Chapter 1

The second Saturday in August is National Middle Child Day. This was my first year celebrating, I only heard about it a couple of months ago. In case you’re new to it too, National Middle Child Day is a time to honour middle children — children who aren’t an only child, or the eldest or the youngest in their family. It’s an important day, because not only are us Middles an endangered species, but we also suffer from a lack of recognition. We’re often overlooked, and this is the one day of the year in which we get to shine. I’d been looking forward to it for ages, and made a point of mentioning it to all family members a couple of times (many, many times) in the lead-up, but of course when it finally rolled around, everyone but me forgot.

I even stayed in bed longer, to give them time to prepare the celebrations. I could hear movement in the kitchen, a bustle of activity that could easily have been people putting up the decorations or laying out the party plates. But when I went to look, there wasn’t a streamer or balloon in sight.

‘You’re awake, sleepyhead,’ said Mum. ‘Better get dressed. We have to get going.’

I sniffed. I could smell something sweet. There was a mixing bowl near the sink and a spatula resting on the benchtop. ‘What have you been making?’ I asked. Perhaps it was a trick, an elaborate ruse in which they pretended they hadn’t organised anything and then — surprise! They’d jump out bearing cupcakes with my face on them or shower me with smarties, each one specially imprinted with the words Happy National Middle Child Day, Alma!

However, the moment in which this might’ve occurred passed. Mum looked strangely guilty as she admitted she’d made pancakes. ‘We saved you two . . . but your father ate one.’

One pancake?

When it was produced, it had the unmistakable look of a first pancake, the one with fingery edges and the fold where it got caught as it was being flipped. It was the pancake no one had wanted. Not even Dad, who, of the two remaining, had selected the other, better one to eat. And everyone had used up all the maple syrup.

‘What am I supposed to have on it?’

Mum said, ‘There’s plenty of lemon and sugar.’ I made a face. ‘What?’ She handed me the plate. ‘You love lemon and sugar.’

‘Alice loves lemon and sugar! Alice! Not me.’ Alice is my big sister — older sister, rather. She’s 13 and I’m 12 but I’m taller than she is. A lot taller. Not tall enough for a world record, but tall enough for it to be annoying.

I carried the sad looking pancake to the kitchen table and sat down. As a meal it was woefully inadequate.

While I’d been talking to Mum, Dad had been conveniently elsewhere. Now he appeared in his green vest, with a set of binoculars around his neck. My ten-year-old sister, Molly, came in with him, wearing exactly the same outfit. A mirror image, only a younger version.

‘All set?’ said Dad to Mum and me. ‘Come on, it’s time to get going.’

‘It’s Bird Day,’ trilled Molly. ‘It’s Bird Day.’

‘It’s Middle Child Day,’ I corrected.

It was just my luck that National Middle Child Day and Shellsville Bird Day coincided. It wouldn’t happen all the time, thankfully. This was just an unfortunate clash. If it did, I would have staged a silent protest until the Shellsville Bird-watchers Association, who invented Bird Day, changed the date. I’d have sat out the front of the local general store and stared at the ground all day long. Not at the sky or they’d think I was one of them. Eventually the Association would be forced to acquiesce.

‘You keep saying National Middle Child Day,’ said Dad, ‘but I’ve never heard of it.’

Honestly, I must have told him 50 times! I said I’d never heard of Father’s Day and vowed to never make him a second-rate card again. ‘No more coupons for doing the dishes.’

He didn’t seem too worried. ‘Hurry up, you two,’ he said to me and Molly. ‘Get your shoes on. We’ve got some birds to find.’

I ate the lukewarm pancake with a drop of lemon juice and a lot of sugar, but I didn’t enjoy it much. Hardly at all.

Mum, Dad, Molly and I walked to the Shellsville basketball stadium, which was serving as the base camp for Bird Day. It was where the registration desk was located, plus the public toilets and sausage sizzle. It was the place the bird-watchers would congregate throughout the day and non bird-watchers, mostly children dragged there under duress, would hang around listlessly, complaining to their parents about how bored they were and how they didn’t want to be at Bird Day.

Last year that was Alice and me. Molly didn’t complain, mostly because she’s a total suck up but also because she likes birds. She’s a genuine twitcher; she has a badge and everything. Alice and I, however, were not interested in birds, but this year at least was better. Mum and Dad said Alice was old enough to stay home alone and I was going birding with friends. Yes, friends. Plural. It’s still exciting to me to say that. Unlike my alone years at Shellsville Primary, stuck with Lian and Tayla as the only other girls in the class. At Holy Grace Ladies College I’d found my people: Anika and Elizabeth. The three of us are best friends. We’re going to get a Best Friend necklace to cement it but the only ones we’ve been able to find have two pieces and we don’t want one of us to miss out.

The walk to the stadium felt longer than normal because Molly kept a running bird-related commentary the whole time. She talked about all the birds she was going to see: musk ducks, teal ducks, the shorebirds along the coast, maybe the family of brolgas by the lake. ‘And hopefully,’ I could hear the wistfulness in her voice, ‘a purple-bellied parrot.’

She is desperate to see one. It’s what she wishes for on birthdays, if she blows on a dandelion, or when she gets the bigger half of a chicken bone. It’s a wasted wish if you ask me. Who wants to see some silly bird? Plus, if you get a wish then what you should wish for is more wishes. That’s the smartest thing to do. I always wish for more wishes, then I use those wishes to wish to be on TV and to be famous (and not for being tall, which is more of an oddity rather than glamorous). None of my — or her — wishes have come true. Yet.

Molly held her binoculars in one hand and swished the cord around her neck from the side. ‘I nearly saw one last year. I think I did see one, actually.’

‘How can you nearly see something?’ I replied.

‘Well, I saw a bird that looked like a purple-bellied parrot from afar, but I wasn’t completely sure. When I went closer it flew away.’ Molly turned around to face Dad, so she was walking backwards. ‘Do you think we’ll see one this year?’ she asked.

He said, ‘All we can do is try.’

I said, ‘That means no.’

Purple-bellied parrots aren’t extinct but they’re very, very rare. About the only way you’re certain to see one is on the Shellsville Recycled Water Treatment Plant sign you pass as you turn off the main highway into town. It’s a drawing but you get the basic idea: green bird with a purple belly and a yellow crown.

If anyone managed to see a purple-bellied parrot in real life, it would be big news. You might even get on TV or a mention on the radio. At the very least, you’d be in Bird-watchers Weekly. That’s the Shellsville Bird-watchers Association’s official bird publication. Mrs Pemberton, who happens to work in the boarding house at my school, is its editor and main journalist. She’d interrogate — I mean, interview — you, write up an article and all three subscribers would be able to read about it.

That wouldn’t interest me much though, because I hate Bird-watchers Weekly and not because it calls itself ‘weekly’ but comes out monthly (though that is annoying) or because Molly’s been in it twice or even because they’ve rejected about 20 of my best cartoons. It’s a matter of taste. I don’t even consider it in the top 50 bird magazines in the country.

Bird-watchers Weekly said this one was anti-bird: