Apprentice needed, p.5
Apprentice Needed, page 5
Fortunately, the night brought no further incidents.
At four in the morning, they said goodbye to Clark, left a note for Patti in case she returned before she was scheduled, and then took the shuttle bus between Otter Rock and Portland. The ride took about two and a half hours, and each mile they traveled came with a stronger and stronger feeling of uncertainty about what lay ahead.
“This is good, right?” Sigi asked.
“I think so,” Ozzy replied.
“I thought we were past all this crazy stuff. I guess I was thinking life would be calm for a little while longer.”
“The last seven years I’ve been alone in a quiet forest. I think I’m due for a little more uncertainty.”
Ozzy watched as the miles passed by like wet streaks of green paint Mother Nature was smearing across the windows. The clouds in the sky resembled naked bits of canvas that had yet to be colored in. And when the outskirts of Portland finally came into view, the buildings and river were a beautiful distraction from the green. The structures rose up, giving the landscape sharp lines and squared-off silhouettes.
It was early, but the Portland airport was steadily busy, with buses and cars running everywhere. The shuttle dropped them off and Sigi took Ozzy’s hand to pull him through the crowd. They entered the ticketing area and printed out their boarding passes. Then they went directly to the security line.
“This is to keep us safe?” Ozzy asked as he looked at everyone waiting.
“Something like that. Just don’t make any jokes or say anything crazy. An airport isn’t a place for humor.”
“I wasn’t planning on telling any jokes.”
“Well, then, this is the place for you.”
The line moved slowly, but in time they arrived at the front. A TSA agent with an unfortunate hairline asked for their boarding passes and IDs. Sigi and Ozzy stepped up to him together. Sigi gave the man her boarding pass and the passport that she had gotten when she had traveled to Paris with her mother a few years back.
The TSA agent looked it over, scanned the boarding pass, and then handed her items back to her. He looked at Ozzy and held out his hand.
Ozzy gave him his boarding pass and the ID he had been issued just weeks before by the state.
“Name?” the TSA agent asked.
“Ozzy.”
“What happened to your hands?”
Ozzy had on a green, long-sleeved T-shirt and long trousers, but there were still some small visible scratches on his hands and a few on his face.
“I fell out the window in my bedroom,” Ozzy answered, his voice sounding less steady than he had intended it to.
The TSA agent stared uncomfortably.
“Do you want to talk to my dad about it?” Sigi said. “He’s already through security.”
The TSA agent stared at Ozzy for what felt like a long afternoon and a short evening combined before he waved them on.
Ozzy got into line behind Sigi in front of a long silver scanner. He watched her take off her shoes and place them on the conveyor belt.
Ozzy did the same thing.
Sigi put her bag on the conveyor belt next to her shoes.
The items moved forward on the belt while another TSA agent motioned for them to keep moving. Sigi stepped into the body scanner and held her hands above her head. A bar moved from right to left scanning her body. Then she stepped out the other side.
Having spent so many years alone and away from civilization, Ozzy still found wonder in things and places that most people had grown tired of. He liked the post office and what they did. He found the grocery store mesmerizing in its sheer selection and precise organization. But he wasn’t sure yet how he felt about the airport. People were stiff and uncomfortable, and nobody appeared to be happy about where they were. Some of the TSA agents smiled, but it was the kind of smile that said I’m here to make things hard for you.
Ozzy stepped into the weird chamber and placed his feet on the two yellow footprints.
“Face forward. Arms over your head,” a female TSA agent instructed him.
He raised his arms up and the scanner passed in front of him. As it moved two thoughts struck Ozzy. One: his finger was burning. And two: he didn’t like airports.
“Step out,” the woman told him while pointing to a spot near her. “Stand there for a moment.”
Ozzy stood where he was told until he was told he could go stand somewhere else.
He chose to stand near Sigi, who was near the end of the conveyor belt. She was putting on her shoes and waiting for her bag.
“I’ve decided I don’t like airports,” Ozzy whispered.
“I think that makes you human.”
A tall TSA agent with tight curly brown hair and a stiff upper lip was standing behind the belt scanner. He held up Sigi’s bag.
“Is this yours?” Stiff Lip asked.
“Yes,” Sigi replied.
“I need to take a quick look inside.”
Ozzy’s shoes had made it through the scanner and he picked them up and put them on. His head began to feel light, as if it were loosely attached to his neck, as two TSA agents whispered about Sigi’s bag. The one with the stiff lip stepped back to where Ozzy and Sigi were standing.
“We found this in your backpack.” There, lying lifeless in his hand, was Clark.
Both Ozzy and Sigi groaned.
“What is it?” Stiff Lip asked.
“It’s a bird,” Ozzy answered.
“I see that, but you can’t bring an object like this through security.”
“Why?” Sigi said with force. “It’s just a toy.”
“It’s not like any toy we’ve ever seen. We can’t open it up to see if there is anything in the body, and it has a bunch of sharp points and edges and wires. I’m sorry, but it will have to stay here.”
