Rafi and Gabe didn’t stick around for long, but even after they were gone, Milton couldn’t seem to regain his adventuring mood. He felt flustery and fumbley, and his thoughts weren’t exactly sunshine and rainbows after being Bird-Brained yet again.
Fig definitely wasn’t in the adventuring mood either. Over an hour later, she still wasn’t talking much and she wasn’t smiling at all. Milton had tried to make jokes (including this gem: What did the UnderCover Cat say to the marine biologist? Don’t study me—I’m not a SEE creature! Get it?). He’d let her sit in the tree in silence for ten whole seconds. He’d read aloud from the Lemallaby entry, which was his favorite, but to no effect.
It didn’t help that she couldn’t see anything beyond the Truth-Will-Out Vine except more Truth-Will-Out Vine (not even with Milton’s binoculars).
“You and Rafi really don’t like each other, do you?” he finally said as Fig gave up and started climbing down the gumbo-limbo.
“Can we not talk about that kook?” Fig said, scooching her way down a limb. “I don’t care about him. He doesn’t bother me.”
It wasn’t the first time Milton had heard Fig say this, and it wasn’t the first time he didn’t exactly believe her.
“But that’s not one hundred percent true, is it?” he pressed. “You showed him the field guide—the secret field guide—so you must care a little.”
He stood by the vines, watching as Fig expertly placed her feet into tiny crevices he couldn’t even see and lowered herself to another limb. There was a long pause before she said, “I guess I wanted to show him that he was missing out.”
“He is. He is indeed,” Milton said. He smoothed his peacock feather, then picked a few of the tiny Truth-Will-Out flowers, trying to find the best words for what he wanted to say next. Then he gave up on best and blurted out, “I would also like to thank you for defending me so admirably!”
Fig jumped down in front of him. “You mean telling Rafi he can’t call you names?” she said. “You don’t have to thank me. Any friend would do that.”
But that, Milton knew, also wasn’t true. And the way he’d found that out featured prominently in his nightly rotten thoughts.
After the Bird Brain Incident, Milton had been suspended for three days (unjustly, he believed). On the morning he returned to school, he went to his locker to get his books. Dev’s locker was a few feet away, but he wasn’t there yet.
Then a group of boys—older boys that he didn’t even know—spotted him from down the hall. “Hey, Bird Brain!” one of them yelled. “Welcome back!”
It didn’t take long for the boys, cawing and laughing, to surround Milton, and it didn’t take long for other kids to crowd around to watch.
Milton’s sensitive stomach had done 360s as he stood pressed against his locker, surveying the taunting faces in front of him. He had been teased before, he had been picked on before, but he had never been truly afraid before. He was afraid then, and when the first boy pushed him, he started searching for someone, anyone, who would help him.
Then he’d spotted someone. He’d spotted Dev. His best friend was there, standing by his locker, gripping his backpack straps, watching with big eyes. But he didn’t say a word.
And neither did Milton. No one would have heard him over the cawing anyway. Instead, he put his head down and shoved past the boys, running straight to the bathroom. Safe in the stall, he closed the toilet lid, hopped up, and got out his HandHeld (which his mother had thankfully forgotten about that morning). He became Sea Hawk for a while.
No one would dare make fun of Sea Hawk. Milton was sure of that.
“Not any friend,” he told Fig, his eyes on the vine he was now wrapping around his hands. “And if I may say, anyone who can live on this island for a year and not spend time with you is truly missing out.”
Fig smiled at him. “Well, anyone who doesn’t invite you into their tree ship is missing out too, Sea Hawk,” she said.
Milton’s insides went all warm and a little mooshy. It felt nice, but just thinking about how nice it felt made the feeling start to go away. He was still opening and closing his mouth, trying to think of keep-the-feeling words, when there was a whooshing sound and suddenly, his hands were empty.