Friends of a Feather by Lauren Myracle Read Free Book Online

Collindale Care Center is a nursing home. Every month, Mom visits an old lady named Eloise who lives here. I guess today is Eloise Day. I guess that’s the errand.
    Mom parks the car and turns to face me. “I know that visiting Eloise isn’t your favorite thing to do,” she says, and I pick invisible dust off me like Breezie did at the water fountain. “But doing something nice for someone might make you feel better, if you let it. You might be surprised.”
    I don’t think so, because when we go inside, it smells the way it always does. The paint on the walls is the same yucky yellow, and the lightbulbs they use make my eyes hurt. Also, I know Eloise won’t let me make her bed go up and down, so I don’t even ask.
    Joseph, when I used to visit him at the hospital, let me make his bed go up and down as much as I wanted.
    Eloise makes “ooh-ooh” noises when she sees Teensy Baby Maggie. She reaches out a shaky hand, and Mom steps closer with Maggie in her arms. Eloise pats Maggie’s leg. She and Mom start talking about baby stuff, and I push down a groan.
    I leave Eloise’s room and wander into the hall. I’m allowed, and Mom sees me go out the door and nods to say it’s okay, so it’s not like I’m secretly escaping or anything.
    But—aha! Outside in the hall, in his motorized wheelchair, is Mr. Marconi, who is scary and strange and interesting. Mr. Marconi doesn’t like it at the Collindale Care Center, and he’s
always
trying to secretly escape. Really!
    I press my back against the wall. I don’t want Mr. Marconi to see me, because he has the bushiest eyebrows in the world. Eyebrows that could kill a small animal, Winnie says.
    I don’t know
how
his eyebrows would do that, but I believe her. If I were a small animal and I saw those eyebrows coming, I would run like the wind.
    â€œHey, kid,” Mr. Marconi says.
    I pretend not to hear him.
    â€œHey!” he says. “Kid!”
    I point at my chest. “Me?”
    He gestures for me to come over. His chin sinks into his chest, making him look like a human version of quicksand. First his chin will sink all the way in, then his face, then his bushy eyebrows.
    â€œCome on, come on,” he says. “Speed it up before one of those old biddies comes and makes me play bingo.”
    I walk toward him, dragging my feet. He uses the joystick on his wheelchair to meet me halfway.
    â€œWhat’s your name, kid?” he says. He asks me this every time he sees me.
    â€œTy,” I tell him.
    â€œWhat kind of name is that?” he grouches. “Your mother named you after a tie? What’s she going to do, tie you around your father’s neck?”
    He says this every time, too.
    â€œIt’s short for Tyler,” I say.

    He waves his hand to say,
yeah yeah, not interested
. I can see the bones in his fingers, especially his knuckles.
    â€œListen,” he says. He thinks he’s whispering, but he’s not. “I need to get out of here. They put me in here by mistake, see?”
    He checks for old biddies. Then he points at the emergency exit door at the far end of the hall. “Open that door for me, kid. The bar’s too heavy for me to press. But just open that door, and I’ll take it from there.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr. Marconi. I can’t.”
    â€œAw, you.” He makes a raspberry sound, like when Dad blows on Baby Maggie’s tummy. I bet he makes a thousand raspberry sounds a day, or at least a hundred, because he’s always asking people to open the exit for him, and no one ever does. Everyone knows he’s supposed to stay in the building. It’s one of the nursing home rules.
    â€œSo . . . bye, Mr. Marconi,” I say.
    His bushy eyebrows push lower and his chin sinks deeper. “Bah,” he says, making his wheelchair turn in the other direction. He rolls away.
    I wonder if I should go check on