BILLY KNEW HIS MUM AND DAD didn’t like his bird-thoughts. Mum said they were trying to find a good counsellor to talk to about them. They’d already tried two places, actually. One counsellor was like an angry android, who said Dad wasn’t engaging with her and Dad said Stuff this for a joke, what are we even on this fools’ errand for? And then he walked out. Fun-fun NOT. Then the next place they’d gone along to — his mum wouldn’t even enter the building. She said it was too tall and it spooked her after the Christchurch earthquakes. It made Billy feel so weird that he’d almost flown in front of a bus. He got a heck of a fright, so Dad didn’t need to yell but he did. And then his mum and dad did some hiss-talking while blocking the pavement and it was so embarrassing because a kid from school saw it. Then, even worse, his parents started kissing in public, and Billy really, really did not get that at all, because he’d thought they were fighting. He’d tried to fly down the street again, then, and went so far that Dad gave up on him and stormed back to work. When Mum finally caught Billy, she said his punishment that night was no Canary Woof in his room.
It felt way-down-deeply creepy to know that people wanted to change the way you did things.
He watched Canary Woof twitching and nibbling in his cage. If you asked Billy, Canary Woof was the only decent person in his entire family. The only thing he’d ever want to change about him was telepathy. If they could think to each other, Woof might teach him how to fly.
When Dad came home for dinner that night, not long after the day there had been all that wacko angry kissing in the street (adults were nutballs), he heard his mum say she’d found another family counselling place for them to go. The walls here were thin, and when Billy had his door open, it was like he was hiding in full view — he could hear nearly everything. It was sometimes a mega-pain (he’d rather hear his own thoughts) and sometimes super useful.
His mum said she’d visited the GP again, to ask for more counsellor names. She’d had to explain what had happened with the other two, even admitting that one wasn’t suitable — because of the tall building. More weirdness. Then his dad said, ‘You made it sound like Billy’s phobia?’
Long pause.
‘So why didn’t she recommend this group before?’
‘I think she felt that it was more necessary now. Maybe.’
‘So what sort of counsellor?’
Then they said stuff Billy didn’t understand, about sigh-kiterry whatever and don’t medicalise this and just nervous tics and worst-case scenario. Their voices were two trains coming closer, about to roar right over you. What he did understand was that his mum was on the yes-let’s-go side, and his dad was on the let’s-not.
Mum said, ‘No. It’s not just that kind of thing. They offer services for all kinds of issues. Post-adoption, divorce, bereavement.’
The talking stopped. For a minute Billy thought, What? Divorce? Please don’t let it be divorce. Then — wait, I’m adopted? Then — oh, no, I know I’m not. I’ve seen the birth photos, which I super-much wish I hadn’t. Maybe we’re going because Jason was semi-adopted?
His parents’ silence grew. Something sharp and unbending was happening underneath.
‘I spoke to a receptionist, then one of the medical staff on the phone. It sounds really open-minded.’
‘Whatever happens, I’m telling you now, I’m not putting him on drugs.’
Billy wanted to spew. Drugs?
‘I’ve already explained that, Liam. You’re not listening. No one is saying we’ll have to. This is about how screwed up we’ve become as a couple and a family since Jase died. Billy’s not himself. He needs more from you. You’re so — aloof. You’ve pulled back from him. It’s like — sometimes it’s like you’ve walked away.’
Billy’s heart was a trap that had just set something free. There was a lifting, a feeling of getting lighter. But his dad said, ‘Total bullshit. You’re blaming me, but take a look at your own attitude.’
Billy held his breath.
‘Listen, Liam. Can’t you hear what I mean?’
Billy took Canary Woof from his cage and cradled him in his hands like protecting a match from the wind. He left his room and tried to sneak through the living-room to get to the tree house. Mum was crying. She dropped the laundry basket, Dad tried to grab her, but she shoved a chair between them.
It was all Billy’s fault. He belted out to the tree hut, scrambling up awkwardly, Canary Woof still held in one hand. ‘It’s okay,’ he whispered. ‘We’re climbing the tree. You like the tree.’ Missing Jason came on in a freak gale. He wanted him here, so they could shinny up and keep look-out together. They’d harvest the macrocarpa cones that fell on the hut floor and ping them at the window, to break up the fight. Or Jase could take him on a bike ride to the park. Without him, and without friends here yet, Billy always had to go with an adult. It sucked.
Through the doors he’d left flung open onto the yard, he could hear his dad’s voice raised even higher. ‘Iris! Storming off won’t help!’
‘Hypocrite!’ yelled Iris.
There was another swollen silence from the house then, and Billy sat trembling, breath racing, skin sparking, the warm ball of Canary Woof in his palm. He felt the bird’s small twitches as its head peered side to side. Mum came back to the living-room — Billy saw straight in, from where he crouched at the tree hut window. She had handbag, car keys, a small day-pack.
‘Where are you going?’ shouted Dad.
‘I can’t put up with your withdrawal any more,’ she yelled back. ‘I need a break!’
Dad bellowed at her, ‘Walking out won’t resolve anything.’
Billy pointed Canary Woof at the house, as if he was a remote. ‘Pi-kew-pi-kew,’ he whispered. ‘Rewind. Say that again about Billy needs more.’ But the Mum and Dad movie kept playing.
‘Liam, I can’t think straight when you go at me like that. I just need space to think. I want to be alone.’
Mum was leaving Billy, too? The hot sparks along his skin got worse; the ache underneath also. He pressed Canary Woof’s forehead gently to his. He tried to let his own skull open like curtains that could let light in. Then came the strangest thing. Like drifting awake in a warm bed, he knew that Jase was nearby. Hovering, kind, patiently waiting: Jase was there.
It was as if, after all the trying and wanting, a lock had finally come unstuck. ‘He’s here,’ Billy whispered. Then: the next strange thing. Canary Woof thought his thoughts to him. Billy set the bird onto the hut floor, where he hopped and fluttered before carolling rapid, piping song. Then came a great change: a thickening and a surging along Billy’s chest bones, a current along the bare skin of his legs, a tickling in his nose that became a soaring, cloudy lightness in his head.
Billy clambered out the hut window and slid along one of the tree’s thick branches. Somewhere deep in his mind he heard the phrase: ‘and he felt his heart leap’. Up, out, launched: all in a moment of hope, Billy flew.
