didn’t like her. She was so abrupt.
    â€œHold on,” said Petrova, and dropped the phone, or at least that’s how it sounded.
    â€œListen, I can’t talk long,” said Anne. “My parents are ‘helping’ me with my math.” Anne’s parents and her sister were all very good at math, and they couldn’t believe that Anne wasn’t. So they “helped” her, it seemed like for hours, when they weren’t too busy. Fortunately, that wasn’t very often.
    Dad poked his head around the door, looking serious. “Nita, I need to use the phone,” he said. “Will you go sit with Mom? In fact, is that Anne? Ask her if I can talk to her mother, will you?”
    All these questions. Silently, Nita handed him the phone and let him ask for Anne’s mother. Then he gestured at Nita, to shoo her out the door, and reluctantly, she went. It was her room, after all, and what were they going to talk about anyway? Why did he want to talk to Mrs. S.? Now Nita was the one with all the questions. As she dawdled out of the room, she heard him say, “I’m going to ask you a big favor, Marian.”
    Mom was back on her bed. She lay on her side facing the wood-paneled wall and pick, picked at the varnish. Long shreds of wood were coming off, and as Nita looked closer, she saw there was blood on the tips of her mother’s fingers. Nita took her mother’s hand. There was a big splinter in one finger. Her mother rolled onto her back and her dark eyes looked past Nita to the window.
    Carefully, Nita laid down the hand and whispered, “I’ll be right back. I’ll fix it.” She hurried into the kitchen and got the splinter needle that was stuck in the bulletin board by the phone. She lit the stove and sterilized the tip of the needle in the flame. Then she went back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.
    Gently, Nita picked up her mother’s hand again. It was practically no bigger than Nita’s own hand, and soft. Nita picked at the splinter. She was afraid it might hurt, but Mom didn’t seem to even feel it. There! The splinter eased out. It was out. But a big drop of blood came out after it, and dropped on the bedspread.
    Tears rushed to Nita’s eyes. “Mom!” she burst out. “I’m sorry!” She tried to hug her mother. To do this she had to kneel on the floor and squeeze Mom’s shoulders. Mom was so thin. She didn’t answer Nita, but she looked at the spot of blood on the white bedspread.
    Mom had slipped away into another world, like the fairy-tale world where princesses slept for a hundred years or queens wished for daughters as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony. She was far away and Nita couldn’t think of any way to get to her there.
    Nita rested her forehead on the bedspread and her tears dripped onto Mom’s silky black hair.
    â€œNita,” said Dad from the doorway. “Nita, come in here for a minute.”
    Nita left the still figure on the bed and followed Dad into the living room. When he