“Can’t we just mail it back home?” Sigi asked.
“You can,” the agent said. “Just leave us your address and we will send it back after we’ve checked it over.”
“That’s not right,” Ozzy protested.
“Or,” the TSA agent said with a smile, “we can detain both of you until it’s properly inspected. You might miss your flight, and you’d still have to mail it home.”
Ozzy stared at the bird wondering if he should grab him and run. But as he stared, Clark winked his right eye. Nobody but Ozzy saw it. The bird winked again and subtly nodded his tiny bird head. Ozzy winked back.
“Are you okay?” the agent asked.
“Fine,” he replied.
“Good, now you two need to move on. And don’t worry, we’ll get your toy back to you.”
Sigi didn’t want to go, but Ozzy pushed her away from the agent and out of the security area. Once they were around a corner she spoke.
“I can’t believe he stowed away in my bag.”
“Not his finest move, I agree.”
“We can’t just leave him.”
“I think we can,” Ozzy said in hushed tones. “He winked at me.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, it kind of looked like the sort of wink he gives right before he does something stupid.”
The two of them walked as quickly as they could toward their gate. There was no worry of them missing their plane, but the winking bird made them both want to get as far away from security as they could.
After all, Clark had a reputation, and it wasn’t good.
The security area inside the Portland Airport was busy. Ozzy and Sigi had walked off, but the TSA agent with the stiff upper lip continued to carry Clark by his talons. Stiff Lip moved over to a white cabinet near a metal table.
Clark looked around cautiously.
The world was upside down, which meant he needed to right some things. The gears inside his head began to plot his escape. However, before those gears had time to get moving, Stiff Lip surprised him by grabbing him tightly around the middle, pinning his wings up against his metal body. Then, without any hesitation, Stiff Lip wrapped a piece of wide yellow tape around Clark. In a moment the poor bird looked like a tiny jaundiced mummy. His head and beak were uncovered, and his talons stuck out at the bottom, but the rest of him was completely confined by the sticky yellow tape.
Stiff Lip held the bird tightly.
Clark was in the mood to peck and kick, but he kept his beak and feet to himself. There would only be one chance of getting out, and that was if he played dead and waited for someone to unwrap him.
Stiff Lip went directly to an office located on the south side of the security area. He rapped confidently on the frame of an already open door.
A frustrated sounding woman answered the knock.
“Come in,” she said. “Come in.”
Stiff Lip stepped in.
Sitting behind a wooden desk in the corner of the room was his supervisor, a woman with the last name of Wicks. Wicks was a human being, which meant that the chances were good she possessed a first name, but nobody ever called her by anything but Wicks. And since Stiff Lip didn’t want to be a nobody, he followed suit.
He cleared his throat and said, “Wicks.”
She looked up from her work, showing off her wide-set eyes, small nose, and big mouth. Wicks had been working at the airport for fifteen years, and for the most part, she was well respected. She was known for having a cool head and being able to talk down anyone who was on the verge of disturbing the peace. Unfortunately for Stiff Lip, ten minutes earlier, Wicks had received some very bad news about a very bad investment, the kind of news that meant she had lost a lot of money. She was also suffering through a massive toothache that her dentist couldn’t fix until the next day.
“What is it?” Wicks asked in a huff.
“Sorry to bother, but I wanted to show you something.”
Wicks sighed and sat up in her chair. She rubbed the right side of her jaw and looked at Stiff Lip.
“A passenger came through security with this.”
He handed Wicks the mummified Clark. She took it from him, looking more bothered than pleased.
“What is it, a toy bird?”
“It’s unusual—and its claws are sharp.”
“Really?” she snipped. “Do you think we should stop and stare at everything unusual we find? Last year a woman came through security with a doll she’d made from a tennis racket. She claimed that racket was her child and she wanted it to have its own seat on her flight. That was unusual. This here,” Wicks shook Clark in her hand, “this a toy.”
“I thought that because its feet were pointy . . .”
Wicks stared at him.
“. . . and its beak is sharp . . .”
“This is a weird toy that I didn’t need to see. Have them mail it home and thank them for visiting PDX.”
Stiff Lip’s lip didn’t look as stiff as it once had. “Actually, I sent them on their way and told them I’d send it to them after you looked at it.” He took out the address that Sigi had written down and set it on Wicks’s desk.
She stared at the piece of paper and winced, acting as if the address was the very thing that had caused her to lose her money and had given her a toothache.
“So—you’ve given our team an errand?” she asked. “Something to mail? Now we get to take our time and budget to send this back just so you could show me a toy?”
“I just thought—”
“I’m not sure you did.” She winced. “Now go.”
Semi-Stiff Lip left the office and returned to his post as quickly as he could. Wicks, on the other hand, sat at her desk feeling defeated, angry, and overwhelmed. She put Clark down on her desk and returned to what she was working on.
Thirty seconds later, an airport custodian named Ned came into her office to empty her trash can. As Ned collected the trash, Wicks stopped what she was doing and picked up Clark.
