My Gentle Barn Read Free Page A

moving to California. He’d gotten a prestigious job in Los Angeles, and we were moving in the middle of the school year. Simon, our beloved family dog, would come with us. But my parents tried to convince me that my blue parakeet, Puff—who’d become my closest friend alongside Simon—should not make the trip.
    “A bird can’t go on an airplane,” my dad said.
    “Yes, she can. I asked the vet.” And I brought out the cardboard carrying case I’d gotten as evidence.
    Both my parents tried to talk “sense” into me, but I was having none of their “logic.”
    I looked each of them in the eye and said, simply: “If she’s not going, I’m not going.”
    Apparently I’d become a force to be reckoned with, because they both finally gave in. Puff would make the trip with us.
    On the day of our departure, the whole family sat in the huge, noisy airport dressed in our travel clothes and looking like we were going to temple. Our carry-ons and packages took up a whole bank of benches, but I kept the box that held my parakeet carefully balanced on my knees, and I spoke softly through the air holes, reassuring Puff that there was nothing to be afraid of. People were racing every which way, and the loudspeaker was going off every two minutes, yet I could barely make out what the scratchy voice was saying. After one such announcement my dad said, “That’s us,” and he and my mom jumped upand started gathering our bags and packages and reining in my brothers. As I stood up, I saw a blue blur fly in front of my face, and my stomach sank. I weighed the box in my hands, and it felt very light. Then I saw the hole in the side of the carrier. Puff had chewed her way out.
    “Come on, Ellie,” my mom said. “They called our plane.”
    “I can’t,” I said, and held out the empty box. “Puff is gone.”
    “Oh, Ellie, she’ll be fine.”
    I looked up at the high ceiling of this enormous, crowded airport, and I burst into tears. “I have to find my parakeet!”
    My dad stopped and circled back to us. “What’s going on? We’re going to miss our plane.”
    “I’m not going without Puff,” I said.
    “Puff?” my dad said, as though he’d never heard the name before.
    “My parakeet flew away.”
    “It’s a bird,” my dad said. “It’ll be fine. Let’s just go now.”
    “No!” I yelled, and I started sobbing uncontrollably. “We have to find Puff. I’m not leaving her.”
    At this point, a man who worked at the airport came up and asked what the trouble was. I explained as best I could through my tears, and the man ran off, then reappeared a moment later with a long ladder.
    “I think she went that way,” I said, and the man headed toward the far wall with the ladder, and I ran after him across the airport.
    I spotted Puff on the ledge just below the ceiling, and the man set up the ladder and extended it to its full length. By now a small crowd had gathered around us and watched as the man climbed up the ladder.
    “This is absurd,” my father said.
    The man climbed right up to where Puff was perched and reached toward her. But millimeters from his grasp, she let out a small squawk and flew off along the high ceiling in the opposite direction.
    The man took down the ladder, and off we flew after her, withmy parents trailing us, yelling, “Forget the bird! We’re going to miss our plane,” and me screaming that I wouldn’t leave without her. And now the crowd was running after us too and calling, “Let her keep the bird!”
    At the opposite side of the airport, the man again extended the ladder up to the ledge below the ceiling, and as he got close to her, I held my breath, and there was a hush in the crowd, like everyone was reaching with him toward my parakeet. Even my parents had stopped yelling for a minute.
    But again, Puff escaped his grasp and flew back toward the opposite wall, chirping and squawking along the high ceiling.
    Down the ladder came, and off we all ran across the airport, the