The grooming habits of certain birds serve for far more than just hygienic purposes.
—Tiberius Shaw, PhD
Davis has always been my guide. She’s always decoded stuff for me. Mysteries like why Ashley Gallagher pushed me down into the mud at recess back in fourth grade. (“You can’t just corner her all the time and talk her ear off about birds, Charlie.”) Why counting is bad. (“You think it calms you, but Charlie, it’s imprisoning you because you can’t not do it!”) What visual cues mean in the mirror. (“Frowny face equals get the heck out of my room, dork.”)
“Charlie,” Davis used to tell me, back when she mainly acted like she still loved me, “you are a great kid. You’re thoughtful. And kind. And you care about people. And if people don’t get you, if they don’t want to take the time to look beyond the little quirks that make you special, well, then that’s their loss, and don’t you worry about it, because I love you, and you always have me.”
But I don’t think I have Davis anymore.
Instead, she always gets just as frustrated with me as Ashley Gallagher used to. Like Gram sometimes does.
Because here we are at the Old Faithful Lodge, and this is what she says:
“Charlie, come out of that bathroom right now!” Davis is knocking on the door hard, and yelling like she’s really angry. “When are you gonna stop this ridiculous habit? You’re the only one who didn’t get to see the geyser, and now it’s too late. We have to go!”
Soap-rinse-one-soap-rinse-two-soap-rinse-three-soap-rinse-four-soap-rinse-five-soap-rinse-six-soap-rinse-seven-soap-rinse-eight-soap-rinse-nine-soap-rinse-ten-soap-rinse-eleven-soap-rinse . . .
Sometimes it takes a longer chain of washes to get calm.
“The geyser will blow again, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, in half an hour,” says Davis. “So you have to choose. Old Faithful, or your old swan. Because we can’t do both before it gets dark.”
Well, of course we have to go look for Dad’s trumpeter. Who cares about a bunch of spraying water?
We head to Yellowstone Lake.
In Tony’s car, Joel (who hates to read) is actually quoting from the Old Faithful brochure, his dirty finger pointing at each word. “What’s a hydrothermal feature? It says that half of the whole world’s hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone,” he reads. “Like, about ten thousand.”
“They’re things like hot springs,” says Tony. “And mud pots, or paint pots, which are big puddles of bubbling, boiling mud, sometimes in really bright colors due to the minerals and stuff in them. And there are steam vents, and of course the geysers.”
Joel says, “Cool! Let’s go see—”
“Trumpeters,” I say.
“Okay, Charlie,” says Davis. “Sheesh! We’re going!”
The sun is starting to dip behind the trees, and the surface of the lake water twinkles silver-black as I crane my head out the window, hoping for a good view.
“We can’t stay here long,” Tony says, pulling up onto the grass to park. “My brother will be wondering where I took his car.”
“Oh, no worries,” says Davis. “Our friend’s probably wondering the same.”
“Our babysitter, she means,” Joel adds, and Davis coughs.
“Well, she’s more like a family friend,” Davis says quickly. “She’s this weird person who we met in my dad’s old hospital. . . .”
As Tony parks, I take off out of the car, running toward the lake.
I can see small dabs of white, a far distance out on the darkening water. They are probably swans. Yes, definitely swans! But at this distance, I can’t tell if I am seeing trumpeters or mute swans. Mutes have orange beaks, while trumpeters have black. Mutes are a total nuisance intruder bird, destroying local habitats, while poor, beautiful native trumpeters have to struggle really hard to survive.
I hate to admit it, but as I stare harder at this group, it seems to me that their beaks look orange. My heart sinks. It’s just a group of mutes, three or four of them, gliding together near some tall lake weeds.
But wait. Farther down the lake, another swan emerges from an underwater dive. It holds its long neck up, high and proud, and I see the lump as it swallows something. It skims along, and I realize it is bigger, slightly, than the mutes. And it has—does it?—maybe. Maybe it has a black beak. I just can’t tell in this light. It could be either.
If only I had binoculars!
The bigger swan swims toward the small group of mutes, one of which flaps its giant white wings in warning, ruffling the water. They are not allowing this big guy to join them. It stays alone by itself, serene, like it knows very well that it doesn’t belong with the others. Is this because it’s a trumpeter? I squeeze my eyelids with my fingers, anything to see better.
The sun is almost down. It’s useless. The car horn honks behind me. “Did you see them, Charlie?” Davis yells. “Did you find them?”
I don’t have the heart to yell anything back to her.
I just don’t know. There is no way to tell.
Someday Birds List:
Bald Eagle
Great Horned Owl (CHECK!)
Trumpeter Swan (Undecided. HALF CHECK.)
Sandhill Crane
Turkey Vulture
Emu (not unless we go to Virginia by way of Australia)
Passenger Pigeon (as if!)
Carolina Parakeet (Dad being ridiculous)