“Don’t forget this.” Wicks tossed Clark to Ned. “It would have probably gotten lost in the mail anyway.”
Ned caught the bird in the trash can and then emptied the can’s contents into a large black trash bag that was attached to the back of his cart. He returned the empty can to its spot by Wicks’s desk and moved on down the terminal.
It’s not hyperbole or overexaggeration to say that Ned’s cart had never contained a more amazing piece of trash. It is also no exaggeration to say that Clark was in trouble.
The airport was a cluttered mess of too many humans with too many places to go dragging too many suitcases and bags around. Things seemed to get more chaotic the farther Ozzy and Sigi walked down the terminal. They watched a man running, witnessed a woman crying near a vending machine, and saw a store that sold nothing but candy and neck pillows. But amidst all the bustle and bodies, things still felt sparse because the scene was lacking a metal bird.
“You’re sure he winked at you?” Sigi asked as they walked.
“Positive.”
They reached their crowded gate and looked around for a place to sit. There were no open chairs. They opted to lean on the wall between a shoeshine station and three massage chairs while waiting for their flight to begin boarding.
Sigi looked into Ozzy’s eyes. “Are you nervous?”
“I’m not worried about flying,” he said. “I’ve read enough books on aerodynamics to know how it works. I’m nervous about Clark . . . and your mom . . . and the shattered window . . . and Rin. Also, I hate wearing shoes—even if they’re clean.”
A man brushed past them, talking loudly on his phone.
“I’m not too nervous about my mom,” Sigi admitted. “I mean, she’s in Seattle talking to rooms full of people. That’s what she loves. I am nervous about Clark and my dad. They’re missing and that makes me feel like I’m missing something myself.”
“I like that,” Ozzy said.
“That I feel incomplete?”
“No, that you’re aware of the things that make you whole.”
Sigi stopped looking at Ozzy and took a moment to glance around the turbulent terminal.
“I like being aware of the good things,” she said. “I like knowing how I got where I am.”
“By shuttle bus.”
“Funny,” she said without laughing. “You think you can say dumb things like that because you have such a straight nose and nice eyes?”
“No, I say things like that because I still don’t know how normal society acts.”
“I can tell you that they wouldn’t wear that shirt with those trousers,” Sigi said, looking Ozzy up and down. “Orange and green are not a good combination.”
“I’ll never be good at matching.”
“It does make you interesting,” Sigi consoled him. “You make a lot of things interesting. I don’t think I would have done anything like this before I met you.”
“I’m a bad influence?”
“For sure. The worst thing I did before I met you was hide in my closet and eat a whole package of Oreos that my mom was saving for a picnic.”
“Oreos are good.”
“I hardly ever saw my father until you showed up. I never battled people on mountains, or purchased plane tickets to New York, or worried about dumb metal birds that should have listened to me and stayed home.” Sigi’s voice was growing loud. “Birds that may or may not be about to cause trouble.”
The nearby shoeshine man glanced sideways at Sigi.
She lowered her voice. “The point is—you’ve made things interesting and made me feel even more out of place than I used to.”
“I seem like someone you should avoid.”
“Possibly,” she agreed. “I used to try to hide the fact that my dad thought he was a wizard. I’ve never liked being singled out for something I have no control over. It used to be the color of my skin—now it’s because Jungle Boy lives at my house.”
“I’ve never been in a jungle.”
“Forest Boy, then.”
The overhead speakers came on and announced that their flight would be boarding soon.
They left their spot against the wall and walked to where the other passengers were beginning to line up. Ozzy looked over his shoulder a dozen different times, hoping to see a small black dot making its way toward them or to hear the sound of chaos the bird was creating.
But there was no dot and no sound of trouble.
The line began to move, and in no time they had boarded the plane and found their place—Ozzy had a window seat, and Sigi had managed to get the middle seat next to him. After sitting down and putting on their seatbelts, Sigi took Ozzy’s hand and leaned into him to speak.
“Hey, Forest Boy, don’t worry about Clark. He’s done this kind of thing before. I bet he’s flying back to the house right now to look for that flashlight I dropped in the ocean.”
“He was pretty broken up about losing it.”
They watched the other passengers board the plane and take their seats. There was every reason for them to feel nervous about what lay ahead. But as they sat side by side, that nervousness was mixed with some excitement. There were birds to worry about, questions that still concerned them, but also the possibility of seeing the person they most wanted to see.
For once in his life, Clark was okay with his inability to smell. Wedged between a half-eaten tuna sandwich and something wet and sticky, the small bird began to question his decision to have stowed away in Sigi’s sack. The trash bag he was in jostled slightly as the cart it was attached to bumped over the tile floor of the airport terminal. Still wrapped in yellow tape, his wings pinned, he thrashed around trying to free himself. After Ned had dumped him in the bag, he’d emptied another can into the bag, and so Clark was buried in a couple inches of trash. He wiggled around, trying to see the bag’s opening above. If he rolled his body one way and craned his neck the other, he could just see the top of the bag. The poor bird was about a foot below the top of the janitor’s cart.
