Эприлинн Пайк: Wings

One Friday in September, Laurel ran right into David as she ducked through the doorway of her Spanish class, her last class of the day.

“Sorry,” David apologized, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Laurel met David’s eyes. She smiled shyly, until she realized she was standing in his way.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Laurel said, moving away from the doorway.

“Um, actually, I was…I was looking for you.”

He seemed nervous. “Okay. I just have to…” She held up her book. “I need to put this in my locker.”

They walked to Laurel’s locker, where she stowed her Spanish book, then she looked expectantly at David.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to, maybe, hang out with me this afternoon?”

Her smile remained on her face, but she felt nerves settle into her stomach. So far their friendship had been confined completely to school; Laurel suddenly realized she wasn’t entirely sure what David liked to do when he wasn’t eating lunch or taking notes. But the possibility of finding out held sudden appeal. “What are you doing?”

“There’re some woods behind my house — since you like to be outdoors, I thought we could go for a walk. There’s this really cool tree there that I thought you might like to see. Well, two trees, actually, but — you’ll understand when you see it. If you want to, I mean.”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

Laurel smiled. “Sure.”

“Great.” He looked down the hall toward the back doors. “It’s easier if we go out the back way.”

Laurel followed David through the crowded hallway and out into the brisk September air. The sun was struggling to break through the fog, and the air was chilly and heavy with humidity.

The wind blew in from the west, bringing the salty tang of the ocean with it, and Laurel breathed deeply, enjoying the fall air as they entered a quiet subdivision about half a mile south of Laurel’s house. “So you live with your mom?” she asked.

“Yep. My dad split when I was nine. So my mom finished up school and came here.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a pharmacist down at the Medicine Shoppe.”

“Oh.” Laurel laughed. “That’s ironic.”

“Why?”

“My mom’s a master naturopath.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s someone who basically makes all their medicine out of herbs. She even grows a bunch of her own stuff. I’ve never had any drugs, not even Tylenol.”

David stared. “You’re kidding me!”

“Nope. My mom makes stuff that we use instead.”

“My mom would freak. She thinks there’s a pill for everything.”

“ My mom thinks doctors are out to kill you.”

“I think both our moms could learn something from each other.”

Laurel laughed. “Probably.”

“So your mom never goes to the doctor?”

“Never.”

“So were you, like, born at home?”

“I was adopted.”

“Oh yeah?” He was quiet for a few moments. “Do you know who your real parents are?”

Laurel snorted. “Nope.”

“Why is that funny?”

Laurel bit her lip. “Promise not to laugh?”

David raised his hand in mock seriousness. “I swear.”

“Someone put me in a basket on my parents’ doorstep.”

“No way! You’re totally messing with me.”

Laurel raised an eyebrow at him.

David gaped. “Honest?”

Laurel nodded. “I was a basket child. I wasn’t really a baby, though. I was, like, three and my mom says I was kicking and trying to get out when they answered the door.”

“So you were a kid? Could you talk?”

“Yeah. Mom said I had this funny accent that stuck around for about a year.”

“Huh. Didn’t you know where you came from?”

“Mom says I knew my name but nothing else. I didn’t know where I was from or what happened or anything.”

“That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It made for a huge legal mess. After my parents decided they wanted to adopt me, they had a private investigator looking for my birth mother and all sorts of stuff about temporary custody and whatever. Took over two years before everything was final.”

“Did you live in a foster home or something?”

“No. The judge my parents worked with was pretty cooperative, so I got to live with them through the whole process. A social worker came out to see us every week, though, and my parents weren’t allowed to take me out of the state till I was seven.”

“Weird. Do you ever wonder where you came from?”

“I used to. But there are no answers, so it gets frustrating to think about after a while.”

“If you could find out who your real mom is, would you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, pushing her hands into her pockets. “Probably. But I like my life. I’m not sorry I ended up with my mom and dad.”

“That’s so cool.” David gestured toward a driveway. “This way.” He glanced up at the sky. “It looks like it’ll rain soon. Let’s drop our bags and hopefully we’ll have time to see the tree.”

“Is this your house? It’s pretty.” They were passing in front of a small white house with a bright red door; multi-colored zinnias filled a long bed that ran along the front of the house.

“Should be,” David said, turning up the front walk. “I spent two weeks this summer painting it.”

They dropped off their bags by the front door and walked into a neat and simply decorated kitchen. “Can I get you something?” David asked, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge. He pulled out a can of Mountain Dew and grabbed a box of Twinkies from the cupboard.

Laurel forced herself not to wrinkle her nose at the Twinkies and looked around the kitchen instead. Her eyes found a fruit bowl. “Can I have one of those?” she asked, pointing to a fresh green pear.

“Yeah. Grab it and bring it along.” He held up a water bottle. “Water?”

She grinned. “Sure.”

They pocketed their snacks and David pointed toward the back door. “This way.” They walked to the back of the house and he opened the sliding door.

Laurel stepped out into a well-kept, fenced backyard. “Looks like a dead end to me.”

David laughed. “To the untrained eye, perhaps.”

He approached the cinder-block fence, and with a quick, leaping bound, he pulled himself to the top and perched there.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll help you.”

Laurel looked up at him skeptically but extended her hand. With surprisingly little effort, they hopped over the fence.

The tree line came right up to the fence, so with that one small jump they stood in a forest with damp, fallen leaves forming a thick carpet under their feet. The dense canopy hushed the sound of cars in the distance, and Laurel looked around appreciatively. “This is nice.”

David looked up with his hands on his hips. “It is, I guess. I’ve never been a big outdoors person, but I do find a lot of different plants in here that I can look at under my microscope.”

Laurel squinted up at him. “You have a microscope?” She snickered. “You really are a science geek.”

David laughed. “Yeah, but everyone thought Clark Kent was a nerd too, and look how that turned out.”

“You telling me you’re Superman?” Laurel asked.

“You never know,” David said teasingly.

Laurel laughed and looked down, suddenly shy. When she looked up, David was staring at her. The glade seemed even quieter as their eyes met. She liked the way he looked at her, his eyes soft and probing. As if he could learn more about her just by studying her face.

After a long moment he smiled, a little embarrassed, and tilted his head toward a faint path. “The tree’s this way.”