When I woke up, I wasn’t dead. I was in the nurse’s office. But from the murderous look on Bridget’s face, I might as well have been dead already.
“YOU!” she yelled. “It was YOU! The whole time!”
There was no denying this. Someone had used the jaws of life to remove the bird head, but from the neck down, I was still Mighty the Seagull. I had lost most of my feathers in the chase so I looked like the scrawniest piece of poultry Bob Cratchit could buy with Scrooge’s half a hay penny. My pathetic appearance did not inspire pity from my best friend.
Ex–best friend.
“How could you do this?” she raged. “How could you sabotage everything so important to me! I’m your best friend!”
I tried to explain. “I wasn’t trying to—”
She cut me off. I’d never seen Bridget like this before. Fury distorted her face in a very… um… unpretty way I hadn’t thought possible.
“You were jealous that I made the team! You’re no better than Manda and Sara and their stupid Spirit Squad!”
I was about to deny her accusation when I realized that there was a hint of truth to what she was saying. I wasn’t jealous of her making the CHEER TEAM!!! But I did envy how effortlessly she had adjusted to junior high. Bridget was the living example of my sister’s IT List. Not me.
And if I was being totally honest, I was a bit jealous of Bridget’s rekindled friendship with Dori. What if it turns out 2ZNUF after all?
All these thoughts were zooming around my goalposted brain. So when I finally got around to arranging them into something I could say that would make sense, it was already too late. Bridget had put up with enough.
“You know, when your sister told me that you had a crush on Burke Roy, I didn’t want to believe her.…”
WHEN MY SISTER TOLD HER WHAT???
“I was, like, no way. Bethany had no idea what she was talking about! But then you were acting all shady and Dori said I should confront you. So I did! And you lied! You were lying the whole time about everything!”
I was so shocked by this accusation that I inhaled one of the few feathers left on the bird suit.
COUGHCOUGHHACKHACKCHOKECHOKE.
“I don’t know who you are anymore,” Bridget said, ignoring the fact that I was coughing, hacking, and choking to death. “And I’m not sure I want to.”
Bridget exited, and I swear all the air in the room, maybe all the air in the atmosphere, went with her. When I finally yakked up the offending feather, I was too stunned to cry. Was I upset about the false accusations? Or the ones that sort of rang true?
I didn’t have time to answer these questions because a few seconds later Nurse Fleet was ushering my parents into the treatment room. I must have been in really bad shape if she was able to persuade both of them to leave whatever they were doing to come get me.
“Are you okay?” Dad and Mom asked simultaneously.
I nodded, though they didn’t look convinced. I must have been quite a sorry sight in my goose-pecked, nearly featherless bird suit.
“Her vitals are fine,” Nurse Fleet said. “That bird head offers better cranial protection than the football helmets.”
Then she shut the door behind her to give us some privacy.
“See? I’m fine,” I reassured them in a very unreassuring voice.
Sure, physically, I was fine. But mentally and emotionally, I was a mess. My best friend had just broken up with me!
“You ran into a goalpost?” my mom asked. “Because you’re the school mascot?”
“Why didn’t you tell us you were the mascot?” my dad asked. “We would’ve cheered you on.”
They weren’t asking these questions in a “we are the annoying parents interrogating you” kind of way. They were asking them in a “we need to understand this weirdness” kind of way. And for that, I couldn’t blame them. They had no idea that I was living a double life.
“I ran into the goalpost because I was the school mascot. And I didn’t tell you I was the school mascot because I was supposed to keep my identity secret,” I said. “But I don’t have to anymore because I’m not the mascot. I’m hanging up my wings.”
Talking about it got me all choked up. Not because I was sad to give up the bird suit. I was sad because Bridget had given up on me.
But my parents didn’t know that. They looked at each other, then looked at me, speechless. No parenting book has a chapter titled, “What to Say When Your Daughter Dresses Up Like a Deranged Seagull and Almost Cracks Her Skull Open Like an Egg When She Runs Headfirst Into a Goalpost Because a Goose Wants to Make Her His Girlfriend.”
I made it easier for them by giving them something to do. I swallowed my tears and managed to ask for help.
“Speaking of my wings, can you help me get out of this thing?”
While my mom unzipped me out of the bird suit, my dad talked to the nurse just to make sure I was as fine as she said I was. Dad’s a noticer. Like me. He knew something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what was wrong.
I knew only too well what was wrong.
We were all quiet on the car ride home, which was a relief. I was so afraid that if Mom and Dad asked more questions, I’d just start crying again. And if I started crying again they’d ask more questions about why I was crying and I’d end up telling them about Bridget and how she thought I was lying about not liking Burke Roy when I wasn’t lying about that at all, but it was hard to explain because I had lied about Burke Roy to Bethany, which was dumb and I never should have done it, which is why I couldn’t even be mad at her for blabbing about it to Bridget since my sister must have figured that if I had a crush on Burke Roy surely Bridget must already know about it because best friends don’t keep secrets from each other when, in fact, I had been keeping a secret from Bridget when I didn’t reveal my secret identity and even though that wasn’t the secret she thought I was keeping, it was almost as bad as the one she thought I was keeping about Burke Roy, which wasn’t a secret at all but a lie.…
Ack. I can’t still straight think.
I still think can’t straight.
I STILL CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT.
Maybe the bird head didn’t protect my brain after all.